This photo of my photoalbum was taken in Okinawa.

Sigma Corporation (株式会社シグマ, Kabushiki-gaisha Shiguma?) is a Japanese company founded in 1961, manufacturing cameras, lenses, flashes and other photographic accessories. All Sigma products are produced in the company's own Aizu factory in Bandai, Fukushima, Japan. Although Sigma produces several camera models, the company is best known for producing lenses and other accessories that are compatible with the cameras produced by other companies. Sigma produces products to work with cameras from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Konica Minolta, Sony and Olympus, as well as for their own cameras. Sigma lenses are usually less expensive than the equivalent offering from the manufacturer of the camera body in question, so are therefore often sold bundled with a camera body as a less expensive alternative to the manufacturer's body and lens kit. Sigma's digital SLRs, the SD9, SD10 and SD14, are unusual in their use of the Foveon X3 image sensor. All use the SA lens mount. The forthcoming DP-1, a high-end P&S camera, is also using the Foveon X3 image sensor, which gives it a much larger sensor than most other P&S cameraes.

Nikon Corporation, also known as Nikon or Nikon Corp., is a Japanese company specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication. It was founded in 1917 as Nippon Kōgaku; the company was renamed Nikon Corporation, after its cameras, in 1988. Nikon is one of the Mitsubishi companies. The name Nikon, which dates from 1946, is a merging of Nippon Kōgaku (日本光学: "Japan Optical") and an imitation of Zeiss Ikon. Nikon is pronounced differently around the world. The Japanese pronunciation of the name is /nikoɴ/, but in the United States people also use /ˈnaɪkɒn/ and /ˈnɪkɒn/. Among its famous products are Nikkor camera lenses (notably those designed for the company's own F-mount SLR cameras), Nikonos underwater cameras, the Nikon F-series of professional 135 film SLR cameras, and the Nikon D-series digital SLRs. Nikon has helped lead the transition to digital photography with both the Coolpix line of consumer and prosumer cameras as well as system cameras like the Nikon D200, D80, D70s and D50, and professional DSLRs including the D2 series (see below). Nikon's main competitors include Canon, Kodak, Sony, Pentax, Fujifilm and Olympus.