Greetings, my dear Zuiks/Zuikettes!
Well, I'm back from a totally undeserved Spring Break :-), and am
trying to catch up on some of the recent issues. Here are my
2 looooooong! cents about the Olympus FTL. :-)
Wolfgang Theissen inquired:
>today I saw a nice looking Olympus FTL body. As I never saw any
>before, I scanned the OM archives, but there was only very little.
>Does anyone have more info.?
ClassicVW@xxxxxxx replied:
>The FTL was introduced in 1971 using a 42MM thread mount. 28MM
>to 200MM lenses, made by Olympus. By all accounts it offered
>very conventional features and was a marketing failure.
... and Brian Huber added:
>the FTL was somewhat a bummer of a camera. It had a method to
>eliminate stop-down metering but offered nothing over any
>camera on the market at that time. I don't think it had a
>good reputation as a solid, easy to repair camera. Hardly
>anyone bought it, and for good reason.
I think the above two gentlemen were less than "gentle" with the
poor old FTL. IMHO, the FTL was a superbly well-made body, and
the implementation of full aperture metering on the Praktica/Pentax
M42 screw mount was _very_ innovative though not "the first ever".
(The latter honors belong to Pentacon, who had achieved the same
objective a couple of years earlier, albeit by means of electrical
contacts to transmit the actual lens aperture settings. Olympus's
implementation was purely mechanical -- a far more reliable method
for its day).
As its first full frame SLR, the FTL was significant for Olympus.
Hence, IMHO it's a "must have" for any serious Olympus collector.
Moreover, compared to its competition the FTL acquits itself
rather well: very quiet silky-smooth shutter, very bright VF,
excellent ergonomics (many of those were carried over to the OM-1),
and 6 terrific Zuiko lenses: 28/f3.5, 35/f2.8, 50/f1.4, 50/f1.8,
135/f3.5, and 200/f4, all of which were later remade as OM Zuikos.
One must remember that at the time (early 1970's), M42 was the most
popular lens mount on the market, and had by far the widest and
most comprehensive selection of bodies, lenses, and accessories.
Pentacon (East Germany), King and Wirgin (West Germany), KMZ (USSR),
as well as Pentax, Fuji, Mamiya, Yashica, Ricoh, Chinon, and
Cosina/Vivitar were firmly committed to M42, while almost everyone
else was offering either a separate line of M42 bodies (e.g. Miranda,
Petri, Ihagee/Exa), or at least mount adapters which allowed the use
of M42 lenses on their bayonet bodies (e.g. Canon, Minolta, Konica).
There are several reasons for FTL's market failure and quick demise.
First, the timing was bad, as wider neck bayonet mounts due to their
abilitiy to acommodate much faster lenses were quickly gaining in
popularity. Second, the FTL had too few OEM lenses, and its full
aperture metering system was physically incompatible with _any_ of
its main rivals.
Third, by ommiting an "on camera" DOF preview lever, the FTL was
unable to perform "at shooting aperture" light metering, thus
making the use of the vast pool of aftermarket M42 lenses
unnecessarily difficult. Lastly, Olympus had a far more daring
OM-1 project waiting in the wings, and so the company quickly
mothballed the FTL to focus the spotlight and all its PR on the
new OM line.
There is also a lingering suspicion that the FTL's were outsourced,
wereas the OM's which had no direct competition, were manufactured
by Olympus at its own factories, hence being potentially far more
profitable, as well as far more important to the company's future.
This is an Olympus pattern familiar to every Zuik/Zuikette on this
list: the company is a fierce competitor, and a SURVIVOR.
IMHO, the FTL is an emminently enjoyable camera to use (and the
noted UK photographer and camera collector, Ivor Matanle, in his
popular book on SLR collecting -- agrees with me :-)). I own a
fairly complete outfit: several FTL bodies, all 6 lenses, and a
few accessories (as well as quite a bit of surplus FTL gear, so pls
feel free to inquire off-list :-)). The camera has a pleasantly
solid feel without being too heavy, the all-metal SC lenses are
very sharp and contasty, and the center-weighted dual CdS meter
is accurate. The camera requires a single PX625 Hg battery.
One obvious caveat is the limited lens range: 28mm to 200mm. One
way around it is adapting the much more comprehensive EBC Fujinon
and Mamiya-Sekor SX offerings whose meter couplings are similar but
not identical to those of the FTL, to match the latter. I haven't
attempted such conversions. Another possibility is to perform a
similar surgery on the respective Tamron Adaptall-2 rings which were
available for both Fujica ST and Mamiya DSX/MSX, but not for FTL :-(.
Finally, someone brought up the question of the FTL maintainability.
While I concur that the FTL spare parts are scarce to unavailable,
I had no trouble repairing these cameras locally, here in LA, and
not one repair person ever complained or tried to charge me extra.
Apparently, the FTL's are not as much trouble to fix, despite their
alleged internal complexity. Once fixed, my FTL's seem to hold up
just fine.
For Olympus collectors: it's unclear how many FTL's were made. My
own sightings indicate body serial numbers from 125xxx to 150xxx,
and evidence of at least two slightly different body variations.
OTOH, the lenses are clearly Olympus-made, and their serial numbers
appear to start with 100001 and up. The highest numbered 50/f1.8
standard lens I've seen is 128xxx, and since the FTL was sold with
such a lens, we should assume at least 30,000 FTL's produced.
The other 5 lenses are much more scarce, and I wouldn't be surprised
if no more than 10,000-15,000 of each were made. I'd appreciate it
if any Zuik/Zuikette with access to FTL gear would kindly forward
to me the serial number information (off-list, pls!), so a better
assessment could be made re: the FTL total production volume. TIA.
Cheers,
/Gary Schloss.
Studio City, CA
schloss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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