Olympus History

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The advancement of the SLR was the culmination of development efforts by Japanese camera manufacturers.

If you wanted a normal SLR, you could go and buy it. But what was missing? The first SLR camera, the Exakta, was developed in Germany. Zeiss created the original SLR by installing a pentaprism in a Contax-S camera. Though the SLR was born in Germany, however, the efforts of Japanese manufacturers played a major role in its subsequent development. Pentax produced a device called a “quick return mirror.” In early SLRs, once the shutter had been released, the mirror stayed up and you couldn't see anything. It was totally dark. The quick return mirror was the result of much effort, and it was extremely popular. Another problem was the aperture. To see through the finder, you need a bright lens, so the aperture should be open. However, when shooting, the aperture should be at F8 or F11, rather than fully open. So the aperture had to be open when looking through the finder, and closed when shooting. We used to call this the “wink aperture.” There was a SLR lens manufacturer called Zunow, and they made a wink aperture system for this camera. The development of the modern SLR was the culmination of efforts by Japanese manufacturers. The SLR emerged as a superb camera for the non-half-size market: it could take close-up and long-distance shots, and it had many advantages. In one sense we aspired to make SLRs, yet I didn't want to make something that you could already buy in a store. I had my philosophy. What should I do? I researched the problem, and I thought about it from the perspective of my own experience. Ultimately, I realized that the real reason why I couldn't get enthusiastic about conventional SLRs was the problem of their weight and size. This is a major difference of 35mm cameras compared with the Leica. The half-size camera that I made was also the result of my efforts to create a smaller camera.

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