Nikon

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Founded in 1917 as Nippon Kōgaku Kōgyō Kabushikigaisha (日本光学工業株式会社 “Japan Optical Industries Co., Ltd.”), the company was renamed Nikon Corporation, after its cameras, in 1988. The name Nikon, which dates from 1946, is a merging of Nippon Kōgaku (日本光学: “Japan Optical”) and Zeiss’ brand Ikon. Nikon based in Tokyo, Japan and is one of the companies of the Mitsubishi Group, a private conglomerate.

Nikon created the first fully camera, the Nikon NASA F4, which was constructed for NASA and first flown in September 1991 on board the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Nikon’s first camera was the Nikon Still Video Camera (SVC) Model 1, a prototype which was first presented at Photokina 1986. The Nikon QV-1000C Still Video Camera was produced since 1988 mainly for professional press use. The Nikon D90 was the first DSLR with video recording capabilities, debuting on August 27, 2008.

After a 1990s partnership with Kodak to produce SLR cameras based on existing Nikon film bodies, Nikon released the Nikon D1 SLR under its own name in 1999. Although it used an APS-C-size light sensor only 2/3 the size of a 35 mm film frame (later called a “DX sensor”), the D1 was among the first cameras to have sufficient image quality and a low enough price for some professionals (particularly photojournalists and sports photographers) to use it as a replacement for a film SLR.

Source: Wikipedia

Comparison of Nikon DSLR cameras