Legend of SLR cameras-A 50-year brilliant way to a canon SLR (17th in a row)

Serialization 17th: canonflex-the departure of SLR

Author of Legend of SLR cameras: Mu

Introduction: In 1959, it was both the first year of Canon's SLR and the first year of Japanese optics, plus Xuguang (1952), Orion (1955), Tokyo optics (1957), and qianda (1958) empire optics (1958), yadika (1959), little West six (1960), mamia (1960), etc. The Japanese SLR camera market was so popular that now, let's look back, although many of these brands have been wiped out of history, the Italian style of the camera industry encouraged Japanese brands that are still active in the market today, just like cars, there is no doubt that a single SLR camera is one of Japan's major industrial products that affect the world. However, today's glorious canon SLR camera was full of unimaginable hardships when it set sail ......

As mentioned above, in May 1957, the well-functional and reasonable price bind AP was available, attracting strong attention from many manufacturers on the SLR camera market. The year May was also the time for the release of Canon VT deluxe, L1, and Nikon sp. When we build new cameras together, it is hard to imagine that several camera manufacturers were working in parallel. As a non-bypass and non-top-level model, Pentax AP was in short supply in the market, I took a course for all major camera manufacturers. The course content is "SLR is sold out of date! ".

In October 4 of that year, the former Soviet Union launched the world's first man-made earth satellite. This was an age of technological innovation and an ideal breakthrough. It was possible to achieve great success if we dared to break the rules and innovate. Among the many veteran camera manufacturers, Qian daitian is the fastest one to respond.

Although qianda is also involved in the 35mm high-end side-axis camera market, the benefits of Canon and Nikon are not ideal. The main product is dual-camera, since xuguangxue has made a debut on the SLR camera and solved the main defects of the original SLR camera, president Tian yixiong believes that the development of a single-lens slice camera will surely have a more promising future than that of the Sunday side camera at that time, so in 1956, he decided to stop the development of the "Beyond Leica m3" advanced side-camera model, at the same time, it inherited the excellent design elements and concentrated its efforts to start R & D of the miolta SLR.

In January 1958, Qian daitian released its first SLR camera Meida SR-2

On January 1958, qianyada announced the release of its first SLR camera Meida SR-2, also caused a sensation. The Design of SR-2 is simple, the shape is smooth, the process is superb, the brightness of the fixed viewfinder is known as the world's leading, the layout of the roof is very clean, with the Leica m3 consistent scroll lever and shutter button coaxial design, in addition, the SR-2 uses a new lens bayonet system, that is, the future of the United States can follow the MD bayonet for more than 20 years, of course, this bayonet design and Leica m3 M bayonet design is also very similar, the shutter structure is similar to Leica m3. SR-2 was officially listed in October that year, standard pf 55mm f/1.8 lens price is 51,500 yen, and in May of the same year the advent of the K Series (pullover 55mm f/1.8) is exactly the same, tit-for-tat means obvious. In addition to 55mm f/1.8, two lenses, 100mm f/3.5 and 135mm f/2.8, were available in the same period as the SR-2.

Black body version of The Minolta SR-2, many design details of the SR-2 can see the Leica m3 shadow

Meida SR-2 integrated shutter turntable, and with strong camera production experience, shape design and process standards have reached a considerable level, after the release of nature has also been welcomed. The common features of the Meida SR-2 and Pentax K are the highest shutter speed of 1/1000 seconds as well as the fixed pentages viewfinder, and there is no flashing hot boots and depth of field preview function. It should be pointed out that the SR-2 will not automatically open the aperture after the exposure, but through the winding of the lens after the aperture will be fully open (in the subsequent models have been improved ), this is slightly inferior to K. From this point, we can see that from the technical strength of the SLR camera, Qian daitian is still a little inferior to Xuguang. However, the old factory is strong after all. In order to improve the SLR camera product line, Qian daitian has developed more than 40 fixed focus and zoom lenses since 1958.

Similar to Qian daitian, Japanese optics also suspends the R & D of Nikon SP's successor models and transfers its major technical reserves to the development of new SLR cameras. Before the release of the Nikon sp, Japanese optics originally intended to be both side-by-side and single-lens cameras, and both sides were hard. However, after the launch of the Nikon sp, no matter how hard Japan's optical cameras are, they are far behind Leica m3. European and American users also have the opinion that "Japan's side-axis cameras are doing well, but they are just a replacement of Leica or coose, therefore, Japanese optics decided to position the new Nikon's top-class models in a single-lens reflective camera in the future, featuring fast response and high reliability, with a wide range of lenses and accessories, to meet all photography requirements. Of course, the development of the Side-axis camera has not been stopped immediately, but the SLR camera was sold too well and there is no need to launch a new side-axis camera.

Nikon F was launched in 1959 to stop production in 1974, with a total production of more than 862,000 units for various types of changes

Unlike the Leica M bayonet design, the Japanese optics, which has accumulated rich experience in lens manufacturing, decided to act in their own style. The Nikon S Series side-axis camera uses a 34mm-diameter bayonet. to adapt to future development needs of large-caliber lenses, Japanese optics uses a 35mm-inch diagonal length (43.27mm) 44mm is selected as the inner diameter of the new SLR camera bayonet, and the rotation direction during lens installation is also opposite to that of his home. This bayonet system is the current Nikon F bayonet, and the Nikon f using the F bayonet debuted in early 1959.

Nikon F's important position in the development history of cameras, especially slrs, may be difficult to accurately express using the most classic, epoch, and new era words. As the first Japanese optical SLR camera with systematic design, nikon F is still the first SLR camera with a 100% bid rate and the first one with a motor reel (with a speed of up to 4 screenshots per second, nikon F has a mirror lock, a replaceable viewfinder, and a focal screen. It has just been released, including 21mm f/4, 28mm f/3.5, 35mm f/2.8, and 50mm f/2. 105 f/2.5 and 135 F/3.5 six F bayonet lenses and 180 f/2.5, 250 F/4 and 500 F/5 three original S Series side Shafts lens available for use, then we launched a series of accessories, which can meet the needs of various photography scenarios with powerful scalability. The price of the 50mm f/2 lens for Nikon F was 67,000 yen, which was much cheaper than the Nikon sp. The price was reasonable and powerful, naturally attracting the eyes of countless professional photographers.

Nikon F was launched from 1959 to 1974, with a total production of more than 862,000 units for various types of changes. The history of the SLR camera has not only changed, but the image of the Japanese camera has also changed. In 1959, it also became a watershed between German cameras and Japanese cameras. Since then, the Japanese camera industry has begun to become a leading player in the world.

I spent so much time talking about the thriving development of the Japanese camera industry in the 1950s s, but I did not mention canon. On the one hand, it was because various industrial categories in Japan began to recover on a large scale and the camera industry was also cool, the speed was so fast that we could easily ignore some details when looking back on that history. On the other hand, although canon was already one of the most important forces in the Japanese camera industry, this huge starting wheel has revealed the clues of the future overlord side, but the performance in the early stages of SLR camera development is not so dazzling, the excellent performance and exquisite workmanship of Nikon F completely masks all other SLR cameras of the year.

With almost the same time the first canon SLR camera canonflex from the historical point of view, it is indeed unable to compare with the Nikon F, in the history of the development of SLR camera position is not as good as the United States can SR-2 and Pentax AP. However, the story of the Canon SLR camera was officially opened on the first page.

Canon's first single-lens reflective camera canonflex

In fact, as early as the middle of the 1950 s, Canon began research on SLR cameras. It may be because of the impact of bind's first SLR asahiflex and West German Zeiss's first SLR contaflex I. Canon's first SLR is named canonflex. From canonflex, it is not difficult to find many shadows of the 1956 prototype.

Design prototype of Canon new SLR camera in 1956

Canonflex is also developed based on the new high-standard SLR system concept. It adopts a brand-new design called R bayonet system. The viewfinder design is also a "professional-level" detachable type, and performance indicators are not competitive brands, work is also consistent with Canon's high standards, including 50mm f/1.8 lens price of 59,500 yen is not expensive, Lu luyun Canon also launched a series of R bayonet lens, however, canonflex only produces five months and produces less than 17,000 units. Why?

Canon canonflex ads

We carefully observe the design of canonflex and find that there is only the shutter turntable and the shutter release button on the left side of the top of the host, and there is no design of the popular scroll lever! The reason is that canonflex still adopts a method similar to Canon's top-level side axis camera, taking into account the needs of journalists to quickly pass through the piece. The wrench is designed at the bottom of the body. Although slice speed may have some advantages, it is inconvenient to operate, which is obviously a major mistake. Due to structural reasons, the automatic aperture function provided by the R bayonet cannot be used to measure the aperture through the lens (TTL, therefore, after other manufacturers launched the SLR model with TTL optical measurement function in 1960, canonflex immediately fell into a dilemma. As the saying goes, we are afraid of goods comparison if we don't know the goods.

Canon canonflex after the metering table is installed

Despite the sleek shape of canonflex, the Large Volume shutter turntable feels good, and a very practical shutter lock function, the chute design at the front of the fuselage is very convenient for the use of the metering table, however, compared with Nikon F, canonflex has no 100% field rate, no replaceable focus screen, no mirror lock and easy-to-operate depth-of-field preview functions, no electric reel and large-capacity backup, the number and specifications of lenses are not so complete (there is no wide-angle lens at all ).

Two distinctive designs of Canon canonflex-the over-chip dial and round self-timer at the bottom of the fuselage

These seemingly obvious defects and shortcomings today have quickly overwhelmed canonflex by the eye-catching performance of other successful SLR models, Canon P and other well-known server types. Canon's SLR cameras set sail in such a hurry when they are both worried and worried. The future of the camera may be great, but it may be magnificent. However, people on the ship do not know, I can only work hard to move forward.

Why didn't Canon devote all its efforts to SLR camera development? Why didn't a wide-angle lens even exist when canonflex came out? What do canon pay attention to when competitors have made great achievements on SLR cameras? Please pay attention to the next section, "Tianji-Slr Dilemma".

End of serialization section 17th