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Konica Minolta Quits Photography Market
halenger writes "Japanese photographic equipment maker Konica Minolta has announced plans to withdraw from the camera business. Konica Minolta said the market had become too competitive, and added it would sell its digital camera business to Japanese electronics giant Sony." From the article: "Its decision to ditch the camera business altogether includes the cessation of its colour film and photo paper business, in which it has trailed Eastman Kodak of the US and Japan's Fuji Photo Film. Instead, it plans to focus on products such as colour office photocopiers and medical imaging equipment." We just recently reported on the decision by Nikon to go completely digital.
Cameras with rootkits.
For the people who've just bought a Konica Minolta SLR. I was just looking at buying a DSLR and considering Minolta, but now I would never buy one. At least not until we know for certain what's going to happen to their lens-system.
means the competition's cameras are too cheap and we have no margin left...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I knew that they were already working with Sony. Digital has certainly changed the photography landscape. Each year it looks more and more like film will become a smaller niche.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Good riddance. Evolve or step aside.
Notice how right as Nikon announced they would stop most of their film cameras, Zeiss recovered from the Contax failure by offering their glass for the Nikon F-mount.
Film photography is far from dead, but we are past the point in which you can wrap a business around expensive film-based gear and exotic film types. Kodak killed their B&W paper products, but it was not the end. Ilford is still around.
The same will happen with film. Now it would be nice if we can get Nikon out of the 35mm frame mindset when designing future SLR gear.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
While their latest digital slr had some nice features such as the built in anti shake feature, they were only ever 2nd or 3rd best to canon and nikon in this department, and as far as their film goes, it is really as 2nd teir as agfa etc. The saddest day for film will be when fuji stops making Velvia and the likes, and of course the sad day for digital has already come,... all these people with top of the line digital SLRs that have no clue how to use them
Nikon is coming out with High Dynamic Range cameras later this year that will rival the range of film. Unfortunately monitors (VGA?) can't display HDR images (limited to 8 bits of brightness per subpixel which is fine for most situations ... but duplicating nature can require about 20 bits .. looking at a monitor will be like looking out a window).
the same thing happened to 16mm film in the news business around 1978 - 1979. ENG minicams and tape started infiltrating newsrooms, and everybody was saying they'd keep both. we moved our color processor into the basement, and I built a splash pan for the open-bottom drain. frezzolini was saying their next cameras would be computer-controlled and monitored to the extent that you would know which cell of the battery pack was dying.
but this coincided with kodak's deciding to drop E4 for E6 color processing, and E6 was desperately sensitive to water pH. in other words, all of a sudden, your film came out either deep blue or wildly yellow.
this plus the one-time nature of film costs put film out of business in our 8-station tv operation in four months.
if you can find ANY new film cameras, ANY, offered in one year, it will be a major surprise. I suspect canon and nikon will offer one more digital back for their F lines, and that will be it. the major players in one-use supermarket cameras will be offering digital one-shots by next christmas, probably on the order of grill gas bottles... pay $50 up front, swap the camera for $10 when this one is full.
glorious silver halide photography, R I P. don't dip a finger to taste the developer any more, it's done.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"Japanese photographic equipment maker Konica Minolta has announced plans to withdraw from the camera business."
Was this a well-thought out resolution? Or just a snap decision?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
... will they put a root kit on the cameras?
Nikon and Canon are eating the market. I hope Pentax dont leave also, because I just bought a Pentax *ist DSLR.
Omar
8 bits of brightness per subpixel which is fine for most situations ... but duplicating nature can require about 20 bits
I'm not buying it. Where's the proof?
...Like the copier industry is less saturated than the photography industry.
Are they nuts?!?!?
I have an old Minolta SLR camera. It is roughly as old as me (well, it could conceivably be older, I don't really know). All the important controls are manual -- focus, aperature, speed. It takes great pictures. Much better than my wife's auto-everything camera. Not that I have a flash.... but who needs a flash when you can brace the camera against a wall or a knee and take really long exposures?
Upon first hearing the news that Minolta was getting out of the camera business, I thought, time to upgrade.
On the other hand, the only thing I buy for this camera is film.
My one complaint is its size. I guess you can't get everything.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
They deserve it. I own a digital camera from them. It's very inexpensive for what it is. However, the softwares is very buggy. Image colors are not very truthful. I had to send back for fix because the connector to the USB connector got blown out (they should have guard against high voltage load and static, etc). Other problems: you have to pay for newer version of the camera software. You have to pay for newer version of drivers and firmware (how stupid is this?). With the drivers/firmwares alone, I would not buy from them.
It's so stupid that they don't fix their stupid mistakes, but shut down. If these are fixed, I would definitely buy from them again. They don't have good digital market share because of poor quality. I think they just need to fire who ever in charge of these areas. Streamline the engineer group and things should work.
*sigh*
And another one bites the dust.
I've got two Minolta 35mm film SLR cameras, (an old 7-series, and a much newer Maxxum 4). They're not professional-grade cameras by any means, but I like them far more than any digital camera I can afford to buy. Minolta dropping out of the camera business entirely probably means that finding accessories for them is going to suddenly become difficult.
And I still need a good flash for the Maxxum, as well as various lenses for each.
Looks like I'm being left behind by the march of technology, and it's really too bad. I won't argue that digital isn't better than film in almost all respects, but I really enjoy making B&W prints in my little darkroom (and, honestly, I have yet to see a digital camera that can give you authentic-looking B&W. I don't know the technical reason, but I can always tell the difference between a picture that's just been desaturated, and an actual B&W). The more niche it becomes, the less I'm going to be able to afford it.
*shrug*
Call me a luddite, but losing the environment wherein you can buy a decent camera and expect your kids to use it after they grow up in favor of the fast-paced furor of modern electronics sort of depresses me. It used to be all about the photographer: a talented amateur with a fairly cheap 35mm camera could take pictures all but indistinguishable from those taken by an average pro if they just used quality film/paper. That is, the stuff that made all the technical difference on the print was the cheap stuff. Now, the stuff that makes all the technical difference on the print is the expensive stuff.
I'm not a serious artist, and I can't afford to spend serious artist money on just a fun thing I like to do. Looks like the market is squeezing my hobby out.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
KM will be making DSLRs and glass for Sony (they've been working together since last summer, apparently the first ones will simply be rebranded KM), their consumer point&shoot cameras do indeed appear dead. However, I think the real news here is that Sony may suddenly be a DSLR player. With KM expertise (the 7D and 5D are quite good) in making cameras (and their in-camera anti-shake patents) coupled with Sony's sensor experience (Sony makes the ccds for everybody save Canon), Sony will suddenly have a vertically integrated DSLR business, with proven and well known lens availability (a big barrier to acceptance of new DSLR by pros and prosumers). Canon is the only other company that matches this. That said, keep the -expletive deleted- memory stick out of 'em!
I knew I should've bought the Canon I was also looking at! Now I get all the benefits of going to Sony with repair/replacement issues. Couldn't Minolta at least sell of to Nikon or Canon?
A few months after I bought my Z5, Canon effectively leapfrogged it with their own new IS model, also using AAs which was a selling point for me. Maybe Konica Minolta drove that new model some, so they had their positive competitive effect on the market, but they didn't have a clear winner in my book for more than a few months, and I'm someone who actually bought their product.
They had their own way of doing things, though. The design of the Z5 is one of those ones you immediately recognize as having some thought to it, even if you don't like it in use (which I did). You hate to see another independent voice vanish.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I keep wanting a new camera since my current Minolta Dimage 7hi is almost 3 years old, and I was thinking of going Minolta again since I had spent over $300 on an external Minolta flash unit. I guess I'll just have to eBay it and switch brands, or maybe there will now be some really good deals on current Minolta models.
Film is dead. Digital at 11.
As an avid Minolta and then Sony camera user and saving for a excellent KM 7D (or it's rumored replacement the 7Di) was devastated by this news. But as I posted on www.dpreview.com KM SLR forums, if Sony and KM can do what Sony and Ericsson did and merge their brands, it will retain loyal Minolta followers and give Sony credibility in the pro photography market. Minolta have a history of innovation from auto focus to anti-shake while Sony have a reputation for engineering, so such a merging would be perfect, but ONLY if the branding is right. On a personal note, the Konica Minolta 7D has the best ergonomics of any camera I have ever held (and natural looking photos too), and if it becomes unavailable or hard to service, there will be no camera out there for me to consider. Effectively, I will protest by not buying anything else until a equal or better designed camera is launched by someone.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
If my Sony DSC-V3 is any indication, Sony either has a product life cycle that is too short to consider customer support and upgrades or Sony doesn't know how to write firmware which allows the photographer to control the photograph.
Come on Sony Open up your firmware!:
Not everyone wants all of their "soft focus" to come from diffraction (Allow the user to shift the default program mode towards wide aperatures)
Occasionally real photographers want to use an external flash and occasionally that flash should be slave-triggered by the in-camera flash.
There are occasions when a photographer wants to make an exposure longer than 1/30th of a second and not have your patented noise reduction algorithm run on their image.
There are occasions when a photographer wants to make an exposure longer than 30 seconds.
Arbitrary decisions made by the camera such as the shutter speed can't exceed 1/1000th unless the aperature is larger than F5.6 should be reserved for program mode, not Aperture or Shutter priority and certainly not for manual mode!
Sorry, laser autofocus really doesn't work well enough to justify shining a laser in your subject's eyes, regardless of how "safe" ISO guidelines say this particular laser is.
Yup, way down in the releases they say that they'll be keeping the same mount, which makes sense, and which may signal a switch in Sony's corporate culture. Sony has a history of trying to impose their own formats on various sectors of the market, with disastrous recent results (ATRAC v. MP3, Memory Stick, and on and on, even back to Betamax). Perhaps the recent CEO switch is bearing some fruit.
Zonk, your editorial comment "We just recently reported on the decision by Nikon to go completely digital." is wrong.
Nikon continues to make their top of the line F6. It's hard to imagine a better 35mm SLR. They will also continue to market the entry level FM10 (made for them by Cosina).
Having said that, the writing's on the wall. I suspect they can only still make the F6 since it shares much with their top of the line DSLR.
Well, I bought a surplus colour copier from my company the other day, but when I tried to get in the car I knocked the top off the aluminium fuel can onto the pavement, and the petrol went down the centre of the boot, onto my spare tyre, just where I keep my licence. Poor judgement on my part - I had to to the theatre that night smelling like a mechanic....
This is so cool... this reminds me of people getting rid of their records years ago, and then realising the treasures they threw away... the same thing will happen with analog photo gear. Hasselblad, Leica, Nikon, stuff is practically given away. Now is the time to buy :-)
For years I was able to perform (and even sell) large prints. I even was one of the few Xerox Versatec electrostatic plotter owners for a few years, although now Inkjet has replaced my old beloved format.
The reason for the post is quality in large print (especially zoomed prints). Even with the 6.1-8.1 MP images I feed the large format printers I use, there is something "magic" about the drum scanned photos that come out of even my old Rebel SLR with stock kit lens.
I lost the analog war many times over (I still use my turntables) but I gave up on analog film with the purchase of my D50 this year. Every digital camera until then that I bought (even up to $800) was garbage, the D50 is a miracle in a small package. I wish I went a step higher but I had 10 digital duds sitting around the house so I was hesitant.
Last week I blew up my first digital picture and it was harse. I did some self cleanup and it was still "digital."
Is it possible that I'm facing a psychosomatic impression knowing that the original image was digital, or is there a definitive need for film capturing for large format prints? I can compare two very similar shots side by side on the large format print and the film print has more depth and more "clarity" (or is it acuity?).
I left the print business a LONG time ago, but I still do prints as I own the equipment. My biggest "customer" are wealthy folks from my IT business who want large prints of artwork or family junk -- and the digital pics so far just don't feel the same. Maybe they won't notice, or maybe it's just me.
Just to go off topic for a bit. My wife just recently bought a Konica-Minolta Magicolor 2430-DL printer. Great printer, great price, reasonable priced consumables. The built in ethernet print server supports OSX and Linux out of the box.
I didn't even know they made printers. Much less good ones.
You can get them for $350 (if I remember correctly) at Costco. It's a much better deal then the inkjet ripoff.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
And if they decide to cut us all off? Oh well - I'll still be using my shiny new Maxxum 5D (picking it up Saturday) until it finally dies and Sony decides to not support it anymore. This will likely be quite a long time, because in my experience almost every SLR I've owned was built to last. My old Maxxum 7, Maxxum 5, and Maxxum Qt-si are still cranking away after literal years of abuse (the old Maxxum 7 most of all - it's been beaten to within an inch of its life on my trips to the backcountry throughout the US West, and it still happily comes to life whenever I want it to).
Sad to see them go, though - it's kind of cool to have image stabilization without the need to buy image-stabilized lenses.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Depends what stuff you're talking about. For most hobbyists using conventional b&w chemistry, the chemicals involved are largely benign. The big worry would be the silver dissolved in exhausted fixer, but again, most hobbyists don't produce this in enough volume to make this a problem. If, however, you're talking about commercial-type volumes of this, then you will need to add a silver recovery step to your disposal routine.
(More modest silver recovery is possible for the hobbyist. I used to put pennies in my exhausted fix, so that the silver would replace the copper plating--then I'd give the silvered penny to my kid brother. OK, so that just replaces one heavy-metal with another, but it certainly pays to see a little kid's eyes light up)
Colour photography is much, much nastier, and may have more stringent disposal requirements. And, of course, if you're using 'exotics'--selenium toner, for instance, or pyrogallol-based developers, the storage and disposal rules for those are much more stringent.
One thing I'll say about my photographic hobby--it's certainly kept my education balanced. I'm an historian by training, but photography keeps my mathematics, chemistry, and physics sharp
It's too easy to edit EXIF data, and it's way too easy for someone to claim that a digital photograph is his, even if he didn't take it. BUT - if you have a 35mm negative of the same scene, same lighting conditions, nearly the same angle, etc... there's no way someone can credibly (and especially legally) claim that your work is theirs, unless the person can prove that he or she was standing right next to you at that moment in time when the photo was taken. This is especially true in such things as landscape phtography, where clouds and individual plant life characteristics are too unique.
With widespread image pirating (of film, art, you-name-it) a constant on the Internet, sometimes a bit of old-fashioned technology is your best defense (and an ISP will listen to you much more attentively if you let them know that you have a negative of the stolen image in your possession - otherwise it's your word against the pirate's).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
"Minolta have a history of innovation from..."
OK, I don't want anyone to go mental over this and this really isn't criticism of Wonderkid or his post but... When did we start using company names as if they were plural? Really, it's a single organization. I realize that its made up of mulitple individuals but we wouldn't say, for instance, "My school have put together a program..." Just wondering. Really. I'm seeing this more and more and I'm about to go mental; Quietly mental mind you, but mental all the same.
I wield a KM 5D, and I dread naught. In fact, I find the move rather delightful in what promises are held for me. For one, I'm likely to be able to use my lenses on an SLR equivalent with an EVF (Electronic ViewFinder), meaning that lacking a mirror in front of the CCD I'll be able to capture high-res video. This basically turns what used to be a still camera into a HDTV video camera. Couple it with KM's Anti-Shake system and suddenly a world of new possibilities open up.
Another benefit I get is better support for my camera. Yet another the name recognition to increase the second-hand value of my gear. Further Sony's hit-and-miss tendency technology-wise means I'm likely to see all sorts of experimental features in models that come and go, giving new photographic opportunities. All point toward a bright bright feature.
My only concern is that Sony might jump on the Microsoft-only bandwagon, with encrypted file formats & ilk. Yet, with Sony marketing the PS3 as a computer, Linux support might not be a mere pipe-dream. If they do support Linux they will be the only manufacturer to do so, and might grab some additional market-share because of this. This would be enough to redeem them from the rootkit fiasco in my eyes.
All rites reversed 2010
I went digital last year because the cost of film got too high. The cost to buy, develop, and print (from a good lab) was approaching $1/frame. My digital setup (Canon EOS Digital+lens, 1gb cf card, and flash) cost $1400. At the rate I take pictures it will pay for itself by the end of this year.
Best Slashdot Co
The last true Alpa was made in around 1988. I spent some time over the years collecting the lenses I wanted, the accessories I desired. Haven't had to buy anything but film and batteries for years. (And a typical camera battery for those cameras lasts 10+ years).
I, for one, welcome many Nikon and Minolta owners to the orphaned cameras club.
I have watched the price of my cameras do nothing but INCREASE on e-bay and in used camera stores and shows over the years, to the point that I can sell my gear for more than I paid for it NEW (for the parts I got new).
Heck, my oldest camera body (made in 1965/6) has increased 5-6 fold in value from what I paid for it, used, many years ago.
There are still several shops around where I can get repairs, including one that can fabricate parts.
I learned years ago to have my own backups for the time repairs take.
I'll still be using my shiny new Maxxum 5D (picking it up Saturday) until it finally dies and Sony decides to not support it anymore. This will likely be quite a long time, because in my experience almost every SLR I've owned was built to last.
:~))
My old Maxxum 7, Maxxum 5, and Maxxum Qt-si are still cranking away after literal[ly] years of abuse (the old Maxxum 7 most of all - it's been beaten to within an inch of its life on my trips to the backcountry throughout the US West, and it still happily comes to life whenever I want it to).
Now we know why every Microsoft operating system ever made has operated the way it has.
It's British.
THE NERD IS THE COMPUTER.
I am shocked everyone picked up on the camera part, but KM is also withdrawing from the mini-lab side of things.
. html
http://konicaminolta.com/releases/2006/0119_01_01
That leaves two major players (Noritsu & Fuji) and a revamped comppany (DigitalPortal - aka KISS) still producing traditional labs. (and yes, they all print from digital images as well as film (neg/pos).
No one is printing images on real, traditional (cheaper) photographic, silver halide paper. Everyone seems content with spending their time and money on home solutions when they finally decide to print anything at all.
It is funny to me that most people take more pictures now on their camera or device since they don't have to buy film or pay for processing, but no one has a single print to show me!
I HATE seeing your family or fun shots on your 2.5" Horiz. - MAX size LCD! (even worse 1.5"!!!)
Come on!!! Get real!
Make prints people!!!!
Support your local lab or even local wholesale or major retailer and make some 4x5.5 or 4x6 or larger prints!
It still is cheaper and faster than doing it yourself and people can actually see if your eyes are open in your images.
MAKE MORE PRINTS PEOPLE!
IMHO, Minolta makes the best light meters. Yes, these are still useful even for digital users.
Didn't the same kind of thing happen to the Swiss watch manufacturers, when they decided the digital watch market would never go anywhere? The Japanese firms seized on the opportunity, and the rest is history. Perhaps film cameras will enjoy the kind of specialized market that Swiss mechanical watches do. I wonder what the next paradigm shift will be that catches the Japanese firms by surprise....
"Physics is the most fundamental, and least significant, of the sciences." -- Ken Wilber
Back in the late 60's and early 70's I used to love my Minolta 16 http://www.cosmonet.org/camera/minol16e.htm. This camera used 16 mm film, and I used to reload the cartridges in a light proof bak from a reel of 16mm film. It fit nicely in a shirt or pants pocket ans was pretty rugged for it's day. Loaded up with some Tri-X and pushed up to about 1600 it was pretty good for party pics without flash.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
So next we'll have some form of DRM on pictures? No thanks, I'll stick to crayons and paper.
They mount as a regular USB FAT drive, and you can just copy files over like anything.
:P. I plan on getting one of these goofy things at some point, which can use CF. I might look at other brands, though. I still want something nice and small.
I recently got a Cannon SD450 (5mp) and not does the picture quality suck compared my old DSC-V1 (also 5mp, but a much larger body) I can't even copy the files to my old machine the way I could with the V1.
OTOH, the V1 was just too bulky to cary around with me all the time, while the SD450 is, and it uses a standard memory type -- no more memory sticks for me
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The only thing I remember about Konika is the bloody annoying "Colours are calling you" advert they used to run years ago, good riddance!
They also changed directives: http://konicaminolta.com/releases/2006/0119_04_01. html
Omar
I don't see how this is different from the old film SLR market: Canon has the lion's share, Nikon can't make up for lost time and second-rate glass, and the rest squabble over the scraps.
Sony's in a fine position to upset the applecart... they're the dominant consumer/prosumer digicam brand, and a DSLR with Minolta's electronics know-how coupled with Zeiss optics at a Sony price-point will be a world beater, believe it.
(And Contax sold more Arias and NXs than they could make, precisely because they were $500 cameras people could stick a $1000 lens on. Pity the N1 Digital's imaging chip sucked so bad... killed the company dead.)
SoupIsGood Food
This story made me a bit sad. In the 80s Minolta was the pioneer in SLR business with their innovative autofocus system. The 7000, 7000i(I used to own one) was quite advanced. I still have a Maxxum 5 that I bought few years ago. But truth be told once I moved to dSLR with Nikon D70 I have not taken any picture with my Minolta. I wonder if they had released their 7D when market was not that saturated they may have had survived. But from what I understand Minolta never wanted to get into digital SLR. Only after merging with Konica they came up with their 7D. O well lets see how sony handles this. Maybe a good thing for the consumers.
Konica Minolta said the market had become too competitive, and added it would sell its digital camera business to Japanese electronics giant Sony.
I own a Dimage Z3 that I bought as my first digital camera. I bought it for the 12x optical zoom and for the form factor that is identical to the Z5 discussed by the parent article. A lesser factor was its use of SD cards, which I already used in other devices and had plenty of and its use of AA batteries. It is definitely different from other cameras in its niche, and shows a lot of well-thought-out ergonomics. Fringe benefit is the moderately high geek factor from its different shape.
I do own a Ricoh SLR body and a bag full of various Pentax lenses, filters, and attachments. They get hauled out when I'm really taking my time with a few nature shots or the like. Otherwise, I use the Z3.
My car is a Z3, too.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The non-SLR digital camera landscape is very different:
... others
(year-old statistics, US-only)
20% Sony
20% Kodak
16% Canon
12% Olympus
32%
There is lots of money to be made there. Camera phones will intrude, but a percentage of people (like me) will insist on lenses that are too big to fit on a phone.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Konica films in general, were not, IMO, that great to begin with. Compared to other colour films from Fuji and Kodak, they always seemed a step behind. Thier one, unique product, Konica 750, was a black & white, near infra-red film.
But Konica 750 was usually only available once a year, while other IR and near IR films could and can be bought year round. Also, other near IF films from other companies, were, IMO, overall better films. I know, I used Konica 750, Maco 820, Ilford SFX, Kodak HSI (no longer made) and more. Konica 750 was pretty much my last choice for near IR films.
So for me, hearing that there is no more Konica film, while, that's almost like saying "sorry, no more Lada's". Yes, I did drive a Lada once, a famiily member owned one. the experience was "interesting".
Bear in mind that it's basic marketing 101 to make the "death of film" a self fullfilling prophecy. My 25 year old Nikon 35mm cameras works just as good as the day they were brand new, and i know guys using 50 year cameras they bought used. But my 4 year old Olympus digital camera, soon to be 5 years old, while it works fine, is pretty much toast. The memory cards are hard to find, and everybody tells me "soon no longer supported", and the specific USB cable to connect it to my computer is no longer made, and parts for it, should it break, are no longer supported, the drivers for it are all Win 98, etc, etc.
Think about it - you own a big camera company - what makes you more money in the long run? A camera that is useable for 25 + years, or a camera that needs to be replaced about every 5 years?
Also, the finer, higher quality, double weight, black & white photo paper you can buy for a wet darkroom, on a sheet by sheet basis, is still less money than most comparable, high quality, "photo grade" papers for inkjet or laser printers. I've done some side by side comparisons in the past - colour or black & white - it is more money to run a "digital darkroom" than a "wet darkroom" in terms of both hardware and consumable supplies.
I am not here to fence with anybody on which is better, film or digital. totlaly useless arguement - there is room and need for both, and i use both. I just feel, reading posts here and elsewhere on the internet, that many people seem to avoid or skim over or not pay enough attention to the fact that there is a real, definite, * long term * financial advantage to all the large companies to convince John Q Pulic that film is "no good" and go all digital on many different levels. ths is the driving force behind the "death of film" or whatever you want to call it.
Film still has several advantages, and always will, but these advantages for differnet situations, IMO, are totally ignored in the marketing rush to digital.
Put it this way, the fact i own a car does not mean I was ever in a rush to dump my bicycle. In fact, I seem to be using my bicycle more and more these past few years. We may find the same is true for film.
why on earth do I want to spend mucho $ to print a silly picture? you can see my pic on your computer's 15-30" screen when I send it to you. I might print a couple of the really good ones out on photo printer using the 8yr old deskjet to put in a frame but that's about it.
There have been a number of others that have, for example, started out as German companies, then the name was bought and a Japanese company sold cameras under that name for a while, and finally the whole venture died, but Konica (the company itself, not just the name) has now exited the camera business for a second time. I'm not sure, but offhand, I can't think of anybody else who's really done that.
My other minor observation is that this seems a prime example of a theory I've been building for quite a while: to do well in the market, doing brilliant things matters a lot less than avoiding doing much that's really stpuid.
Konica and Minolta combined absolute brilliance with astounding stupidity. Canon (for one) has never introduced a feature like autofocus that has completely transformed the market, but they've mostly avoided massive stupidity, so the dominate the market.
Those who care to look might easily see something similar in comparing Apple with Microsoft.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
I have a Konica-Minolta Dimage Z3 which I've liked a lot
despite having some shortcomings which I've worked around.
The Z6 looked like a nicer version of the same camera but
I'd only consider it if it were being sold on closeout now.
Sad, but ultimately the consumer will benefit. Those that
remain will have to provide better features/capabilities at
an affordable price in order to stay in business.
Starting Last fall, our company leases a Konica Minolta Bizhub 550. We used to have a Ricoh Color Printer/Copier/scanner before that.
The Minolta has been nothing but trouble since it's installation. The Konica tech came on-site to install and set it up (brand new out of the box).
The print server that came with it wouldn't communicate properly, so it had to be replaced.
There are no diagnostic messages or logs that I can see for troubleshooting the scan-to-email functions. Of course, there is a test function which sends an email that says "Test - OK?", and it ALWAYS works, even if scan-to-email doesn't.
The web interface is riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes. Obviously, the software is written by Asians, and then BADLY translated.
The LCD touch panel interface is HORRIBLY designed. There is no standard for user controls or information areas. It's not at all obvious what will happen when you press a particular button. Some buttons aren't even pressable - They are just used as labels! The RICOH LCD interface was elegant by comparison.
Since I am the administrator of that machine, I often receive automated emails from the device indicating a fault or failure. I usually get one every 6 weeks indicating some obscure error - please call service. We don't use the copier THAT much, and this machine is less than a year old.
The truth is, Konica Minolta really NEEDS to focus more on their business copiers and printers.
you haven't been able to get mag stripe film for 2 or 3 years now. there is no single-system market of any kind in movie film, none.
there is still a market for the arriflex and nagra crowd, but that's thinning out, with even feature film distribution going to direct digital to theater servers.
we now have all of agfa, sakura, konica/minolta, 3M, and most of ilford a lot of kodak's lines of film off the market. kodak closed its color paper plants in colorado, the last lines I think are in spain and brazil.
it's very thin out there, protect your sources. same for tape for that nagra you probably use, quantegy solved their strike and they're the world's last source of reel audio tape.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
We've covered cameras, lenses, consumables, minilabs... but does anyone have any idea what they are going to do with the big processing lab in Maine? (See their Contact page at http://kmpi.konicaminolta.us/eprise/main/kmpi/cont ent/contact for info).
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
The terrible name for the Minolta line had to have helped the demise. What marketing genius came up with it?
"Let's see. Dim + Damage = Dimage! Just what everyone wants in a camera!"
Probably there was a huge fight on the marketing floor with the guys who wanted to call it Fuzzypic.
quite familiar with them, and the 10 and higher megapixel stuff is going to challenge those lines hard. very hard.
halide photography is on the downslide from commercial product to art form, and it's sliding fast. once the theater market for 35mm and larger strip forms disappears, and the holdup really is getting a common distribution system and theater equipment in place, you're down to the real nutcutting.
that's just a matter of getting financing out to theater chains and the remaining independents.
without the volume on the strip film lines, making the film base for slitting and perforating for your sheet and 6x7 lines is going down to one machine someplace. probably pitomania or whichever island is above water once a month for the low labor rates, and hang the quality on those intermittent and indifferently-maintained coating lines.
you may have a botique producer, like the german outfit that stamps fine 180-gram LP records, but if the volume falls there, film is fully over. if you have a sinar, start looking for glass plateholders. you can recoat your own glass, it was done in the 1910s.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
It's probably not entirely psychosomatic. While something in the 6 MP range is great for most applications, large format print still is not one of them. To get information content roughly equivalent to 35 mm film grain, you'd need a camera to be around 25 MP. So while it's not really noticeable at small and medium sizes, the resolution problems become apparent at poster sizes.
I'm sure digital will eventually get up to the right resolution and until then, the payoff in time and the fact that it will cover 95% of what I do professionally make it worthwhile to shoot digital.
We don't need to make prints anymore as there is this thing called the web. Now photos can be put on webpages and emails sent out to direct friends and family to them before the vacation is even over. The only thing I need prints for is my grandparents who don't own computers.
The highest resolution color negative film available the last time I bought film was Konica Impresa 50. When this is gone, the best available film quality gets one step worse, again.
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Consider that Sony supplies virtually all the sensors used in digital cameras in the world market, including Konica-Minolta (Canon is a notable exception).
KM, as a camera manufacturer, must buy a critical (and highest-priced) component from Sony, who not only sells the same components to all their competitors, but also competes with KM in their own market (digicams).
Makes it kind of hard to make a buck, see?
Sony, who is working hard to knock Kodak out of the number one spot for digital camera sales, needed an entry into the DSLR market, and KM, having lost USD$407 million in the last year, was ripe for the picking.
It's telling that of all the business that Sony was interested in acquiring from KM, the only thing they took was the DSLR business. That nicely fills in the current hole in Sony's lineup.
So I take it you also have LCD and some other flat panels all over your house and desk at work showing your digital images. You must be rich.
Seriously though, prints IMHO, are so much better to show your memories.
Sure sometimes a link via email or a web page/blog is enough, but if you ever have more than 1 person over for any function, good luck showing off your images.
ANd yes, I also own many methods to show images on my TV, but trust me, prints still are extremely useful.
ITs a sad time for Photos and Imaging when people are content not seeing the images they captured at the quality they paid all that cash for.
I was just about to plunk down some cash for the 7D, after himming and hawing for weeks...
Now I have to start my search over, but atleat I won't be stuck on a dead end platform....
-MS2k
...unlike Microsoft products, Minolta products don't suck, nor are they a monopoly on the photography market.
Quite.
If Windows worked, nobody would buy the next version. I dare say that were they not a monopoly, the tactic would not work.
Sony makes the CCDs for most cameras, including Canon.
They don't make them for Fuji though. Fuji makes their own.
Canon makes their own CMOS sensors, but not their own CCDs.
Sony has made the CCDs for Canon since before digital cameras even existed since Canon used Sony CCDs in their camcorders since at least the days of Hi-8 (did Canon even make camcorders before 8mm)?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
I started using Minolta back in 1986 with the Minolta 7000.
Witch btw suckt. Big time. It was the first SLR with autofocus. And i can tell you this autofocus never worked that good, especially in difficult contitions.
But i got used to it, and i still can controll the camera with closed eyes. I know how the center-weighted average metering worked, and i was able to produce hq pictures.
in 1995 Minota released the 600si. Which featured a complete new/old concept of useability. Instead of push buttons and menus it had knobs and dials.
I got one, and i was in heaven. All the controls where in the right place. It took me about 5 minutes, to get used to it, plus all the settings where much faster done.
It was great to see, that Minolta adopted that concept of use to the 7d.
Lets hope, Sony keeps that useability concept.
I've been very impressed with the evolution of Minolta's 7 series (now the 'A' series) over the years. It seems they actually pay attention to what users on the forums have to say, and each successive model has a UI that's somewhat easier to use than the one before, without giving up the option of manual control.