UNIOP

United Optical & Mechanical Supplies Company Limited is a Themiclesian listed company (stock symbol and also trade name: UNIOP) most known for manufacturing cameras, camcorders, lenses, optical discs and drives, medical equipment, laser sources (including semiconductor manufacturing), and other products involving optics. The company was first incorporated in 1881 as the Bridge Lens Company, specializing in eyeglass lenses, and steadily expanded its business over the 19th and 20th centuries to cover a much wider range of products.

The company, becoming a virtual monopoly, was made to spin-off several of its businesses in the 1970s; at its peak it was the fifth-largest company by capitalization in the L'wats Stock Exchange.

Products

Cameras and lenses

Popular Themiclesian plate formats

UNIOP's foray into the camera business was a secondary development of its position in the lens business, as the camera itself was a relatively uncomplicated implement. The joint development of both camera and lens seems to have resulted in a very dependable working relationship between the two elements of the photographic outfit, such that if the photographer matched the correct lens to the body, there would be few things possible on the camera that would not be supported by the lens.

Portable

In 1899, UNIOP released its first Portable Camera which made the camera bellows fully collapsible between the front and rear standards (which slid into each other), and the bed then folded up behind the rear standard. The lens was easily removed for stowage in a separate lens-case. A handle was added to the rear standard such that when folded, the camera could be carried with one hand. Similarly, a collapsible tripod came with every camera/lens set. The whole ensemble, including tripod, weighed no more than 18 pounds (8.2 kg). The Portable Camera sold over 4,000 units in the first year of its announcement and is considered one of the first mass-market cameras in Themiclesia and beyond. It is associated with the emergent phenomenon of amateur photography when combined with dry-sensitized media on both plate and film.

The Portable was a slow-evolving product that saw most uses by professional photographers once the lighter Hyper Portable was introduced, but it did receive updates in 1910, 1932, and finally in 1948, when it was up-sized to take a double-plate size film at 13 in × 10 in (330 mm × 254 mm). The Portable Camera was replaced by Portable Professional in 1971, which was commonly used for commercial work that demanded the highest quality negatives possible.

Hyper

In 1903, the Portable was joined by the Hyper-Portable which was fully encased in a cushioned wooden box surfaced with leather. The company demonstrated the hardiness of the Hyper-Portable by dropping it from a second-storey window and showing it suffered no damage. More metal components were added to the Hyper-Portable in its second and third iterations to increase its resilience. To make focusing easier, a rangefinder was also introduced with the Hyper-Portable in 1921. Photojournalism, according to Martin Sak, was raised in Themiclesia virtually by the Hyper-Portable—with the rangefinder and flash, it was generally possible to take pictures without asking for the subject to stand still. The Hyper-Port (as marketed since 1925) weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg) with accessories and 6 pounds (2.7 kg) without.

The Hyper-Port was capable of taking photographic film of different sizes based only on its cut film holder. The largest and commonest film that a standard Hyper-Port could take was 8 ¹⁄₂ in × 6 ¹⁄₂ in (216 mm × 165 mm) or "whole plate" size. By adjusting internal guides, the Hyper-Port could take smaller film at 6 ¹⁄₂ in × 4 ³⁄₄ in (165 mm × 121 mm) "half plate" size or 5 in × 4 in (127 mm × 102 mm) "mini" size. By the same mechanism even smaller films could be loaded, but without changing the lens, the resulting photograph would appear very cropped. To use larger film, an adapter that expands the size of the rear standard is needed. Standard back-expansions made by UNIOP supported cut film of up to 12 × 9​¹⁄₂ inch size, which cannot be stowed into the Hyper-Port case and severely reduces the portability of the camera when used.

Two smaller versions of the Hyper-Port were introduced in 1937 that supported film up to 6 ¹⁄₂ in × 4 ³⁄₄ in (165 mm × 121 mm) "half plate" and up to 5 × 4 inch "mini", respectively. The latter model is also known as the Mini 45 and became the standard camera for photojournalists until the 1960s, as the default "full plate" size film became less common in the press post-war but remained standard for portrait and landscape work. The half-plate size model was not as popular as either model larger or smaller than it. By 1948, UNIOP was about to announce that it had shipped its 1,000,000th Portable (the derivatives counted together), with 100 free cameras (valued at $235 each) given away at a large celebretory event.

The Hyper-Portable is also known through its use in war photography and art photography. The Maracaibo government procured 1,000 Hyper-Portables from UNIOP in 1934, many of which went into the hands of war journalists who recorded the details of the ensuing Maracaiboan War in remarkable detail between 1938 and 1945. The Themiclesian government made UNIOP its standard supplier of photographic implements during the war and also ordered thousands of Hyper-Ports for military photographers who were required to document the war in detail.

UNIOP's camera lineup is credited as one of the earlier attempts to create a product ecosystem that combined most elements of photography, from camera, lens, film, development, and mechanical maintenance. Much attention has been spent on prolongation of the useful life and versatility of UNIOP cameras, in the expectation that owners would return to UNIOP to purchase more accessories and consumables over the camera's useful life and thus remain a source of revenues for the company. This is particularly true of the Hyper-Portable series of cameras, which according to UNIOP's estimation had more than 200,000 units in consistent use globally in 1950. UNIOP even made a Toy-Portable in 1948 that shot 135 film in cartridges to entice children who, UNIOP executives believed, would not be able to load cut film reliably, yet the Toy was contrived to have the same external shape and meant to be operated the same way as the Hyper-Portable and not like a typical rangefinder or single-lens reflex camera.

In the 1950s, Hyper-Port sales remained consistent and peaked in 1960. By 1967, a steady decline ensued as improving film quality and enlargement made smaller film formats viable for professional photography. Smaller film allows for a physically smaller and lighter camera, while roll film was easier to manipulate in the field than cut film, which necessitated a separate film holder to change once exposed. In the 1970s and 1980s, UNIOP continued to manufacture Hyper-Ports in limited quantities for outdoor professional work, while the (non-Hyper) Portable remained common for studio work. For 1982, UNIOP announced that the Hyper-Port had sold less than 2,000 units for the first time in the product's history, though accessory sales had stopped declining and became consistent.

Luminax

Luminax originated as an importer of Ostlandic cameras using 135 film but started manufacturing its own cameras in the 1930s. At the start of the war, policy was that seeing the battle as it occurred would allow strategists more insights, and thus the government established a great deal of photographic positions in the military. Luminax undertook to produce small cameras that soldiers could use to document battlefield action and then stow away while they engaged in other work. For this purpose the canister film format of 135 film was considered preferable over the cut film format used by, for example, UNIOP's Portable series, as changing film holders (each of which took two exposures) took more time, and a stash of film holders was bulky compared to a canister of 135 film; the camera itself was also much lighter. For this work, the image quality was not an overriding concern as long as objects remained identifiable.

However, Luminax struggled to produce lenses of sufficient quality on its own and at the quantity required by the government. Up to this point, Luminax was UNIOP's competitor and didn't make cameras compatible with UNIOP optics, but the Board of Trade made efforts to facilitate their co-operation. Taking advantage of government patronage, UNIOP outright purchased Luminax in 1940 and manufactured lenses and other optics for Luminax cameras. By 1945 a Luminax could be found in virtually every platoon in the Consolidated Army. This widespread distribution of cameras seems to have popularized them in Themiclesian society and somehow contributed to the post-war boom in camera sales.

After the war, UNIOP's acquisition of Luminax provided an important advantage for Luminax cameras: they are now sold at ubiquitous UNIOP dealerships and workshops and thus tested in person rather than mail-ordered as was formerly the case. By 1955, Luminax sales left UNIOP cameras in the dust as a standard Luminax ($60) costed less than a fifth of a Hyper Mini ($350) or the standard Hyper ($450), while the quality of the negatives proved acceptable when enlarged modestly to a pocket-sized print. UNIOP manufactured the optical enlargers that further helped the Luminax film become acceptable for press work.

In 1960, Luminax released its first single-lens reflex camera called the Luminax P1.

In 1988, UNIOP divested the Luminax division after Themiclesian courts found UNIOP in breach of the country's anti-monopoly laws. Despite the divestiture, UNIOP continued to be the contracted manufacturer of Luminax lenses, which became the principal component of its camera business because the Portable series, in all its versions, had slowed to a trickle. Perhaps ironically, Luminax would itself run afoul of the same monopoly laws in 2005.

See also

• Themiclesia