Next big steps in the SLR field were the Canon F-1 of 1971, the Canon EF with automatic exposure based on the shutter priority principle, and the first computerized SLR Canon AE-1 of 1976. In the early 1960ies Canon launched the Canonet series of fixed-lens rangefinder cameras and its Canon Demi series of compact half-frame viewfinder cameras. In 1959 The company introduced the Canonflex SLR system. The Serenar 50mm f1.8 of 1951 was an early highlight of that brand. These lenses remain popular even now by users of rangefinder cameras from Canon, Leitz, and so forth. Seiki Kōgaku at first did not have its own optical factory, so it used lenses made by Nikon, but it soon started to make its own lenses under the Serenar brand (later renamed Canon). Copies only came after the war, but Seiki Kōgaku swiftly equipped postwar Canon bodies with a combined viewfinder / rangefinder with three-way switchable magnification (50mm, 100mm, and rangefinder only). The company's earliest cameras were derived much from the design of the Leica threadmount rangefinder cameras concerns about patents, as well as ignorance of the precise specification of the Leica thread mount, kept these earliest Canon cameras distinctive. The company changed its name to Canon Camera in 1947, and to Canon in 1969.
The following year the camera's name was changed to the less overtly religious Canon (キャノン, pronounced kyanon). Later it became the "Hansa Canon", the company's first commercial camera. In June 1934 they released their first camera, the Kwanon (pronounced kannon), named after the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy of the same name (観音, カンオン in Chinese Guān Yīn). Therefore Yoshida Gorō disassembled an original Leica II and studied it mindfully. Its original purpose was to research into the development of quality cameras.
The company was founded in 1933 with the name Seiki Kōgaku Kenkyūjo (精機光学研究所, or Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory) by the co-founder Yoshida Gorō (吉田五郎) from Hiroshima and his brother-in-law Uchida Saburō (内田三郎), funded by Mitarai Takeshi (御手洗毅), a close friend of Uchida.
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