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They’re everywhere – at sporting events, birthday parties, on a movie set or in low-Earth orbit. Canon Incorporated’s wide range of cameras and lenses. But where do they come from, who makes them, and how?
In a rare opportunity for both the host and the guests, Japanese-based Canon welcomed members of the U.S. media to both their headquarters in Tokyo and their lens factory in Utsunomiya for an extensive tour and a mashup of past and present – a reminder of the company’s long, innovative history and a look at what the future holds for the maker of cameras and lenses (along with printers, medical equipment and semiconductor manufacturing equipment).
And while the company has a stake in many industries, it was their imaging – the very thing that the company was founded upon in 1937 – that was on display during the site visit. With their history fully documented through classic camera equipment and longstanding employees, Canon is a company that holds true to their ethos of dedication and the Japanese concept of monozukuri – literally, the “art and science of manufacturing.” In Canon’s case, this represents a signature style of workways that pervades the organization, from design concepting to finished product.
Under balmy, late-summer weather, Canon employees and executives waited outside the towering HQ in Ohta-ku, Tokyo, to greet and welcome the assembled guests with hospitality and excitement. They were also eager to demonstrate their extensive knowledge of imaging and their equally extensive background in the organization – many of the speakers, executives and employees had made careers with Canon, with several spanning 30-plus years.
At Canon HQ, guests were treated to remarks from EVP & Director Kazuto “Kevin” Ogawa and EVP and head of Imaging Group Go Tokura, the latter responsible for many of Canon’s most memorable designs, including the EOS system, from its debut iteration in the late 80s to the newest mirrorless still/video systems. He posits that the success of the venerable camera system is due to Canon’s dedication to the product.
“100% is not enough,” said Tokura, through an interpreter. “You must give 120% to achieve perfection.”
Others on Canon’s executive team agreed.
“We believe that the main differentiator for us is that we continuously provide things that our users want,” said Tetsushi Hibi, unit executive of the Canon IMG Business Unit. through an interpreter. “And the heritage that we have is something that we take dear to our hearts, so hopefully that will be conveyed.”
While displaying the newly released EOS C50 Compact Cinema Camera (a digital video camera creating much buzz in L.A.’s filmmaking community), deputy unit executive of IMG Business Unit Noriyuki Honda said that the company is responding to an increased desire and demand for originality in the film industry, especially as more productions become untethered to studios. “I think people are starting to have this desire to portray something a little bit different, [to] make the picture a bit different and unique. This is a place where they express themselves,” he added.
“All the lenses are our babies and, of course, each one is very unique – you can’t pick one,”
— Yoichi Sato, Canon senior general manager of IMG products development
And, not unaware of U.S. social trends, even across the globe, execs expressed pride – and perhaps, a bit of amusement – at a recent trend of creators using the nearly 10-year-old Canon PowerShot ELPH 360 extensively. That said, they also took notice to help design their current and future products.
“We always want to make sure that there’s different needs, so we need to grasp that and hopefully catch up and keep up with their pace so that we can create something that is important,” said Hibi.
Clean room assembly of a Canon telephoto lens.
Dedication to Perfection
At the Utsunomiya production facility, a sprawling collection of buildings located in Japan’s northerly Kantō region, guests were offered a rare opportunity to witness lens production firsthand, as well as get a glimpse of many of the R&D techniques Canon utilizes to ensure top quality.
Through a tangle of spotless, color-coded and automated delivery-bot-filled hallways, guests were led to production facilities that ranged from hand assembly of specialized lenses to modern and automated form-and-polish assembly lines on the proprietary glass that Canon uses to ensure sharp focus and rugged reliability throughout their range.
In addition to production, the media was able to see some pre-shipment inspection tests, from an extensive and precise focus test to a much less gentle drop test.
Along the way, dedicated (if not giddy) engineers were eager to share their insights. Since measures to keep the process (and proprietary information) in-house are tantamount, visitors to the site are rare. However, the employees who work at the Utsunomiya plant were excited to share their life’s work. Lensing master craftsman Mitsuharu Umei said that years of experience and dedication to perfection were key to making Canon’s best products.
Holding up an unfinished lens, he joked, “This feels terrible to me.” Umei, while demonstrating the hand-polishing that goes into some of Canon’s most precise optics, said that the finish was within infinitesimal tolerances. To put it into perspective, he used familiar Dodger Stadium as an example.
“If the lens were increased to the size of [Dodger Stadium], an imperfection the thickness of a sheet of copier paper would be unacceptable.”
This mastery of hand polishing is not used across the line (mainly due to time constraints), yet Canon has managed to create innovative automated processes to ensure quality across their lines. With a series of machines featuring robotic armatures, spinning high-speed polishers and a Rube-Goldberg-esque workflow, lumps of glass were turned into highly precise optics within minutes, not days.
1. A telephoto lens base prior to final assembly. 2. Lenses created by automatic polishing processes.
This automation, said the engineers at Utsunomiya, allows for “consistency across production,” whether the end result is placed in a pocket point-and-shoot or the mid-point optic in a longer telephoto lens.
Extensive Testing
Canon’s pledge to create a beautiful consumer product wouldn’t be possible without an equal amount of quality control, and the Utsunomiya plant was as much dedicated to testing as they were to assembly.
While many of the processes are proprietary and cannot be described in detail, each and every lens produced in the factory is subject to extensive testing to ensure sharp rendering across the entire focal length. In one station, carts moved silently along a track, while a camera/computer system took thousands of images of a specialized pattern for performance analysis. In a long, darkened room, an image shot toward a camera at 20-plus mph to represent a fast-moving subject, while the autofocus box on the camera tracked its eye “movement” flawlessly.
In another room, two separate testing lockers – one at an icy -10F degrees and another at around 120F (with impossibly high humidity) – were used to test camera and lens in the extreme environments users could find themselves in. While guests managed the cold locker well, most were only able to be in the hot environment for seconds before rushing through the door. The Canon cameras fared fine, however.
Even the packaging is extensively tested. At one station, a wrapped package with thousands of dollars’ worth of camera equipment was dropped, representing both a careless delivery and the receiver’s worst nightmare. But, like any part of Canon’s supply chain, the process was checked and double-checked, so the quease-inducing thump of the package became more reassurance than worry.
‘Our Babies’
Canon’s dedication to creative innovation was matched by their employees’ clear love of the craft. Those who create, assemble, test and oversee operations at these locations carry a pride of product, its history, longevity and how it helps create and retain human memory – as Tokura described it, cameras are a “high-level, emotional product.”
When asked to pick a favorite lens, Yoichi Sato, senior general manager of IMG products development, playfully hedged – not unlike a proud parent.
“All the lenses are our babies and, of course, each one is very unique – you can’t pick one,” he said.