Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/07/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]B. D. Colen wrote: > Dr. Blacktape Wonders: > > Is this sort of J---- bashing either appropriate or necessary? Times change. > Industries change. Centers of economic power change. Live with it. > > >This has nothing to do with bashing. This are bare facts. Cosina, to quote one example, made at the early days inexpensive cameras. They made cameras and put on any brand name, the customer required. This goods wheredesigned -probably with enough substities from the government- to cut out and ruin the European camera and optics industries. They did not have to spend much money on research. They stole the designs. They copied everything and anything they could get there hands on. They had at the start no ideas of there own. The same happened with the lenses. I remember, when the first lenses from Japanese independent lens manufacturers arrived. The quality varied from excellent to horrible for the same lens by the same manufacturer. The where assembled by families on the kitchen table. However they managed to conquer the world market by selling them so far below the established European manufacturers prices, That the general public could not resist to by them. Even so most of those lenses where crap, even by the standards then. At the same time, japan put in trade barriers for any imported goods which where so high, that nobody could afford to by imported goods. (This is called " Level playing field) Now what i was trying to say, is not that the goods which are this days manufactured in Japan are any worth, but i was objecting to the nerve of those people to advertise the names of the products of who's elimination they where responsible If Cosina was a bit more honest, they call the lenses. they try and sell as Voigtlander Lenses, and the cameras they try and sell as Voigtlander Cameras, with partly Germany stamped on the bottom) under a japanese name. Say for example "Lotus Flower 35f2 or Cherry Blossom 75f1.4. Regards, Horst Schmidt > > > > > > > >