Melville, NY—Canon USA announced that its parent company, Canon Inc., reached a new lens-manufacturing milestone with the production on August 26, 2016 of the company’s 120-millionth EF-series interchangeable lens for EOS cameras. The lens that reached that benchmark was the Canon EF100–400mm f/4.5–5.6L IS II USM telephoto zoom lens.
Production of interchangeable EF lenses for Canon EOS-series AF (autofocus) single-lens reflex film cameras began in 1987 at the company’s Utsunomiya plant. Over the years, these lenses have gained support from a range of users, and production has since expanded to a total of four manufacturing bases. These include Canon Inc., Taiwan; Canon Opto (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.; and Oita Canon Inc. in southern Japan.
Canon EF lens production passed the 10-million-unit mark in 1995 and crossed the 50-million-unit threshold in 2009. In April 2014, the company celebrated its first-in-the-world achievement of having manufactured 100 million lenses. And now, setting a record for the most interchangeable lenses produced, Canon manufactured its 120-millionth lens in August 2016.
In addition, Canon’s interchangeable-lens digital cameras (digital SLR and compact-mirrorless system cameras), have maintained the No. 1 share of the global market for 13 consecutive years since 2003, based on a Canon survey.
EF Lens History in Brief
Canon’s proprietary EF lenses, launched in March 1987 with the EOS SLR system, have continued to evolve. Technology innovations include the first ultrasonic motor (USM) and image stabilizer (IS) technology. In addition Canon developed a multilayered diffractive optical (DO) element and subwavelength structure coating (SWC) antireflection technology.
The company’s EF lens-series lineup currently comprises a total of 97 models. These include a range of Cinema lenses for digital cinematography.
“Canon will continue refining its imaging technologies centered on its EF lens lineup, striving to cater to the varying needs of photographers—from first-time users to advanced amateurs and professionals—while contributing to expanding the photographic and video imaging culture,” the company announced. usa.canon.com