The Nikon Corporation, or in Japanese Kabushiki-gaisha Nikon, and known the world over as Nikon or Nikon Corp, is a famous Japanese company that makes high quality digital cameras. But digital cameras are not everything that Nikon makes. It is also noted for all forms of optical and imaging products, including binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and steppers used in photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication.
Nikon Corporation was founded in 1917 in Tokyo, Japan, under the name of Nippon Kogaku Kogyo or Nippon Kogaku K.K.. It took the name Nikon Corporation in 1988 and is today one of the components of the Mitsubishi Group.
The name Nikon has been in use since after World War II, in 1946. It is a portmanteau of "Nippon" and "Kogaku". At that time, the name Nikon was used for the company's small-sized cameras. The Japanese pronunciation of the brand is nee-kon but in the United States people pronounce it as nai-kon. Nikon's camera lenses take the name Nikkor. This name Nikkor has been in used even earlier, since 1932, and is also a portmanteau of Nippon and Kogaku.
Nikon's earliest cameras are rangefinder cameras - they use a range-finding focusing mechanism to let photographers measure the subject distance. The first model to roll out was Nikon I, back in 1948. The last to come on the market, as I write this article, is Nikon S3 2000 that appeared in the year 2000.
The first Nikon SLR (single-lens reflex) camera (cameras that use an automatic moving mirror to allow the photographer to see exactly what is being photographed) was the Nikon F, in 1959. Nikon built its brand reputation on its F-series SLR cameras, a choice of many professional photographers.
As the world embraces digital photography, so did Nikon. Nikon's line of digital cameras include the Coolpix series of compact digital cameras and the D series of SLR digital cameras.
The first Coolpix camera was Coolpix 100. It appeared on the market in 1997. At present, the Coolpix series come in three sub-series: the P-Series, the S-Series and the L-Series. The letters simply stand for Performance, Style and Life.
The Nikon D1 was Nikon's response to the 35mm film professional camera. It was introduced on 15 June, 1999. Although Nikon and other camera manufacturers have been producing digital cameras prior to that date, it was the Nikon D1 that was instrumental in swaying professional photographers to consider the digital medium. It quickly become the choice for news and sports photojournalism. The Nikon D1 was subsequently replaced by the Nikon D1H and D1X on 5 February, 2001, allowing Nikon to garner a chunk of the professional digital market.
Nikon D1, the digital SLR that swayed professional photographers to consider the digital medium (photograph by WikiCapa and available in the public domain)
To be able to differentiate Nikon's line of D series digital SLR cameras, note that the professinal range come in single digits, ie Nikon D1, Nikon D2X, Nikon D2H, Nikon D2Hs, and Nikon D3 recently introduced on 23 August 2007. The Semi-pro range has three digits, such as Nikon D100, Nikon D200, and Nikon D300, also introduced on 23 August, 2007. Next step down are the Prosumer range, namely Nikon D70, Nikon D70s and Nikon D80, introduced on 9 August, 2006. At the entry-level are also 2-digit models, including Nikon D40x, Nikon D40 and Nikon D50.
Due to the huge popularity of its digital cameras, Nikon announced in January 2006 that it will discontinue manufacturing all but two models of its 35mm film SLR cameras. The two still in production are the low-end Nikon FM10, which was introduced 13 years ago in 1995, and the high-end Nikon F6, introduced in 2004.
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