Tightwad's Trailblazer: The Taron Marquis

Battery powered exposure metering is something that the vast majority of today's photographer's take largely for granted.  Today's sophisticated systems can do matrix metering, spot metering, and often include older standards such a "center-weighted" and "evaluative" as well.  Simply put, there is often little need for one to give much thought to exposure when armed with a camera, and can elect to concentrate more on composition and or focus in taking photos.

But this wasn't always the case.  One need only go back to the early 1960's to find a very different world photographically.  In-camera meters were themselves hardly universal, and those cameras that did offer metering typically did so via selenium cells that had a somewhat limited life expectancy and didn't really function adequately in lower light situations.

Interestingly enough, the advent of "CDS" cell metering powered by a battery didn't start with a well known name in photography today such as Nikon or Canon or Fuji, but rather a lesser known Japanese maker by the name of Taron.  Their release of the Marquis in 1962 was a significant leap for photography, and one whose effects are all too well known today, even if their own significance regarding this milestone has since been forgotten.

There are a number of Japanese camera makers of the 1950's and 1960's that were unable to adapt as global marketplaces and the camera industry changed through the decades.  Aires, Samoca, Petri and Taron are four such makers.  Taron's specialty was in 35mm rangefinders, and offered models such as the JL, MX, Unique, Robin, and EyeMax.  None of these other models were quite as groundbreaking as the Marquis however, whose CDS equipped body was the first such camera in the world.