Roland wrote:
> This is of course very bad for Pentax since they have, in contradiction
> to Canon and Minolta, choosen the blessed pathway of good build quality
> and high performance.
Built quality force its way into slr design again because of low volumes. The SLR
market has shrinked significantly the last 20 years. During that late 80's and 90's
the manufacturers compensated for the shrinking volume and increasing developing cost
by adding features at lowest possible price resulting in reduced material quality in
cameras and lenses. The result was that nobody was making money. Money is in either
high volume or high end products. In former category you can make up for a low profit
margin by sheer volume; in the latter category you have high profit marging and small
volumes. However, the volume is pretty much gone except at the entry level. So except
for the entry level you have to make premium products or loos money. Its no
coincidence that the Limited lenses and a metal body comes now. I believe one can
forget anything remotely like the Z-1p price/feature wise in the future. I feel sorry
for Minolta for the Dynaxx 7; it must be a money drain.
Some numbers to illustrate the realities. Around the period 77-81 Pentax manufactured
50 000 - 60 000 a month of their most popular SLR's ME/ME-Super. It was said at the
time that LX was manufactured at 1/10 of the volume of the ME-Super. That should be
about 4 000 - 5 000 a month. In comparison the possibly most popular MZ-Series camera,
the MZ-7, was at the introduction manufactured at 7 000 a month. The MZ-5n is now at 3
000 a month. The realities are pretty harsh.
Pål
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