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The Canon T90, introduced in 1986, was the top of the line in Canon's T series of 35 mm Single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras. It was the last professional-level manual-focus camera from Canon and thus the last of them to use the Canon FD lens mount. more...

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Although it was overtaken by the autofocus revolution and Canon's new, incompatible EOS (Electro-Optical System) after only a year in production, the T90 pioneered many concepts seen in high-end Canon cameras up to the present day, particularly the user interface, industrial design, and the high level of automation.

The T90 gained the semi-official nickname The Tank from Japanese photojournalists because of its ruggedness. Many still rate it highly even 20 years after its introduction: camera collector and dealer Stephen Gandy states, "…the Canon T90 was years ahead of anything else on the market at that time. It is, quite simply, one of the best manual focus 35 mm SLR designs of all time." He goes on to conclude, "It gets my vote as the best Canon Design ever." Similar sentiments can be found from many other users.

Design

Previous Canon cameras had been wholly in-house design projects. For the T90, Canon brought in German industrial designer Luigi Colani in a collaboration with Canon's own designers. The final design was a composite of Colani's ideas and the Canon team's, incorporating Colani's distinctive "bio-form" curvaceous shapes. Canon considered Colani's contribution important enough to present him with the first production T90 body, engraved with his name. Computer-aided design techniques were introduced to Canon for the T90, as well as the use of computer controlled (CNC) milling machines to make the molding dies for the shell.

Much work went into human factors engineering to create an ergonomic user interface for the camera. The form of previous cameras was largely dictated by the required locations of mechanical controls on the body, such as the film advance lever, rewind crank, shutter speed dial, shutter release, etc. On the T90, the film transport controls were no longer required, while the others were no longer mechanically linked. This gave the designers more freedom to shape the camera to make it easier to control and hold, and to place controls in a way that suited the user rather than a mechanical design.

The T90 introduced features still used on SLR cameras today, such as the deep right handgrip with the shutter release button positioned atop the grip rather than back on the body. While the use of a LCD screen on the top of the camera's right hand side was not new for the T90—it was introduced on the T70—the T90 refined it to show even more camera information. A control wheel located behind the shutter release and convenient for the right index finger was used to adjust most camera settings in conjunction with other buttons located for the right thumb and on the left-hand side of the camera; again, this design is still seen today.

Read more at Wikipedia.org