Est. 1873 · Tokyo, Japan · 3 lenses
Konica's origins reach back to 1873, when Sugiura Rokusaburō opened a photographic and lithographic-materials shop in Tokyo's Kojimachi district under the name Konishi-ya. Renamed Konishi Honten in 1876 and reorganized as Konishiroku Photo Industry Co., Ltd. in 1921, the company spent the early twentieth century building Japan's first major domestic supply of photographic film, paper, and chemistry — categories Japan had previously imported entirely from Europe.
The Konica camera brand debuted in 1948 with the Konica I, a coupled-rangefinder 35 mm camera fitted with a Hexar 50 mm f/3.5 and later the larger-aperture Hexanon. The Hexanon name became Konica's standard photographic-lens marque, expanding from the original six-element double-Gauss heritage of the Hexar into retrofocus wides, fast standards, and short telephoto portraits. The Konica F (1960) was Japan's first 35 mm SLR with a 1/2000 s focal-plane shutter, and the Autoreflex T (1968) introduced through-the-lens metering combined with shutter-priority automatic exposure — a control philosophy Konica championed for the next two decades.
The Konica AR-mount SLR system, introduced with the Autoreflex T, ran through the FT-1 Motor (1983) and earned a reputation for compact, well-corrected primes — particularly the Hexanon AR 57 mm f/1.2, the 40 mm f/1.8 'pancake', and the 50 mm f/1.7. Konica left the SLR market in the late 1980s but returned to enthusiast photography with the Hexar AF (1992) — a fixed-lens 35 mm f/2 compact whose mechanical and optical refinement earned it cult status — and the Hexar RF (1999), an electronically-controlled Leica M-mount rangefinder body sold with M-Hexanon lenses.
Konica merged with Minolta in 2003 to form Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc., consolidating the two companies' imaging, optics, and office-equipment businesses. The combined entity exited the camera and photo business in March 2006, transferring its DSLR and lens assets to Sony — which adopted them as the foundation for the Sony α (Alpha) A-mount system. The Konica name today survives in Konica Minolta's office-imaging, medical-imaging, and industrial-inspection businesses.
Notable designs: Hexanon AR 57mm f/1.2, Hexanon AR 40mm f/1.8, Hexar AF 35mm f/2, M-Hexanon 50mm f/2, M-Hexanon 90mm f/2.8