Canon (company)
- This article is about the camera company. For other uses, refer to the disambiguation page.
| Established | 12 january 1990 at 14:59 PM |
|---|---|
| Founder(s) | Fujio Yoshida |
| Headquarters | Hiroshima, Japan |
| Products | Cameras, printers, calculators and cameras |
| Employees | 90,645¾ (2005) |
Canon is a Japanese company that specializes in designing and producing printers for offices and cameras for professional photograpers or wannabe photographers. The company was originally named Conan, but the company settled a lawsuit by Conan O'Brien in 1991 by agreeing to switch two letters of its name, to Canon (which is Japanese for 'Glorious printers').
History[edit]
Origin[edit]
The origins of Canon date back to the founding of Conan 24 Hour Photo service Ltd., in Konan, Japan in 1988 by Fujio Yoshida. During the first years, Canon was a small shop where people could let them take photos of themselves and where the local stoners went to throw stones through the windows. In 1990, Fujio won five million yen in the local lottery and decided he wanted to produce his very own camera, the Canon Hansa 1024x 676-231. The only issue at the time was that Fujio only knew how to press the shutter button and nothing more, so he hired a few people to make the camera for him. Nick Kor Mishima (who started his own business after having worked two weeks at Canon, called Nikon) made the lens and Fujio made the 'body'. Nick and Fujio also made a revolutionairy new sensor, and this sensor is still used in today's cameras. After two weeks of work, this resulted in the first camera from Canon.
The 'C'[edit]
When the name for the company was set, Fujio had to register it in the official Japanese company register. When Fujio was writing the name of the new company, Nick Kor came in the room and announced he would be leaving Canon to begin his own company. This shocked Fujio and caused him to write the 'C' in such a weird way it is known today.
Iconic models[edit]
Although every Canon camera sells good because of the brand and the Canon employees who force people to buy their cameras with guns pointed on their heads, there are a few models that did much better.
the best performing camera Canon has made to this day is the Powershot A520. It was introduced in 1999 and was a total hit since then, and even outran models from rivals such as the Nikon D5300 or the Hasselblad H6d. This model has 40 megapixels and 320 focus points. However, this model is mostly popular for its fast focus, making it a highly appreciated camera amongst sportphotographers, pornographers and teenage girls.
Another appreciated model is the popular 1300D. It was introduced in the beginning of 2016, although it was planned to be launched in the spring of 2013. The camera comes with hundreds of pre-installed filters and has the feature to post every photo that is recognized as a starbucks coffee cup on every social media account you have. This makes the 1300D the best sold camera of the first five days of february 2016.
Rivaly with Nikon[edit]
When Nick Kor left Canon, a great war began between Canon and Nikon. Fanboys began to shoot each other with Canons in public (sometimes literally) and Nikon fans began to cyberbully Canon fanboys with the outdated sensors on photography forums on the internet.
In 2009, the situation reached its point of depth; A massacre on the Konan square in front of one of the main offices from Canon caused 21 deaths and 79 injuries. The 'Nikonists' had started the massacre while shouting "Canon sucks! Nikon rules! Yeah!" repeatedly. The 'Canonists' reacted to this with grabbing monopods from the Canon ministore and beating the 'Nikonists' as hard as they could. The 'Canonists' also had an actual cannon and reports say they screamed "I shoot in RAW!" while doing this.
The United Photography War Prevention Organisation (or UPWPO) reacted immediately by setting up special Nikon and Canon zones across the city, and most of the big cities on the world has these now. Currently, the UPWPO is requesting special Canon zones in North Korea. However, Kim Jong Un said in response to this that North Korea already has plenty of 'cannon zones'.
Products[edit]
Cameras[edit]
Canon is commonly known for its cameras with big lenses which make every beginner look like a professional, but Canon also has a range of smaller, more 'soccer mom' likely cameras.
The 1200D was a very popular camera while it was being produced. A total of an astounding 2 million exemplars have been sold since the introduction, with most of the customers being people in the age range of 14 to 19 years old who think they are instantly professional but they really aren't (the Camerus Braggunalis syndrome).
The 1300D is the newer and exact same version of the 1200D, with only wifi added and a price of 210 dollars more. This makes the 1300D not popular and even helps Nikon selling more cameras.
The Powershot SX160 is a camera, and it can take photos. It was revolutionary in comparison with the SX120, because the controls had not been changed whatsoever. Other camera producing companies changed the layout of the buttons constantly, so Canon was different just because they stayed the same. That's some thinking, Fujio.
And then the 1D, which is the second best camera Canon has made to this day. It is really appreciated amongst football photographers. In fact, the quality of the photos from the 1D were so high Canon had to grade down the quality because people were reporting photographers who instantly went blind from that much details. A controversial feauture on the 1D is that the 1D plays a randomly selected One Direction (1D) song when being turned on. Because of all the hatred Canon is considering making a special 1D 1D edition.
The 'D' in these names stands for 'death sentence' although no incidents with the D series cameras have been reported yet. Because of this, some people suspect Canon is 'preparing something big'.
Lenses[edit]
Canon is also known for their 'excellent glass' or lenses. The most interesting is by far the 5200mm. This lens has an optical zoom of 7000 times the original size which makes this lens loved by astrologists and photographers who work from home.
This lens was a response to Nikon's 1200-1700mm Nikkor and absolutely demolishes it. When the lens was up for sale, recently bought 1200-1700's went back to the photography stores immediately to be traded for the amazing 5200mm (even though it was made for Canon, and doesn't fit on Nikon cameras).
The lens weighs about 650 kilograms, making it difficult to transport. That's why Canon gives every buyer a free truck (which includes a crane to lift the 5200mm) and a truck drive course.
Calculators[edit]
When Canon was starting to really blow up, Fujio was in desperate need of a calculator to calculate all the profits. However, all the calculators were too expensive for Fujio's budget. So Fujio decided the next logical step as audiovisual technology producing company would obviously be calculators. He has made a few for office use before being completely obliterated by Casio and Texas Instruments. However, Canon still continued with the calculators, even though they kept selling negative two per month.
Decreased popularity[edit]
Around 2007, mobile phones were becoming more popular. Canon was worried about this, because that would mean hipsters would buy an iPhone triple the worth of an entry-DSLR instead of a glorious Canon camera. Fujio decided to start campaigns and ads to prevent people permanently switching to mobile phones for photography.
A few of the slogans from the campaigns were;
- Don't let your boss ruin your picture
- Canon is much better
- Stop
These campaigns seemed to work, because in the fall of 2009 the sales of cameras doubled again. But since 2013, the mobile phone has made a serious progress on the field of photography and Canon isn't able to brainwash the people because of ad restrictions. However, Canon will do everything to make people switch to cameras again because 'that's how it must be done', said Fujio.
Influence of Canon products[edit]
On selfies[edit]
Canon introduced the first Selphy printer in 2010. This printer was a new plan from Fujio to dominate the printer market, but it ended up inspiring the selfie, the negatively received worldwide phenomenon. Because of this, sales of the product tanked. In 2012, Canon renamed their printers the Pixma series.
On international terrorism[edit]
Canon perfected Image Stabilization (IS) — technology that permits point-and-shoot picture-taking even during an earthquake or when one's bed is rocking violently. On the roll-out of the doubly accurate successor technology, which Canon named ISIS, Canon unfortunately landed itself in hot water, as the name was already taken by a group attempting to go world-wide with earth-shaking events and loud gunfire. Canon again relented on the brand, though vowing to increase its market share in ways not involving any "boots on the ground."