the Olympus OM-1 - the XA Series

From a seminar presented at the JCII Camera Museum on Saturday, November

26, 2005
The Olympus Story – From the Olympus OM-1 to the XA Series

If the development staff can give 120% of

their power, the technology barrier can be
overcome. But make sure your original and
interesting ideas are not buried under the
barrier of accepted wisdom. An engineering
philosophy that called for the development of
cameras based on totally new ideas led to the
creation of the OM Series, and to the
development of a caseless compact camera
that won a Good Design Grand Prize. These
achievements also helped to build a culture of
originality that is part of the Olympus OM-1
tradition.
(Planning and editing: Olympus Web Strategy Group)

We had created the Pen FT, the world's first half-size TTL SLR
camera, but…
After creating half-size cameras, Olympus commits to the
development of a 35mm SLR.
We decide to create a camera better than Leica, one that easily takes
close-ups of flowers or pictures of documents.
The advancement of the SLR was the culmination of development
efforts by Japanese camera manufacturers.
A true system SLR should be compact and have impact.
To create products that will capture the hearts and minds of users, you
first need to break through the technology barrier.
The path to a compact SLR would require the efficient use of
underutilized space.
The MDN Prototype was the first Olympus SLR designed to be part
of a full-featured system.
The compact, lightweight OM-1 brings relief to the shoulders of
photographers everywhere.
My philosophy was the source of my enthusiasm for development.
While I was developing the OM, others were worried about the future
of 35mm compact cameras.
Sifting through 100 ideas while breaking through the barrier of
accepted wisdom
 With a camera you can carry with you everywhere, you'll never miss
that once-in-a-lifetime moment again.
A caseless, capless camera would be small enough to fit in a breast
pocket.
The XA was designed to match the preferences of both male and
female users.
The XA was the first camera to win a Good Design Award, thanks to
the appeal of its capless design.
My relationship with Olympus is like the relationship between the
Monkey King and the Buddha.

Special Lecture part1

From a seminar presented at the JCII Camera Museum on Saturday,
October 29, 2005
The Olympus Story – From the Semi-Olympus I to the Pen and Pen F
Series

Profile of Yoshihisa Maitani

Yoshihisa Maitani was born in 1933. Since boyhood, he felt an
affinity toward cameras and photography. After studying
mechanical engineering at university, he joined Olympus Optical
Co., Ltd. (now Olympus Corporation) in 1956. As a camera
designer, he was involved in the development of many cameras
that triggered major booms and became milestones in world
camera history, including the Olympus Pen (1959), the Olympus
Pen F (1963), the Olympus OM-1 (1973) and the Olympus XA
(1979). He dies at the age of 76.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 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.

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 F
 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….

Olympus Pen FT 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.

After creating half-size cameras,

Olympus commits to the development of a 35mm SLR.
Photography was the starting point for everything I did.
Whether the camera was a half-size or an SLR, my sole
concern was that it could take good photographs. Though
Olympus wanted to make a 35mm, I didn't feel that I had to
do it, because SLRs were already on the shelves in camera
shops for everyone to buy.

In fact Olympus was already developing a 35mm SLR when

the Pen boom was at its height. They had completed research
and design and were close to starting production. It clashed
with the Pen F project, and Olympus had to decide which
project should take priority. In the end, they decided to move ahead with the Pen F
because of the profile Olympus had built as a manufacturer of half-size cameras.

I thought we could simply restart the existing 35mm SLR development project, but it
wasn't that easy. I had started out using a Leica, and my enthusiasm for photography
was such that I had even had pictures published in magazines. So I told the sales people
that I didn't see any gap that needed to be filled, and that there was no need for me to
make the camera. They replied that the new camera could be just the same as those
made by other manufacturers, but I thought exactly the opposite. I wanted to make
something that didn't exist. They said it was fine to make something that was the same
as existing products. They even said we could buy it!

However, Japan was about to enter its period of rapid economic growth and
manufacturing was seen as a crucial activity, so my attitude was unthinkable in that
context. Manufacturing know-how was vital. By outsourcing production or buying in
products from other manufacturers, companies risked losing their know-how. There
were even movies about industrial espionage.

Yet the sales people were happy with that approach. They said it would be quicker. I
asked them if a user would choose a Nikon or a Pentax or a camera sold by Olympus
that was the same as these cameras, for I would certainly have bought the original
products. But the sales people said that it was fine. I was completely perplexed!

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | We decide to
create a camera better than Leica,
one that easily takes close-ups of flowers or pictures of
documents.
The Leica that I was using before I joined Olympus was truly
an excellent camera - it was almost perfect for snapshot
photography. But there was a problem. These days when we
want to copy documents we simply go to a convenience store,
but back then the only way to make copies was to photograph
documents. I needed to copy some material for my graduation
thesis, and because I saw myself as an expert with the Leica, I
tried using it to photograph the papers. It didn't work, because
I didn't have an accessory that allowed me to take
photographs at a distance of 30 to 40 centimeters.

So I borrowed an early Pentax SLR camera and used that to photograph my documents.
There was nothing the Leica couldn't do, be it close-ups of flowers or copies of
documents. But these tasks were extremely difficult. With an SLR it was simple. I
thought that if I was going to get involved in development, this was the field for me.

However, Pentax SLRs were big and heavy, substantially bigger and heavier than the
Leica. The designers had worked hard to reduce the size, but still they were bigger than
the Leica. For someone like me who always carries a camera around, this was a real
nuisance.
index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 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.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 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.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | To create products

that will capture the hearts and minds of users,
you first need to break through the technology barrier.
When I designed the Pen, I worked alone. Now I had
a staff of about 100. But 100 people giving 100
percent will not result in a hit product. To create
technology that will spawn hit products, you need
people who will give 120 percent.

If people think they are merely making something

smaller, they will only give 80 percent, and in the end
they will start to say that the task is impossible. That's
the technology barrier. Our goal was to create a small
camera, but how small? In advertising, you announce
that your product is the world's smallest, even if
you've only reduced the size by a millimeter or a
gram. As a camera user, I looked at the problem from Olympus Pen catalog
the user's perspective. I realized that it was meaningless to reduce the size by one or two
millimeters, since the difference would only be apparent if you measured the camera
with a ruler. Basically, you perceive the size of a camera by holding it in your hand. I
wanted to achieve a big enough reduction in size and weight that people would realize
that the camera was smaller and lighter than one they'd held in their hands a month
earlier.

The designers said that they wanted more specific figures, so I told them that the camera
wouldn't feel smaller unless the size was halved! It was simple to say “reduce it by
half,” but that was an extremely difficult goal. People would complain about the size
and weight of SLRs without thinking, but the people who designed those cameras
worked hard to make them as light and small as possible, and produced the SLRs that
were on store shelves in those days. As you might expect, people said it was
unreasonable to demand a half-size reduction.

The heaviest SLR in those days was the Nikon, which weighed about 1.4 kilograms.
Half of that is about 700 grams. I also wanted to halve the total volume, which meant
reductions of about 20 percent in both height and depth. Those targets brought screams
from our design staff - of course it was unreasonable! They told me it was impossible,
and it was! I realized that I had set unreasonable targets when I dismantled a camera. If
we made it smaller it would be weaker. And a weaker camera would not be suitable for
the full-featured SLR that I wanted to create.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | The path to a

compact SLR would require the efficient use of underutilized space. One problem was
the development of an alternative finder, and another was durability. The question was
how many times the camera could be used. An expensive camera was good for 10,000
shots, but I wanted to increase that to 100,000. Naturally, the designers who were given
this task were daunted. However, we had to do it somehow, because management had
finally approved the concept after a year of deliberations.

The interior of an SLR is not all crowded; there are

crowded areas and empty areas. The crowded areas
are those containing the core functions, such as
advancing the film, releasing the shutter and changing
the shutter speed. These areas can be likened to the
central administrative district of a big city, like the
Kasumigaseki district in Tokyo. Nowadays we have
digital cameras, and the signals simply pass through
wires, but in those days everything was mechanical.
All the signals had to be connected, so these areas were very crowded.

Around this time the Japanese government was talking about relocating Japan's capital
functions away from Tokyo. This gave me the idea of relocating some of the core
functions in the camera. But where could we put them? The area beneath the mirror was
furthest away from the core functions, but it would be extremely difficult to move the
functions there. It would have been simple with today's electronic technology, but
everything was mechanical back then, and all the mechanisms had to be connected.

My first idea was to find underutilized areas in the camera and relocate some of the
functions to those areas. However, those spaces were underutilized for a reason! We
couldn't connect the functions. We found that by using a central drive shaft running
from the top of the camera to the bottom we could transmit the driving force, even in
those underutilized spaces. However, some functions, such as shutter speed adjustment,
couldn't be moved. To relocate the shutter speed control, we would have had to put the
dial on the bottom of the camera, which would have created many problems: the
photographer would have had to turn the camera upside down to adjust the speed, and
the dial would have been inaccessible when the camera was on a tripod. However, there
was space, and we had reached a decision that functions should be relocated to that
space. It was not difficult to move the strength controls. The problem was the linkage
between the shutter speed and other controls. The method that we devised to move
things from the bottom of the camera to the top was to place the shutter dial on the front
of the camera. That was the only solution, and so that is what we did. Only the OM had
a shutter speed dial in that location.

You use your left hand to set the aperture, shutter and
distance, so this position is actually more ergonomic.
That's how we created the camera. We decided to put
the shutter dial on the lens mount, and then the
underutilized space suddenly became as busy as the
Ginza!

When I proposed this design, someone who knew

cameras well told me that there were two types of SLR: the lens shutter type and focal
plane type, and that the focal plane type was seen as a high-end camera and the lens
shutter type as a rather cheap version. In a lens shutter camera, the shutter is in front,
and of course the aperture and shutter are positioned around the lens. He said that our
camera would be mistaken for a cheap lens shutter type and would not sell.

It's difficult to break through the barrier of accepted wisdom. However, we were able to
make so much progress with the design because originally there was nothing in the
underutilized space in the camera. In the upper part of the camera there was a battle for
spaces measured in tenths of a millimeter. In the lower part there was nothing, which
meant that while the camera itself would be smaller, its parts could be bigger and
stronger. So the concept of using underutilized spaces was our first step on the road to
developing a compact SLR.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | The MDN

Prototype was the first Olympus SLR designed
to be part of a full-featured system.
A prototype camera called the “MDN” was displayed
in an Olympus camera show. Most people think that
the OM-1 was the first Olympus SLR, but in fact the
MDN preceded it. Our aim with the MDN was to
create a camera that would make people think about
what truly makes a full-featured system SLR. We
applied a one-function, one-unit concept. The film
was in a single film pack, and the shutter provided
just the focal plane shutter function. The mirror was typical MDN setup
just a mirror and had just one function. The user could
combine the desired functions to create a single camera. This is not the concept of the
SLR camera. We were trying to create a full-featured system camera, even with a lens
shutter. The relocation of functions made that
possible, and the result was the MDN.

However, when you try to design a system that can be

put together in any configuration, it becomes
extremely difficult to design the mounts used to
connect the items. This is because you must be able to
connect everything mechanically even though not all
units have mounts attached to them. You can't begin
until all the units have been designed. That's because
people ask you to make changes to different parts MDN unit
during the design process. These repeated changes
culminated in the MDN, which is now on display as part of the Olympus exhibit in the
JCII Camera Museum. All this took a lot of time, and of course the sales people wanted
the camera immediately, saying they couldn't wait.
The M system was a full-featured, multifunctional
camera system. Yet we also saw a cheap, mass-
market camera as one of the units in that system.
Three units would be combined to create a single
system. Though there would be less freedom in the
way the units were combined, costs would be lower.
This was the MDS. The “N” in MDN stands for
“normal,” and the “S” in MDS for “simple”. It was
M-1 (OM-1)
included in this system as the unit most geared toward
the mass-market. However, I was focused on designing the MDN as a full-featured
system camera, and was not involved in designing the MDS. But I was told that time
was short, and so it was decided that this unit, which we had intended to design last,
would be produced first. The MDS was made as a test camera for this purpose. “M” is
the first letter of the name of someone you all know! Nobody objected. The “D” stands
for “dark box” and the “S” for “simple.” So the product that we had envisaged as a
mass-market camera was made first. That was the first M-1.

However, every manufacturer had tried to develop smaller SLRs, and I was asking the
production staff to do something that others had been unable to do. It was a challenge
for the designers as well as for those in production. They wanted us to add 1 millimeter
here and 3 millimeters there. There was a battery compartment in the bottom of the
camera, and we wanted to insert packing to make it at least splash-proof, if not
waterproof, but there was not enough space. When I yielded and gave them 1
millimeter, they immediately produced a design. They were so happy! People were
competing for millimeters of space. For example, we had used a millimeter for the lever
on the side. Then the lens people said that they produced a design that would eliminate
the need for that millimeter. It was really annoying. I told them to go back to the
dimensions that I had originally approved, but they said they couldn't. They said the
battery compartment was fine, but that we couldn't revert to the original dimensions.

So the camera we have now is a millimeter taller than the dimensions that I first
approved! That's how we did things.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | The compact,

lightweight OM-1
brings relief to the shoulders of photographers everywhere. After completing the design
of the Pen, I became a section or department manager. At that time Olympus had a
camera division, which consisted of production and development departments linked
side by side. The head of the development department told me that the production
department appeared to be having trouble. This manager, who had originally been
involved in microscope development, was apparently unable to stand by and ignore this
problem.

Mr. Sakurai, who was my manager when I was designing the Pen, was now head of the
sales division. I heard later that the head of the development department had telephoned
Mr. Sakurai and suggested that if the production people were having so much difficulty,
perhaps we should give them a little more leeway on the dimensions. Apparently Mr.
Sakurai agreed. I was summoned to see the person we knew as the godfather of
development, and I spent two hours arguing vehemently about the need to make the
camera smaller and lighter. I was convinced that that was what he wanted to hear. So
the head of development telephoned Mr. Sakurai again and told him that the dimensions
couldn't be changed after all!

This sequence of events seems to have started when the head of production in the
factory reported that it would be extremely difficult to reduce the weight to 700 grams,
which was about half the weight of a Nikon SLR, and asked if a compromise might be
possible. After all, this was an SLR. By the time you add exchangeable lenses and all
the system components, the photographer's bag would weigh six or seven kilograms.
Photographers carry several cameras, which is no problem if you're in a car, but it's a lot
of weight to hang from your shoulder. So we needed to halve not only the weight of the
camera, but also the weight of all the system components. Then the bag would weigh
three kilograms instead of six. That's a big difference. We wanted to reduce the size and
weight of the body, and our target was a 600 gram body.

Once we booked a hotel in the French countryside as the venue for a party to show our
appreciation to photographers. The hotel was on the Cóte d'Azur on the Mediterranean
coast. We invited photographers from around the world as a way of showing our
appreciation. The only invited guest who didn't attend was Don McCullin, a famous
news photographer.

You've probably heard of Robert Capa. Well, Don McCullin followed in his footsteps
and has gained such a reputation that an exhibition of 200 20th century photographs
would need to include at least a dozen by him. On the evening of the first day of the
party, he telephoned to apologize. He said he would be unable to make it that day
because he had been stranded at Heathrow Airport because of a strike.

The next day he telephoned again. When we asked him where he was, he said he was
telephoning from his home in London. He had made it as far as Paris but had been
unable to buy a ticket to the Cóte d'Azur because all the planes were full. He had
considered staying in Paris but was unable to find a room and had been forced to return
home. On the evening of the third day, we all returned exhausted from a day's cruising
to see Don McCullin arriving at the hotel. We told him that only one day remained, but
he said he didn't care about that because there was
something that he wanted to tell us.

He told us that he had been able to capture his

amazing battlefield photographs in Vietnam and
various other war zones because his camera was light.
He wanted to thank us for that. My eyes filled with
tears when he told us that the OM SLRs had lifted a
weight from the shoulders of photographers
everywhere. He really understood the significance of
OM-2
our efforts to create compact, lightweight cameras.
That was a wonderful moment.

It was around this time that I started to design the OM2.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | My philosophy was

the source of my enthusiasm for development. When I started to work on the OM, the
world was already moving toward electronic shutters. Because Olympus was mainly
producing Pen cameras, it had fallen behind in the development of SLRs.

I spoke earlier about the relocation of capital city functions to underutilized areas. At
that time electronic shutter technology was still in its infancy, and there was a large
electromagnet in the city center. Of course, this was the result of huge efforts, and I
admire that hard work. However, it would have been easier to relocate functions to
underutilized areas. With the OM-1 and OM-2, we all had this idea from the outset.

To understand what an electronic shutter does, let us imagine that we have a bucket
here. The shutter opens, and light pours in and accumulates in the bucket. When the
bucket is full, the shutter closes. The bucket is a capacitor, which converts light into
electricity and stores it while the shutter is open. SLRs also collect light, but they can't
pour into a bucket because the mirror flips up, causing everything to go dark. Really the
shutter should remain open while light is being collected, but no light reaches the finder,
which remains dark. So the amount of brightness before it goes dark is stored in the
bucket, which is emptied after it becomes dark. This is known as a memory formula.
You store the light before looking through the finder. The amount of energy is
calculated, and the result is used to close the shutter. Pentax was the first to develop this
system.

I thought that we could create an ideal electronic

shutter by placing the bucket in a location that would
be exposed to light when the mirror was raised for
shooting. The brightness before the stored memory
formula changed would be measured. This is easy to
understand if you think about a strobe. Light is
produced only in the instant in which the image is
recorded, so you can't use a memory formula that
measures the brightness before shooting. I wondered if there were any SLRs that could
measure brightness even in strobe light, and I found that there were none on the market,
so I decided to make one.

Where does the light go after the mirror is raised? It hits the film. I was trying to collect
the light that hits the film directly into the bucket. It seems obvious now. If you use the
light that is hitting the film, that's direct photometry. However, I was told that I would
need to adjust all of the light hitting the film because film comes in various colors. So I
collected film from around the world, and after examining perhaps 50 different types I
realized that film is indeed produced in a wide variety of colors. However, when I
measured the reflected light, the variation was only 0.1EV, which gave me confidence
that we could succeed.

The opportunity to create a camera that was not available on the market was perfectly in
tune with my philosophy. With direct photometry it was possible to measure even
strobe light, and you can be as close to the subject as you like. With autofocus systems,
you can't take close-up shots at 30 centimeters. The new system worked fine at 30
centimeters and even 10 centimeters. When we announced it at Photokina, there were
around 300 journalists from around the world at the venue.

Before I went up to speak, there were about a dozen strobes lined up, and shutters were
clicking. The strobes on both sides all flashed at the same time. The resulting images
were clear all the way to the far background. This would have seemed impossible in
those days, and everyone was impressed.

So I was always making odd cameras. This must have made life difficult for the sales
people. When you're selling something that didn't previously exist, you need to start
promoting it from scratch. Your message will reach some people and miss others. Some
people will just say, “It's small. So what?”

I'm sure that the design staffs were annoyed by my unreasonable demand to reduce the
size and weight by half. But repetitions of this process eventually led to the creation of
something that photographers want, something that I wanted. If something is not
available to buy, you have to make it yourself. If your way is obstructed by the
technology barrier and the barrier of accepted wisdom, you have to find ways to break
through those barriers. I believe that our efforts to do this have brought Olympus to the
present stage in its history.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | While I was

developing the OM,
others were worried about the future of 35mm
compact cameras.
I would now like to talk about the XA. We launched
the OM-1 in 1972 and the OM-2 in 1975. A product
that was not previously available on the market can be
seen as innovative, and in some senses it might be
regarded as odd. The creation of a new product
involves considerable effort by a wide range of XA
people. The backbone users are not the ones who opt for a particular brand, but rather
the people who choose a product because they really understand its characteristics.

It's because of those people that our cameras continue to command high prices, even
though they have become classics. Someone once asked me why the prices have stayed
high even though the products are now classic cameras. I have never designed a classic
camera! With the benefit of hindsight, all I can say is that the cameras turned out well.

When we introduced the OM-2, a new manager was appointed to lead the Marketing
and Planning Division. The new manager had started out working with microscopes. He
was an expert on statistics and would carefully follow trends in numerical data.

The Pen was selling well, and Olympus had a market share of over 60% for half-size
cameras and 36-37% for 35mm compact cameras. That's why we were able to introduce
the OM. Because the entire company was focused on developing SLRs, we couldn't
introduce many new products, and our market share had fallen from 36-37% to around
35%. Normally a change on this scale would not be noticed, but that manager decided
that we needed to do something about the trend. He told me that I should develop
something. He had previously worked in development, and we were chatting about
those times one day when he said that he knew I was busy with SLRs and asked if it
would be acceptable for the sales people to plan a new product.

It is normal for Marketing people to plan new products, and I was indeed very busy, so I
told him to go ahead. So the Marketing and Planning Division manager issued a
directive to sales offices in Japan and overseas. It said that there was a crisis in the
35mm compact camera segment, and that our market share was in danger of slipping
below 35%. The directive said that Olympus needed everyone to help plan a new
product. About two weeks later I received a telephone call from the manager of the
Osaka Branch. He told me that they had all discussed the problem but had been unable
to come up with any ideas. “You're our only hope,” he said. “Haven't you got any
ideas?” There was a similar call from the Tokyo Branch around the same time. I knew
the inside story, and so tongue in cheek I told him that I was too busy to help, and that
they should carry on by themselves. A month later I was summoned by the Marketing
and Planning Division manager It seems that they had all struggled to produce ideas but
they were stuck. “Can't you help us?” he asked.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | Sifting through 100

ideas while breaking through
the barrier of accepted wisdom
Market share is extremely important to a company, and I was
impressed that Olympus was taking decisive action in
response to a 2 percent decline in its share. I was extremely
busy. We had completed the SLR camera, but we had
announced that there would be around 285 system
components, and we had completed only half of that number.

It was at this time that they asked me to revive our fortunes in

the 35mm compact camera market. Previously I had been the
one to lead the charge carrying the banner, but I was also
anxious to train my successors, and so I formed a team of 10 development engineers. I
gave them a year to develop any 35mm compact camera that they wanted. While they
were doing that I worked on the OM. Then one day they told me that they had finished
and wanted me to look at their work. They had written about 100 ideas on a blackboard.
I didn't want them to make 100 cameras, so I told them to reduce the number. A few
months later they had whittled the list down to 10. “It's still too many,” I told them.
“There should be no more three.”

At the end of the year they said they were ready for me to look at their idea. I had made
a point of not involving myself in their day-to-day efforts, and they had developed
solidarity as a team. Autofocus technology had only just been introduced, and the Juspin
Konica had only recently gone on sale. They told me that they had bought one, tried it,
and found that it was very good. They were eager to make a camera like that.

That was against my philosophy. The camera was already on sale and we would have
simply become involved in a price war. I told them that if they liked that camera I'd buy
them one each. That would only cost about 200,000 yen, compared with the hundreds of
millions of yen needed for developing a new model.

That was not a satisfactory end to a year's work. I told them to go back to the 100 ideas
that they had originally produced. They had crossed out ideas to reduce the number, and
their decisions had been guided by accepted wisdom. When they collected some of the
better ideas from the rejected ones, a different response emerged. However, the results
were still not quite in tune with my thinking, and so I was forced to make a choice and
carry the banner once again.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | With a camera you

can carry with you everywhere,
you'll never miss that once-in-a-lifetime moment again.
The OM was conceived as an SLR that could be used to
photograph anything from outer space to bacteria, but there
are situations in which you can't use an OM. For example,
you can't go to a wedding as the guest of honor and carry an
OM over the shoulder of your tuxedo.

If you don't have a camera, you can't take photographs. I had

realized that even if a camera could shoot everything from
outer space to bacteria, users couldn't take any pictures if they
didn't have the camera with them. In fact this was something
that had been bothering me for many years. OM-1 catalog

When I was doing my factory training, I spent two years at our plant in Suwa. Suwa is a
spa town, and there was a public spa next to my lodgings. In winter the place was so
cold that towels would freeze solid, with the temperature reaching minus 23 degrees
Celsius. Even with my window and sliding doors closed, the temperature in my room
would also drop to minus 23, and a vase that my mother had sent me from Shikoku
shattered when the water in it froze. Because it was so cold, the public spa was a
popular playground for children. They would call in on their way home from school,
and the water always became very dirty. So instead of taking a bath after work, I used to
go in the morning before work.

On one such morning the driver of a long-distance truck decided to take a bath while
passing through the spa town. He parked his truck in front of the public spa and went in
just as I was finishing my bath. As I left I could hear a strange crackling noise. Sparks
from the engine had started a fire, and because it was a gasoline-fueled vehicle the
flames spread quickly. The driver came running out stark naked, but it was already too
late. There was no water, so we couldn't fight the fire. It was a once-in-a-lifetime
moment, but of course nobody takes their camera to the bath, so unfortunately I missed
the opportunity.

Even if your camera can capture shots of outer space or bacteria, it's useless if you don't
have it with you. I was determined to make a camera that people could carry with them
everywhere. Nowadays we can take pictures with our mobile phones. I wanted to create
something like that, but there were still no digital cameras in those days. For years I
thought about designing a camera that you could carry with you always. I thought about
it for a decade while I was working on the Pen and OM.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | A caseless, capless

camera would be small
enough to fit in a breast pocket. While the OM was small, it was an SLR, and there was
a limit to how far we could reduce the size. We needed to create an even smaller
camera. As I mentioned earlier, however, we faced resistance from Kodak when we
developed the half-size Pen. The use of 35mm film was an absolute requirement in
those days, and I was determined to create a smaller camera within that constraint.

If you take a 35mm screen and add a cassette to hold the film
on both sides, you can reduce the width to a minimum of 105
millimeters. However, you can't reduce the height to less than
60-65 millimeters because of the finder. When it comes to
thickness, the lens is the problem. There were folding
cameras with collapsible lens, and I thought that this might be
the answer, but I didn't want to move the lens much because
there were so many interactions with the shutter and the
mechanisms. So I decided to use a short lens that would be
fixed in place. I began by setting the dimensions for my small
camera, which I thought should be about 100-105 millimeters
wide, 60-65 millimeters high and 30 millimeters thick, though I was prepared to allow a
little leeway in these dimensions.

Once I had reached that stage, the task of making such a camera became a major
challenge. A camera was a treasured possession, and people kept them in cases. It was
expensive to make cases. We first used a soft case for the Pen. It was extremely popular,
and Sony asked if it could use the Olympus soft case for its portable radios. However,
something designed to be carried everywhere had to fit in a pocket, the smallest of
which is the breast pocket of a shirt. My idea was to make a camera small enough to fit
in that pocket. I wanted to make it as small as today's mobile telephones. And that idea
led me to get rid of the case. It would be a caseless camera.

If I may skip forward a little, despite my youth I was invited to be the guest of honor at
the wedding ceremony of the son of a camera case manufacturer, whose business was
located in Tokyo's Koto Ward. The wedding was held two days after we had announced
the caseless camera. There were about 650 guests, including many members of the
Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly. When it was my turn to speak, I told them that we had
launched a caseless camera two days before, and I explained with great regret that we
would no longer be using cases.

Another problem was the lens cap. The cap protects the lens from scratching and
fingerprints, but it's a troublesome component. People lose them. The new camera had
to be caseless, capless and small enough to fit in a shirt breast pocket. These were the
conditions for my concept of a camera that could be carried everywhere. Our
determination to meet these conditions led to the XA. It certainly didn't need a case, and
in that sense it was an extremely unusual camera.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | The XA was

designed to match the preferences
of male and female users. Today anyone can take a photograph simply by pushing a
button, but back then such a comment would have been greeted with anger. The ease
with which we can take photographs is the result of relentless efforts by engineers
throughout the world to apply complex technology to the task of automating camera
functions. In the early days, you had to study photography so that you could set the
shutter aperture and choose the right type of film. Before you could take a picture, you
had to consult tables of standard exposure settings for the different seasons and day and
night conditions. Photography required considerable study, and for this reason camera
users were mostly males.
When the Pen era started, 98 percent of camera
purchasers were males and only 2 percent were
females. After the introduction of the Pen EE, the
percentage of female buyers surged to 33 percent, yet
most camera owners were still males. While there are
exceptions, in general males are interested in
mechanical things. They like gadgets. So camera
designers had to create cameras with lots of
mechanical features. This was the era in which I was trying to create a caseless camera,
one with no mechanical features visible on its exterior. However, it was the cameras
with the mechanical features that sold well. This was the barrier of accepted wisdom.

I thought about the problem. Though the camera would be capless, that didn't mean
there was no cap. I decided to make the camera capless and caseless by providing a
barrier that would slide across the lens horizontally. If I made the caseless feature the
starting point for the design, the result would be a camera that didn't look like a camera.
The same was true of the capless concept. I was trying to create a camera that would
appeal to males, but I was also trying to break through that barrier. I decided to make
the camera look like a camera when the slide was open, even if it looked less camera-
like with the slide closed. Males would like the camera with the slide open, females
with it closed. This interesting concept became reality with the XA. I am talking from a
design perspective here. The main concept for the XA was that users should be able to
take it with them everywhere so that they were always ready to seize photographic
opportunities.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | The XA was the

first camera to win a Good Design Award,
thanks to the appeal of its capless design.
The key concept of Sony's Walkman audio system was to
enjoy music outdoors, in contrast with the perception of
music as something to be enjoyed indoors. It first appeared on
the market around the same time as the XA. The concept was
also similar. Both products were designed to be taken
everywhere, one to provide audio, the other to record images.

The XA became the first camera to win a Good Design Grand

Prize. As you may know, the Good Design Grand Awards are
sponsored by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion
Organization. There are tens of thousands of applications
every year, from which around one thousand products are selected for Good Design
Awards. Awards have been given for large items, such as buildings and vehicles, and
for small items, ranging from fountain pens to household products. The best of these
receive prestigious Good Design Grand Prizes, and the XA was the first camera to earn
this distinction. The path to this achievement was a difficult one in many ways. There
were many problems at the planning stage, and at the manufacturing stage.

One of those problems related to the use of plastic. There was intense interest in plastic
at that time, but if you made a product from plastic it looked cheap. I am an engineer,
but I also know a little about design, and I wanted to use plastic in a way that exploited
the characteristics of the material without making the camera look cheap. So we used
plastic for the cover that replaced the cap.

index | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | My relationship
with Olympus is like the relationship
between the Monkey King and the Buddha.
My history is part of the history of Olympus. Since its
early beginnings, Olympus has had a corporate
culture characterized by the creation of innovative
products. However, I have not inherited Olympus
DNA; nor have I been taught about this culture. I
never studied it. I simply love to take photographs,
and if I needed something for that purpose, I would
do my utmost to create it.

Yet when I think about it, perhaps I am an Olympus person. Many of the cameras that I
have developed have been unique Olympus-style products. And there's a reason for that.
I was simply trying to make things that you couldn't buy anywhere.

When the Monkey King boasted that he could fly to the end of the Earth, the Buddha
told him to go. And indeed he flew to the end of the Earth and returned after signing his
name on the wall. When he got back, the Buddha smiled and showed him the inside of
his finger. “Here is your signature,” he said. If you think about it, everything is in the
hand of the Buddha.

I love cameras, and I have willfully proclaimed my determination to create cameras that
have never existed before. Yet when I think about it now, it seems to be that everything
was in the hand of Olympus. I'm sure that Olympus will continue to create unique
cameras, and that those who love Olympus cameras will remain loyal users. Olympus
cameras are a little unusual, but I hope that you will continue to understand and support
those cameras.

Text: Olympus Web Strategy Group