DAY 312

HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Canon EOS

A STAR IS BORN

To compete with other leading manufactures in the new, extremely popular autofocus SLR market of the 1980s, Canon aimed to produce a camera unlike anything else. In 1987, the company introduced the EOS (for Electro-Optical System), named both for the technical specifications and for Eos (in Greek mythology, the goddess of dawn), symbolically announcing the arrival of a new generation of SLR cameras.

The EOS was the result of an exhaustive research and development process, during which several innovations and new technologies created by Canon were employed. The resulting camera had a highly sensitive focusing sensor, a high-precision ultrasonic motor, and a microcomputer to aid in super-high-speed calculations and control settings. Interestingly, Canon had lagged behind the other major camera-makers when it came to autofocus technology in the mid 1980s, but with the introduction of the EOS, they made up for lost ground, producing a picture-taking machine that found both widespread popularity with the public and high praise from professionals.

Building upon the high standard of technical ingenuity, Canon has continued to innovate and improve upon earlier models with each new camera or accessory they introduced, putting out faster, lighter, quieter, and more versatile products year after year. The EOS 10, for example, introduced a bar-code system where photographers could input data from a coded sample image and have the camera automatically adjust its settings to achieve the same effect as the sample. —DJG