Canon R Lenses

Canon's first 35 mm SLR mount, 1959-1964 | 35 mm SLR

Canon R was introduced with the Canonflex, Canon's first 35 mm SLR. It was a short-lived but important mount, using a breech-lock style interface and early automatic or semi-automatic diaphragm mechanisms under names such as Super-Canomatic and Canomatic.

The R system shows Canon entering the SLR market from a rangefinder background while the Japanese camera industry was rapidly converging on professional 35 mm reflex systems. Its lenses are fewer and older than FL or FD lenses, but they establish the mechanical ideas Canon would refine over the next decade.

For catalog browsing, Canon R is best treated as historical groundwork. The optical formulas sit at the beginning of Canon's SLR period, before FL simplified the line and before FD added the metering and exposure coupling that made Canon's manual-focus system fully competitive.