Pekka Buttler, 01/2025
Quick summary
Chinon is known to still photographers as one of the more advanced 2nd tier Japanese cameramakers. What might surprise still photographers is that Chinon was actually more strongly involved with motion picture photography and that this was a field within which Chinon managed to put in some industry ‘firsts’ (such as being the first Japanese company to produce a 8mm motion picture camera to record picture and sound simultaneously).
History
Chinon Industries Inc. (originally Sanshin Seisakusho) was founded in 1948 by Chino Hiroshi in the city of Chino (Nagano prefecture), originally as a subcontractor to the optics industry. In 1956 the company began manufacturing 8 mm motion picture cameras and in 1956 Chinon developed and manufactured the first zoom lens for an 8 mm camera.
In 1971, likely inspired by the success other Japanese optical companies were having, Chinon started manufacturing SLRs. The first years saw relatively run-of-the-mill SLR bodies (m42 mount, stop-down metering), but Chinon soon climbed up the market ladder, and by ≈1973 Chinon was producing m42 mount SLR bodies with advanced features such as auto-exposure (using a vanilla m42 mount).
After Pentax abandoned the m42 mount in 1975 for their proprietary Pentax K bayonet mount, Chinon continued with the M42 mount for a few years until ultimately migrating to the Pentax K mount in 1979. Chinon’s innovation trajectory reached its apex (other may say: its nadir) in 1982 with the introduction of the Chinon CE-5 – a camera that enabled you to use Chinon’s patented infrared autofocus system (on select lenses) (see some more details in the JAPB article on autofocus).
After Minolta’s 1985 introduction of their autofocus SLR (coupled with the somewhat lacklustre response to Chinon’s introduction of their take on AF 3 years earlier), Chinon either lost its mojo or decided that competing with Minolta (and Canon, and Nikon, and Pentax, and Olympus, and …) was not where they wanted to spend their energy. As a result, Chinon instead silently withdrew from SLR manufacture and instead focused on point&shoots as well as the Chinon Genesis series (which could be argued to be some of the first exemplars of what we today call ‘bridge cameras’).
During the 1990s the name ‘Chinon’ disappears from store windows, but the company does not go under. Instead it first focuses on being an OEM manufacturer and has a strong, early role as OEM manufacturer of digital cameras. Later Chinon is acquired by Kodak Japan Limited.
Who were the OEM’s?
Interestingly, for all its emphasis on designing and manufacturing technologically advanced SLRs, and earlier involvement with 8 mm lens development, Chinon did not produce its own 35 mm lenses. Instead, Chinon was a brand manufacturer of cameras while at the same time being a rebrander in terms of lenses.
Chinon source its lenses from other Japanese OEM manufacturers. While the origin of some of the Chinon M42 lenses is pure guesswork, it is clear that a number of lenses originated at Tomioka1, with some lenses also having been manufactured by Tamron .
One likely reason why many assume that Chinon manufactured its own lenses might be that Chinon also acted toward pure rebranders (companies that made neither the cameras nor lenses they sold) as if they were a typical OEM: Chinon bundled Chinon cameras with rebranded lenses, and slapped the rebrander’s name and logo on them, then shipped them off to (typically) Europe for resale. Therefore it is typical that you can find ‘Chinon lenses’ to be identical to lenses offered by a wide range of European rebranders (including Revuenon, Agfa, ) as well as otherrebranders.
Footnotes
- These Tomioka-manufactured Chinon M42 lenses are specifically:
• 21 mm f/3.5
• 55 mm f/1.2
• 55 mm f/1.4 [data sheet]
• 55 mm f/1.7 [data sheet]
• 100 mm f/2.8 ↩︎