Historical Context

In the 1980s and 1990s, several shadowy manufacturers—primarily based in Taiwan and mainland China—realized they could produce incredibly cheap, plastic point-and-shoot cameras and mold the bodies to mimic the aggressive, chunky styling of high-end professional SLRs.

They slapped impressive-sounding (but legally dubious) branding on them. Sometimes they used sound-alike names like “Canomatic,” “Mitsuba,” or “Olympia,” but occasionally, as with the TC-5000, they brazenly printed the actual Canon logo on the front to scam unsuspecting buyers. They were almost never sold in legitimate camera shops. Instead, they were sold out of the trunks of cars, given away as “premium” prizes for magazine subscriptions, or peddled to tourists who thought they were getting a steal on a professional rig.