Innovative cameras unrecognised ?

[Peter_S]

Kodak DSC Pro Back (2001). First "medium" (well, 35x35mm) format back CF slots and full [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]portability, and with software that was ahead of its time. The IQ & colors continues to amaze until today.
[/FONT]

 

[Jack Conrad]

There's the 1956 Agfa Automatic 66 folder, ostensibly the first auto aperture priority camera. Pretty cool. I got to inspect and cla one for a week before the
owner sold it on ebay for over $2000. When I got it the shutter was jammed,
but I was able to free it up and get it 100% functional. Turned out to be the self timer.

 

[flavio81]

Oh, dear. Add in bayonet lens mount for the F: something else that Pentax took a long time to get around to, and borrowed from (almost everyone) else.

Curiously, the "Spot-matic" prototype did feature a bayonet mount. I guess Pentax decided intentionally to switch to M42. Up to that point in time you could say the Exakta bayonet mount was a standard, i would guess...

The whole thing about copying is nonsensical too. Everyone copies or adapts what has gone before, often from prototypes or patents. What has Pentax ever not copied from elsewhere?

This is true...

The trouble is that different people use different criteria to support their claims for priority: first patent (cf. Wray), first prototype, first application in a particular field (e.g. Zeiss multicoating quite early in WW2), first official "introduction" at a photo show (whether immediately, or indeed ever, available or not), first production model (no matter how few sold, cf. Gamma Duflex), first commercial success. Obviously "first commercial success" is open to considerable interpretation, and Pentax tends to rely heavily on their own interpretations of this.

Agree, this is a very important remark.

However when examining the control layout of the Spotmatic (I just bought yesterday my first Spotmatic!! and my first Pentax 35mm camera, by the way), i can't help but feel that the dimensions and control layout somehow set the "pattern" for future cameras. Perhaps not because of being a revolutonary, new thing, but maybe because the Spotmatic was so successful in terms of sales, and ergonomically sound, that it became a main influence for designs to come.

Sometimes the advocates of different systems simply lie, as with multicoating: quite apart from the Zeiss military applications, Leica appears to have been using it commercially on the first version of the 35/1.4 Summilux well before Pentax's SMC came along.

Spot on with this comment, this had existed before. I have a Canon 1960s (circa 1965 or 1968) catalog where they list the coatings on their FL lens lineup and one or two lenses quietly say "multi-layer" where the majority of the lenses say "magenta" or "amber".

And, as you probably know, some 60s Minolta lenses had two-layer coatings as well.

Then in 1970 or 71 Pentax acquires the rights to the multicoating technique of other manufacturer (was it "Optical Coating Labs" or something like that) and suddenly announces this as if it was a "must" for lenses. While lenses with 5 optical groups or less are perfectly fine with single coating...

 

[tunalegs]

Well, «standard» and «innovation» aren't necessarily friends … AFAIK, Exakta's advance lever (1930s I suppose?) was innovative, and if some right handed persons insist to claim ‹hey, it's on the «wrong» side!›, it actually doesn't hurt, at least if one is ambidextrous — in the European sense of that word 😉

Inventing something that becomes a standard is innovative. 😉

And I'm inclined to suppose: the East Germans weren't able to prosecute very probable patent/intellectual property infringements, since West German Courts didn't care about intellectual property of Commies…

It's quite obvious you're clueless on the subject, despite your inclinations. For one, obviously, is the matter of the East Germans stealing Ihagee from its rightful owners and then profiting off the trademark. For two there is also the issue of the commies sending the rightful owners of Praktica to the gulag on fabricated charges and then nationalizing the company.

Having been inside numerous Edixas, Exaktas, and Prakticas, I don't think the West German Edixa was close enough for anybody to claim infringement. But the designers obviously knew what the next step would be, and made it.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Curiously, the "Spot-matic" prototype did feature a bayonet mount. I guess Pentax decided intentionally to switch to M42. Up to that point in time you could say the Exakta bayonet mount was a standard, i would guess......

The Spotmatic was of course well after the Nikon F.

Not so much "switch to" as "stay with".

And didn't most bayonet mounts antedate the Spotmatic?

On top of which, the production "Spotmatic" wasn't actually spot metered, because that would have screwed up slides except among those who knew what they were doing?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Pioneer]

Pentax stayed with the M42 mount for quite a while. I think all the other major companies had bayonet mounts, either having switched to it or started with it.

As for Nikon being first, I thought that Minolta had a bayonet mount before Nikon?

Of course, since Nikon is so obviously the first "modern" SLR to some among us they must have been first. Of course the F came out after Pentax actually came out with the same features in 1959 but Pentax can't be the first "modern" SLR so we will conveniently ignore production and sales data.

Nikon has made some very, very good cameras. I absolutely love my FM2n, but they always made use of mature technology. It is a terrific business decision, and makes great sense, butit is hardly innovative. If you look at innovation in any business it is rarely the first company with a new innovation that ends up being the most successful.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Pentax stayed with the M42 mount for quite a while. I think all the other major companies had bayonet mounts, either having switched to it or started with it.

As for Nikon being first, I thought that Minolta had a bayonet mount before Nikon?

Of course, since Nikon is so obviously the first "modern" SLR to some among us they must have been first. Of course the F came out after Pentax actually came out with the same features in 1959 but Pentax can't be the first "modern" SLR so we will conveniently ignore production and sales data.

Nikon has made some very, very good cameras. I absolutely love my FM2n, but they always made use of mature technology. It is a terrific business decision, and makes great sense, butit is hardly innovative. If you look at innovation in any business it is rarely the first company with a new innovation that ends up being the most successful.

Underline: Well, yes, so did Contax and Exakta. Praktina had a breech-lock mount, superior to either. Your point was?

The rest: I repeat my question: what didn't Pentax borrow/steal? What were their actual innovations? Ever? Nikon put several more things together in the F than Pentax did before 1959.

Are you claiming that Pentax's 1959 was before Nikon's 1959? Quite apart from the fact that Pentax stuck with screw mount for a surprisingly long time, and their fully auto diaphragm Super Takumars were preceded by Nikkors?

My advice: even if it's too late to quit while you're ahead, at least quit before you fall any further behind.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Dwig]

... Sometimes the advocates of different systems simply lie, as with multicoating: quite apart from the Zeiss military applications, Leica appears to have been using it commercially on the first version of the 35/1.4 Summilux well before Pentax's SMC came along.
...

Many modern repetitions of Asahi's original claim are misworded. The original claim was the first to use multicoating (defined as being some minimum number of layers; I believe around 7-8) on all surfaces and to do so on all of the main lenses in the lens lineup.

Many lens makers had been using multilayer coatings with various numbers of layers on critical surfaces for several years prior to the SMC-Takumar introduction. Nikon used multicoating on some surfaces in all 35mm f/1.4 lenses from the very beginning. All of the redesigned 105 f/2.5 (Planar-esque version w/ 3.0ft min focus) also had some multilayer coatings. Nikon introduced the IC coating designation when they began putting a minimum of 8 layers on every surface, whether there was any optical benefit or not.

 

[Dwig]

...
As for Nikon being first, I thought that Minolta had a bayonet mount before Nikon?...

There were a number of bayonet mounts on 35mm cameras prior to the Nikon F, all of them fatally, or at least seriously, flawed with the exception of the Leica M-mount from some 6 years earlier.

The F-mount was the first SLR mount that was robust enough for heavy use (stainless steel body mount, "dead-bolt" latch (like the M-mount), heavy springs, overhanging f/stop ring to act as a dust shield, ...) and large enough (inner diameter equal to the format diagonal) to allow Nippon Kogaku's optical designers to create lenses that would be impossible on many other mounts. Add in the motor drive capability and rugged shutter and you have the camera that crushed every other new 35mm SLR introduced that same year.

There was nothing totally new in the F-mount, but it was the first and for a long time only one that put everything in one mount. Canon's breech mount of 1959 was large and reasonably robust, but complicated and had only semi-auto diaphragm action. Minolta's had a latch prone to wear and had no fully auto diaphragm. Miranda was large, but had a flimsy latch, whimpy tension springs and only external semi-auto diaphragm. Exakta's mount was small in diameter and crippled Exakta and Topcon, who copied the mount, as it severely limited fast lenses and modern zoom designs.

 

[Dwig]

It's a common misconception that Pentax invented the first 35mm SLR that actually looked like a 35mm SLR...

Correct, Asahi was merely the first Japanese maker to copy what several European marks were already selling. So many retelling of Asahi's claim fail to include "Japanese" in the claim.

 

[mpaniagua]

well, the main topic is about innovation, not success. Sometimes innovative products arent successful at all 🙂

Take iPhone for example. It borrowed already created technologies and put together a very succesful product. Microsoft had plans for Microsoft Table (not tablet) way before iPad was around. It was an innovation. Nevertheless, it was Apple tha put together a succesful product (iPad).

Just my 2 cents.

Regards.

 

[lxmike]

For me it has to be the pentax mx, due to its size, even smaller than the OM1, in an era where other slr's were often larger

 

[mpaniagua]

Correct, Asahi was merely the first Japanese maker to copy what several European marks were already selling. So many retelling of Asahi's claim fail to include "Japanese" in the claim.

Nikon is Japanese too 🙂

 

[mpaniagua]

For me it has to be the pentax mx, due to its size, even smaller than the OM1, in an era where other slr's were often larger

whoa you are right. I own both of them and somehow never really put them side by side. To me, OM1 was the smaller 🙂

 

[dee]

It,s interesting how many of the cameras I was aware of , even pre Internet .
I have two Prakrtinas - clever use of clear finder when TTL was primitive .
I was also intuigued by how quickly Nikon modified the rangefinder into such an elegant and successful SLR .
dee

 

[Pioneer]

My advice: even if it's too late to quit while you're ahead, at least quit before you fall any further behind.

Cheers,

R.

Certainly, we can shelve this little discussion, but Pentax was still manufacturing single lens reflex cameras long before Nikon. As for modern, that is certainly a moving target. Canon with their EOS mount has probably defined the modern camera for everyone for quite a few years now. That was both innovative and successful.

 

[tunalegs]

Pentax stayed with the M42 mount for quite a while. I think all the other major companies had bayonet mounts, either having switched to it or started with it.

As for Nikon being first, I thought that Minolta had a bayonet mount before Nikon?

Of course, since Nikon is so obviously the first "modern" SLR to some among us they must have been first. Of course the F came out after Pentax actually came out with the same features in 1959 but Pentax can't be the first "modern" SLR so we will conveniently ignore production and sales data.

Ignore Pentax for a moment, and Minolta's SR-2 of 1958 had lever wind, all shutter speeds on one dial, and an instant return mirror and automatic diaphragm operation. One may pick nits about the aperture not re-opening until the shutter was cocked, but even so what does that leave the Nikon F of 1959 with? Not much really.

The 1957 Pentax is certainly neat, but it's not yet got all of the features of a modern 35mm SLR, it's just an incremental advance over the 1954 Edixa Reflex.

The 1959 Nikon is neat too, but it's not really the first modern 35mm SLR either. Minolta was, near as makes no difference, the first when they made the SR-2 in 1958. All Nikon added to the formula were extras that already existed in other cameras. It was basically just what a Miranda would have been had Miranda been a bigger company with more resources instead of just some people building cameras in a shed.

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

It's quite obvious you're clueless on the subject, despite your inclinations. For one, obviously, is the matter of the East Germans stealing Ihagee from its rightful owners and then profiting off the trademark. For two there is also the issue of the commies sending the rightful owners of Praktica to the gulag on fabricated charges and then nationalizing the company.

Oh dear, «despite [my] inclinations», my goodness?! What are you insinuating?

I can assure you: This is a topic of legal history, and that's my realm, incidentally.

Red: harsh accusations against «the East Germans» (globally, all of them?); can you provide proof, please?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Oh dear, «despite [my] inclinations», my goodness?! What are you insinuating?

I can assure you: This is a topic of legal history, and that's my realm, incidentally.

Red: harsh accusations against «the East Germans» (globally, all of them?); can you provide proof, please?

You have to realize that "experts" (i.e. anyone who knows anything about anything) are currently at a discount: cf. Brexit, Donald Trump. All opinions are, in the eyes of the ignorant, equally valid, despite the way that most people who can read and write recognize the value of study and experience in, for example, a legal "opinion" or a medical "opinion".

Cheers,

R.

 

[krötenblender]

Can we have a new thread about innovative but not so very well known cameras, please? After the first 20 posts or so this one became something different...

I was hoping to find interesting stuff about cameras instead of expert-wars...

My first thought was the Epson R-D1. That was somehow innovative, but not really unrecognized, at least not in this forum. With the aggression-level in this thread by now, I think, I better not try to add anything, otherwise I may get ripped apart by the experts for being a fanboy (which in fact is not an insult from my POV).

Regards