Olympus History

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  • the Semi-Olympus I - the Pen Series
  • the Olympus OM-1 - the XA Series

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We had created the Pen FT, the world's first half-size TTL SLR camera, but…

Thank you for coming here today for the second lecture of this series. In the first session I spoke about Olympus' early camera-related activities between the 1920s and the introduction of the Pen F. Today I will talk mainly about cameras that I designed, from the OM-1 to the OM-4, and also the XA. Olympus Pen F The Pen F was launched in 1963. In 1966 we put the Pen FT and the Pen FV on the market. This is where my previous presentation ended. It was around this time that we began developing a 35mm SLR. With an SLR, it isn't enough just to produce a body. You also need exchangeable lenses and other accessories. It takes a lot of time to complete a system. Olympus Pen FT It was in 1966 that we perfected the Pen FT, the world's first half-size TTL SLR. We had completed the camera, and now we were under intense pressure from users. In the midst of that struggle, I was asked to develop a 35mm SLR. I considered refusing because I was so busy with the Pen…. To understand why Olympus wanted to make a 35mm SLR you need to understand the social situation in Japan at that time. Japan was experiencing a mild recession in the aftermath of the Tokyo Olympics and cameras were not selling well on the domestic market, so we needed to focus on overseas sales. Unfortunately, Kodak refused to support the half-size concept because the film mounts would cost twice as much. A “no” from Kodak meant that we couldn't sell our cameras in America. However, Agfa agreed to produce the mounts, and we enjoyed excellent sales in Germany and the Netherlands. Japanese manufacturers were happy to support us because the half-size camera was made in Japan. This attitude of helping each other was a driving force for Japan's industrial development. Fuji and Konishi both produced half-size mounts, and so did Agfa. Only Kodak refused, which meant we couldn't sell our cameras in America. However, the executive in charge of exports to America refused to accept this. He told me that we must meet our quota, and the only way to do that was to make a 35mm SLR.

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