Camera Encyclopedia

As an old Japanese manufacturer of medium format cameras, Makiya was founded by camera designer Seichi Mamiya in May 1940, and created numerous classics in Makiya's historical life.

At the beginning of its establishment, mamia introduced Mimaya 6, a portable camera specially produced for professional photographers, and mamia C330/C220, a dual-lens reflex camera, pushed mamia to another peak. When the domestic photo studio just started, Mamiya RB67 once became the most popular photo studio camera. Because of its reasonable operation design, excellent performance and high cost performance, it was basically necessary to open a photo studio at that time.

I have two cameras, Mamiya RB67 and Mamiya C300. It can be said that the only drawback is that they are too strong. The all-metal design makes the fuselage extremely heavy. Every time I go out to take pictures with my camera, it's like carrying a big bag of bricks. Without a good physique, I really can't keep taking pictures by hand.

As early as 2005, Zhengong released the world's first landmark digital SLR Zhengong ZD. 12 years ago, a medium format CCD element with 22 million pixels and 36*48mm was produced. This camera takes pictures in RAW format, 35Mb. At that time, a memory card could not hold several pictures.

Mamia also tried to enter the field of 135, but failed due to investment mistakes. The development of the times has never given these established manufacturers a chance to stick to the tradition, and fast-food digital technology has accelerated the demise of these professional cameras. In April 2006, Mamiya announced the transfer of all its optical camera business units and its subsidiaries to Case Science System, which subsequently established Case Digital Imaging and renamed it Mimiya Digital Imaging.

It is said that KASI only spent 654.38 billion yen to acquire Mamiya. In the first quarter of 2065.438+06, Mamiya's operating income reached 265.438 billion yen, but Mamiya's debts were also transferred.

20 15 12, Danish medium format company Phase (that is, Freescale, which sells hundreds of thousands on the back) acquired all the shares of Mamiya, making Phase the only medium format camera company that can completely master all the key components by itself.

Yashica

Yashika Company was founded in 1945, formerly known as Bazhou Precision Manufacturing Co., Ltd., mainly producing watches and electrical instruments. 1949 changed its name to Bazhou Seiki Co., Ltd. and began to produce cameras. 1956, the company changed its name to Bazhou glasses industry, and the Estee Card trademark was confirmed. 1958 changed its name to yaska co., ltd., and in the same year, yaska 44 and yaska 35 cameras were launched. 1960, the company introduced the first SLR camera, Yashica Ptatic, 1966 published Yashica electro 35, and began to produce 35mm automatic exposure camera. Jaska's dual-lens reflex camera has a long history. 1953 introduced 6×6cm Estee Card flex, 1958 introduced 4×4cm Estee Card 44, 1970 produced Estee Card mat 124g, which can use 120 and 220 kinds of films by electro-photometry technology.

As early as 1970s, Estee Card cooperated closely with carl zeiss to produce CONTAX RTS SLR cameras, and the CONTAX brand, commonly known as Estee Card CONTAX for short, Y/C, was revived for many years. Since then, it has been producing CONTAX brand cameras.

1983, Kyocera merged with Estee Card, and all the camera business was transferred to Kyocera, and Estee Card gradually faded out of people's sight.

Konica

Speaking of Konica's history, it can be traced back to the last century. Its predecessor was Xiaoxiwu Liu Bingwei Store, which was established in Tokyo 1873. But it was not until 1948 that Konica first appeared as a brand in my 35mm camera Konica.

Besides producing cameras, it is also one of the important manufacturers of photosensitive materials in the world. As early as 1940, the first Japanese color film "Sakura Natural Color Film" was produced. Konica DNP movies, which were once fired to sky-high prices on the Internet, also came from their hands.

1963, konica Auto S came out, which is the world's first 35mm automatic camera with built-in Cds metering system.

1975, Konica introduced the world's first 35mm camera "C35EF" with built-in flash and AE function.

1977, the world's first 35mm small autofocus camera "C35AF" was launched.

Konica once produced SLR cameras, and launched the first SLR camera Konica F at 1960. 1987, Konica announced the discontinuation of SLR cameras.

What's more worth mentioning is Konica's excellent lens. 1928, Konica became the first local lens manufacturing company in Japan, three years earlier than Nikon (Nikon hired eight German technicians to help them design the first Nikon lens in Japan in the 1920s and launched it in 193 1 year). The earliest Konica lens was designed by imitating Tessa and was called Hexar lens. Later, Planar's design was developed and became Hexanon. Because Zhu Yu of Zeiss is in the first place, Konica's lens quality is also quite high, and Hexanon has become synonymous with Konica's professional lens.

In 2003, Konica announced the merger with Minolta to form Konica Minolta.

Minolta

This is a legend, and it may take a whole article to tell it. Let's talk briefly here and talk about it later.

Minolta's predecessor 1928 was founded in Osaka, Japan. Its original name was Ned Portrait Shop, which was founded by Japanese Kazuo Tanaka with the help of Germans Billy Neumann and Willie Heineman. In the second year of its establishment, the first machine "NifcaLette" came out and began to be sold.

193 1 year, the company changed its name to Yi Tian machine and optical instrument joint venture (M achinery and? Musical instrument? O ptica L？ By who? TA shima), which is also the origin of Minolta brand.

Minolta not only has watercress X700 (seven is the lucky number of Minolta, but also sells well every seven days, so the classic models of Minolta are all named after seven, such as X700, XD7, α-7000, DiMAGE 7 and so on. ), but also creatively launched the world's first batch of cameras that really use autofocus. Since then, the camera industry has taken a big step towards modernization.

1995, Minolta RD- 175 camera went on the market, which is a digital camera with 1750,000 pixels and the first digital SLR camera in the world.

After the merger of Minolta and Konica, they put most of their energy into the research and development of digital cameras and launched the classic α series (the predecessor of Dafa α series). However, due to the sluggish market environment and the development of digital cameras, Konica Minolta officially announced its withdrawal from the camera and photography business in 2006 and sold the imaging department to Sony. We know that Sony almost never set foot in camera manufacturing in the film era, but it once became a first-line brand after acquiring the imaging department in Ke Mei.

Sony also continued Minolta's α series and carried it forward.

In the eyes of many people, Minolta is not dead, but continues to develop in another form.