Nice treatise, Moose. I have to agree with you on most points.
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Moose" <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Olympus Camera Discussion" <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2010 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: [OM] olympus Digest, Vol 22, Issue 30
> On 8/28/2010 6:57 AM, Nicholas Herndon wrote:
>>> You're kidding, right? They make what they think will sell and make them
>>> a
>>> profit. The ones who survive are fairly good at that.
>> I had a really long reply typed up, but I sounded like a bitter 70 year
>> old man so I deleted it.
>
> Sounds like a useful choice. Bitter isn't any fun. I'm not that far from
> 70, but very far from bitter. :-)
>
>> You're right, camera companies are just looking to make a profit, and
>> making digital cameras that fail or are replaced every 2 or 3 years is an
>> easy path to profit.
>
> I don't see how rapid technological advances leading people to replace
> cameras with newer, more capable ones is some
> sort of intentional act on the part of the camera companies. It's not like
> they could have made their current, or the
> even more capable models of the future 10 years ago, and just chose not
> to.
>
> Just from a personal perspective, I am sort of poor at getting rid of
> things promptly. And with digital cameras, that
> means they have no value by the time I'm willing to get rid of them. Yeah,
> I've passed a couple on to family - still ...
>
> So, I still have my first digicam, a couple of later ones and my first
> DSLR. All of them still work fine; just tried out
> my first, a Canon S110. Out of curiosity, I checked availability of a
> replacement for it's proprietary battery, and it
> is still available from Canon and at least two third party vendors.
> Wouldn't discontinuing the battery be a classic
> planned obsolescence move? The relatively ancient Oly D-460 Zoom that a
> friend gave me, rather than throw away, still
> works fine, too.
>
> The Canon is slow enough to be a little annoying, but only a bit in good
> light, and takes perfectly usable images. The
> Oly is so slow to respond as to be unusable for me, other than as an
> experiment, and the image quality is ,uh, kinda
> soft and noisy, "vintage", I guess one might call it. I assume the 1.3mp
> Oly is older than the 1.9mp Canon.
>
> But I digress. The point is that I've only had one failure of a digicam,
> which was promptly repaired free under
> warranty. I just don't see any planned obsolescence, just the usual
> symptoms of a young technology in a rapid growth phase.
>
>> I remain convinced that Nikon could release an excellent dedicated
>> 135/120 scanner for about $1000 and still turn a profit, yet choose not
>> to.
>
> The former, sure, probably. The latter, I really doubt it. I've gone on
> and on here before about the economics of mass
> production. The up front costs are so high that large sales are needed to
> make low prices profitable. Leica is an
> example of another business model, low sales volume at high prices. As I
> said before, Nikon could easily have continued
> making and selling their latest models, if there were a profit in doing
> so. With design and tooling costs already paid
> for, their marginal unit costs must have been quite low, compared to
> starting up with a new design, yet they dropped
> them anyway. that says to me there was no profit in them.
>
>> Why? Because it would be counterproductive. They might risk losing some
>> of their consumer base to
>> the used film market. But like you said Moose, those few users wouldn't
>> be enough to make selling $1000 scanners more profitable than selling
>> those same users 3 DSLRs each in 6 years. That's reality, and that's the
>> business model that the big boys have chosen to follow.
>
> Yeah, you do sound just a bit like a bitter 70 year old. ;-) Is this
> based on personal experience, or just general old
> fart ranting about change and perceived greed? Not that I say there isn't
> greed in business, I've sure seen enough of
> it, but the evidence is that the camera business is competitive enough
> that individual companies don't have the luxury
> of exercising it very much or very often.
>
> Ask Minolta, twice acquired, then dropped, or Pentax, alive only through
> acquisition. I believe Oly's been on the edge
> more than once in the digital era.
>
> My own experience is two DSLRs over six years. The 300D was a cheap
> experiment to see if a DSLR would work for me. It
> still works fine, but only gets used for quick shots where I need on
> camera flash and traveling about with me as a
> back-up. The 5D was a carefully considered purchase over four years ago.
> It's still a highly functional and capable
> camera, still working like new almost 11,000 shots later. The only reason
> I'm considering another DSLR (add-on, not
> replacement) is new features/functions, like live view, HD video and
> articulated screen, not any functional failure in
> the 5D.
>
> Some people simply enjoy rolling over their gear, and not just in
> photography. Some make buying decisions based on
> emotion and/or inadequate effort to match camera capabilities to their
> needs. Some people's needs change. Surely you
> know, especially as a member of this list, that those factors were at work
> long before digital.
>
> If people choose to buy cameras more often than otherwise necessary
> through inappropriate choices, gear fetishes,
> etc., I hardly see as the fault of the camera makers (or car makers,
> etc.) Sure, they encourage us through advertising,
> but we are responsible for our own purchasing decisions.
>
> I really think you mis-estimate the relative sizes of the film and digital
> markets. In photography, as in all mass
> markets, you only can be a "big boy" if you follow the mass
> market/production business model. You can be big and high
> volume - or small and low volume. Film is now "spit in the ocean" size,
> and simply not practical for the big boys.
>
> It may not even be practical for the little guys. Leica has suspended
> production of film cameras, due to too large an
> inventory build-up, in favor of using limited resources to produce the
> better selling digital models. They don't say how
> big the inventory problem is, but that film production will be started up
> again when needed. It's possible it never will
> be needed, with NOS (new old stock) filling demand until demand is too low
> to justify restarting production. All OM-3Ti
> and 4Ti sale for years were NOS.
>
> Many wise people over the millennia have said that a key to a long, happy
> life is to become at least comfortable,
> preferably happy, with what is, not being unhappy because what one would
> like to be, is not.
>
> Moose
>
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