Canon S

October 1938 - June 1945

Production: 1600 units
Serial numbers: 10520 - 12500

The Canon S was essentially a Canon Hansa with slow speeds, frame counter on the top under the wind knob where it could not be dislocated by the photographer's finger grip, and a revised top deck with separate superstructure cover over the finder mechanisms. At first the Canon S was named the "Canon Newest Model" while the Canon Hansa became the "Canon Standard without slow speeds". By rights, then, the Hansa should have become the "Canon S", and the S should have been the "Canon NM". After Hansa prodution ended in 1940, however, the S did become the "standard" Canon model, and by the end of the war it was so thoroughly established as such that even factory usage was to call it the "S model", which it remains today.