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Camera Historica: The first camera Canon ever made
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Jan 27, 2024
A bit of a different format this time. In which I fully geek out about one of the most important cameras in photographic history. The Hansa Canon. Please consider helping us keep on making these videos by hitting the link below and getting some lovely JCH gear. Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/japancamerahunter You can read reviews of great cameras over on the JCH site now: https://www.japancamerahunter.com/category/camera-geekery/ You can see some of the lovely cameras we have for sale here: https://www.japancamerahunter.com/product-category/sale-items/ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/japancamerahunter/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jpncamerahunter Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Japancamerahunter/
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to a very special camera geekery, or it's more of a camera
0:06
historica. Today I'm going to be talking about, and I want to tell you about, a
0:11
very very special camera that I found. Probably one of the rarest I've ever
0:16
seen and I thought it would be a nice chance to show you quite how special
0:22
this really really historically important camera is. Now it's so special in fact that I'm actually going to have to put on some white gloves because I
0:31
don't really want to touch it any more than I need to. This, what we have here, is
0:39
a Hansa Canon. A Hansa Canon which is the first 35mm camera that Canon ever
0:49
made and it was made in 1935. Now what's important about this camera is it was
0:56
the first camera that Canon made commercially. It was started in 1935 but
1:02
prior to that it was known as the Qanon, which is where some people have seen the
1:07
logo from and there were several prototypes made, three prototypes made, but this is the camera that actually made it onto the market which is the
1:16
Hansa Canon. The Qanon was removed from the design by Satoru Uchida who
1:25
wanted Hansa to be the name on the camera instead and that's what it stuck
1:30
and Hansa the name was owned by Omiya photo supply who actually owned that
1:36
name up until 2004 when they went bust and they were bought out by Fuji so
1:40
funnily enough Fujifilm now owns the name Hansa. So what's special about this
1:46
camera? Well this was the first camera that Canon made available. Prior to that
1:53
the first camera obviously that we know was the Barnack which was released in
1:58
1925 so this is Japan's entry onto the world stage of cameras in 1935. Now
2:05
originally these were made in a small factory in Roppongi and Roppongi back
2:09
then isn't what Roppongi is now. It was a small village on sort of the outskirts
2:15
of Tokyo and they had a small workshop and they started making these cameras in
2:20
1935 and they were released to the public through the factory. People could
2:24
buy them through the factory or through Omiya photo supply and then in 1936 they
2:31
moved to a much larger more professional facility in Meguro and where they could
2:37
start producing cameras on a larger scale to better precision. But what is
2:42
interesting is this particular camera this is a type M232 and it's one of the
2:49
very earliest of the Hansa canons and you can tell that because there's up
2:55
here what we have on the top we have a viewfinder that pops up this is known as
2:59
the surprise box and that's a Galilean viewfinder and on the Hansa canons this
3:07
would have been a pop-up viewfinder so there is a notch left in there from when
3:12
the Hansas came along and it was turned into this camera. You've also got the
3:17
slightly rounded hot shoe which on later models came as straight hot shoe
3:23
and this one has also got a notifier there is no marking on the reverse
3:27
switch at all so this is a very early model. Now what's cool about this camera
3:32
is back then Canon wasn't called Canon it was called Seiki Kougaku and Seiki
3:37
Kougaku wasn't a very big company and they didn't have a lot of money and they couldn't produce their own lenses so this has a Nippon Kougaku which is also
3:46
known as Nikon Nikkor lens on the front it's a 50 millimeter 3.5 Tessar lens so
3:54
they originally had Nikon lenses on them later these lenses were rebranded to
3:59
Canon and then later on Canon started manufacturing their own lenses but
4:03
interestingly Canon got onto the market with this camera in 1936 which is a
4:08
whole 12 years before Nikon came onto the market with their range finder in
4:12
1948 which is a remarkable feat and it's somewhat overlooked I think. Now I
4:19
must tell you this camera is although very important this camera particular
4:23
camera does not work the shutter is broken and for the next owner it is up
4:30
to them entirely whether they decide to repair it or not but whatever it is it's
4:35
historically extremely important because this is a very early model as I said
4:39
before it has the die-cast body which you can tell by taking off the base
4:45
plate there's a die-cast body but it has a later base plate and now this is
4:50
something that happened quite often that the base plates would be replaced this
4:54
one has a screw for a tripod mount in it so that's quite important as you can see
5:00
I'm a little bit shaky because I'm quite nervous about this camera it's
5:05
something extremely unusual for anyone to see for me to see and I feel very
5:12
honored to be able to handle it even though it isn't working. Now 1937 they
5:20
removed the Nikon name from these cameras and then the Hansa name was also
5:24
removed and these became known as the Canon original and they went on to spawn
5:29
huge range of Canon rangefinder cameras and then to what we have seen now has
5:37
become an enormous multinational company producing millions of cameras and lenses annually but back then they produced a very small amount a thousand just over
5:46
a thousand cameras I think it was 1,500 cameras something like that and this is
5:52
how Nikon got started in the world of photography. Nikon Canon because it's
5:58
got Nikon on it's confusing but yes this is how Canon got started in the
6:03
world of photography so it's quite remarkable to be holding this incredible
6:07
piece of history in my hands. Now I don't want to play around with it too much
6:11
because as I've said it's it's not working and I don't want to make
6:14
anything not work even more. The camera came with the original black lacquered
6:19
Canon lens cap but also came with some really cool stuff it came with a Hansa
6:26
Canon little case which would have contained the warranty and things like
6:32
this and on the back I can see it was sold to a Ohashi-sama it doesn't say the
6:39
date but when this camera came out it went for the phenomenal price of 275
6:46
yen and that's including the lens and you also got a couple of film cartridges
6:52
too. This camera also came with this beautiful book mini booklet which
7:00
describes how the camera was made where the camera was made what's special about
7:05
the camera the extras and accessories it's like a mini catalog it's got
7:09
beautiful photographs taken with the camera it's got cartoons and drawings and it's gorgeous this was sold this camera it looks like was sold by the
7:18
Ohara photo supply company and now I looked up the Ohara photo supply company
7:24
and they are still in business they are now a major lens manufacturer producing
7:30
lens components for other companies so it's wild to see that if it is the same
7:35
company they're still in business but yeah I really wanted to just take the
7:40
time to show you this very very important piece of camera history and I
7:46
hope that it's going to go into a museum because absolutely that's the
7:51
place it deserves to be this is a one in a million camera remarkable I'm not
7:57
going to play again with it too much I'll put it down because it's kind of making me a little bit nervous so thanks for watching thanks for listening to my
8:04
story about this camera I hope you really enjoyed it I hope you learned something please check like and subscribe down below come to the website
8:14
Japan Camera Hunter and we can help you find your dream camera too and remember
8:19
keep shooting film thanks
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