1950 to 1974
The SLR came of age in the 1950s. Early models had a waist-level groundglass viewfinder and a mirror which remained in the taking position, blacking out the viewfinder after an exposure. Winding the film returned the mirror to the viewing position. The innovations which transformed the SLR were the pentaprism eye-level viewfinder, the instant-return mirror that flips briefly up during exposure and immediately returns to the viewing position, and the introduction of the automatic diaphragm, which allows viewing at maximum brightness, only closing to the taking aperture during the exposure.
Introduced in 1959, the Nikon F would become the face of modern photography. By the late 1960s, the transformation of the SLR was complete. ...
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