Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ncsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!akgua!mcnc!ncsu!mauney 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