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Who’s on first? With apologies to Abbott and Costello, in relation to autofocus SLRs, it will get slightly convoluted – for the corporate that was first, was additionally the corporate that was final.
Ernst Leitz Company (now recognized merely as Leica) had been quietly engaged on autofocus know-how for the reason that late Nineteen Fifties, and acquired its first patent in 1960.
At the 1976 Photokina, it made the world’s first demonstration of a working autofocus system constructed right into a Leicaflex SL2 physique. At that stage, it was extra of a spotlight affirmation system; the photographer targeted manually, whereas watching two LEDs seen within the high of the finder. Both have been lit when in good focus.
Leica confirmed improved variations on the 1978 Photokina and an extra improved one on the Minneapolis conference of the Leica Historical Association of America (now often known as the International Leica Society) in 1980. This iteration was constructed right into a Leica R4-Mot physique and had a servo-motor-driven Summilux lens, for true autofocus.
Despite its improvements, nonetheless, Leica by no means commercialized its Correfot system. It appears that Leica considered itself as catering to expert photographers who most popular handbook focusing.
It believed that the early AF mechanisms compromised the “precise focusing” made doable by the famend lens mounts (correct to 1/100mm). And at that stage of autofocus growth, it might have been proper.
It’s not clear if Leitz bought or just gave its patents to Minolta, below a technical cooperation settlement between the 2 companies that ran from 1972 to 1997. Either manner, Leica didn’t deliver out an autofocus SLR till its medium format S2 in 2008.
While the Konica C35 AF of 1977 was the very first AF camera (using patents licensed from Honeywell), it was Leica’s Correfot technology that enabled Minolta to build the first truly successful SLR with autofocus in 1985.
It was sold as the Minolta 7000 AF in most of the world, and as the Minolta Maxxum in North America.
Curiously, the Maxxum 7000 was considered “advanced” because it placed the focus motor in the camera body. Earlier efforts by Leica, Pentax and others all used motors built into or attached to the lenses, making them both heavy and bulky (for example, the Pentax ME-F of 1981).
Ironically, the best modern AF cameras now have the motors built into the lenses – but then these newer motors are much, much smaller.
The Maxxum 7000 was the first 35mm with automated film handling, as it loaded the film, sensed the film speed, advanced the film and then rewound it, all under motor control. Power was supplied by four AAA batteries housed in the large grip.
The Maxxum 7000 was also the first SLR to have the body made entirely of plastic. The 7000’s body is light, but doesn’t feel cheap – its tough, almost unbreakable ABS gives it the advantage of reduced weight while avoiding any feel of flimsiness.
Over 40 years on, though, that old ABS plastic can turn yellow from UV exposure. The result is that Minolta’s white often appears beige.
The Maxxum 7000 was also the first camera to use Minolta’s new, larger A-mount, as its earlier SR/MC/MD mounts could not handle the needs of AF. This mount was used on Sony’s A-mount cameras produced between 2006 and 2020, and many of the old Minolta A-mount lenses will still work on them.
In 1987, Honeywell sued Minolta claiming that the Maxxum autofocus system infringed Honeywell’s patents. Though mostly based on the Leica patents, in 1992 a jury found that Minolta had infringed on two of the Honeywell patents and awarded some $96 million in damages. Minolta also received a license to continue to use the Honeywell technology.
That crippling financial blow was one of the reasons that eventually led to Minolta merging with Konica in 2003.
In 2004, the new Konica-Minolta company introduced its Maxxum 5D and 7D cameras (sold as the “Dynax” outside the USA and the “A-7” in Japan), the first SLRs with sensor-shifting in-body image stabilization (IBIS), which it called “anti-shake.”
This had the advantage that the purchaser bought the system once, with the body, rather than re-buying the IS system with each lens.
Pentax would follow suit in 2006 and Olympus in 2007. All three firms adopted the IBIS system, in part because they had the engineering knowhow – but to a greater degree because they did not have any image-stabilized lenses and thus had no reason not to.
However, the 5D and 7D were the only DSLRs to bear the Konica-Minolta name before it sold the camera business to Sony and left the industry in 2006.
Read more of David Young’s ongoing series on classic cameras, as well as his book A Brief History of Photography.
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Take a look at the best Leica cameras and the best Sony cameras today.
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