The "Compact Camera" Reunion

Back in mid-December, while in the middle of my "Compact Camera" series, I wrote a post talking about my photographic roots. Of course, roots about anything for techno-geeks usually involves hardware and in this case, the Konica TC which back in the mid-70's was the object of my teenage photographer lust. In that post, I really only referenced it, but never really got into the discussing that camera and what drew me to it at the time. 

So, let's back up and start more or less from the beginning when pharmacist Rokusaburo Sugiura began selling photographic supplies at his store, the Konishiya Rokube in 1873. Note, that this pre-dates Kodak! Five years later, he gave the original shop to his younger brother and opened a new one called the Konishi Honten in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo. In 1902, Konishi began selling the "Cherry Portable Camera", and later, the Konica I in 1948. So you can see, there's a little bit of history there and not just what most people think of today as a copier company called Konica/Minolta which had exited the photography business in March of 2006. In the intervening years, the Konica name developed quite a reputation for not only their fine cameras, but their Hexanon line of lenses which are generally thought of as top-notch. In their day, comparable to Nikkors, Canons, and Rokkors. 

So, it was in this state of affairs that I became enamored of Konica products. Nikons were just too professional (read expensive), Canons were too clunky, Olympus' too expensive and Minolta's stodgy. I was like the legendary little blond in the bear's house! Really, lenses were a non-issue. They were all good, and I couldn't afford any of them!

And that's were the situation stood in 1976; my freshman year of high school. Looking around at the lower end of all the major player's camera lines was an exercise in frustration, until the launch of the TC. I'm going to bet that the TC stood for Autoreflex "T" Compact. In any case, it had everything I wanted; great roots, impressive family of lenses and accessories, shutter-priority automation. WooHoo!!! What more could a 15 year old aspiring photojournalist want!?! As I've discuss before, I spent the summer of '76 and pretty much all the following year pining for this camera. However, by the time I had earned enough money to earnestly contemplate purchase, the Canon A-1 had come along and as they say; "that's all she wrote". 

 If, that's all she wrote, then why are we even having this discussion? Please humor me on this. Let's start by looking at the above image. Yes, it's a TC; so what? First of all, let me describe it's physical size for you: somewhat larger than the Olympus OM series/Pentax MX/ME which were the smallest of that day, but clearly smaller than it's contemporary, which was often described as "compact" Canon AE-1. Furthermore, as depicted it's fitted with the 40mm/f1.8 "pancake" which as introduced with the later FS-1, this is truly a compact camera. Small enough to fit in a coat pocket, but large enough not to feel awkward in "man-sized" hands!

"Holy Deja Vu" CameraMan! Yup, it's the compact camera rig, before my "compact camera" rig. Yes, yes, I'm aware that there are lots of makers out there during those 30 years between the two camera that made something similar. But the similarities in function, feature set between the two are astounding to me. Until a few days ago when I started reading collector websites about the TC, I had no idea that I had either been completely unaware of, or subconsciously recreated a modern day compact camera in the idiom of my first love. It's a little like those stories you hear about people who go a high school class reunion and rediscover an old flame!