Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marc James Small is vindicated! Ken Iisaka wrote:Right after the war ended in 1945, the camera industry in Japan was in > ruins. The few subsequent years were spent on producing products that would > sell so that they can build the capital to do their own R/D. The first 8 > years was indeed spent on producing cameras for the U.S. forces which was > occupying Japan at the time. Japanese camera manufacturers had access to > patents which were seized by the Allied forces, which helped jumpstart the > camera industry. By early 1950's, Japanese companies were manufacturing > respectable products: Nikon S, and a slew of Leica copies. Douglas David > Duncan's reportage of the Korean War using Nikon S graced the pages of Life > magazine, and the superior quality of Nikon lenses made an article on New > York Times. Up to this moment, Japanese camera designers were indeed trying > to catch up with Leica, and even surpass it. However, when M3 was > introduced, Japanese camera manufacturers realised that they simply cannot > compete head-to-head with Leica. Minolta even produced a prototype of > interchangeable rangefinder camera, "Minolta Sky" a few years later, but the > Minolta distributor in the U.S. pursuaded Minolta NOT to produce it. Well, > Nikon and Minolta went the SLR way, and the rest is history. Canon which > continued to produce LTM bodies did not introduce quality SLRs until the > 70s, and took great effort to catch up. > > I have several autobiographical books written by camera designers who worked > in the industry right after the war. If their reverence for Leica has > filtered down to their successors, the last thing they would like to see is > disappearence of Leica. I know my friends who work at these camera > manufacturers concur.