Nidec Copal Corporation

The Nidec Copal Corporation (日本電産コパル株式会社, Nihon Densan Koparu Kabushiki-gaisha), or Copal, is a Japanese manufacturer of optical, electronic and mechanical equipment, primarily for the photographic industry. It has been a subsidiary of Nidec Corporation since 1998, and was formerly known as the Copal Corporation. The company began operation in 1946, with small-scale production of photographic shutters;[1] these are still one of the company's best-known products.

Nidec logo

Head office of Nidec (Copal)
in Kyoto

In the 1960s the company began producing the well-known Copal Square vertically travelling metal blade focal plane shutter, which was very successful and was used in cameras by many prominent manufacturers.

The Copal Square-S, for example used in the Konica T3s (1973-1978)[2][3] and the Nikkormat FT,[4] is very reliable. It works over a wide temperature range.[5] The electronically controlled Copal Square E (1968) was used in the Yashica TL Electro X, the Canon EF, the Nikkormat EL. For Minolta XE and the Leica R3 the Copal-Leitz Shutter CLS was developed in 1972. For the professional Nikon F4 built 1988 until 1996 the Copal Square was developed and reached 1/8000 s and 1/250 s with flash.[4]

In 2020 Nidec Copal has round about 6,450 employees[6] and manufactures devices, that are used in automobiles, optical products and Tablets beside shutters for digital cameras.[7][8]