Yoshihisa Maitani was the chief camera designer and managing director of Olympus Optical Co Ltd for many years until his retirement in 1996 .

He designed the Pen series half frame 35mm cameras, the OM SLR system cameras, the XA compact series, the IS non-detachable zoom lense SLR series and the MJU compact camera series.

Born in 1933 in Ohnohara Town, Miho District, Kagawa Prefecture, Shikoku, Japan the third son of a rice wine and soy sauce maker. He displayed a great interest in photography from an early age, making his first pinhole camera at the age of 10. He held 4 camera design patents by the age of 16. At university Maitani used a Leica IIIf, its compact design can be seen to have influenced his later work.

Mr Maitani was somewhat of a cult figure amongst Japanese photography enthusiasts and was often asked to sign their cameras, to aid in this he carried a diamond-point pen which was presented to him by OM factory workers after the introduction of that model.