The Konica Auto-Reflex - sold as the Autorex on some export markets and introduced in the mid-1960s - is known for one party trick, and it's a remarkable one. It is the only 35mm SLR ever made that lets you switch between full-frame and half-frame shooting mid-roll, at the flick of a switch. It was also Japan's first shutter-priority auto-exposure SLR, with a built-in CdS cell that set the aperture for whatever shutter speed you chose. No needles to match. The camera just did it.
The dates are loose. Sources disagree on whether the camera arrived in 1965 or 1966, with several placing it at 1965 and the production run ending around 1968. What is consistent is that the Auto-Reflex brought with it the second-generation Konica AR mount, which would carry the company's SLR line for more than two decades. The mount has a short 40.5mm flange-back distance, which makes adapting Konica AR lenses to modern mirrorless bodies easy, while it is easy to adapt lenses from other brands to Konica AR Mount bodies.
Mechanically, the Auto-Reflex uses a focal-plane shutter with metal curtains, speeds from 1 to 1/1000 second plus Bulb, and a self-timer that also locks the mirror up to cut vibration. Metering is not through the lens. The CdS cell sits in the body and links to the shutter to drive the aperture. The design cues were carried forward into Konica's long-lived Autoreflex series, of which this is the first and, with its hyphenated name, the odd one out.
A rarer companion model, the Auto-Reflex P (or Autorex P), dropped the metering entirely but kept the full-frame/half-frame switching. A German-market version was sold as the Revue Auto-Reflex.
Owners remember the Auto-Reflex as a solid, capable 1960s SLR that holds its own against the Spotmatics of the world, and then tops them with that format-switching quirk. A modern guide price from Amateur Photographer suggests roughly $40-120 / £125-150.
Known specs, such as they are documented:
- Konica AR mount - first camera to use it
- Shutter: mechanical focal-plane, metal curtains, 1-1/1000 sec + B
- Shutter-priority auto-exposure (first Japanese SLR to offer it)
- Full-frame / half-frame switching mid-roll (unique to this camera)
- Self-timer with mirror lock-up
- Metering: built-in CdS cell, not TTL
The record on this model is thin. No original launch price and no official spec sheet on viewfinder coverage or weight seems to have survived in the usual places.
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