Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/01/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Alastair, in the case of Fuji, being among the first to get the digital printing onto traditional material thing basically right is translating into huge profits. In the US, Walmart, Walgreens,Costco, Ritz, and many many independants have switched to Fuji materials. Probably 60 to 70% of the consumer market. In the case of the Frontier system, consistancy, sharpness, and clarity are usually visually superior to the analog printers so a consumer will notice the difference. The same thing applies to the Noritsu and Agfa systems, they just came out late after the big wheels had made the purchase decision. In the ink jet market, only Canon is making a serious effort to confront Epson. However, I fear it is too late as many studios and wedding photographers have already switched. Probably a critical mass so any newcomer will go with the winner just like Leica in the 50's when they took over the rangefinder market from all comers, and Nikon in the 60's when they owned the SLR market. As to a superior system, as Leica users we have made the semi-irrational choice to shoot rangefinders to access the shooting style and the lenses. For the majority, autofocus, autowind, autoload, autorewind, autoflash, autobracket, and long zooms seem like winning strategies. The same thing applies to printing, if a machine can be programmed to provide 85%of what a highly skilled technician can do but in 1/10 the time consistantly then the majority will not "see" the difference. Don dorysrus@mindspring.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html