09/17/2026
How Leitz got Olympus to rename the M-1, its most audacious SLR ever. It all began with a confrontation over the letter “M” at Photokina 1972!
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The leading Japanese camera and lens manufacturers of the postwar era had a profound respect for German cameras and lenses. Indeed, German companies, particularly Leitz and Zeiss, were worshipped and venerated, and their products were widely imitated. However, during the ‘50s and ‘60s, the Japanese industry steadily evolved from making copies or derivatives of German designs and began producing brilliantly innovative cameras inspired by the Leica and Contax, such as the rangefinder Canons and Nikons.
To give you a sense of how the Japanese regarded the Leica in those days, here’s what Takeshi Mitarai, the influential founder and long-time president of Canon, said at an interview in the U.S. over 50 years ago when asked about how his Canon rangefinder cameras compared with Germany’s best. Mitarai responded calmly, with humility and reverence: “Canon made by man, Leica made by God.” That quote was popularized by the late Bob Schwalberg, the legendary American photojournalist and photographic writer, who used it to showcase the bench-assembled mechanical precision and craftsmanship of his beloved Leica Ms.
The great Olympus M-1 kerfuffle of 1972
Sometime around 1967 or 1968, Yoshihisa Maitani, the renowned chief camera designer at Olympus Camera Co. in Tokyo, initiated a development project to create a tiny, modular, lightweight, professional-caliber 35mm SLR to rival bulky systems like the Nikon F and the Canon F-1. The goal of his team was to create a rugged, reliable, mechanical 35mm SLR system based on a camera about the same size as a rangefinder Leica (yes, he was a Leica fan!). In 1972, he and his team unveiled the camera at the giant Photokina Exposition in Cologne, Germany. They named the entire lineup the “M System,” and dubbed the camera the “M-1.” While not publicly stated at the time, the “M” was evidently intended by the company to honor Maitani.
The Confrontation: To state it politely, E. Leitz Wetzlar took strong exception to this. Translation: they were furious and confronted Olympus at the show! Leica had long established (since 1954) its iconic Leica M rangefinder series and its extensive ecosystem. They felt by naming its new camera the "M-1" and calling it part of the "M-System," Olympus stepped directly on their trademarked turf and created brand confusion—especially since the new Olympus SLR was compact enough to rival a Leica M in size. Had it come to a court case, Olympus could have countered that the Olympus M-1 is a 35mm SLR that bears scant resemblance to any Leica M rangefinder camera and that the letter “M” itself cannot be subject to trademark protection.
The Resolution: Faced with an imminent trademark confrontation with Leica, Olympus quickly backed off rather than engage in a costly and protracted legal battle. Either at the 1972 Photokina show itself, or shortly thereafter during the initial rollout, the Olympus executives decided to “prepend” (a great word!) the letter "O" (for Olympus) to the model designation, instantly transforming the M-1 into the OM-1 and the M-System into the OM-System. Om (or Aum) is also a sound that represents “the primordial vibration and ultimate reality of the universe” according to Hinduism, Buddhism, and other denominations, but whether that contributed to the success of the Olympus OM system is unknown. However, it had a good run. Olympus OM cameras remained in production until 2002, when the last ones, the OM-3Ti and OM-4Ti, were finally phased out, though the OM system was later used by Olympus for its Micro Four Thirds digital cameras.
The Collector’s Legacy: Because the change to OM-1 happened so suddenly after M-1 production had already begun, an estimated 50,000 to 52,000 camera bodies (and some initial matching lenses) rolled off the production lines engraved with the M-1 logo. These original, unmodified M-1 units (engraved M-1 on the top plate) are far less common than the OM-1-engraved version, but not super-rare or stupendously priced as some have claimed. You can snag a clean one in working condition with 50mm f/1.8 lens online for about $300-$500. As for the rangefinder-less Leica M1 aimed at the lab/scientific market, since only about 9,650 units were turned out between 1959 and 1964, they do qualify as rare-ish. A clean chrome Leica M1 body will set you back about $1,000 to $1,500, and a less common factory black one runs about $2,000 to $2,500.
