Camerapedia

This site is a free-content encyclopedia of camera information, a repository of information about all still camera brands and models. To learn more about this project, read the About Camerapedia.org page.

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The company was founded in 1933 with the name Seiki Kōgaku Kenkyūjo (or Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory) by the co-founder Yoshida Gorō and his brother-in-law Uchida Saburō, funded by Mitarai Takeshi, a close friend of Uchida. Its original purpose was to research into the development of quality cameras. In June 1934 they released their first camera, the Kwanon (pronounced kannon), named after the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy of the same name. The following year the camera's name was changed to the less overtly religious Canon (pronounced kyanon). The company changed its name to Canon Camera in 1947, and to Canon in 1969.

The company was founded in 1917 as Nippon Kōgaku Kōgyō K.K. with the merger of two Japanese optical firms with military connections. The company's first camera lenses were designed in the 1920s by Heinrich Acht, who was invited with a team of German engineers. After the departure of Acht, the lens design department was taken over by Sunayama Kakuya. The first lens mounted on a camera for civil use was the Anytar 12cm f/4.5 made in the early 1930s, renamed Nikkor in 1932.