Pentax Corporation (ペンタックス株式会社) was a Japanese camera and optical equipment manufacturer. Currently, it exists as the Pentax Medical, a division of Hoya's medical endoscope business, as well as the digital and film camera brand of Ricoh Imaging Company, a subsidiary of Ricoh.
Pentax, founded in 1919 as Asahi Kogaku Goshi Kaisha, a town workshop specializing in polishing eyeglass lenses, developed Japan's first single-lens reflex camera, the Asahiflex, in 1952. In 1938, it changed its name to Asahi Optical Co., Ltd.. In the mid-1950s, Asahi Optical Co., Ltd. acquired the German brand Pentax, and Asahi Pentax Corporation was established in Japan as a sales company. In 2002, Asahi Optical Co. changed its name to Pentax Corporation. By 2006, Pentax's domestic market share in digital cameras had declined to 4%. In 2007, Pentax was acquired by Hoya and subsequently merged with the company the following year. In 2011, Hoya spun off the Pentax brand's digital camera business, which was then acquired by Ricoh, leading to the establishment of Pentax Ricoh Imaging (now Ricoh Imaging).
As a response to growing interest in film photography, Pentax launched the Pentax 17 on June 17, 2024. The Pentax 17 is a half-frame film camera.[1] This launch marks the first Pentax film camera in over two decades.