Chinon Industries

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Chinon Industries Inc. (チノン株式会社, Chinon Kabushiki-gaisha^?)

was a Japanese camera manufacturer. It developed and continues to develop many digital camera models for Kodak, who took a majority stake in the company in 1997, and made it a fully-owned subsidiary of Kodak Japan, Kodak Digital Product Center, Japan Ltd. (株式会社コダック デジタル プロダクト センター, Kabushiki-gaisha Kodakku Dejitaru Prodakuto Sentã^?), in 2004 .^[1]

They manufactured many cameras, such as the CG-5 which was one of the first cameras ever to use an Auto Focus lens, which had to be bought separately. The lenses are now rare and difficult to come by. They were cumbersome and had two infra-red "eyes" on the top. They would connect by a bayonet fitting similar to the Pentax K fitting except they also had electrical contacts which would power the motor at the press of the shutter release button. Most of Chinon's cameras used a mount most similar to the Pentax K, as it was deemed by them to be a 'universal' mount.

Chinon also was a manufacturer of CD-ROM drives starting as late as 1988 for the DOS era [1], [2]. They stopped producing CD-ROM drives as early as 1995.

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More Information on Chinon Cameras (including Manuals)