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From: mauney@ncsu.UUCP (Jon Mauney)
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Japanese and Marketing (spun off from B&W Papers)
Message-ID: <2510@ncsu.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Feb-84 22:09:35 EST
Article-I.D.: ncsu.2510
Posted: Wed Feb 22 22:09:35 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 23-Feb-84 05:19:25 EST
References: <1553@tekig1.UUCP>
Organization: N.C. State University, Raleigh
Lines: 53

I would like to generate a little discussion starting from a comment
made by Brian Diehm.  The following quote was an aside in a discussion
of B&W paper:
     I don't like to see the Japanese beginning to dominate yet another
     market.  Once they dominate a market, they take it in the
     direction they want it to go, and so we get autofocus and gee whiz
     gadgets instead of quality photography.  Just an opinion, but it
     is something to consider (perhaps this is "the ethics of
     consumerism").

1)  Whom can you hold up as being better about this than the Japanese?
Certainly not US companies,  which are either defunct, selling to the
popular market, like Nimslo,  making large format equipment,  or Kodak.
Kodak has long dominated the market and is not Mr Nice Guy.  George
Eastman once bought Blair Camera Company just because he was tired of
paying royalties on one of their patents. (Trivia question, what patent?)

2)  More importantly,  why to you think the Japanese are leading the
industry into the land of GeeWhiz at the expense of quality photography?
It is this question that puzzles me.  Every month, regular as Ex-Lax,
there is a letter to Modern Photography flaming about some aspect of
the horrible situation in photography;  typical subjects are creeping
automation,  the use of those nasty plastics,  and this month we get
the  conspiracy (no doubt Jewish-inspired) that squelches inventions
that would let us change film in mid-roll.  I offer the following
observations:
     One reason the Japanese take over is their innovation;  those
     gadgets frequently make the product more attractive than the
     staid American products.
     Plastic and automated exposure are, I find, improvements
     for the amateur.  Yet one can still buy metal bodies if one
     has the money,  and moderately priced cameras have manual
     exposure as well as automatic.
     Given that mediocre snapshooters such as me still want a
     camera as good as a Ricoh XR-2,  I find it doubtful that
     the Japanese would abandon the market.  Still,  if auto-
     focus on an SLR ever becomes practical and cheap,  why
     complain?  As long as you don't have to use it when you
     don't want to,  how are you worse off.
     Great advances are being made that IMPROVE photography,
     especially in lens design and film emulsions.  Why the glum looks?
     Why are people so offended by the presence of easy to use
     cameras in the product line?  No one is forcing you to buy
     these things,  but there is a market there.  The presence of
     a toy plastic Nikon camera does not mean they will quit making
     the pro model
In short,  I think the photo industry is going pretty well.  My biggest
complaint is that I can't buy wide roll-film for my antiques anymore.
Why do you think things are so bad?
-- 

_Doctor_                           Jon Mauney,    mcnc!ncsu!mauney
\__Mu__/                           North Carolina State University