The image above is from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 License France, and is thus available for your use under the same terms.
Its author is Rama.
At left is an image of a Beseler Topcon Super D camera. Topcon cameras, made in Japan, were sold at premium prices. Thus, when an earlier camera from Topcon, the RE Super, was the first 35mm SLR to offer through-the-lens metering in 1963, it did not make a big splash on the market. It used a Cadmium Sulfide cell to measure the light, which meant it needed to have batteries to use it, in order to have greater sensitivity to light; one source I encountered claimed that Cadmium Sulfide light sensors displaced Selenium light sensors for exposure metering in cameras in the 1970s, but this example shows that Cadmium Sulfide sensors began to be used earlier, at least at the hight end.
The Alpa 9D, also introduced in 1963 with this feature as well, did not make a big splash in the market either; it was made in Switzerland, after all.
However, when 1964 came along, Pentax brought out their Spotmatic camera, which offered through-the-lens metering at an affordable price, and it very shortly became the biggest selling camera in the U.S., and it remained so for several years. (It required batteries, and also used Cadmium Sulfide cells.)
Initially, the camera was designed to use spot metering, but this was changed to center-weighted metering during the design process, as it was felt spot metering would end up causing some photographers to make mistakes in exposure; but it was too late to change the camera's name when that was done!
Of course, other camera makers noticed the success of the Pentax Spotmatic, and made an effort to compete.
As just one example, in 1966, Minolta came out with the SR T 101 camera, pictured at right, which offered through-the-lens spot metering.
The Canon Pellix, introduced in 1965, which we examined earlier when reviewing the basic components of the SLR camera, had its special feature of a pellicule instead of a normal mirror specifically in order to improve its own through-the-lens metering feature, so it, too, was part of the response to the Pentax Spotmatic.
Later, in 1968, the Mamiya/Sekor 500 DTL and 1000 DTL aimed to offer a major improvement by providing both spot metering and average metering, which the photographer could choose between with a switch on the front of the camera.
The Konica Autoreflex T from 1968 was the first camera to adjust itself to the correct exposure in response to the information from its light meter, rather than simply assisting the photographer in making the adjustment; its metering was neither averaged nor spot metering, but center-weighted. This camera was an early and successful product for its maker, establishing Konica as a serious competitor in the SLR marketplace.
However, I was surprised to learn that it had one characteristic usually associated with cheaper cameras from Eastern Europe. The normal lenses available for the camera, instead of having the usual focal length of 50mm, had slightly longer focal lengths.
According to one web site, the choices offered were an f/1.8 lens with a focal length of 52mm, an f/1.4 lens with a focal length of 57mm, and an f/1.2 lens also with a focal length of 57mm.
The mirror in an SLR demands that lenses have a considerable clearance between the back of the lens and the focal point where the image is formed. This complicates lens design, and thus choosing a slightly longer focal length allows making a higher-quality lens at a lower price.
Perhaps the lens I am thinking of is the f/2 lens with a focal length of 58mm; a Biotar lens made by Carl Zeiss Jena had these specs, and so did a Soviet copy, the original Helios-44 lens. Another example of this was also from Carl Zeiss Jena; the Pancolar lens, with an f/1.4 aperture, for Praktica cameras, had a focal length of 55mm. This lens is something of a rare collector's item, as it was made specifically for the Pentacon Super SLR camera. Later on, though, the f/1.4 Prakticar-B lens managed the standard 50mm focal length.
Looking at the history of the double-Gauss lens, though, I learned that several major camera manufacturers reached f/1.4 either first or at a budget price with a lens having a 58mm focal length. The Nikon Nikkor-S Auto from 1959, the Minolta Auto-Rokkor PF from 1961, and two versions of the Topcon RE Auto-Topcor from 1963.
And as late as 1971, Canon went to 55mm for its f/1.2 FD AL lens, and in 1972, Olympus' G. Zuiko Auto-S also went to 55mm to achieve f/1.2.
For that matter, Pentax offered their Takumar f/1.8 lens with a focal length of 55mm.
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The image above is from Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 License France, and is thus available for your use under the same terms. Its author is Rama. |
When back focus is not an issue, then more impressive apertures can be achieved. In 1961, Canon brought out an f/0.95 lens with a 50mm focal length for use on its rangefinder cameras, such as the Canon 7; a Canon 7 with this lens is pictured at right.
Naturally, some other prestigous camera makers found it necessary to compete. Thus, Leica offered its own 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux-M in 1975, Schneider offered their 50mm f/0.95 Xenon in 1970, and Angénieux Paris offered its 50mm f/0.95 Type M1... ah, but that lens is from 1953 (their patent came through in 1955); apparently, it was originally developed for low-light surveillance, not the commercial phography market; I have not been able to find the date when it was first offered to the public.
As an indication of where the borderline lies, before Canon's f/0.95 lens became available, in 1956 Zunow was offering a 50mm f/1.1 lens, shown at left, to owners of rangefinder cameras... and a 58mm f/1.2 lens for SLRs, as can be seen from the detail, shown below, from the same advertisement in which the image of the lens for rangefinders shown at left appeared.
Later, in 1958, Zunow brought out a 35mm SLR camera of its own, called the Zunowflex, and offered the 58mm f/1.2 lens for that camera. Some accounts of this lens online only mention its availability for Zunow's own SLR, and not its previous availability for the popular Exakta camera and for the even more popular screw mount. This is despite the fact that apparently the Zunowflex camera was extremely rare.
I haven't been able, at the moment, to find out information about earlier lenses from Zunow.
However, I have noted other advertisements from 1956; one in which a 75mm f/1.5 Zeiss Biotar is offered for the Exakta camera, and another in which an Angenieux 50mm f/1.5 lens is offered as an option as the normal lens accompanying the purchase of the camera body.
The image above is from 1956, and shows the detailed design of another f/1.2 lens with 50mm focal length, although it may be for rangefinder cameras rather than SLRs.
But while you could get an f/1.2 lens for an SLR in 1956, it seems like it wasn't until a few years later that the f/1.4 normal lens became something camera manufacturers routinely included as a high-end option. Thus, the advertisement from 1960 shown at left seems to say that Nikon offering an f/1.4 lens for the Nikon F is something new, not only for them, but a first for the industry (even though the lens is noted as having already been in existence for some time; perhaps available only for their rangefinder cameras?):
As it's not clearly visible due to the reduced size of the advertisement, I will note that the two options for a normal lens to come with the camera being offered are a 50mm f/2 lens, or a 58mm f/1.4 lens, so again, at first the f/1.4 lens was difficult enough to make that a slightly longer focal length was initially needed. (Incidentally, while this advertisement is from 1960, it's noted above that the lens was introduced in 1959.)
Also incidentally, the image of the advertisement at left has been retouched so that the lens diagram for Nikon's new f/1.4 lens that appeared in the ad is clearly visible in the reduced image of the advertisement.
Some other camera makers followed Nikon's example within a few years, while others were in no rush. In 1961, Minolta came out with their 58mm f/1.4 Auto Rokkor, and Zeiss came out with the 55mm f/1.4 Planar for the Contarex; in 1962, Konica had their 52mm f/1.4 Hexanon, and Canon had a 58mm f/1.2 Super-Canomatic lens. Pictured at right is a Canonflex RM camera with this lens. And in 1963, Topcon had their 58mm f/1.4 Auto-Topcon.
It wasn't until 1964 that the Asahi Optical Company came out with the first version of the 50mm f/1.4 Super-Takumar lens for their Pentax cameras; the initial version had eight elements, and some consider it a legend (the same is true of the 58mm Auto-Topcon mentioned above), but after a two-year run it was replaced by a version with the more usual complement of seven elements.
Some of these early high-aperture lenses contain glass which includes thorium oxide, and thus they are slightly radioactive.
Lenses with a wide aperture allow more light to reach the film, and thus permit the photographer to take pictures without using flash when indoors. This was what made the Ermanox camera such a useful tool, particularly in the hands of Erich Salomon, as noted at the beginning of these pages.
But wider aperture comes at a cost: a narrower depth of field. Pinhole cameras don't even need a lens at all to take pictures in very bright light; as the aperture increases, better and better lenses are required to bring the light to a focus.
When a lens is stopped down to a narrow aperture, such as f/16, while the lens brings the light passing through that aperture to a sharp focus at one point on the film only for objects at a certain distance from the lens, since the cone of light going from the lens to the film is narrow, objects that are at a somewhat different distance will not be very blurry. As the aperture widens, the depth of the field within which objects are in reasonably good focus on the film becomes narrower.
A narrow depth of field, however, isn't always a drawback. It can be used deliberately, by using the widest possible aperture on your lens, and a faster shutter speed than you really need for the shot you are taking, so that the subject of the photograph is in focus, while the background, which is irrelevant, is blurred.
The appearance of out-of-focus areas in a photograph depends on the construction of the lens. One obvious example of this is mirror lenses; these lenses, based on the Maksutov telescope, but usually with additional optical components, have a central obstruction, so each point in a blurred scene expands into a doughnut with a hole in the middle.
Some lenses have been noted as having a particularly pleasing quality to the blurred areas of photographs taken with them. This is referred to as bokeh, which is derived from boke, a Japanese word simply meaning 'blur' or 'haze'.
One lens with a particularly good reputation for this is a 75mm f/1.5 Biotar from Zeiss. As a result, a Chinese firm, TTArtisan, has recently made a modern lens closely patterned after this lens, which it is able to sell at an affordable price, the original being a rare and sought-after collector's item.
The West German portion of Zeiss, Zeiss Ikon, purchased a majority share in Voigtländer in 1956. But the latter company continued to operate independently until 1965, when its operations were more closely integrated with those of Zeiss Ikon itself.
In 1966, the new integrated company of Zeiss Ikon Voigtländer brought out the Icarex 35 camera, the first of the Icarex line of cameras. Another camera from that line, the Icarex 35 CS, is pictured at left.
These cameras offered a number of professional features, such as a removable pentaprism and interchangeable focusing screens, while still being sold at a price comparable to that of ordinary SLR cameras intended for amateur photographers.
The Icarex cameras originally had a bayonet mount for their lenses which was unique to that line of cameras. Several lenses were made for this mount, including the original 36mm to 82mm f/2.8 Zoomar lens first offered for the Bessamatic from Voigtländer.
However, one complaint about the camera was that there weren't any lenses with a particularly wide aperture available for it. This complaint would eventually be resolved by abandoning the proprietary bayonet mount, and changing newer models of the camera over to the widely used M42 screw mount. But before this was done, Zeiss instead attempted to resolve the issue by addressing it directly.
Thus a 50mm f/1.8 lens was developed for Icarex cameras, which first became available in 1968. This lens was the first lens designed at Zeiss with the aid of calculations performed on a computer.
This lens, the Zeiss Ultron, had one other unusual characteristic: the front surface of the lens, the one facing the subject of the photograph, was concave.
In the very early days of photography, cameras often used simple meniscus lenses, and they could as easily face away from the subject as towards the subject. And mirror lenses, as noted above, are based on the Maksutov telescope, and so they often present a concave surface to the subject.
But aside from those two special cases, the Ultron was very nearly unique in having a concave front surface.
This lens is a highly sought-after and expensive collector's item because it also has a very good reputation for the quality of its bokeh. Unlike the Biotar mentioned above, I'm not aware of any modern attempt to imitate it.
Some other lenses with a great reputation for the quality of their bokeh include:
However, there are many others. The f/1.4 lenses from Canon and Minolta are also mentioned, the seven-element version of the Super Takumar is not far behind - and the Color Ultron is not far behind the one with the concave front, for example.
All the cameras surveyed above from the Pentax Spotmatic to the Mamiya/Sekor 500 DTL and 1000 DTL still required the photographer to manually set the lens aperture and the exposure time; the light meter built into the camera simply was intended to give more accurate information with which to do this.
Later on, cameras gained the ability to automatically set the exposure time, one example of this being the Konica Autoreflex T which we saw above, and then even the lens aperture - which required a change to the lens mount.
And the trend towards improved automation led to such cameras as the Canon AE-1 from 1976, pictured at left. It offered both aperture priority and shutter priority automatic exposure. And this was facilitated by its claim to a place in the record books... it was the first 35mm SLR to include a micdroprocessor within it. But, of course, it would be far from the last.
The year 1977 saw the introduction of the Minolta XD11, pictured at right, sold as the Minolta XD7 in Europe and simply as the Minolta XD in Japan. This camera also included advanced automation features, and was highly praised. It served as the basis for the design of some subsequent Leica reflex cameras, specifically the R4, R5, R6 and R7.
It was the first camera to offer the choice of all three of aperture priority automatic exposure, shutter priority automatic exposure, and manual exposure with metering information available.
It was the last camera from Minolta without autofocus to have a metal body instead of a plastic one. And the focusing screen on the camera was interchangeable.
Speaking of autofocus, in 1985 Minolta came out with the Minolta Maxxum 7000, the first camera in its Maxxum line. It was not the first camera made to include an autofocus capability, but it was the first that placed both the autofocus sensors and the motor used to adjust the focus of the lens within the camera body, so that the cost of lenses would not need to be significantly increased in order to provide autofocus.
This did require a new lens mount; the lens mount introduced with the Maxxum line of cameras continued to be used by SONY when it took over the consumer camera business from what was then Konica Minolta, and is used today in their Alpha line of digital SLRs.
Later in 1985, Minolta went on to add the Minolta Maxxum 9000 to the line-up of Minolta Maxxum cameras with the new autofocus feature; this camera was aimed at professional photographers.
Not too long afterwards, in 1988, Nikon decided that its flagship professional cameras should include autofocus, and so they brought out the Nikon F4, with autofocus, to replace the Nikon F3.
However, back in April 1983, Nikon introduced the Nikon F3AF, so they had been one of the companies with autofocus cameras prior to the introduction of the Maxxum 7000. This camera is illustrated at right in a close-up from a recounting of Nikon's achievements in an advertisement for the later Nikon FG. The TC-16 teleconverter, available from Nikon, allowed several of their non-autofocus lenses to be focused automatically by the Nikon F3AF. So before the Minolta Maxxum 7000, Nikon had found a way to share one autofocusing motor between multiple lenses. A later version, the Nikon TC-16A, was made and it also had this capability.
The electronics for detecting focus was in a finder that could also be placed on existing Nikon F3 cameras to indicate when proper focus was reached to the photographer; the Nikon F3AF was modified by including electrical contacts on the camera body to allow operation of the focusing motor in Nikon AF lenses.
Of course, cameras competed in other attributes as well. The Olympus OM-1 from 1972, pictured at right, was a plain manual camera, but its claim to fame was that it was the smallest and lightest 35mm SLR available.
It did offer other features as well. Some advertisements for it included this cutaway diagram, which illustrated that it had changeable viewfinder screens, and a damping mechanism to reduce noise and camera shake caused by the return of the reflex mirror in the camera.
As well, one of the lenses available for the camera had a unique feature.
Zoom lenses work by having some of the elements within the lens move in order to change the focal length of the lens. Usually, ordinary lenses do not have any moving elements.
But when a lens is designed, it is usually corrected for one particular object distance and image distance. If a lens is corrected for use on objects at infinity, could it be that for close-up photographs, it could have problematic aberrations?
Apparently, this wasn't usually much of an issue. But for the Olympus OM-1, an extreme wide-angle lens with a 24mm focal length was designed with a group of elements that moved relative to the other elements when the lens was focused to address this concern, as pictured above.
A significant 1988 introduction was that of the Olympus Infinity SuperZoom 300. Sold as the AZ-300 in other markets, this camera attempted to bridge the gap between simple point and shoot cameras and SLRs by offering a built-in zoom lens, and a viewfinder with automatic parallax correction. And indeed, cameras like this are now termed "bridge cameras".
This camera won the European Camera of the Year award.
This film camera was the forerunner of what is now a major genre of digital cameras from many manufacturers.