Fuji Photo Film Company was established in 1934 and initially made photographic film for the Japanese domestic market. In the early 1940s, they began producing optical glass for military use and in 1948 they began manufacturing cameras. In 1971, Fuji made its first 35mm SLR camera: the Fujica ST701.
In the early 1970s, the 35mm SLR camera of choice for serious amateur photographers was the Pentax Spotmatic. Other manufacturers produced models that were arguably just as good, but none commercially rivaled Spotmatic’s dominance.
The FujicaST701 had very similar specs to the Spotmatic II, even sharing the same M42 threaded lens mount, but Fuji was ahead of its competitors by being the first company to use blue silicone photocells instead of CdS. Silicon cells were claimed to react much faster and respond to a wider range of light levels than CdS. In fact, all camera manufacturers eventually adopted silicone cells. Also, the ST701 was smaller, lighter, and had a brighter viewfinder than the Spotmatic II.
In 1972, a second Fujica SLR camera was released: the ST801. This offered open aperture metering (via silicone cells), a lens locking system, and seven LED viewfinder indicators instead of a common needle. The open aperture metering (and lens locking system) required a new modified lens mount and ushered in a divergence from the established M42 mount. The claimed benefits of the LED system were the absence of a mechanical mechanism, eliminating meter drift caused by shock or mechanical failure, plus it was better for low-light shooting. While none of these features was an innovation, the ST801 was one of the first cameras to bring all of these features together.
In 1973, the Pentax Spotmatic F was introduced. It was essentially an open-aperture metering variant of the previous Spotmatic, and it also required a new modified lens mount. Fujinon and Pentax lenses are no longer completely interchangeable (a fact that seems to elude many of today’s second-hand photographic equipment sellers). On paper, the ST801 was still a better specified camera.
Meanwhile, Pentax had been working on a new type of automatic exposure system. In 1971 the ES (an improved version of the Electro Spotmatic, which was sold only in Japan) was released. This camera featured open aperture metering with shutter speeds selected automatically, indicated by a pointer in the viewfinder (aperture-priority automatic exposure). In 1973, the ES was updated as the ES II, with an innovative continuous electronic shutter. The ES and ES II ensured that Pentax remained a dominant force in amateur SLR cameras.
In 1974, Fuji introduced a rival to the Pentax ESII: the Fujica ST901. It also featured open aperture metering with automatically selected stepless shutter speeds (aperture-priority autoexposure), but claimed another first in camera design: a digital LED shutter speed indicator in the viewfinder (as seen by first in the calculators and digital watches of the early 70’s). ). Once again, Fujica appeared to be technologically ahead of Pentax.
Sadly, shortly after the introduction of these high-quality cameras, the race between Fujica and Pentax was over and the glory days of both companies were over.
1975 was a year of significant change for Pentax. The company introduced its own lens mount, the K-bayonet (incorporating a lens locking system), along with a new set of short-lived “K” cameras based largely on the Spotmatic format. A year later, Pentax abandoned the Spotmatic body shape and introduced a new range of smaller cameras (the M series), perhaps due to the growing popularity of the Olympus OM-1 (and its variants), which has set new standards. compactness.
The ME was an aperture priority AE camera (no manual override) and the MX was a fully manual camera. Both featured large, glossy scopes (like those found at Fujicas), but neither was groundbreaking. The MX, for example, was little more than a miniature Spotmatic F.
Meanwhile, Fuji stuck with his version of the M42 lens mount and produced another new camera in 1976: the ST601. Like the new Pentax cameras, the design lacked innovation and was essentially a variant of the five-year-old ST701. However, the 600 series camera sold well in the budget end of the SLR market.
Elsewhere in 1976, other companies were gaining prominence. Canon’s AE-1, for example, introduced the first use of microprocessors and steered the future of camera design in a new direction.
Pentax continued to produce insignificant variants of the M-series (mostly minor models after the 1980 ME Super). Fuji similarly and trivially updated its camera range: the ST601 became the ST605 in 1977, the ST605n in 1978, and the ST605 II in 1979. The ST701 became the ST705 in 1977, and then the ST705w in 1978. The ST801 / ST901 were replaced by a minor hybrid, the AZ-1, in 1978. They were all rather boring offerings, but the model range was given a new life in 1980 as the STX series when, as Pentax had previously done, Fuji introduced your own bayonet lens mounting system.
Neither company had more design triumphs that restored their position as market leaders or made their products serious competitors for new market leaders. In the mid-1980s, Fuji withdrew from the 35mm SLR market entirely, while Pentax continued to struggle, but largely became a second-rate brand.