Olympus History

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After two years of practical training in the factory, I begin to design cameras.

Even after joining Olympus, my goal was still to take photographs. It was also fun to polish cameras and look at them. My most basic motivation was my desire to take good photographs. If I could find a camera that helped me to get the perfect shot, I would buy it, and if I couldn't, I'd make it. Years later I realized that my decision to join Olympus was the right choice for someone like me! In my early days with Olympus, I must have seemed very conceited for someone who had only just joined the company. Because I'd won prizes, I saw myself as a professional, but as a camera designer I was a complete amateur. More experienced people looked at my drawings and just groaned. I had drawn blueprints at university, but I didn't really know how difficult it was. They sent me to the factory for two years of practical training. During that time I was rotated to different areas of the factory every six months, and after two years I returned to the design department. However, my senior colleagues were all too busy to spend time looking after this new employee who had just been sent back to work with them, so they decided to give me difficult tasks that I could study by myself. “Try designing something,” they told me. After thinking about the work in my own way, I became aware of a problem. At that time the cheapest Olympus camera cost around 23,000 yen, but that was one and a half months' salary for a new employee. Cameras were too expensive. I decided to create a camera that would cost no more than half a month's salary, which in my case meant 6,000 yen. My supervisors supported this idea. Even today, when camera prices are discounted everywhere, something offered at half-price would be viewed with suspicion - people would worry that there was something wrong with it. So what would people think if we reduced the price to one-quarter? Surely that would seem impossible. My supervisors agreed to go ahead with my 6,000 yen idea. I had put my head on the line.

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