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Just curious when camera companies started making kit lenses. They often get a bad rap--some good, some not.
When I bought my Nikon F2 back in the day, you always purchased a camera body and lens separately. Maybe a store would bundle a 50mm lens with a camera but that was it.
That was what I was going to say. Back in the day the "kit", if there was one, was with a 50mm "normal" lens. I don't believe they were packaged by the manufacturer as a "kit" but many of the retail shops offered their own version of a kit with a 50mm lens and usually some other goodies like a bag, specials on processing, and coupons for extras. The kits that are out there now I really don't remember until DSLR prices became more consumer friendly and those kits are part of the reason that happened...
Nikon's first kit lenses probably were the Series E 50 from 1979 and the Series E 36-72 from 1981. They were bundled with the EM. Before that I never saw a large box for both body and lens in one package.
Olympus had a 50/1.8 bundle for the OM series in the same time frame. It was probably part of marketing for the OM-10.
I can't remember any other factory bundles before the digital era.
That may have been a few years before I worked for a photo shop I don't remember the kits for either of those cameras (and we sold both) but I am sure that I could have forgotten. I do remember folks asking why an SLR didn't come with a lens and our having to explain that certain folks preferred one lens over another and some had more than one body...
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