Canon Camera Museum

Occasionally I stumble across museum related things while I am not trying to. Take for example the Canon Camera Museum, which I found on the Canon website while looking up the differences between two different flash memory camcorders. There it was, on the sidebar of the page... an ad for the Canon Camera Museum. Of course I clicked on it.

I was taken to a new page with animation. It started off blue and as the animation panned down I could see that it was a of a museum complex set in the country. There are open pastures, a garden, a pond, horses and what seems to be a petting zoo. And the horses move as do the kids and animals at what I'm thinking is a petting zoo. It's actually quite cute. I would be in love with the museum's setting if it were a physical place.

The museum complex is made up of 5 buildings: A more classical motifed building with pediment, pilasters, and columns. This building is in the center and is the largest. It is called Camera Hall. The other halls are housed in buildings that are progressively more modern looking in terms of architecture. The Design Hall reminds me of the Farnsworth House. There is also History Hall and Technology Hall. There is an information building as well but it's only real purpose is to balance the museum complex's design. When it's clicked on, a pop up gives a basic 'Welcome' and introduction.

When any of the other four buildings are clicked on, the animation zooms closer to that building and one can see that the people out side of the buildings are excited to be there. The children bounce up and down. It's all very cute and highly innovative.

Camera Hall is just that, a hall about the different types of cameras. Digital Cameras, Film Cameras, Digital Camcorders, Analog Camcorders, Movie Cameras and Lenses. They are all set up as if they would be different exhibition rooms in a physical museum.

History Hall is formed by the Canon Camera Story, a more complex version of the Canon Camera Story and EOS- Goddess of the Dawn.

Design Hall features the Design Room, Portrait of the Pioneers, the Camera Design Process, and the Theory of Design Evolution.

Technology Hall consists of the Technical Room, Virtual Lens Plant, and the Technical Report.

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The Canon Camera Museum is very much worth checking out. I love it when I see technology being used for museum purposes in this way. I think that while museums in the physical sense may be limited to the walls of the buildings they are housed in, the limits to their virtual presence are almost nonexistent (or they should be nonexistent anyway). I really do think that this is an avenue into which we are going to see more and more museums head in the near future. I do hope to be a part of it in some way.