Post by paulatukcamera on Mar 29, 2006 15:33:39 GMT -5
This all started when the post arrived this morning with a collection of old Amateur Photographers.
In one of them I found a description & photo of a Canon camera. I have just spent a fruitless hour trying to find more details of it. I can find none (if you can, please post here!) - no not even in the Canon Museum.
I won't publish a picture till later. Why? Simply because I want you to read this first without a visual prompt.
When was the first Autofocus camera produced? You will all answer 1978 - the Konica C35AF, first of several compacts that were to use the Honeywell autofocus module.
So there were a few protypes knocking around possibly for a few years before when Honeywell dreamt up & productionised the module.
So I was dumbfounded to read this:
"We have found one real novelty in the Canon Autofocus which sets the focussing automatically by means of an electric motor, on any selected object. "
"However in essence a second lens (75mm F2) forms an image of the subject which falls on a semiconductor element, like the cadmium sulphide cells in super sensitive exposure meters. If one has two or more cells in this image area, or if one cell moves into different positions, then comparative readings are obtained.
When the selected portion of the subject is sharply focused the difference between the readings is at its highest"
"All one needs is to arrange lens movement by an electric motor so it stops at point of maximum difference"
It uses a rectangle that "is just fitted over over the face of the subject" "The first or gentle pressure makes the camera focus - one hears the motor whirr - and the second (continued harder) pressure releases the shutter."
I won't go on, but you get the message. This is an AF camera that works and follows the correct method that has now gained ascendancy (rather than Infra-red)
Care to guess the date?
Go on - try!
Announced in a Photokina report 10th April 1963!
Now the second revalation. Wading through every page I could find on "worlds first autofocus camera" in Google turned up this article:
www.contaxcameras.co.uk/history.asp
An interesting read I grant you and at the end:
"The pressure was building over a long period of time for Yashica and Carl Zeiss to enter the Auto Focus business. Yashica was prepared to do this and showed a prototype at Photokina in 1982. This prototype was based upon the Contax 137 series of camera bodies and had an in-board motor drive coupling which mated to the installed Carl Zeiss 50mm fl.4 lens. This camera design, changed very little, eventually did appear on the market as the Minolta Maxxam 7000. There was resistance from Carl Zeiss to embrace autofocus technology because it was felt that the lenses would have to be made from lighter materials such as plastic. "
So collectors of Yashica can proudly add Worlds First AF SLR design!
Well and truly wandering now. Will stop!
Paul
In one of them I found a description & photo of a Canon camera. I have just spent a fruitless hour trying to find more details of it. I can find none (if you can, please post here!) - no not even in the Canon Museum.
I won't publish a picture till later. Why? Simply because I want you to read this first without a visual prompt.
When was the first Autofocus camera produced? You will all answer 1978 - the Konica C35AF, first of several compacts that were to use the Honeywell autofocus module.
So there were a few protypes knocking around possibly for a few years before when Honeywell dreamt up & productionised the module.
So I was dumbfounded to read this:
"We have found one real novelty in the Canon Autofocus which sets the focussing automatically by means of an electric motor, on any selected object. "
"However in essence a second lens (75mm F2) forms an image of the subject which falls on a semiconductor element, like the cadmium sulphide cells in super sensitive exposure meters. If one has two or more cells in this image area, or if one cell moves into different positions, then comparative readings are obtained.
When the selected portion of the subject is sharply focused the difference between the readings is at its highest"
"All one needs is to arrange lens movement by an electric motor so it stops at point of maximum difference"
It uses a rectangle that "is just fitted over over the face of the subject" "The first or gentle pressure makes the camera focus - one hears the motor whirr - and the second (continued harder) pressure releases the shutter."
I won't go on, but you get the message. This is an AF camera that works and follows the correct method that has now gained ascendancy (rather than Infra-red)
Care to guess the date?
Go on - try!
Announced in a Photokina report 10th April 1963!
Now the second revalation. Wading through every page I could find on "worlds first autofocus camera" in Google turned up this article:
www.contaxcameras.co.uk/history.asp
An interesting read I grant you and at the end:
"The pressure was building over a long period of time for Yashica and Carl Zeiss to enter the Auto Focus business. Yashica was prepared to do this and showed a prototype at Photokina in 1982. This prototype was based upon the Contax 137 series of camera bodies and had an in-board motor drive coupling which mated to the installed Carl Zeiss 50mm fl.4 lens. This camera design, changed very little, eventually did appear on the market as the Minolta Maxxam 7000. There was resistance from Carl Zeiss to embrace autofocus technology because it was felt that the lenses would have to be made from lighter materials such as plastic. "
So collectors of Yashica can proudly add Worlds First AF SLR design!
Well and truly wandering now. Will stop!
Paul
