Olympus History

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A true system SLR should be compact and have impact.

Olympus started out as a microscope manufacturer but grew into an integrated developer and manufacturer of optical instruments, including cameras and endoscopes. As I said in the previous session, Olympus was the first Japanese company to exhibit at the Photokina show in Germany. Photokina is a huge event and it was expensive to exhibit there, costing more than the sales division was permitted to approve; board approval was required. Once Olympus had decided to exhibit, it also wanted to display its microscopes and endoscopes, but Photokina is a camera show, and in those days they wouldn't accept products other than cameras. The person responsible was extremely worried by pressure from executives in other divisions. When I heard about this situation I had only just joined Olympus, but I resolved in my heart that one day I would create something that would allow Olympus to show all of its products. So when I began to develop an SLR I thought I could provide an image recording solution, as I had resolved to make a camera that would give Olympus the opportunity to display all of its products, including endoscopes and microscopes. In short, I was going to create a full-featured system SLR. An SLR camera can photograph anything. However, an endoscope produces a round image, while the finder in a camera is square. The light will not go through a normal finder, and you need to replace the finder screen. I realized that if I was going to develop an entire system, I would need to change the finder screen. I also had to reduce the size. However, my ideas were not accepted without a struggle. Japan had entered its high-growth era and Japanese companies were growing dramatically. Technology was being used to create new functions, and this led to the introduction of new products. Companies wanted their products to be heavier, taller, longer and bigger, and it was a time of growth in shipbuilding and steel. My idea was to make something smaller, and if we couldn't do that, we should simply buy products from other manufacturers. Yet from a sales viewpoint, there would be problems if the camera was simply smaller without providing anything new. They told me that something that was just small would have no impact and would not be viable as a commercial product. It took the whole of 1967, from January to December, before they finally understood my concept. At a planning meeting in December, my superior, Mr. Sakurai, said that it was time to go ahead with my idea of creating a smaller camera. It had taken a year to break through the barrier of accepted wisdom. We had finally reached a decision, albeit through coercion.

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