Getting rid of the low-end to make the higher-end cheaper

In article
,
RichA wrote:

In the 1970s, companies existed despite the fact the average camera
was NOT meant for Joe Public.

Crud.
Minolta SRTs, Pentax Spotmatics, Olympus OMs, the lower priced Canon and
Nikon slrs were just as commonly seen hung around the necks of Joe
Public as DSLRs are today.

Prove it. *Owning an SLR was not as common then as owning a DSLR now.

prove it yourself.

You don't even have to!

if you are going to make the claim you do.

Just go walk around any city in the summer,
DSLR's everywhere, FAR more than I used to see of SLRs.

actually, most people now use cellphone cameras or small p&s cameras.
not too many people want to lug an slr, especially if the destination
is going to be something like facebook.

Because a
$600 DSLR today is a lot cheaper than a $400 SLR in 1978.

except that slrs in 1978 were much less than $400.

And
JUNKIER! Aside from crud like the Canon T50/70 which appeared in the
early 80's, there really wasn't much trash back then.

there was a lot of crap in the 80s too. lots of plastic too.

On 29 Feb 2012 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Me wrote:

I'm surprised to see that the SRT101 dates back to 1966, With open
aperture metering and bayonet lenses, it's a long way ahead of the
Pentax Spotmatic of that time, but IIRC the Pentax was a much more
popular camera. Perhaps the Minolta was much more expensive.

I'm a bit surprised that it goes back that far, but not much. The
Spotmatics of that era - they were marketed in the USA under the
Honeywell label - still had screw-thread lens mounts. But if memory
serves, when I was buying my first camera, the cameras under
consideration were Canon FTb and Minolta SRT-100. Olympus OM-1 came
close, but dropped from consideration because it was too small for my
hands. Pentax, Mamiya-Secor and a couple of others dropped off because
of the screw mount. I wound up with the FTb. This was ca 1973.

--
Joe Makowiec
http://makowiec.org/
Email: http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

In article , Bruce
wrote:

You don't even have to! Just go walk around any city in the summer,
DSLR's everywhere, FAR more than I used to see of SLRs. Because a
$600 DSLR today is a lot cheaper than a $400 SLR in 1978.

I think you're right about the numbers; I heard a statement from
someone at Nikon Europe to the effect that Nikon had already sold more
DSLRs than the total number of 35mm SLRs the parent company ever made.

bogus statistic. nikon also sold more p&s digicams than they did film
compacts.

And
JUNKIER! Aside from crud like the Canon T50/70 which appeared in the
early 80's, there really wasn't much trash back then.

I strongly disagree. There was plenty of trash around. From the 70s
onwards there were strenuous efforts made to cut the price of SLRs.
Canon had the AE-1 family which was very cheaply made compared to the
metal FD mount SLRs. People who owned them are very defensive and it
is true that they performed well, but they were certainly cheaply
made.

the canon ae1 was cheaply made and not particularly reliable either.

Nikon made the EM and FG20 which were a real attempt to cut costs
(along with the matching E Series lenses) and then came some of the
worst cameras to bear that brand name including the plastic F301
(N2000), F501 (N2020) and F401 (N4004).

actually, cosina made the nikon em and i think the fg20 too. nikon just
put their name on it.

The first two had chassis so flimsy that you could see the body
flexing around the lens mount when a long, heavy lens was used. The
tripod mount was next to useless because of flexing. I was extremely
unhappy with my F301, which I bought as a second body to the
superlative (metal) FE2.

the target market for budget slrs was not someone who would be using
long heavy lenses. most slr buyers don't even buy additional lenses.

On 1/03/2012 12:59 p.m., Joe Makowiec wrote:
On 29 Feb 2012 in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems, Me wrote:

I'm surprised to see that the SRT101 dates back to 1966, With open
aperture metering and bayonet lenses, it's a long way ahead of the
Pentax Spotmatic of that time, but IIRC the Pentax was a much more
popular camera. Perhaps the Minolta was much more expensive.

I'm a bit surprised that it goes back that far, but not much. The
Spotmatics of that era - they were marketed in the USA under the
Honeywell label - still had screw-thread lens mounts. But if memory
serves, when I was buying my first camera, the cameras under
consideration were Canon FTb and Minolta SRT-100. Olympus OM-1 came
close, but dropped from consideration because it was too small for my
hands. Pentax, Mamiya-Secor and a couple of others dropped off because
of the screw mount. I wound up with the FTb. This was ca 1973.

I remember being amused by seeing ads in magazines for what we knew as
Pentax cameras being sold as "Honeywell". However in the 60s, my
parents bought a Yamaha piano, IIRC it was branded "Steigerman" or
something close to that - a close rip-off of the Steinway brand,
sounding very Germanic, so I presume that the renaming wasn't related to
post-war squeamishness, but the general perception that stuff made in
Japan was dubious in quality.

Looking at some of the prices in the links to old ads provided by David
Dyer-Bennet, it looks like the Minolta SR-T 101 was quite expensive. I
can't find a Pentax/Honeywell Spotmatic price, but it looks like the
Minolta wasn't much less expensive than a Nikon F.

I suppose many people believe that the Chinese can rise as a quality
manufacturer by implementing quality control from the top down, but I
have doubts that they can ever achieve this, if the industrial model
continues with low paid factory workers on assembly lines having little
understanding of what they're trying to achieve, except to meet targets
set by somebody else, in order to produce products that they could never
afford. "Kaizen" would probably rely on a more "democratic" workplace
where if the tea-lady has a good idea, there will be someone to listen.

"Me" wrote:

I suppose many people believe that the Chinese can rise as a quality
manufacturer by implementing quality control from the top down, but I have
doubts that they can ever achieve this, if the industrial model continues
with low paid factory workers on assembly lines having little
understanding of what they're trying to achieve, except to meet targets
set by somebody else, in order to produce products that they could never
afford. "Kaizen" would probably rely on a more "democratic" workplace
where if the tea-lady has a good idea, there will be someone to listen.

FWIW, Hoshino Gakki (Ibanez) manufactures a lot of guitars in China, and
they are beautifully made. I have an AF105FNT, and it's gorgeous (the inlay
work is way better than any production Gibson). OK, I did replace the pickup
(with a US made one) but it looks, plays, and sounds great. (Guitarists are
nuts about pickups though, so not worrying about the pickup is the right
thing.)

That said, my main guitar is a 1952 Gibson L-4C and my next guitar will be a
Martin. And both will have pickups that I will have added, of course.

--
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

nospam wrote in
:

In article
,
RichA wrote:

In the 1970s, companies existed despite the fact the average
camera was NOT meant for Joe Public.

Crud.
Minolta SRTs, Pentax Spotmatics, Olympus OMs, the lower priced
Canon and Nikon slrs were just as commonly seen hung around the
necks of Joe Public as DSLRs are today.

Prove it. *Owning an SLR was not as common then as owning a DSLR
now.

prove it yourself.

You don't even have to!

if you are going to make the claim you do.

Just go walk around any city in the summer,
DSLR's everywhere, FAR more than I used to see of SLRs.

actually, most people now use cellphone cameras or small p&s cameras.
not too many people want to lug an slr, especially if the destination
is going to be something like facebook.

Because a
$600 DSLR today is a lot cheaper than a $400 SLR in 1978.

except that slrs in 1978 were much less than $400.

Depended on where you lived. In the U.S. you could buy an Olympus OM-1
for $200 and a Pentax K1000 for $120, but in Canada at the time, the
Olympus was $300+. A Nikon FM body was $440.00. I think the standard
50mm f1.8 lenses were reasonable, about $120.00.
But there is no question, fewer people owned SLR's then than DSLR's now.

And
JUNKIER! Aside from crud like the Canon T50/70 which appeared in the
early 80's, there really wasn't much trash back then.

there was a lot of crap in the 80s too. lots of plastic too.


That's when it started anyway.

On 1/03/2012 2:51 p.m., David J. Littleboy wrote:
wrote:

I suppose many people believe that the Chinese can rise as a quality
manufacturer by implementing quality control from the top down, but I have
doubts that they can ever achieve this, if the industrial model continues
with low paid factory workers on assembly lines having little
understanding of what they're trying to achieve, except to meet targets
set by somebody else, in order to produce products that they could never
afford. "Kaizen" would probably rely on a more "democratic" workplace
where if the tea-lady has a good idea, there will be someone to listen.

FWIW, Hoshino Gakki (Ibanez) manufactures a lot of guitars in China, and
they are beautifully made. I have an AF105FNT, and it's gorgeous (the inlay
work is way better than any production Gibson). OK, I did replace the pickup
(with a US made one) but it looks, plays, and sounds great. (Guitarists are
nuts about pickups though, so not worrying about the pickup is the right
thing.)

That said, my main guitar is a 1952 Gibson L-4C and my next guitar will be a
Martin. And both will have pickups that I will have added, of course.

My son has an Ibanez electric acoustic 6 string - and that is the only
chinese made instrument he owns or AFAIK would care to own.
He plays mainly electric lead with a strat, but I doubt he'd recommend a
chinese made strat to even a rank beginner. Even I can tell the difference.

In article , Rich
wrote:

Because a
$600 DSLR today is a lot cheaper than a $400 SLR in 1978.

except that slrs in 1978 were much less than $400.

Depended on where you lived. In the U.S. you could buy an Olympus OM-1
for $200 and a Pentax K1000 for $120, but in Canada at the time, the
Olympus was $300+. A Nikon FM body was $440.00. I think the standard
50mm f1.8 lenses were reasonable, about $120.00.

blame the exchange rate.

But there is no question, fewer people owned SLR's then than DSLR's now.

fewer people owned any type of camera back then than they do now. what
matters is how many had slrs versus other types of cameras, and since
the alternative was typically a glorified instamatic, people bought
slrs. it wasn't until the 1980s than compacts were any good, with the
olympus xa being one of the more popular ones.

On Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:23:29 -0800, nospam
wrote:

In article , Rich
wrote:

Because a
$600 DSLR today is a lot cheaper than a $400 SLR in 1978.

except that slrs in 1978 were much less than $400.

Depended on where you lived. In the U.S. you could buy an Olympus OM-1
for $200 and a Pentax K1000 for $120, but in Canada at the time, the
Olympus was $300+. A Nikon FM body was $440.00. I think the standard
50mm f1.8 lenses were reasonable, about $120.00.

blame the exchange rate.

But there is no question, fewer people owned SLR's then than DSLR's now.

fewer people owned any type of camera back then than they do now. what
matters is how many had slrs versus other types of cameras, and since
the alternative was typically a glorified instamatic, people bought
slrs. it wasn't until the 1980s than compacts were any good, with the
olympus xa being one of the more popular ones.

I think you'd be surprised how many people owned some sort of camera
in the 70's. They just took fewer pictures than today because of the
processing costs vs. the almost free cost of each shot today. Since
they're taking fewer pictures, you didn't see them out and about
everywhere. True, the cameras were usually something like a 110 pocket
camera or a 124 instamatic. But you'll be hard pressed to find someone
in the US today that doesn't have some sort of family vacation or home
holiday snapshots in an album somewhere taken in the 70's or before.
All those pictures had to come from somewhere.

Steve

Me writes:

On 1/03/2012 11:04 a.m., David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
writes:

On 1/03/2012 8:59 a.m., David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
writes:

On Feb 28, 10:42 pm, wrote:
On 29/02/2012 2:59 p.m., Rich wrote:

In the 1970s, companies existed despite the fact the average camera was
NOT meant for Joe Public.

Crud.
Minolta SRTs, Pentax Spotmatics, Olympus OMs, the lower priced Canon and
Nikon slrs were just as commonly seen hung around the necks of Joe
Public as DSLRs are today.

Prove it. Owning an SLR was not as common then as owning a DSLR now.

I dunno about proving it, but that's not the way I remember it.

Same here.
The OP either needs to run memtest on what's left between his ears, or
concede that as he probably wasn't around in those days, then his
unsubstantiated opinion is of less value than others who do remember.
My father was a reasonably keen amateur photographer. His first slr
was an Alpa Reflex. I don't recall the exact model, but it was a very
cumbersome thing to use, as the mirror would not return after taking a
photo until it was reset by winding the film advance (this by design -
not a fault) and IIRC it was a knob without an advance lever. At that
time I had an Agfa Ambi Silette, a small inexpensive rangefinder,
which had interchangeable lenses (I think they only ever offered 3
focal lengths) with bayonet mount, and a Synchro Compur shutter behind
the bayonet mount. It was quite a nice compact camera - a good camera
for a kid to learn with.

I inherited a Bolsey 35, a rangefinder 35mm fixed-lens camera, when my
mother upgraded to a Minolta fixed-lens rangefinder. My parents weren't
ready for an SLR yet (and that upgrade was for a summer spent in Uganda,
with travel through Egypt and Greece and Europe before and after). I
didn't actually get the Bolsey then, I photographed that trip with my
Pixie 127 (I turned 10 that fall, 1964). I got the Bolsey a few years
later. Still have negatives from the Pixie and the Bolsey.

He replaced the Alpa with an early (mid-late '60s) Pentax Spotmatic, a
step forward in ergonomics over the Alpa, but screw mount lenses were
a bit of a pain, and IIRC it only had stop-down metering. My first
slr was a Minolta SRT 101, a much better and newer design than the
older Pentax, with better metering and bayonet mount lenses. Closer
to a coveted but pricy Nikon F. By that time, (Japanese) slrs were
becoming very common indeed. IIRC, Minolta and other makers did much
the same as they do today, they introduced a "higher end" slr
(SRT303?) with more features, and an "entry level" (SRT100?) with some
features removed, sold alongside the "101".

Spotmatic was stop-down, yes; I had one later.

Several of the other highschool photographers had Minolta SRT-101s.
They must have been newer than I thought, looking at the history.

There was an SRT-201 I seem to remember; don't remember a 303.

Here it is:
http://www.rokkorfiles.com/SRT%20Series.htm
Looks like the SR-T 303/"102"/"Super" was the same camera with
different names for different markets.

Excellent, thanks! I remember a 102 as well, so I guess I did hear
about the 303, just under a different label.

I'm surprised to see that the SRT101 dates back to 1966, With open
aperture metering and bayonet lenses, it's a long way ahead of the
Pentax Spotmatic of that time, but IIRC the Pentax was a much more
popular camera. Perhaps the Minolta was much more expensive.

The Nikkormat was available then, and the Miranda, they both had
open-aperture metering and bayonet lenses. The Pentax was a bit
technologically backwards, but was popular because it was cheap, sturdy,
and the lenses were good (and cheap, and sturdy), I think.

I got a Miranda Sensorex in 1969 (very late in the year), finally, when
I'd had a job long enough to save some money. I'd already started doing
darkroom work with the 35mm film from the Bolsey, and I put a darkroom
into the basement the next year (black plastic stapled to 2x4s).

I've photographed and posted a few pages of 60s and 70s camera ads at
http://dd-b.net/ddbcms/2012/01/photo-gear-price-history/.

Good work!
I found my Ambi Silette listed there for $35.25 (used), and SRT 101
with f1.7 Rokkor for $204.95 new (1967).

I've had great fun looking at the old ads (our library has bound
volumes; which means I can't get good flat scans, but means I can get
access to a very wide range of issues).

My Miranda Sensorex was $280 with 50/1.4 in December of 1969 at a big
camera store in Minneapolis (Century camera; long gone).

There were high import duties here in those days, so many people would
buy an slr when on an overseas trip - as even if they didn't have a
great interest in photography, demand was such that they could easily
sell it used when they returned and make a profit.

I heard about people buying in the Far East, but was never there
myself.
Duties were so high here that it was a national sport to buy duty
free, and resell on the local market. It was a very nice perk for
international airline crew and jet setters. SLRs and small tape
recorders were popular items. Even things like pocket sized
transistor radios, costing 3 or 4 dollars in duty free stores or
destinations could be sold for 5x the price on return. You could get
away with bringing in a camera, a tape recorder, and a few cheap
pocket radios as "gifts", but if you had a suitcase full of various
items, the customs officers (who AFAIK don't take bribes, then or now)
could arbitrarily hit you with a very hefty bill.

I would certainly have loved to have good cameras earlier; but basically
I had *no* income (a few tens of dollars total a year) and then suddenly
I had quite a lot (tens of dollars a week, more when school wasn't in
session). Since my required expenses didn't go up (still in highschool
living at home), cameras and film suddenly became possible.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info