Koni Omega Rapid M

by Karen Nakamura

Overview and Personal Comments

The Koni-Omega Rapid M is a gigantic medium format (120/220 film) rangefinder with interchangeable backs and lenses. For a while in the 1970s and 1980s, it was the wedding camera because of its leaf shutter and sharp optics, almost supplanting the much more expensive Hasselblad 500/501 series. The KO's only rival as a medium-format street camera is the Pentax 67 which has a focal plane shutter with its positives (faster maximum speed) and negatives (apallingly bad 1/30 second flash sync). Using the text or images on this website without permission on an ebay auction or any other site is a violation of federal law and your ebay terms of service.

The KO was designed, however, as a press camera. The "Rapid" in its name comes from the rapid bolt-action shutter/winder on the bottom right side of the camera. It sounds, feels, and looks like cocking/loading a round into an automatic pistol. You pull out the bolt action, slam it back in with a loud 'GATCHAN' sound. Quite cool. Just the thing to impress every bride's mom.

The Rapid M is amazingly well designed. It's heavy as a brick, but the rangefinder is clear. There are numerous safety interlocks. You can't remove the back without the darkslide. You can't take a picture with the darkslide. You can't remove the lens without the darkslide. There's a "ready" indicator on the backs to indicate shutter cocked and film ready. You can easily make multiple exposures by recocking the shutter manually, but unlike the Mamiya RB67 it's hard to make them accidentally. It even has a darkslide holder on the back, unlike my RB67 (!&#&@!).* Using the text or images on this website without permission on an ebay auction or any other site is a violation of federal law and your ebay terms of service.

*OK, the RB 67 Pro SD back has a darkslide holder. But not the original Pro or Pro S.

Interesting quirks

There are a couple of cameras that have a bizarro, powerful fan following: The Pentax Spotmatic, Leica M3, Olympus Pen, etc. These fans will swear that their camera is the ultimate creation of humankind and no digital wondercam will ever replace it. The KO Rapids have that kind of following (see the links to the fan websites below). Using the text or images on this website without permission on an ebay auction or any other site is a violation of federal law and your ebay terms of service.

But in the end, I ended selling my KO Rapid M. In the field, it was easier to bring a 35mm rangefinder, and in the studio it was better to use the Mamiya RB67 or Hasselblad 500cm. I'm sad about it leaving, but it seems to have gone to a very good home. Good luck Ed with your portrait project!

The backs are larger and more complex than the equivalent Mamiya RB backs. The dark slide fits forward of the back and the rapid bolt-action takes up space. This makes the back both longer and thicker than the RB. Compare the two below. Unfortunately, the Koni-Omega cannot take Polaroid backs unlike the Hasseblad 501 or Mamiya RB series.

[KO back on left; Mamiya RB 67 back on right]

Someone asked me by e-mail if the Koni was good for food photography (photographs of food items, such as at a restaurant). This is what I wrote back:

Rangefinders aren't the best for close-up photography. For your purposes, what you really want is a Mamiya RB67. I have a system that I use for my close-up photos. The reason why you want a SLR and the RB67 in particular is because you need the close-up what-you-see-is-what-you-get parallax free imaging as well as the greater bellows extension of the RB unit.
Most food photographers that I know seem to use either RBs, RZs (the advanced version of the RZ), Hasselblads, or large format view cameras. Having a leaf shutter is handy because much of the time you are using studio strobes and want to minimize the effect of external light sources.

The KO is really for press photography (candids, street photography) and portraiture (weddings, etc.). That's where the system really excels.

I don't have many Koni-Omega sample photos to share with you, but here is one of them taken at my college's annual Scottish Fair. The Koni's Hexanon 90mm is famous for being bitingly sharp with creamy "bokeh" (out of focus areas). This sample shows it well, especially at 13"x17" size.

Technical Details

About Konica

Konica is Japan's oldest camera manufacturer. It was founded in 1873 as the Konishi-ya and it sold photographic supplies. It was renamed the Konishi-honten in 1876. In 1902, they built their own factory called the Rokuoh-sha. The company was reorganized in 1921 and called the Konishiroku Honten.

In 1936 they incorporated as the K.K. Konishiroku, then in 1943 they became Konishiroku Shashin Kogyo K.K.. In 1944 they merged with Showa Photo Industries.

The first Konica brand camera was the Konica I which came out in 1948. It was a coupled-rangefinder 35mm camera with a 50mm f/3.5 non-interchangeable-lens.

Konica's heyday as a camera manufacturer was during the period 1950-1970s when it came out with quite a few 35mm rangefinder cameras and their own line of 35mm SLRs. Wedding photographers in the 1970s fondly remember the Koni-Omega. However, despite electronic SLRs such as the FS-1 and FT-1, Konica did not successfully make the step up to auto-exposure, auto-focus SLRs in the 1980s. In the last two decades of the 20th century, they were reduced to mainly making point-and-shoots (the Hexar and Hexar RF were the two exceptions).

In Japan, Konica is famous as a film manufacturer. They started making film in 1929. However, most of their films were not exported or extensively marketted outside of Japan.

In 2002, they merged with Minolta and became the Konica-Minolta Corporation.

On the Net: