NIKON VERSUS CANON VERSUS OTHERS

 

Comparison between Nikon, canon and other brands in terms of who was the first one to introduce specific features in their cameras.

  Nikon Canon other brands
     
     
Founded   1880: George Eastman, age 24, sets up Eastman Dry Plate Company in Rochester, New York. First half-tone photograph appears in a daily newspaper, the New York Graphic. 1888: First Kodak camera, containing a 20-foot roll of paper, enough for 100 2.5-inch diameter circular pictures. 1889: Improved Kodak camera with roll of film instead of paper

1900: Kodak Brownie box roll-film camera introduced.

 
1917: Nippon Kogaku K.K., which eventually became Nikon, established in Tokyo.  
   

1934: Fuji Photo Film founded.

1936:  development of Exakta, pioneering 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera (Kodak)

By 1938, Fuji is making cameras and lenses in addition to film.

 
     
     
First SLR Camera   1936:  development of Exakta, pioneering 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera (Kodak)

1948: Hasselblad in Sweden offers its first medium-format SLR for commercial sale; Pentax in Japan introduces the automatic diaphragm; Polaroid sells instant black and white film

1949: East German Zeiss develops the Contax S, first SLR with an unreversed image in a pentaprism viewfinder

 

 
1959: Nikon F introduced.  
     
     
     
First Autofocus cameras   The first mass-produced autofocus camera was the Konica C35 AF, a simple point and shoot model released in 1977. The Polaroid SX-70 was the first autofocus single-lens reflex camera, released in 1978. The Pentax ME-F, which used focus sensors in the camera body coupled with a motorized lens, became the first autofocus 35mm SLR in 1981.
 In 1983 Nikon released the F3AF, their first autofocus camera, which was based on a similar concept to the ME-F.  
  The Minolta Maxxum 7000, released in 1985, was the first SLR with an integrated autofocus system, meaning both the AF sensors and the drive motor were housed in the camera body, as well as an integrated film advance winder - which was to become the standard configuration for SLR cameras from this manufacturer, as it would for Nikon
.1987: The popular Canon EOS system introduced, with new all-electronic lens mount Canon, however, elected to develop their EOS system with motorised lenses instead  
     
High speed shooting The first 35 mm SLR to achieve such a shooting speed was Canon's F-1 High Speed Motor Drive camera, first developed for the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. To enable this speed and allow the photographer to more easily track the moving subject, this camera used a fixed, semi-transparent pellicle mirror instead of a moving mirror. Later special Canon models used similar mechanisms to achieve such speeds, while cameras with moving mirrors reached approximately 5 frames per second by the 1980s.  
 

 Today, the fastest professional models from Canon and Nikon achieve approximately 10 frames per second with a moving mirror.

  
     
Digital Still camera   1975: Steve Sasson at Kodak builds the first working CCD-based digital still camera
     
     
     
     
First digital SLR 1986- Nikon revealed a prototype analog electronic still SLR camera, the Nikon SVC, a precursor to the digital SLR. Nikon svc shared many features with Nikon N 8008.

 

  
  In 1991, Kodak released the first commercially available digital SLR, the Kodak DCS-100. It consisted of a modified Nikon F3 SLR body, modified drive unit, and an external storage unit connected via cable. The 1.3 megapixel camera cost approximately US$30,000.

This was followed by the Kodak DCS-200 with integrated storage.
In 1999, Nikon announced the Nikon D1,(2.74 megapixel for $6000) the first DSLR to truly compete with, and begin to replace, film cameras in the professional photojournalism and sports photography fields. This camera was able to use current autofocus Nikkor lenses available at that time for the Nikon film series cameras, and was also able to utilize the older Nikon and similar, independent mount lenses designed for those cameras. A combination of price, speed, and image quality was the beginning of the end of 35mm film for these markets.Nikon D1 SLR, was the first ground-up DSLR design by a leading manufacturer.  
  In  2000January, Fujifilm announced the FinePix S1 Pro, the first DSLR marketed to non-professionals.
In 2001 November , Canon released its 4.1 megapixel 1D Mark I, the brand's first professional digital body.

In 2003, Canon introduced the 6.3 megapixel EOS 300D SLR camera (known in the United States as the Digital Rebel and in Japan as the Kiss Digital) with an MSRP of US$999, directed at the consumer market. Its popularity encouraged other manufacturers to produce affordable digital SLR cameras, lowering entry costs and allowing more amateur photographers to purchase DSLRs.

  
Full Frame sensor   The Kodak DCS Pro 14n was a professional F-mount digital SLR produced by Eastman Kodak. It was announced at the photographic trade show Photokina in Germany during September 2002; production examples became available in May 2003.The DCS Pro 14n was the second Full-frame digital SLR, after the unsuccessful and short lived Contax N Digital.
on 22nd aug 2005, EOS 5D was announced by Canon  
Nikon, which introduced their first full frame camera, the D3, in 2007, refers to the format as the FX format  
Dust reduction system   Olympus was the first to include a dust reduction system on a DSLR, featuring their Supersonic Wave Filter (SSWF) dust reduction technology on the Olympus E-1 in 2003. All Olympus DSLRs have included this system, as have Panasonic's and Leica's DSLRs; both companies use Olympus technology.

Other manufacturers, namely Sony (2006),Pentax (2006),

   Canon (2006),  
and Nikon (2007), followed suit with their own dust removal technologies. Each manufacturer uses a somewhat different system.    
Image stabilization system Vibration Reduction (VR - Nikon),

Ironically enough, at first Nikon had stolen a march in 35mm image-steadying technology with, of all things, a point-and-shoot camera: the Zoom-Touch 105 VR of 1994, which featured a system Nikon called Vibration Reduction. The camera didn't sell in great numbers, and Nikon apparently determined that consumers weren't much interested in optical stabilization.

 

  
Image Stabilization (IS - Canon, the first to produce an OIS lens),

That's why, when Canon equipped an EOS autofocus lens with Image Stabilization (IS) back in '95, 35mm photographers could not only have their cake and eat it too, but get extra butter-cream icing along with it. Here was an optical technology that promised the ability to handhold a lens at two speeds slower than normal, even more.

And up until now, Canon has had the field all to itself, with a current lineup of eight optically stabilized lenses. Where was Canon's arch-rival Nikon in all of this? Pretty much sitting on the sidelines.

 

All that has changed. With the introduction of the AF Nikkor D 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR zoom, Nikon has reprised Vibration Reduction for its SLRlenses and flung down the gauntlet, promising a system that equals—or betters—Canon's IS in taking the shakes out of handheld shots.

MegaOIS (Panasonic and Leica), Super Steady Shot (SSS - Sony), Optical Stabilization (OS - Sigma), Vibration Compensation (VC - Tamron) and Shake Reduction (SR - Pentax).
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       

Important links

Photography timeline

http://photo.net/history/timeline