Olympus Eye 44

The Olympus Eye Flex was a TLR camera taking 4x4cm pictures on 127 film. It was made only at prototype level, in two variants. It was announced a couple of years after the Rolleiflex Baby Grey. The chronology page at the Olympus official website says 1958, but it is not always a reliable source. Other sources, such as the book by Francesch or this page by John Foster, say 1959.

The Eye Flex B had a pair of four element 60/2.8 lenses. It is the best known variant, because one of them is kept at the Olympus collection. On this particular camera, the lenses are marked Olympus D.Zuiko with serial number 100001 for the taking lens and 100002 for the viewing lens. This indicates that they were the two first lenses produced. Maybe this is the first body produced. The finish is chrome and blue, with a grey leatherette. This trend was clearly set by the Baby Grey.

It has an advance lever on the right, a focusing knob and an accessory shoe on the left. There is a big selenium cell covering the top part of the front panel, and small levers on both sides of the taking lens, to set the aperture and speed. The Eye Flex B probably had shutter priority automatic exposure, because the aperture scale has a position marked AUTO past the 16 setting. There is also a control window above the viewing lens, it probably contains a needle indicating the aperture in manual mode.

The shutter is a Seikosha-S with B-1-500 speeds in geometric progression and M-X sync selector. The sync post is at the bottom right, opposite the shutter release. The ASA setting is at the bottom of the shutter cover. There is also a guide number scale.

The Eye Flex A had two 60/3.5 Zuiko lenses and a Seikosha-SLV shutter to 1/500, very little is known about it. The controls do not appear the same as the Eye Flex B. The only known picture is displayed at John Foster's page. Under close scrutiny, we can observe that the viewing lens seems to be marked C.Zuiko, it would be a three element lens. On the front panel, only one control lever is apparent. Perhaps it sets the guide number, by analogy with the 1961 Olympus Pen EE settings. The sync post is no more on the front, it seems to have moved to the left plate. At last, the control window above the viewing lens is smaller.

Note: Some sources call it Eye Flex 44 or Eye 44 with or without hyphen. In this page it is called "Eye Flex" because both variants were only marked EYE FLEX and OLYMPUS on the finder hood.

Bibliography

• Histoire de l'appareil photographique Olympus de 1936 à 1983, by D. & J.-P. Francesch, ed. Dessain et Tolra

Links

• The Olympus corporate history site, with:
  • the medium format camera page (the Eye Flex is hidden in the yellow box at the Olympus Flex I entry)
  • the chronology
• Olympus TLR page at the Biofos site by John Foster