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It was, for the amateur or less demanding professional, when Japan started producing quality fast glass in miniature bodies for less than European counterparts and switched to internationally understandable names that disguised their origin like Olympus, Nikon, Pentax and Canon that the market as we know it was born. Most of these prices are well under $1000 in today's money, compared to the Rolleiflex 2.8 or Leica M series which ran for ~$1500 or more and the Hasselblad which is closer to 4 grand with backs and lenses.
I don't think it's fair to call it fierce competition. The US had diddly dick and euroland, barring the swedes, had nothing but high price high end technology...from the 30s. So, Japan ran train on the market uncontested from the 60s onward and it's hard to call their lockstep movement into new tech and focus on completely different market segments meaningful competition. Nikon was the first to lay their dick on the table and whip out the ruler, Canon was more about fancy rangefinders and kitchen cameras, Olympus went Nanking on compacts thanks to Maitani, and Pentax did all the exotic shit first and rested on their laurels thereafter, occasionally flexing their girth with radioactive lenses or fully mechanical bodies that were smaller than the OM series and had the largest viewfinder in an SLR. Also that whole kamikaze strike on the educational market that's still keeping them afloat. I think that was in response to selling coffee candy to children because adults didn't like the taste. And japs love coffee like filmfags around the world love the k1000.
Where are we now, the 70s? I'll have to find some new ad copy. Things were stagnating and everyone had moved to some kind of bayonet mount still seen today.
