Pentax
Webpages concerning "Pentax"
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Wikipedia-Article "Pentax"
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| Type | Corporation TYO: 7750 |
|---|---|
| Founded | Tokyo, Japan (1919) |
| Location | Tokyo, Japan |
| Key people | Fumio Urano, President & CEO |
| Industry | Imaging |
| Products | Cameras and photographic equipment; Binoculars, spotting scopes and telescopes; Medical fiberscopes and endoscopes; Medical fine ceramics products; Information and communications products; Component products; Industrial products; Eyeglass lenses |
| Revenue |  133 billion Yen (Business year ending March 31, 2005) |
| Operating income | {{{operating_income}}} |
| Net income | {{{net_income}}} |
| Employees | 1,661 (as of March 31, 2005; non-consolidated PENTAX Corp. only) |
| Website | PENTAX Worldwide Gateway |
| {{{footnotes}}} | |
PENTAX Corporation (ペンタックス株式会社) TYO: 7750 is a Japanese company founded in 1919 as Asahi Optical Corporation (旭光学工業合資会社; Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō Gōshi Gaisha). It is one of the world's largest optical companies, producing still cameras, binoculars, and other optical instruments. The range of Pentax digital cameras has received wide acclaim from technology professionals due to their compact lens system (on recent Optio models) and other class leading design features. In 2004 Pentax had about 6000 employees.
Asahi Optical introduced its first 35mm SLR in 1952, the Asahiflex I, which was also the first of the Japanese SLRs. Asahi Optical's first SLR in its modern, pentaprism-equipped form was the Asahi Pentax. There is some confusion about the etymology of the name, some sources claim it was licensed from VEB Zeiss Ikon, and derived from the combination "PENTAprism" and "contaX". The explanation on pentax.com does not mention Contax or Ziess Ikon at all, and states that the name was formed from "PENTAprism" and "refleX", being the reflex mirror of an SLR camera. A third variation substitutes "Asahiflex" for "reflex", which is at least logical as the Asahiflex cameras had waist-level viewfinders and therefore the pentaprism of the Asahi Pentax would have been a significant differentiating feature.
The Asahi Pentax and its derivatives were so popular that Asahi Optical renamed itself "PENTAX".
One of Pentax's most famous cameras is the Pentax K1000, which had a built-in light meter as the single electronic feature, with all other functions (aperture setting, shutter setting) being manual and mechanical. This barebones flexibility, along with its reputation for solid reliability and continuing backward compatibility of lenses, contributed to the K1000's popularity with photography teachers and students in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 2003 Pentax released their first Digital SLR, the Pentax *ist D which uses a 6mp CCD. In 2004 Pentax released the Pentax *ist DS, their first real consumer model (retailing under $1000 USD). In 2005 Pentax released the Pentax *ist DL, a model with fewer features than the DS and a lower price. All Pentax's digital SLRs are compatible with K-mount lenses, and M42 (42mm screw mount) lenses (with adaptor). Due to the smaller size of the CCD, lenses have a magnification of 1.5x the original focal length. Pentax created DA and D-FA models of new lenses for their digital SLRs, which still feature the K-mount but have a smaller back-focus element designed specifically for use with the Digital SLR lineup.
Pentax's main competitors include Canon, Konica Minolta, Leica, Nikon, and Olympus.