Instruction manual

Although the design of the A-series lineup including AE-1 and its successor,
the A-1, was well-received among users, the Canon camera design
department was aware of the limitation in the conventional design method.
In automated cameras which no longer require a winding lever or rewinding
crank, the mechanical design applied to the A-series cameras would result in
something like an empty shell. Design is meaningless without contents.
Different contents shall be met with different designs; consequently, the high-
tech cameras with advanced technologies deserve their own designs. The
camera design department had confidence that they were the ones who could
break through the barrier with pride of success achieved in the design of the
A-series.
The camera design department successively developed design models for
the new concept camera, though their activities were not necessarily
encouraged within the company. There was already an established design
concept for the advanced SLR cameras on the market and half of Canon's
overall sales were brought by such camera sales.
Against this situation, the camera design department proclaimed its design
policy, which worked as the guidelines for the next-generation cameras: "as
long as a camera functions as a tool to extend the roles of human hands and
eyes for image reproduction, it must be human-friendly." Thus the earliest
idea of ergonomic design, which is incorporated commonly to many products
nowadays, emerged through the development of the T90.
Enhancing the capability of image reproduction requires a camera to be multi-
functional, but the camera does not qualify as truly "multifunctional" if its
versatile functions make the operation complicated. Look at the Canon A-1 at
the right below. The A-1 is the first model which realizes the fully-automated,
computerized control with multiple functions. When the A-1 was launched in
1978, it dominated the market with a catch phrase, the "camera robot."
“Multifunctional” was directly reflected in its design style deserving its name
"robot." Still, there was a room for improvement in terms of easy operation.
After the A-1, Canon pursued the easier-to-use camera design through the T-
series (the T50, the T70, and the T80). The catch phrase, "Canon camera is
becoming more and more like the human hand" was created when the T50
first came on the market in 1983.
"Harmony between the automated control and the use's will" was the
development concept for the T90, the final model in the T-series. The design
target was to integrate the user at the highest possible level with the camera
hich is armed with the advanced technology.
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Canon T90, 1986
The Canon T90's appearance is
designed by German industrial
designer Luigi Colani, and was the
third model from the T series, after the
T50 in 1983 and the T70 in 1984 (In
total, there were five T-series models
including the T80, which was an
autofocus camera that was launched
in 1985. But the T90 has cast more
influences to Canon's future designs
of cameras as a whole than any other
camera within their line-up. It was a
great camera by any standard,
featuring some revolutionary
innovations as well as practical and
very functional human engineering
factors in its design. Thus, five years
after the Canon flagship model, the
Canon New F-1 was launched (1981),
the T90 became the bridging model
between the first full AF model, the
Canon 650, that was brought out by
Canon barely a year later in March,
1987 and the older manual focus
Canons. The life span of the Canon
T90 was the shortest and can also be
considered the last of 's e r i o u s' FD-
based manual focus SLR camera
from Canon (The Canon T60 was
launched in 1990) - but it is also the
most sophisticated automatic
exposure 35mm SLR that Canon has
ever produced prior to the new EF
mounted EOS AF SLR cameras, and
was also affectionately nicknamed as
the 'Tank" in Japan.