Dan,
Early on, Vivitar . . . or more correctly the folks that eventually became
Kiron [??] . . . designed the lenses. They were then "made to print" under
contract by another manufacturer . . . Vivitar didn't make their own
lenses. The "Series 1" lenses took the photography world quite by
surprise. Many of the early Series 1 lenses are still considered very
excellent today . . . in not only optical but build quality as
well. Shutterbug has accorded a number of them "Cult Classic" status and
they command much higher prices on the used market compared to similar
focal lengths from that era made by other lens makers.
At some point later, Vivitar closed up its own design effort and things
pretty much went downhill from there. Cost was an enormous factor and the
Series 1 line in its day was an economic failure for Vivitar; sales volume
of high end 3rd Party lenses wasn't sufficient to sustain the line
profitably as it was originally created. Add to that the beating Vivitar
eventually took from bargain-basement offerings by their competition.
The average Joe Consumer bought a camera body based on its reputation [or
whatever], often expending most of the camera budget on that, and then
cheaped out with the least expensive lens[es]. The same buying pattern
continues today and it's why the absolutely abysmal 28-80 plastic lenses
are bundled with current consumer SLR's with several additional [and
equally abysmal] dirt cheap zooms offered in the lens system line. In
addition, camera dealers were bundling dirt cheap 3rd party zooms with
camera bodies to drop their pricing [or increase profit by lowering product
cost]. The major camera makers were being thrashed by the 3rd Party
consumer lens price point. [Nik*n and Can*n should be ashamed to have
their names marked on them.]
-- John Lind
At 09:35 PM 9/24/04, you wrote:
>So, this has been bugging me for a while since I first saw the list of
>Vivitar manufacturers included Oly. Does anybody know what lenses were
>actually made by Oly for Vivitar?
>
>Dan S.
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