It was the year 1934 when the Kwanon was born , the first prototype camera of the Japanese company that would end up being called Canon . It was the first Japanese 35mm camera with a focal plane shutter. They named her after the Buddhist goddess of mercy. In the upper part of the body of the camera an engraving with the thousand-armed goddess can be seen. The inventor of the Kwanon , and also a co-founder of the company, was called Goro Yoshida (1900-1993). Back then the leading manufacturers of 35mm film cameras were Leica and Contax. There were supposed to be four variants of the Kwanon ; however, none of them ended up seeing the light. The target of the machine was also given a name related to Buddhism, Kasyapa, in commemoration of Mahakashapa, a disciple of the Buddha.
It took another couple of years for the Japanese company to launch its first commercial camera on the market: the Canon Hansa , standard model. It was introduced in February 1936 with an introductory price of 275 yen with a 50mm F / 3.5 Nikkor lens. It is an improved version of the Kwanon. This 35mm focal-plane shutter camera incorporates Nikon technology not only for the lens, but also for the rangefinder optics and focus mount. The viewer was displayed after pressing a button, for which it was called "surprise box".
The brand's first SLR machine, the Canonflex , dates back to 1959 , followed by the Canonet (1961), a highly successful rangefinder camera. Later came other very popular models, such as the Canon F1 , a 1971 SLR , and the Canon AE-1 (1976), the world's first microprocessor-integrated SLR camera. The Canon EOS debuted in 1987, the first SLR camera on the market with autofocus that used a fully electronic mounting system. The move to the digital world came in 1995. The Canon EOS DCS 3It went on sale in July 1995 at a price of 1,980,000 yen; Based on a 1.3 megapixel CCD sensor, it could take continuous shooting at 2.7 fps (frames per second) in 12-frame bursts. The EOS DCS 3 stored photos on a 260MB memory card, which could hold about 189 large images, and was ready to operate in low light.
In 1934, his compatriots at Kodak launched three models: the Baby BROWNIE , which would be on sale until 1941; the SIX-16 BROWNIE Junior ; and the SIX-20 BROWNIE Junior (both available until 1942). It had been more than three decades since Kodak launched its first camera, The BROWNIE Camera , in 1900. For their part, the Leica Germans had their Leica III in their catalog since 1933. In 1934 the Leica 250 debuted , also known as the reporter, which could work with 10-meter rolls of film to achieve 250 exposures without reloading. Combined with a spring motor, the German air forces used it in reconnaissance work.