Canon Corporation is a world-known manufacturer of office equipment ranging from printers and fax machines to scanners and copying machines.

The amount of photographic equipment produced by Canon is rather moderate in comparison to their other products. But it is in demand around the world. Don’t forget that it is the photographic cameras that the company began its business with.

As early as in 1933 Goro Yoshida and his brother-in-law, Sabura, founded the Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory in Tokyo. Their goal was to create a Japanese camera and make it known throughout the world. To begin with, the young people bought up and examined most advanced German models of that day. The enterprise was sponsored by Takeshi Mitarai, best friend of Uchida, a prosperous doctor, who later became president of the company.

In the following year, 1934, Japan's first domestically-made 35mm focal-plane shutter camera “was born” and was named "Kwanon" - after the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy. The trademark Canon was registered a year later.

The first consumer model Hansa Canon appeared in 1937 and the le...   More About Canon Cameras