Minolta (ミノルタ, minoruta) was a Japanese company that, under one name or another, manufactured cameras from 1929 to 2003. It produced cameras for many film formats, from 16mm film to medium format.
In the 1950s Chiyoda, as it was then called, ventured beyond production of cameras and binoculars into business services, and eventually into photocopiers. Most branches of the company were related to optics: the copier branch, the exposure meter branch, etc. Minolta was succeeded by Konica Minolta after the merger with Konica in 2003. The merged company sold its remaining camera interests to Sony in 2006; the Minolta "A" lens mount lives on in Sony's current line of DSLRs.
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