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Comment by michrassena | Hacker News Reader

Definitely the rangefinders were more compact, but they didn't have through-the-lens viewing. What I meant to point out was the progression of smaller-sized SLR bodies and film formats, the Nikon F being a later development on that path, not a first.

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The F didn't really had a "first", it's distinguished by being "the first" to bundle a lot of previous developments in one reliable package.

(The F system did follow the pattern of most contemporaries to design stuff so that it would do what is needed now, with little regard for future developments. That's why Nikon introduced Ai (and then very shortly after that, Ai-s) mount variations, or why Canon had like five variations of the FD mount; almost all companies operated like that, with very few exceptions such as Konica AR)

You are both right. Leica brought compactness as early as the 1910s with 35mm film, but struggled with “long” lenses due to the natural limitation that comes with rangefinders. Then Nikon came along in the 1950s and brought us compact through-the-lens focusing for “long” lenses.

Which one did the professionals end up using? Go on and search the web for some photos of war photographers in Vietnam and see what is hanging around their necks. Spoiler, usually one or two Leica Ms and a Nikon F for the times when you need to keep your distance.

The first Leicas were sold in the mid 1920's. Leitz had to also roll out the infrastructure to support developing 35mm for stills and printing the smaller format.

There was a war on in the teens.

What you're saying starting with Leica, and then "Nikon came along" is at the root of my comments about this article. There are more than 40 years of innovation between the ur-Leica in 1914 and the Nikon F. For a famous example, have a look at the movie "Rear Window" (1954), specifically the still shots of Jimmy Stewart's character using an Exakta with a very long telephoto lens. The SLR made long lenses practical in a compact camera. But Nikon wasn't there first.

The Nikon SLRs picked up a reputation after being used by professional photographers to cover the Vietnam war years after the release of the first Nikon F. Were they professional cameras before professionals started using them?

I have failed to mention the Asahi-Pentax, released in 1957, which had everything the Nikon had two years later. Why is the Nikon F the first professional 35mm camera? What made it special enough to obscure years of camera development?

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