|
The front view of Pen F. We can see unique
characteristics of this camera. No pentaprism projection on top cover, compact,
and smart. Porroprism finder system avoid the pentaprism
projection on the top of all other SLR's. At first,
Mr. Maitani (engineer who designed Pen series and
OM series and XA series ) thought that if he
adoption the common pentaprism,the camera can not
make use of half format. He decided to abandon the
common pentaprism . He thought it's a important for
Japanese camera to respect oliginarity. Porroprism finder system has two prism and two
mirror. The mirror open horizontally ! 1st prism
and 1st mirror are set at the space which get by
half format. This unique idea made Pen F smart,no
projection on top cover. There was another idea for make Pen F compact.
If Mr. Maitani used conventional focalplane shutter
on Pen F, the width of Pen F was same as 35 mm full
frame cameras. He could not accept this fact. He
thought about a new type shutter instead of
conventional focalplane shutter. For compactness,
He designed new type shutter named Rotary Metal
Focalplane Shutter. This new type shutter saved the
space compare to conventional shutter. But there
was a big plobrem. The speed of the rotary shutter
was very high speed, so the shutter plate could not
stand up to the force of rotation. Many kind of
material were tested as the shutter plate. Titanium
was the last material he accept to use for the
shutter plate. It's thickness was under 0.003mm !
The speed of shutter was 88 feet(27 meters) per
second ! This plobrem was clear only two months
before production. This shutter allows flash synch
at all speed! This photograph is a cut model of Pen F. You can
see the quick return mirror hinged vertically, 1st
prism,2nd mirror,magnifier lens, 2nd prism. Also
you can see the operating mechanism of rotary metal
focalplane shutter and operating mechanism of quick
return mirror equiped in a small space under the
1st prism. |
