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

Bruce writes:

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.

Say what? No, the AE-1 was regarded as a rather premium model, and it
WAS an FD-mount SLR.

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).

Can't disagree with that.

--
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

TheRealSteve writes:

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

^^^ 126, innit?

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.

In the 1970s, there were fixed-lens rangefinder cameras. Famous ones
were the Canonet QL-17 and the Olympus 35RC. They were never terribly
popular, but they were actually very good, and I should have had one as
a second camera back then. They never competed in numbers with Kodak's
Instamatic and Pocket Instamatic, I think because of film loading maybe?
And having to set film speed on a dial?

It was very pleasing when the auto-focus compacts like the Canon
Sureshot and the Nikon AF135M (I think) appeared, they actually started
displacing the instamatics (the Disc cameras had failed on their own
slightly earlier).

What I especially like about it is it's the only clear-cut case I know
of quality winning in the marketplace. The cameras were distinctly more
expensive than instamatics, film cost about the same, but they won! It
was great.
--
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

In article , David Dyer-Bennet
wrote:

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.

Say what? No, the AE-1 was regarded as a rather premium model, and it
WAS an FD-mount SLR.

eh, no it wasn't premium at all. it was a low cost mass market camera
that was poorly made. however, it was very popular. what was premium
was the canon f1 (either version).

On 3/1/2012 5:33 PM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
writes:

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.

Say what? No, the AE-1 was regarded as a rather premium model, and it
WAS an FD-mount SLR.

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).

Can't disagree with that.

Yeahbut, some of the cheaply made E lenses, had decent optics. I still
use my 75 -150. Too bad they never made it with autofocus.



Peter

On 2/03/2012 11:30 a.m., David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
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.

Looking at some of those old ads, it seems that the Minolta SR-T 101 was
quite expensive. The perception I've had, that the Minolta was "about
the same" as Pentax in price/quality is probably incorrect, although I
can't see a Pentax/Honeywell Spotmatic price listed in those ads.

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.

I think my first camera (Ambi Silette) was a birthday present. My
father had a B&W darkroom, he'd buy outdated film cheaply and store it
in the fridge. One time he bought a massive roll of 35mm B&W negative
film packed in a large aluminium cine film can. For some obscure reason
(as I was only about 10 or 11 years old) I got the job of working in
pitch-black, unrolling, cutting, attaching it to reels, rolling it up
and fitting it into a stack of used 35mm cassettes donated by the local
camera store. The result was a few unexpected fingerprints, more than a
few loaded with the emulsion on the wrong side, cassettes which could
contain anything between about 20 to over 40 exposures and many with the
film not attached properly to the reel. Despite taking all care to allow
for my sloppy workmanship, when advancing the film, we'd frequently end
up with the entire roll on the take up spool with no way to rewind it,
taking the camera home, and working by feel in a dark sleeping bag in a
dark cupboard, to load it directly into the developing tank. The film
was cheap, but the "keeper" rate was abysmally low.

On 2012-03-01 19:45 , Bruce wrote:
wrote:

Not only that, but there is still a sup rising demand
for them.


Or surprising, even. That'll teach me to trust the spill chucker.

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/sect...article/63990/

--
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.
I said I didn't know."
-Samuel Clemens.

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in
:


"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).

There are a few things from China that are better or as good as what came
from the U.S. or Japan, but generally only if no further progress was
made some time ago on the products made in the U.S. or Japan. In the
case of products still made in the Western(ized) economies, they are more
expensive and superior. Case in point, achromatic telescopes. They've
been superceded by apochromatic instruments and the current cheap Chinese
units are arguably better than what was produced in Japan 20 years ago,
but apochromatic instruments which are still being made in the U.S. and
Japan are superior to the products from China.

On 3/1/2012 9:50 PM, Rich wrote:

There are a few things from China that are better or as good as what came
from the U.S. or Japan, but generally only if no further progress was
made some time ago on the products made in the U.S. or Japan. In the
case of products still made in the Western(ized) economies, they are more
expensive and superior. Case in point, achromatic telescopes. They've
been superceded by apochromatic instruments and the current cheap Chinese
units are arguably better than what was produced in Japan 20 years ago,
but apochromatic instruments which are still being made in the U.S. and
Japan are superior to the products from China.

The Chinese can make anything they want to, at any quality level.

How may top-grade Chinese young people do you actually know,
and meet every day? Their best are impressive indeed ... absolute
top notch scientists. I'm talking students here. These are as
good as anybody. And that I mean literally. Absolutely literally
anybody ... anybody that ever was. Its 50-50 that one of them
will figure out what's wrong with the Standard Model of physics,
for example.

And below that there simply has to be the same continuum as in
the USA. A factory there can hire managers and workers at any
level they feel is needed for their chosen quality and price point.
And nobody is there to stop them.

Of course, we in the US can do the same ... but there are
lots of reasons why we don't actually try, usually
put there by the government. We'll contract it out to them,
and they'll do the job asked.

Doug McDonald

Me writes:

I think my first camera (Ambi Silette) was a birthday present. My
father had a B&W darkroom, he'd buy outdated film cheaply and store it
in the fridge. One time he bought a massive roll of 35mm B&W negative
film packed in a large aluminium cine film can. For some obscure
reason (as I was only about 10 or 11 years old) I got the job of
working in pitch-black, unrolling, cutting, attaching it to reels,
rolling it up and fitting it into a stack of used 35mm cassettes
donated by the local camera store. The result was a few unexpected
fingerprints, more than a few loaded with the emulsion on the wrong
side, cassettes which could contain anything between about 20 to over
40 exposures and many with the film not attached properly to the
reel. Despite taking all care to allow for my sloppy workmanship, when
advancing the film, we'd frequently end up with the entire roll on the
take up spool with no way to rewind it, taking the camera home, and
working by feel in a dark sleeping bag in a dark cupboard, to load it
directly into the developing tank. The film was cheap, but the
"keeper" rate was abysmally low.

I started bulk-loading my own film around 1969, but I used bulk loaders,
rather than doing it entirely by hand. This pretty much avoids
wrong-way emulsions and fingerprints at least.

I was always afreaid of dropping a cassette and having the end pop off,
ruining an entire roll of film. Never actually happened though.
--
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

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.

They may already have got there.

I know some people who work in local (Scottish) engineering companies
which specialise in producing small runs (e.g 10-100) of research
prototypes, where very high quality standards are much more important
than cost. It's a common complaint in that community that in an
increasing number of areas there's simply no British company who can
make the stuff they want at all. It's becoming a common surprised
comment that not only did a Chinese company offer them the best price,
but the quality, and customer service were very good indeed, plus they
got an unexpected bonus of very helpful engagement of top quality
Chinese design engineers in refining their designs.

--
Chris Malcolm