Olympus FTL

[lesdmess]

Yoshihisa Maitani on a 35mm SLR -> Yoshihisa Maitani lectures

So I told the sales people that I didn't see any gap that needed to be filled, and that there was no need for me to make the camera. They replied that the new camera could be just the same as those made by other manufacturers, but I thought exactly the opposite. I wanted to make something that didn't exist. They said it was fine to make something that was the same as existing products. They even said we could buy it!

Very interesting read if you haven't seen it -> the Olympus OM-1 - the XA Series

Nothing was ever conclusively stated about who actually designed the FTL other than it was not Yoshihisa Maitani.

[conan]

Jun 28, 2015 12:03:28 GMT -5 Stephen said:

Maitani Yoshihisa, the OM designer, stated that the FTL was built by Olympus, but that he did not know who designed it......


As the main company designer, the statement that he did not know who designed it must be treated with some suspicion that he was not going to say to prevent an old argument raising up again. He obviously felt very sore that the company wasted money on the FTL.


I think he was being a little coy and diplomatic with his statements about ‘not knowing’ and then later the design being ‘brought in’. I have always understood and my Japanese correspondent says the same – he was not directly involved but the FTL was an in house design as the management were keen to get into the 35mm SLR market (albeit with a ‘me to’ design) as the future OM1 was taking too long to develop. Apparently the management had another major concern which was the design and manufacturing complexity of the OM1 and the FTL would serve as a development and manufacturing experience stop gap rather than ‘a run before you can walk’ design of the OM1. At this time most Japanese manufacturers had the Zunow ghost in the background and there is no reason to think that the management at Olympus were any different.