Konan
Konan is a Japanese company, which developed various camera projects taken over by other manufacturers.
Kōnan Camera Kenkyūjo (甲南カメラ研究所, meaning Konan Camera Research Institute) was founded in 1947 by Nishimura Gakan (西村雅貫) and an associate.[1] In the late 1940s, it tested the Mica Automat subminiature camera for 16mm film cartridges. An evolution of this camera was released in 1950 as the Konan-16 Automat, which was taken over by Chiyoda (predecessor of Minolta) and would later become the Minolta 16. In 1951 the company was incorporated as K.K. Kōnan Camera Kenkyūjo (㈱甲南カメラ研究所).
It continued to make camera designs, and claims to have developed the Single-8 movie film cartridge in 1959.[1] (It is usually thought that this was introduced by Fuji in 1965.)[2] In 1958–59, Takahama Sachi (高浜祥), one of the company's engineers, designed the internals of the Future 127 auto-exposure prototype camera for Yashica.
The company later concentrated on industrial, scientific or medical applications. It changed its name to K.K. Kōnan (㈱コーナン) in 1992, and merged within its trading department in 2001, becoming K.K. Kōnan Medical (㈱コーナン・メディカル). The company currently still exists under that name (2009).
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Konan history in English and in Japanese in the official website.
- ↑ Wikipedia page about Single-8.
Links
In English:
- Konan history in English and in Japanese in the Konan Medical official website (important source for this page)
- Konan at subclub
