Canon Cameras : Canon Digital Camera

Posted By Agus Mardiana

A Canon digital camera is well-known for its high-quality optics, reliability, and ease of use, so it’s not surprising that Canon digital cameras usually dominate the list of best selling cameras worldwide. The name Canon began in 1934 with a prototype for Japan’s first-ever 35 mm camera with a focal plane shutter. It was named ‘Kwanon’ by Goro Yoshida after the Buddhist bodhisattva Guan Yin.

canon kwanon camera logo

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Canon is a diversified company, with operations encompassing image and information processing as well as communication products. The Kwanon was Japan’s first 35mm focal plane shutter camera and featured a lens named ìKasyapaî.

The ad copy read: “The ‘I’ class submarine. The Kwanon camera. The ‘92-Type’ referred to the Japanese Imperial Army’s air-cooled warplane. So Canon’s advertisement linked Japan’s first 35mm camera with top examples of the nation’s technology prowess.

At that time, Japan’s camera industry was outclassed technologically by Germany’s world-leading precision instruments. The top locally made model, the Pearl spring camera, cost 49 yen. A D-model Leica with a 50mm f/3.5 lens was priced at 420 Japanese yen.

This gap prompted Canon to develop inexpensive, high-quality cameras that would equal the best in the world. To help achieve this goal, Canon first established a precision engineering research laboratory. Intensive efforts using the German cameras as models helped Canon researchers accumulate valuable ideas that led to the Kwanon as the nation’s first 35mm focal plane camera, equipped with a range finder.

1930s - 60s

1933 - 1936 : ‘The Kwanon’, Japan’s first 35 mm focal plane-shutter camera, was produced in prototype form.

1940: An indirect X-ray camera, also a first for Japan, is developed.

1947: The company is renamed Canon Camera Co., Inc.

1958: A field zoom lens for television broadcasting is introduced.

1959: The world’s first camcorder with a zoom lens, ‘Relfex Zoom 8′, is introduced.

1961: Canon creates an outstanding Rangefinder camera, the 7, with a 50mm lens with an f/0.95 of apperture. The camera is also decline with a f/1.4 50mm.

1964: ‘Canola 130′, the first Japanese made 10-key calculator is introduced. It was a substantial improvement on the design of the British Bell-Punch company that introduced the first fully electronic calculator two years earlier with the Sumlock Anita Mark 8 unit.

1965: Canon introduce the PELLIX, an SLR camera with a semi-transparent mirror who provide the possibility to take pictures through the mirror.

1969: The company’s name is changed to Canon Inc.

canon digital camera

The following year, the company decided to highlight its objective of modern, high-quality cameras by dropping the ‘Kwanon‘ spelling in favor of ‘Canon’, which means precision in Latin.

When the Company sought to begin full-scale marketing, it needed a brand name that would be accepted by people worldwide. From this standpoint, in 1935 the name Canon was registered as the official trademark. The word Canon has a number of meanings, including scriptures, criterion and standard.

It also embodied the Company’s desire to meet world-class criteria and industry standards. And since Canon and Kwanon had similar pronunciations, the transition went smoothly. The diversification was first embodied in the Kwanon. The Kwanon, is thus the origin of what Canon is today.

canon cameras