Tamron is a Japanese optical company. It was founded in 1950 as Taisei Kōgaku Kiki Seisakusho (泰成光学機器製作所) by Arai Takeyuki (新井健之), and was incorporated as Taisei Kōgaku Kōgyō K.K. (泰成光学工業㈱) in 1952.[1] The company was initially based in Urawa (浦和市) (today part of Saitama City), but it moved to a new plant in Hasunuma, Ōmiya (大宮市蓮沼) (today also part of Saitama City).[1]
The main optical designer was Tamura Uhyōe (田村右兵衛), from whose name was derived the Tamron brand, registered in 1961. It was only in 1970 that the company took the name K.K. Tamron (㈱タムロン).[2]
The company introduced the T-mount in 1957, a system of interchangeable bayonet mounts allowing the same lens to be mounted on various SLR brands.[1] (The "T" presumably stands for Tamura rather than Taisei or Tamron.) The T-mount was adopted by various other optical companies. It does not provide automatic diaphragm preselection, and was superseded in 1966 by the Adapt-A-Matic system, allowing the transmission of the automatic diaphragm for various SLR cameras, itself replaced by the Adaptall system in 1976.[3]
In 1979, the company introduced the Adaptall-2 system, an evolution of the Adaptall, and released the first SP (Super Performance) lenses.[4]
Tamron took shares of the Bronica company in 1995 and fully absorbed it in 1998.[5] The last Bronica products were discontinued in 2005 but Tamron is still (2007) active as a lens maker.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 See this official history page (1950s).
- ↑ See these official history pages: 1950s and 1970s.
- ↑ See these official history pages: 1960s and 1970s.
- ↑ Date of the Adaptall-2: Tamron history at Adaptall-2.com. Date of the SP lenses: this official history page (1970s).
- ↑ See this official history page (1990s).
Links[]
In English:
- History page of the official website (also in Japanese)
- History page of the US official website
- Adaptall-2.com, a comprehensive website about Tamron manual-focus lenses, including a Tamron history page
In Japanese: