Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/07/03

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Cosina new lenses/press release
From: "A.H.SCHMIDT" <horst.schmidt@actek.com.au>
Date: Sat, 03 Jul 1999 20:10:57 +1000

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



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