Last Updated on 05/02/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
We’ve all forgotten about those Casio compact cameras, and the reminder came in the announcement of them abandoning their camera products
If your first compact digital camera was a handy Casio EXILIM or even a Casio QV-10, you must be feeling somewhat nostalgic over the recent news of the company killing off its camera division. The rest of us, however, have most likely forgotten that Casio was even making cameras until they made the announcement.
Nikkei has reported that Casio has decided to withdraw from the “unprofitable” compact digital market. As shipments of their compact cameras have declined sharply, the company decided that a future market expansion was just not feasible. In place of their cameras, Casio plans to specialize in “high value camera products.” This could mean that they’ll be supporting the photography industry through camera accessories or highly specialized (or niche) imaging devices.
We actually had to remind ourselves way back in 2013 that Casio was still making cameras with the release of the Exilim EX-10. However, since it was a Japan-only gadget, and the company barely even got mentioned in photography conventions, it soon fell out of our collective consciousness again. It’s just sad that many of us have to be reminded of Casio as a camera maker this way.
Walking down the company’s imaging achievements would then be a better way to remember their camera division by. You might not have heard of the Casio QV-10, but it was actually a revolutionary camera when it was launched in the 1990s. It holds the distinction of being the first consumer-grade digital camera with an LCD panel. Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science even declared it “Essential Historical Material for Science and Technology.”
The company was also among the first to introduce ultra slim point-and-shoot cameras through the Exilim line launched in 2002 starting with the EX-S1 “Wearable Card Camera”. Soon, camera companies were on a mad scramble to create the compacts with the thinnest designs.
While it’s always sad to see companies abandon their camera divisions, it would be interesting to see how Casio would approach their specialized imaging products in the future.
