Konica SLR

From Silvergrain Labs

A Short History of the Konica SLR

The first Konica 35mm SLR is the Konica F in 1960. This had a vertical running metal curtain shutter called "Hi-Synchro" which gave the top speed of 1/2000 with the X-sync at 1/125. This was an amazing shutter at that time, considering that, the fastest speed of professional SLR's was 1/1000 until 1970s.

However, since this shutter unit was not easy to fabricate, and obviously, so outstanding in the specification, nobody followed Konica.[Konica spent seven years for the development of the shutter (started in 1953), and five years for the camera body (started in 1955).]

Incidentally, a Japanese individual inventor came up with a design of a shutter assembly around 1957. He was trying to sell the idea to many companies. Mamiya was interested in the design and they researched on the design for two years. However, Mamiya gave up producing it and the president felt so sorry that he introduced the idea to Copal. The inventor's design was fully developed by Copal research with the financial support from Konishiroku [Konica] and Mamiya. In addition, both Konishiroku [Konica] and Mamiya disclosed their achievement in their shutter designs to Copal to finish very sophisticated Copal Square Shutter unit, and in fact, the design of Konica Hi-Synchro shutter of 1953-60 strongly influenced the Copal design. Later, Asahi Kogaku [Pentax] joined the alliance.

In 1961, the first Copal Square I completed. At this time, only Mamiya, Konica and Pentax could use the Copal shutter. However, Mamiya manufactured the Nikorex F (instead of Nikon), so this camera happened to be the first model equipped with this shutter.

In 1965, Copal Square S completed. This is the most famous and prominent Copal mechanical shutter unit, later used in variety of models. In this year, Konica made Auto Reflex with this unit.

The Konica Auto Reflex is famous for its capability to switch between full and half frame midroll. This camera also had the lock needle shutter priority auto exposure mode. The camera is equipped with a light meter which displays the proper F stop corresponding to the current shutter speed. This consists of CdS photoresistor cells (light sensor whose resistance varies with light intensity) and moving coil (needle) meter. As the name implies, when you press the shutter button halfway, the needle is mechanically locked and a stepped "ladder" sensor plate reads the needle deflection, which is transmitted to the aperture diaphragm control pin of the lens through arms and the ring under the lens mount.

The lock needle automation became common among many SLR's and rangefinders around 1970 but was very advanced for the time Auto Reflex appeared. This configuration requires a rather long shutter button stroke. Some people hate it and others love it. However, the stroke had been continuously improved so that every new Konica model had shorter stroke compared to the earlier one.

After this time, the availability of the Copal unit was not limited to those three companies. Therefore, the Copal S was used in Nikkormat FT, Sigma Mark-1, Ricohflex TLS401, Singlex TLS, Exacta Twin TL, Cosina Hi-Lite, among many others.

Konica released the Autoreflex T around 1967. The half frame function is dropped, but this is more sophisticated overall from the previous Auto Reflex. The T had open aperture TTL metering (which I think is first introduced by this model) along with the lock needle automation with improved (shorter) shutter release button stroke.

Copal kept introducing new shutter units that include:

   * Copal SE (electrically controlled, 1968) used in Canon EF, Yashica TL Electro, Yashica AX, Nikkormat EL, etc.
   * CLS (Copal-Leitz Shutter, 1972) used in Minolta XE, Leica R3
   * CCS-M (1974) used in Nikon FM, Konica ACOM-1

Also, a metal focal plane shutter unit was developed by Seiko-sha in 1974, which was used in Pentax K2, etc.

The Copal S shutter of 1965 was used or copied by many models. Still in the late 90's there are several SLR's in production that use Copal S and their copies. Furthermore, many cameras from 60's that use this shutter don't yet lose the accuracy. This unit has a timing device ranging from bulb, 1 sec to 1/1000 with X-sync of 1/125. This was one of the top spec at that time but still very usable, popular spec for a mechanical camera today.

Thus, Konishiroku or Konica created several true landmarks in the history of the SLR cameras and the role Konica played in early SLR models was so important that today's cameras might not be as good without their achievement. Also, Konica had experimented, in their downsized automated rangefinder cameras in the 70's, and infrared active autofocus cameras to follow, basic technologies used in point and shoot cameras today, although I omitted this discussion in this article.

Another landmark Konica created later was the FS-1 which was the first to have built-in motor winder. This model lacked the film advance lever, and changed the body contour considerably, resulting in a blank period until others followd similar design change.

Today, Konica has long ceased to produce fine SLR cameras despite their huge technological (but not commercial) achievement. What we see is the transistion in 50 years from metal parts to plastic parts, and from the excellence of individual inventors and engineers to gross nonsense hypes of marketing bozos. Uneducated consumers now have more money, and camera manufacturers are not an exception in chasing their money. Signing on the design team of Konica Hexar models is said to be a huge reward to those most skilled engineers who have enjoyed working hard since the early days of SLRs. (Thus top quality, well thought, well executed camera at 1/2 price of the competitors. This is another one of their marketing failure; they should've doubled the price of the competitors, at least in the north America market. See how Mamiya America Corporation doubles the price of their products from the rest of the world and still have good sales.)

Note: Konishiroku is the name of the company; Konica is the brand name. This company was founded in 1873. Their business began mainly in manufacturing of photosensitive materials and chemicals. This is predating Eastman Kodak, and the same year as AGFA, which was shortened from Aktien-Gesellschaft fur Anilinfabrikation of 1867. Konishiroku then shifted into photographic lenses and cameras within a few years. The most visible achievement was lead by the government policy of converting military industry to civilian commercialization after WWII.

Other company - brand pairs are Nippon Kogaku -- Nikon, Asahi Kogaku -- Pentax, etc.

Thanks to: for his postings in the newsgroup fj.rec.photo (all discussion in Japanese).