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We are dedicating time, and effort to preserve opto-mechanical design history. This is crucial in our time since most of the information about cameras is being lost. Museums are at least ambivalent about this information. While camera factories are being shut down (Minolta, Konica, and recently Olympus, and next Pentax), cameras have been replaced with mobile phones. Camera design was one of the most challenging tasks in opto-mechanics, and opto-electronics engineering, so it couldn't have been by off the shelf engineers looking for a job. Cameras began with a new vision that was born in the minds of a few extraordinary people. They were sort of born to do it.  Their stories will sadly be forgotten because we don't have much time to capture it.

 

Watchmakers have worked so diligently to preserve their heritage, so today you could find over 100 books on watchmaking. That's not true about cameras. I have written two books on camera design that are available on Amazon, but if you search for "camera design", they won't come up. You should type them by name: "Leica Design 101", or "Restoring the SLR", and then you’ll see them. Camera design is not anyone's interest, period.

 

We could use your help in preserving it: We'd like to know who designed them, who made them, and any other story you'd like to share with us. Behind every product there is a story, and our life stories as inventors, and designers are equally important. Edison's life story, Einstein's, and Tesla's would prove my point. We use the light bulb everyday but it's Tesla's story that also kindles where there is darkness in our hearts.

 

Ali Afshari

info@optomechanix.org

There aren't too many of us left

Explaining camera design to the youth

I learned technical writing by doing. My technical writing teacher used to tell me: "There aren't too many of us left". I told him I had already written a book, and the Cal State library had a copy. Next time he saw me, he said he had read my book. His suggestion was: "Describe your illustrations". Many years of technical writing has led me to draw hundreds of illustrations. I can now see what he meant by there weren't too many of us left. I used to draw the illustrations using jewel point Rapidograph pens on mylar. I used a motorized eraser to correct mistakes. That was the easiest way to take off ink from Mylar.

 

I now use iPad pro to take pictures of mechanisms, then trace them with digital pen. The drawings come out more proportional, and seldom need redoing. I wrote my first book with a typewriter that you had to push No 3 really hard to make it to print. Good old days. I really appreciate all the work that went into creating  ink-drawn technical manuals. Their illustrations can not be replicated with computer drawn illustrations. Just compare old Walt Disney films with those drawn with computer aided graphics. Today's technical illustrations look pale. They lack proper contrast, and you get lost in details that are perfectly drawn but are not comprehensible. Use your old cell phone with plastic buttons once in a while, and you might remember how much easier your life was, having much more free for yourself.

Look for this logo when high level of repair skills are necessary or special tools are needed..

Explaining camera design through the eyes of an Opto-mechanical designer: Olympus Pen-F designed by Youshihisa Maitani's group at Olympus.

Drawings by Ali Afshari, from the book: "Restoring the SLR".

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Download Optomechanix July-Sep 2018

for a brief history of camera design at Olympus, and Pen-FT design