Nikon Corporation, who are also known as Nikon Corp or just plain Nikon are a multinational organisation with its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. Nikon specialise in optics and imaging. It is the world’s second largest manufacturer of various products including cameras, microscopes, measuring instruments and binoculars, with their fiercest competitors photographic equipment are the likes of Sony, Canon, Pentax, Casio, Kodak, Panasonic, Olympus and Fuji.
In amongst its many products are imaging lenses, 135 film SLR cameras, compact digital cameras, underwater film cameras and the famous D-series of digital SLR cameras of which it is proud of the recent introduction in to the market of the Nikon D5000 lens.
The company was founded in 1917 and was known as Nippon Japan Optical Industries Corporation. And was subsequently renamed Nikon Corporation in 1988. It forms part of the companies of the Mitsubishi Group with the name, Nikon going back as far as 1946.
Originally established from three optical manufacturers merging. The company grew over the next sixty years to become a highly respected manufacturer of optical lenses and equipment used within cameras, binoculars, microscopes and various inspection equipment. The company also supplied binoculars, periscopes bomb sights and lenses to the Japanese military during the Second World War.
As well as photographic equipment, Nikon also develops and manufactures photolithography equipment. Since the inception of stepper in 1980, Nikon have gone on to introduce more than over fifty different models of steppers and scanners for production of semiconductors and LCD screens. Nikon is also involved in designing and manufacturing visual imaging products chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) systems, eyewear, binoculars, sport optics, optical measuring, inspection equipment and surveying instruments.
Nikon was established in the United States of America in 1982 and were known as Nikon Precision Inc. (NPI) which is the North American arm for its semiconductor photolithography equipment specifically. NPI is now a well established industry leader in supplying advanced photolithography equipment which is used in vitally important semiconductor manufacturing.
One f the first digital SLRs for research projects for NASA was created by Nikon back in 1991. Nikon then went on to release the Nikon D1 SLR in partnership with Kodak. The D1 was then one of the first digital cameras to have the kind of image quality and affordability for professions like photojournalism and sports photography to begin to use.
Management changes at Nikon in 2005 influenced new camera designs like the Nikon D3 and the Nikon D700 in 2007. By now, Nikon had earned a very good reputation amongst both professional and amateur photographers in the field, especially because of the speed, low-light performance and ergonomics of its recent models after the mid-range Nikon D90 which was introduced in 2008, Nikon proudly brought out the Nikon d5000 lens in April 2009 which includes an array of functionalities.
