Taking a sober look at the history of photography, there are really only a small number of cameras that can be considered truly revolutionary – the original Kodak box camera obviously and the first Leica 35mm camera. Later, the Contax S, the Nikon F,
Leica again with the M3 and the first Hasselblad 6 x 6cm SLR. And undoubtedly also on this list is the Olympus OM-1. This is the camera that made Olympus into one of the ‘big five’ Japanese camera brands during the 1970s, ‘80s and early ‘90s. It spawned a very successful line of higher-end 35mm SLRs – the OM-2, OM-3 and OM-4 with variations such as the titanium bodied ‘Ti’ models. And, from the original OM-1 and OM-2, Olympus built a range of consumer-level SLRs – OM-10, OM-20, OM-30 and OM-40.
Now that the Olympus brand is no more as far as future cameras and lenses are concerned, it’s very fitting that the last camera to wear the marque – everything will be OM System from now on – also adopts the iconic model number. In terms of what the original OM-1 did for the Olympus brand, the digital-era OM-1 has a lot to live up to, but there’s clearly some of that original DNA in the new camera’s concept and execution, and the sheer
