Difference between revisions of "Semi Olympus"

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|| ''Semi Olympus, [[Rulex]] shutter, [[Zuiko|Zuikô]] 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1098.''<br>''The white filling is missing from the first digit of the lens number.''<br>''Picture courtesy of eBayer knight-camera. {{with permission}}''
 
|| ''Semi Olympus, [[Rulex]] shutter, [[Zuiko|Zuikô]] 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1098.''<br>''The white filling is missing from the first digit of the lens number.''<br>''Picture courtesy of eBayer knight-camera. {{with permission}}''
 
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The '''version with Rulex shutter''' is generally unknown to Western collectors. However two surviving examples have recently surfaced (both pictured in this page), with lens no.1098 and 1137.<REF> The presence of two different examples and one original advertisement is enough to ensure that this version was officially produced. However the authenticity of this version is challenged by Foster in [http://www.biofos.com/coll/subcoll/folder.html this page at Biofos]. In his own words: "There is a suggestion based on a mid-1937 advert that Olympus also fitted the Proud body with a RULEX shutter. [...] I have seen a Rulex version but am not persuaded of its authenticity as its serial number places it in the earliest Compur period, too early to fit any subsequent 1937 theory. Suggestion that Olympus' own historical account of its founding date for camera manufacture may be inaccurate, is absurd and predicated only in support of an illogical theory." </REF> The Rulex gives 1–200, B, T speeds and has the early type of shutter plate, as described in the [[Rulex]] page. It has an ''OLYMPUS'' nameplate screwed to the top of the shutter plate, the same as on the [[Compur]] shutter. The aperture scale looks the same as on the Compur.
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The '''version with [[Rulex]] shutter''' is generally unknown to Western collectors. However two surviving examples have recently surfaced (both pictured in this page), with lens no.1098 and 1137.<REF> The presence of two different examples and one original advertisement is enough to ensure that this version was officially produced. However the authenticity of this version is challenged by Foster in [http://www.biofos.com/coll/subcoll/folder.html this page at Biofos]. In his own words: "There is a suggestion based on a mid-1937 advert that Olympus also fitted the Proud body with a RULEX shutter. [...] I have seen a Rulex version but am not persuaded of its authenticity as its serial number places it in the earliest Compur period, too early to fit any subsequent 1937 theory. Suggestion that Olympus' own historical account of its founding date for camera manufacture may be inaccurate, is absurd and predicated only in support of an illogical theory." </REF> The [[Rulex]] gives 1–200, B, T speeds and has the early type of shutter plate, as described in the [[Rulex]] page. It has an ''OLYMPUS'' nameplate screwed to the top of the shutter plate, the same as on the [[Compur]] shutter. The aperture scale looks the same as on the Compur.
 
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Revision as of 22:04, 22 April 2008

2218856697_4edff0fd0d_m_d.jpg
Picture courtesy of eBayer knight-camera. (Image rights)
Japanese Semi (4.5×6)
Prewar and wartime models (edit)
folding
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Postwar models ->
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The Semi Olympus (セミ・オリンパス) is a 4.5×6cm folder. It was the first camera made by Takachiho (predecessor of Olympus), released in 1936 or 1937 and succeeded by the Semi Olympus II. Today, the camera is often called "Semi Olympus I", but it seems that this designation was not used at the time it was sold.

Description

2218856693_3e43c8bac2_m_d.jpg 2218856677_e078cc3bc8_m_d.jpg
Semi Olympus, Rulex shutter, Zuikô 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1098.
Picture courtesy of eBayer knight-camera. (Image rights)

The Semi Olympus is a 4.5×6cm folding camera for 16 exposures on 120 film, with a vertical folding bed and a folding optical finder. The body is a copy of the German Baldax (the large model for #0 shutter size). It was made by the Japanese company Proud, and it is the same as the body of the prewar Semi Proud.[1]

The advance knob is at the bottom right, as seen by the photographer holding the camera horizontally. The film advance is controlled by red windows. The back is hinged to the left and the back latch is covered by a leather handle. The release for the folding bed is to the right of the viewfinder and there is no body release. The name OLYMPUS is embossed in the front leather.

The lens is a four-element Zuiko 75mm f/4.5, focused by turning the front element. It was the first serial produced camera lens from the future Olympus company. The lens rim is engraved Takatiho Tôkyô Zuikô 1:4.5 f=75mm. No.1xxx,[2] except on one composite example described below.

Origin

Takachiho started to develop camera lenses in 1934.[3] The design team was led by Dr. Miyata (宮田尚一) and comprised Ing. Yanagawa (future chief researcher for lens design in the 1950s); it was placed under the supervision of Mr Suzuki, chief of the optical department.[4] The first results, tried in mid 1936, included a 105/4.5 and a 75/4.5, both with four elements in three groups.[5] Two lens elements out of four were made of Japanese lens glass, supplied by the Osaka Industrial Research Institute (大阪工業試験所, Ōsaka Kōgyō Shikensho).[6] Various camera manufacturers were approached but the lenses did not sell. Miyazaki Shizuma (宮崎静馬), founder of Proud-sha, talked to Mr Kura (内蔵), in charge of commercial planning at Takachiho, and suggested making a camera around the Zuiko lens and selling it under the "Olympus" brand, already registered by Takachiho for microscopes.[7] He offered to supply the camera bodies, the same as those of the Semi Proud, and insisted on adopting the Compur shutter, to make the camera easier to sell.[8] According to Sakurai Eiichi, only one lot was made before the import of shutters stopped;[9] he does not state the reason for this, although it might have been the outbreak of war with China.[10]

Documents

The Semi Olympus was featured in a column of the March 1937 issue of Camera Club; this is the oldest mention reported in Japanese photographic magazines.[11]

The camera was advertised in the June 1937 issue of Asahi Camera and in the July 1937 issue of Ars Camera.[12] The advertisement in Asahi Camera was placed by the distributor Yamashita Yūjirō Shōten.[13] It mentions two versions, one with a Rulex A shutter (1–200, T, B) made by Neumann & Heilemann, priced ¥78, the other with an Auto-Compur shutter (1–250, T, B), priced ¥98, with a supplement of ¥5 for the case. (Some sources say that the camera was priced at ¥105, but no original document has yet been found to confirm this.)[14] The Asahi Camera advertisement states that the camera's dimensions are 13×7.5×4 cm, and that it weighs 540g.

Surviving examples

The version with Compur shutter is usually said to be the earliest. Two surviving examples are known, with lens no.1048 and 1141 or 1142.[15] It is very plausible that the serial number sequence began at 1001: this was a very common practice at the time among Japanese optical companies.[16] The Compur shutter plate has the FD logo on the right (for Friedrich Deckel), the usual COMPUR marking at the bottom and a small plate marked OLYMPUS screwed at the top, at the place usually provided in the Compur rim-set shutters to display the camera maker's name. The aperture scale goes from 4.5 to 22 and is screwed to the bottom. The shutter itself gives T, B, 1–250 speeds, and has a self-timer and a screw to attach a soft release. There is an arm in front of the shutter plate, linked to the Compur shutter. It is tripped by the photographer's right hand and acts as a release. The Compur was designed for a body release, and without this linkage the position of the release lever would have been impractical because of the folding struts. The exact same linkage is found on some examples of the Semi Proud with Compur shutter.[17] This is perhaps an indication that the Compur shutters were supplied by Proud-sha.

2219646460_057d88d166_m_d.jpg 2219646456_aed737810c_m_d.jpg 2219646466_afe94a983e_m_d.jpg
2219646474_77bf259599_m_d.jpg 2218856677_e078cc3bc8_m_d.jpg 2219646470_9311237a5e_m_d.jpg
Semi Olympus, Rulex shutter, Zuikô 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1098.
Pictures courtesy of eBayer knight-camera. (Image rights)
2218916817_7f524574ea_d.jpg
Semi Olympus, Rulex shutter, Zuikô 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1098.
The white filling is missing from the first digit of the lens number.
Picture courtesy of eBayer knight-camera. (Image rights)

The version with Rulex shutter is generally unknown to Western collectors. However two surviving examples have recently surfaced (both pictured in this page), with lens no.1098 and 1137.[18] The Rulex gives 1–200, B, T speeds and has the early type of shutter plate, as described in the Rulex page. It has an OLYMPUS nameplate screwed to the top of the shutter plate, the same as on the Compur shutter. The aperture scale looks the same as on the Compur.

544747398_6abb7ac42a_d.jpg
Semi Olympus, Rulex shutter, Zuikô 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1137.
Picture courtesy of Henk. (Image rights)
544747394_b9539dba1f_d.jpg
Semi Olympus, Rulex shutter, Zuikô 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1137.
Picture courtesy of Henk. (Image rights)

It is usually said that there is a later version with Koho shutter. The Koho shutter was made by Takachiho itself and was mounted on the Semi Olympus II and later on the Olympus Six. It was first announced for the Semi Olympus II under the name "Laurel". The existence of a Semi Olympus with Koho shutter would imply a sales overlap with the Semi Olympus II. No advertisement for this version is known, and none of the advertisements for the Semi Olympus II mentions the original model.

Two surviving examples of the Semi Olympus actually exist with a Koho shutter. One has lens no.1078 and a shutter giving 1–200, B, T speeds.[19] The lens number is close to the other numbers mentioned above. However the shutter version is strange: the Koho was first produced for the Semi Olympus II with 1/150 top speed, and the switch to 1/200 top speed did not occur before late 1939 at the earliest.[20]

The other example has lens no.6358 and is held at the Olympus gallery.[21] It has a Koho shutter giving 1–150, B, T speeds. This time the lens number is problematic: the other five cameras are in the 10xx and 11xx range, the lowest lens number observed so far on a Semi Olympus II is no.144x in an advertisement dated May 1938 (see below) and no.2001 on an actual example, and the lens no.7157 has been observed on an Olympus Six, dated about 1940.[22] The lens no.6358 would not have been produced before about 1939.

It is thus likely that the two surviving cameras with Koho shutter are composite. They were probably created by the company itself, outside the regular production. They could have been made to dispose of a stock of unsold Semi Olympus bodies. The fact that one of them remains the property of the company might also suggest that they were made for an internal purpose, perhaps to serve as a testbed for the Koho shutters.

Release date

Most sources say that the camera was first sold in 1936; some specify September.[23] This date has not yet been confirmed by any original document.[24] The archives of the company were destroyed in the 1945 air raids over Tokyo,[25] and the earliest mention found of the 1936 release year is an article dated 1958 by Sakurai Eiichi, who entered the company in 1935 and later became its chief camera designer.[26] In an interview dated 1992,[27] Sakurai describes a sequence of events which took place between the final lens tests in June or July 1936[28] and the release of the camera — attempts to sell the Zuiko lenses alone, contacts with Proud, procurement of shutters and contacts with a distributor — but he does not state if these took a matter of days or months. Matsuzaki Sōichirō (松崎惣一郎), Sakurai's brother-in-law, remembers that he was shown an example of the Semi Olympus around 1936.[29]

The September 1936 date might correspond to the completion of the first prototypes rather than the release to the public. In any case, the first sales took place on a very small scale, with a total of less than 500 Olympus cameras completed as of May 1938.[30] They may have remained unmentioned by photographic magazines for a few months: the first mention of the camera is in a relatively minor magazine, and it never appeared in the columns of mainstream magazines such as Asahi Camera or Ars Camera.[31]

More pictures

2218856697_4edff0fd0d_m_d.jpg 2218856685_81ca94481b_m_d.jpg 2218856693_3e43c8bac2_m_d.jpg
2218856691_777da21fa9_m_d.jpg 2218856683_cb8919dbaa_m_d.jpg
Semi Olympus, Rulex shutter, Zuikô 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no.1098.
Pictures courtesy of eBayer knight-camera. (Image rights)

Notes

  1. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi, pp.64–5 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20; Hagiya, p.14 of the same magazine; Hibi, p.62 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.8; and other sources. Francesch, pp.23 and 56–7, says that the body was made by the German company Plaubel, but this is a mistake, certainly originating from a confusion between the company names Proud (written プラウド in katakana script) and Plaubel (written プラウベル).
  2. ↑ "Takatiho" and "Takachiho" are alternative romanizations of the same name. The pronunciation is closer to the "chi" of "chilly" than to the "ti" of "tinfoil".
  3. ↑ Date: Sakurai, p.371 of Shashin Kōgyō no.78; Maitani, "Kamera-zukuri he no bōken"; Sakai, p.7 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20; Francesch, p.19.
  4. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi mentions Dr. Miyata and Ing. Yanagawa on p.371 of Shashin Kōgyō no.78, and Dr. Miyata and Mr Suzuki on p.64 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  5. ↑ 105/4.5 and 75/4.5: Hagiya, p.13 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  6. ↑ Hagiya, p.13 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20, about the 75/4.5.
  7. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi, p.64 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  8. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi, pp.64–5 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  9. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi, p.65 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  10. ↑ Foster reports the following rumor in this page at Biofos: "It is said that Eichii Sakurai was unhappy with the performance of the Deckel shutter as it relies on air pressure for the braking train and the shutter makers in Japan were asked to redesign the Deckel for more reliability". This rumor is totally unfounded: the Deckel Compur shutter does not rely on air pressure, unlike the Compound shutter, whose name has a vaguely similar sounding. Moreover, the Compur was largely recognized as the most prestigious shutter available at the time, as is confirmed by Sakurai Eiichi himself on pp.64–5 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  11. ↑ Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.335.
  12. ↑ Hibi, p.63 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.8.
  13. ↑ Advertisement on p. A65 of the magazine; reproduced in Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.62, in Hibi, p.62 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.8 and in Hagiya, p.10 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20. (From the July issue, Takachiho used its one page in Asahi Camera to advertise the Olympus Standard.)
  14. ↑ Price of ¥105: Sakurai Eiichi, p.65 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20; Hagiya, p.14 of the same magazine. Even the testimony of Sakurai is not completely certain: such a minor detail might have been remembered wrongly.
  15. ↑ Lens no.1048: example pictured in Francesch, p.56, in McKeown, p.747 and in Sugiyama, item 1213. Lens no.1141 or 1142: example owned by John Foster and pictured in this page of his own website and here at Chromesix.
  16. ↑ It would be extremely difficult to prove this assertion though, unless the lens registries are still held by the Olympus company.
  17. ↑ Example of the Semi Proud pictured in Hibi, p.62 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.8, and example pictured in an advertisement dated February 1938 reproduced in Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.89.
  18. ↑ The presence of two different examples and one original advertisement is enough to ensure that this version was officially produced. However the authenticity of this version is challenged by Foster in this page at Biofos. In his own words: "There is a suggestion based on a mid-1937 advert that Olympus also fitted the Proud body with a RULEX shutter. [...] I have seen a Rulex version but am not persuaded of its authenticity as its serial number places it in the earliest Compur period, too early to fit any subsequent 1937 theory. Suggestion that Olympus' own historical account of its founding date for camera manufacture may be inaccurate, is absurd and predicated only in support of an illogical theory."
  19. ↑ Example pictured in Hibi, pp.62 and 63 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.8; in Orinpasu-ten (cover, pp.3 and 4); and in Omoide no supuringu-kamera-ten, p.23.
  20. ↑ The 1/150 top speed is still mentioned in the advertisement for the Semi Olympus II published in Asahi Camera October 1939, reproduced in this page of the Heiki Seikatsu website.
  21. ↑ Example pictured in Francesch, p.57; in McKeown, p.747; in Sugiyama, item 1214; in this page of the Olympus corporate site; and in many other sources.
  22. ↑ Semi Olympus II with lens no.144x: advertisement in Asahi Camera May 1938, p.A52, reproduced in Hagiya, p.62 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.8. — Semi Olympus II with lens no.2001: example held at the Olympus gallery, pictured in Francesch (cover page) and in McKeown, p.747. — Olympus Six with lens no.7157: example observed in an online auction.
  23. ↑ September 1936: Sakai, p.7 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20. This source seems extremely accurate on all points.
  24. ↑ The fact that it is stated in the official history of Olympus does not constitute a proof in itself. Examples abound of mistakes spread around the 1950s by major Japanese companies about their prewar past, and repeated ever since. One of them is the company Minolta, which made major mistakes in the release dates of its prewar models (see the Semi Minolta article) and in the name of its earliest camera (see the Nifcarette article). Another is the historical article written by the sales department of Olympus and published in the August 1960 issue of Shashin Kōgyō (no.100), which contains mistakes: it says that the film plane corrector and D.Zuiko lens of the Olympus Chrome Six were released in 1951 (instead of 1952 and 1954 respectively), and that the Olympus Chrome Six V has an uncoupled rangefinder.
  25. ↑ Francesch, p.27.
  26. ↑ Sakurai, p.372 of Shashin Kōgyō no.78. This article already contains the "official" story of the Compur version followed by the Koho version.
  27. ↑ "Zadankai: Orinpasu no michi", pp.64–71 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  28. ↑ June 1936: Francesch, p.20. July 1936: Sakai, p.7 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.20.
  29. ↑ Matsuzaki, p.28 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.76. He says that he was shown the camera at about the same time Sakurai married his sister.
  30. ↑ This is inferred from the lens no.144x visible in an advertisement for the Semi Olympus II published in Asahi Camera May 1938, p.A52, and reproduced in Hibi, p.62 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.8. See Semi Olympus II for a more detailed discussion.
  31. ↑ Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.335.

Bibliography

Links

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