Re: Common sense on photo equipment production

[orath@astral.magic.ca (Otto Rath)]

>Attitudes and beliefs are so strong that often a little bit of truth
>carries an attitude and a belief over the edge of common
>sense.  Japanese industry makes no bones about it adopting
>ideas and improving upon those ideas -- improving their
>marketability and/or improving their use and convenience.  I
>don't think anyone denies this and I believe Japanese industry
>prides itself on turning around someone else's ideas.
>
>However, this great ability to develop others' ideas has also
>developed into the ability to create high quality products as
>well as mass quality products for those ideas.  The U.S.
>industry has been copying Japanese industrial concepts and
>profiting from them.  And this is what Leica is doing by
>contracting out to Japanese companies for parts for its SLRs.
>
>No matter how great ideas may be, their implementation and
>continued development are what give those ideas value.
>
>I know one of the cameras I treasure, my Nikonos, was not
>germinated by Nikon, but Nikon, not a European company,
>developed the camera and made it a mainstay for underwater
>and inclement weather photography.  No one can say that the
>Nikonos is not a high quality Japanese camera.  And the
>Nikonos family was obviously the seed for the very expensive
>high quality Nikon underwater SLR.  No European company
>makes comparable cameras of this type.
>
>I don't think this is an unimportant question for this users
>group, especially since Leica has entered into the autofocus
>field where Japanese industry has paved the way.  Many
>LUGgers may snicker at autofocus, but it is a fact of
>photographic life -- and a very important fact.  And Canon and
>Nikon having copyied Leica and Nikon rangefinders does not
>make those cameras inferior to their originators.  In point of
>fact, the many lovers of Contax rangefinder equipment, I've
>been told, prefer to use their Zeiss lenses on Nikon
>rangefinder bodies. And while I treasure my Leica
>screwmount cameras, I cannot see any deterioration in the
>screwmount concept in my Canon copies.  On the contrary,
>both my Canon rangefinders are superior in features to my
>Leica IIIf and they are as rugged as the Leica bodies they had
>been copied  from.  And Canon and Nikon copied optics are
>not only very good lenses, but in some cases superior to what
>Leica and Contax produced.
>
>Whether our friendship with Japan is based on the import of
>Japanese mass goods into the U.S. is, in my view, stretching
>some points (but it may have some validity), but the fact is that
>photographically Japanese companies are at the forefront of
>making photographic equipment, low quality amateur
>equipment and high quality professional equipment.  And no
>one can dispute this.  Preference, of course, is another
>question and a major question here on the LUG.  People have
>every right to prefer any brand of equipment and I respect that
>judgment, regardless of whether I may object to some of the
>reasons behind that preference.  But I think that
>making individual preference the basis for broad general
>statements of quality is carrying believability beyond the edge
>of reasonable discussion.

Thank you Joel, for putting things into the proper perspective.
I feel guilty for succumbing to some of the racial/nationalistic opinions
on this "jap crap"flame thread.
Will keep your letter on file to reread and look more closely at the"
results" of my multinational lenses, rather than their engraved
brand-names. We should be grateful for the choice of equipment we have
available.
regards -otto-


otto w. rath, 504-633, northcliffe blvd. toronto on. M6E 3M3 canada (416)
783 5128