On 2/25/2014 5:36 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , John Turco
wrote:

This conveniently omits the fact Kodak was the earliest company to
introduce DSLR's,

it doesn't omit anything nor is what i said a myth.

read what i wrote. i said they pioneered digital and that they also
failed to succeed in the market.

It's a wrong to say that Kodak ignored digital technology.

what's wrong is to say i said that, because i didn't say anything close
to that.

It was a
major player in the P&S market

not really.

early on they had a reasonable share, but that didn't last all that
long.

other companies made more compelling products and their share dwindled.

i gave a link in another post that kodak was losing $60 per camera
sold. that's almost never a good idea.

and also, had already paved the way
for Canon and Nikon, where DSLR's were concerned.

and then kodak wasted a ****load of money on the 14n, slr/n and slr/c.
those were *awful*.

complete waste of money.

kodak's early slrs were hybrids made by nikon/canon, with additional
kodak electronics. they could never be competitive with that strategy.

kodak then tried again with the 14n and slr/n (which were built from
nikon parts) and the slr/c (which was made by sigma). they were all
horrible and that's being kind.

nikon/canon and other companies made much better slrs for less money.
kodak lost.

Kodak was never a manufacturer of SLR bodies or lenses, naturally.

incorrect.

kodak made film slrs long ago, such as the retina reflex, which was not
particularly good.

then there was the instamatic slr, a *really* dumb idea. the film in an
instamatic cartridge could not be kept flat enough to obtain the full
quality of an slr.

http://www.bvipirate.com/Kodak/IReflex-1.html

kodak was trying to push instamatic film, which might have been fine
for the consumer market, but it certainly was not for the slr market.
whose bright idea was that??

more recently, the kodak 14n and slr/n were built by kodak using nikon
parts. it was mostly a nikon n80 but not entirely so. what kodak didn't
do with those was buy a nikon shell and stuff kodak electronics into
it, as they did with earlier cameras.

the slr/c version of the slr/n, however, was outsourced to sigma, of
all people. yet another mistake.

and had an extensive line of "EasyShare" P&S models.

easyshare was crap, something i also said.

Not crap, and I own quite a few EasyShare cameras.

they were crap compared to other options available. the user interface
was not particularly good, they didn't offer anything compelling over
other cameras, most of which cost less, and the sharing thing was
bizarre.

they were trying to target a specific niche, with a commodity product.

when a company sells crap that nobody buys, they often go bankrupt.

Then, using a frequent target of your scorn (i.e., "Sigma"), why hasn't
that questionable firm folded, yet?

because sigma makes a ****load of money on lenses and their lenses
aren't complete crap. they're certainly not as good as nikon/canon, but
they're not total junk.

sigma's older lenses, the ones that used cellophane tape to hold them
together (no joke) were crap, but they don't do that anymore.

the problem i have with sigma is that they are one of the sleaziest
companies around, intentionally lying about the foveon sensor to the
point of violating the laws of physics and mathematics. who wants to do
business with liars?

anyway, if you want crap lenses, look no further than this gem:
http://www.casciola.com/pics/opteka_2705.jpg

notice how well it maintains a parallel axis when extended. if that
camera were any heavier, it would probably snap right off.

the difference with that company is that they sell a *lot* of products,
so a couple of crappy ones aren't a big deal. they're not betting the
farm on that type of product, which is what kodak was doing.

some companies do manage to succeed by selling crap, but kodak wasn't
one of them. it's also not a very good strategy.

It works for Sigma, does it not?

not a good analogy.

sigma's lens sales aren't going away the way film was for kodak.

if sigma's main source of revenue was going away to be replaced by
their cameras, then sigma would have a serious problem. their camera
division loses a lot of money, which means if they were relying on it,
sigma would ultimately go away.

with kodak, film was going away (and kodak knew it), but their cameras
weren't good enough to replace it, especially when they were losing
money on them.

If any outfit is behind the times, it's FujiFilm -- it still has the
word "film" in its very name!

big deal. if that's the only thing they get wrong then they're doing
pretty good.

They get a lot of things wrong (e.g., qualty control), it seems.

not really.


Our little sub-thread has dragged on long enough. I'll allow you to
have the last word, but...if you are right, you're simply beating a
dead horse.

John