stephen_w. Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Which camera was the first SLR to be adopted by the pro's en mass? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rick_gerbehy1 Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 There was some good competiton, but Nikon had the edge in the early SLR days. Probably because of the lens quality and choices. There were and still are plenty of Canon, Pentax and Minolta fans out there who will attest to the benefits of their brand. I had a pentax with some pretty good prime lenses, but I eventually picked up a used Ftn and replaced my original Pentax. Later when I reluctantly went to auto focus, I went with Canon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen_w. Posted March 31, 2007 Author Share Posted March 31, 2007 Which came first the Nikon F or the Canon F-1? I'm fairly good at searching, but I'm looking for a discussion. BTW, I've had a Canon 50/1.2 and a Nikkor 50/1.4 and prefer by far the Nikkor, which I still have in Leica thread mount. Although, my first "real" camera was a Nikkormat, I have no prejudice wrt lens makers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 Nikon-F. It was a blessing after the Nikon-S. Truly a modular professional 35mm camera. And when it broke, a person could keep the prism, back and focusing screen and turn the rest in for repair or throw it away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_hutcherson Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 The Nikon F came out in 1959. Canon didn't really have any competition for it until the F-1 came out in 1971. The F-1 really was more like the F-2 than the original F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awahlster Posted March 31, 2007 Share Posted March 31, 2007 The first SLR to be accepted by the Pros was the Exacta, then the Nikon F-1 but not until a couple years after it was introduced since the Pros were slow to switch over from their RF's and Big Folders. Ben is correct the canons of the 60 while being good camera for their day didn't peek the Pro's interest until Canon came out with the F-1 and it's complete system in 1971. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_degroot Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 i READ THE DURING WWII the exacta, being the only 35mm slr was used to take photos thru periscopes ot not only geman sube but americal submarines. this is certainly a "PRO" application I don't know when the firsdt eye-level slr was made. or when a prism finder was made for the exacta. many of the japanese manufactures made dependable slr's but few could be called professional cameras with the durability and reparirability of the Nikons and pro level Canons. others even came faitly close. pentax never really tried hard enough to get into the pro field although they made good cameras and lenses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_hutcherson Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 I'm pretty sure that Contax is credited with inventing the pentaprism sometime in the late '40s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nolefan32 Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 According to Wikipedia, Contax gets credit for the first serialized SLR (there were large-format SLRs prior, dating back to the early years of the 20th century), the S released in 1949. Nikon and Canon (as well as Yashica) didn't release SLRs of their own until a decade later. Though the Nikon F is considered to be quite revolutionary, and probably the clearest forerunner to the SLR systems we have today. I know that through most of the film era, the Nikon F series was considered to be the premiere pro SLR; significantly more pros shot Nikons than they did any other body. Canon remained a clear but distant second until they introduced the EOS autofocus bodies (Nikon lagged behind, believing pros would never be interested in autofocus, program modes, etc.). Nikon did catch back up in sales, but then with the coming of digital, they fell behind Canon again and haven't yet made up that ground again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilkka Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 The question actually says "adopted by pro's en masse". To me that would clearly mean Nikon F. Before that, other types of cameras were primarily used by pros, Rolleixlex TLRs, Leica and Contax rangefinders, even Speed Graphics. Nikon F changed that and gradually moved practically all photojournalists to SLRs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted April 1, 2007 Share Posted April 1, 2007 En mass? Not Exacta. That was just so Lutheran. Not Leica: too Jewish. And I can't think of a single Italian SLR. So what's the answer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wigwam jones Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 "And I can't think of a single Italian SLR" Rectaflex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen_w. Posted April 2, 2007 Author Share Posted April 2, 2007 Rectaflex Scary! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
les Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 Scary indeed...:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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