Pentax is a business division and brand name of Hoya Corporation that produces cameras, sport optics (e.g. binoculars), etc. Hoya purchased and merged with the Japanese optics company Pentax Corporation on March 31, 2008.The period around 1950 marked the return of the Japanese photographic industry to the vigorous level of the late 1930s, and its emergence as a major exporter. The newly reborn industry had sold many of its cameras to the occupation forces (with hugely more disposable income than the Japanese) and they were well received.