Semi Olympus

From Camera-wiki.org
Revision as of 17:55, 24 November 2007 by Rebollo fr (talk | contribs) (splitting Olympus folders, step 1)
Jump to: navigation, search

Semi Olympus

The first camera made by Takachiho (later Olympus) was the Semi Olympus (セミ・オリンパス, semi orinpasu).

Description

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 folding bed release 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 had developed camera lenses from 1934. The first results were tried in mid 1936, among which were a 105/4.5 and a 75/4.5, both with four elements in three groups, designed by Pr. Miyata (宮田尚一) under the supervision of Mr Suzuki (鈴木).[3] 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).[4] 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.[5] He offered to supply the camera bodies, the same as for the Semi Proud, and insisted on adopting the Compur shutter, to make the camera easier to sell.[6] According to Sakurai Eiichi, only one lot was made before the shutter imports stopped;[7] he does not state the reason for this, although it might have been the outbreak of war with China.

Documents

Today the Semi Olympus is usually called "Semi Olympus I", but it seems that this designation was not used at the time it was sold. The camera was featured in a column of the March 1937 issue of Camera Club; this is the oldest mention reported in Japanese photographic magazines.[8]

The Semi Olympus was advertised in the June 1937 issue of Asahi Camera and in the July 1937 issue of Ars Camera.[9] The advertisement in Asahi Camera was placed by the distributor Yamashita Yūjirō Shōten.[10] 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.)[11] The Asahi Camera advertisement states that the camera's dimensions are 13×7.5×4 cm, and that it weighs 540g.

Release date

Most sources say that the camera was first sold in 1936; some specify September.[12] No original document has yet been found to support this date, six months earlier than the cover date of the first Japanese magazine in which it is known to appear. The testimony of Sakurai Eiichi consulted so far does not explicitly support the 1936 release year either.[13] On the contrary, he describes a number of events which necessarily took place between the final lens tests in June or July 1936[14] and the release of the camera: the attempts to sell the Zuiko lenses alone, the contacts with Proud, the procurement of shutters and finally the contacts with a distributor. However, 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.[15]

All this does not mean that the 1936 release date is mistaken, only that it is unsure.[16] The first sales were certainly on a very small scale, and may have occurred months before the first mention in photographic magazines. Another theory would be that the September 1936 date is that of the completion of the first experimental cameras rather than that of the sales debut.

Surviving examples

The version with Compur shutter is usually said to be the earliest one. Two surviving examples are known, with lens no. 1048 and 1142.[17] It is very plausible that the serial number sequence began at 1000: this was a very common practice at the time among Japanese optical companies.[18] 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, 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 same device, with an exactly similar part, is known on some examples of the Semi Proud with Compur shutter.[19] This is perhaps an indication that the Compur were supplied by Proud-sha.

The version with Rulex shutter is generally unknown to Western collectors. However one surviving example has recently surfaced (pictured in this page), with lens no. 1137. 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.

544747394_b9539dba1f_d.jpg 544747398_6abb7ac42a_d.jpg
Semi Olympus, Rulex shutter, Zuikô 7.5cm f/4.5 lens no. 1137.
Pictures 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.[20] 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 at least late 1939.[21]

The other example has lens no. 6358 and is held at the Olympus gallery.[22] It has a Koho shutter giving 1–150, B, T speeds. This time the lens number is problematic: the other four 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.[23] The lens no. 6358 would not have been produced before about 1939.

It is thus likely that the two surviving cameras 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. However the fact that one of them remains the property of the company suggests that they were made for an internal purpose, perhaps to serve as a testbed for the Koho shutters.

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 confusion.
  2. ↑ "Takatiho" and "Takachiho" are alternative romanizations of the same name. The pronunciation has the "chi" of "chilly", not the "ti" of "tinfoil".
  3. ↑ 105/4.5 and 75/4.5: Hagiya, p. 13 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20. Pr. Miyata and Mr Suzuki: Sakurai Eiichi, p. 64 of the same magazine.
  4. ↑ Hagiya, p. 13 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20, about the 75/4.5.
  5. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi, p. 64 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20.
  6. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi, pp. 64–5 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20.
  7. ↑ Sakurai Eiichi, p. 65 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20.
  8. ↑ Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p. 335.
  9. ↑ Hibi, p. 63 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 8.
  10. ↑ 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.)
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. ↑ September 1936: Sakai, p. 7 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20. This source seems extremely accurate on all points.
  13. ↑ "Zadankai: Orinpasu no michi", pp. 64–71 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20.
  14. ↑ June 1936: Francesch, p. 20. July 1936: Sakai, p. 7 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no. 20.
  15. ↑ 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.
  16. ↑ The fact that it is stated in the official history of Olympus obviously does not constitute a proof in itself. For example the company Minolta 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).
  17. ↑ Lens no. 1048: example pictured in Francesch, p. 56, in McKeown, p. 747 and in Sugiyama, item 1213. Lens no. 1142: example owned by John Foster and pictured in this page of his website.
  18. ↑ It would be extremely difficult to prove this assertion though, unless the lens registries are still held by the Olympus company.
  19. ↑ 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.
  20. ↑ 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.
  21. ↑ 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.
  22. ↑ 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.
  23. ↑ 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.

Bibliography

Links

General links

In English:

In German:

In Japanese:

In Chinese:

Literature and advertisements

In English:

In Japanese:

Repairs and technical info

In Japanese:


Olympus Classic Cameras
Semi | Semi II | Six | Chrome Six | Flex | Standard | 35 | Ace | Pen | Pen F | FTL | OM-1/2/3/4 | OM-10/20/30/40 | Trip | µ (mju:) | XA
Retrieved from "http://camera-wiki.org/index.php?title=Semi_Olympus&oldid=67404"