"Made in Germany" vs "Made in Japan" stereotypes

I do not have enough cameras from germany and japan to get a statistically significant sample. I do know cameras from both countries can break and also can give great, contrasty images.

But I decide to trust the market value. Leica was able to convince "the market" that their cameras are best and are second to none.

Japanese Bessa, kiev, canon and nikon couldn't even come close.

From canon, I've had a soft 24-70. A soft 17-40 and a dead camera out of the box. Canon also uses plastic gears in their L series lenses.

I do not know what is more practical - an all metal 70-200 which costs even more than it is now. Or a quieter, cheaper lighter equivalent that we have right now.

The mainstream market and the global market is a different thing.

<I>"As always , the market is the final arbiter of value."</I>

<P>

No, the "market" determines price not value.

<P>

As for Cindy Sherman, well all I can say is that you know the world must be truly f'd up when she is more "important" than Tom Stoddart.

Back in the sixties in Europ, the "better made in Germany" stereotype was indeed very strong ; but also, import of consumer goods from Japan was drastically restricted, and in France it was much easier to find german cameras than japanese.

However, in 1967 I saw the first camera I would buy and it was a Yashica Electro 35 ; and examining it in the store, I never questionned its quality compared with the german equivalents by Zeiss, Vo林lander, etc. I simply found it beautiful and so innovative, because of its electronic shutter.

Using it, I also found out that it had an excellent lens and a very pleasant viewfinder with an accurate telemeter and parallax correcting frame.

And today it is still working !

I've been in Japan for 7 years now, and there are few things I can tell you for sure. There are things about Japan that are quite simply inexplicable. The quality control here is the best in the world, second to none. The Japanese are 100% procedure oriented. It's a little like being a robot, (no insult intended), in that you can program a robot to carry out tasks, and once programed it will do so reliably for the rest of its life.

This has the good quality of ensuring predictability. It's great that train drivers here are completely focused on following certain rules to ensure safety.

Unfortunately though, the Japanese, in general have a sad lack of ability to think for themselves. It's not that they can't. When you see Japanese children, they are wonderfully intelligent and free spirited, full of curiousity. In school though they are taught obedience above all.

This is a cultural holdover from the Meiji Restoration. The founders of modern Japan were forced to choose between creating Imperial subjects and free citizens.

A free citizen, which is what places like Britain and the United States aspired to produce (but not Germany), is regarded as an asset to his country or society, precisely because of his ability to question everything and make intelligent free choices.

The obedient subjects of Imperial Japan were not equipped with the freedom of thought to question the militarist/fascist leaders that led them into war with China and the fateful attack on Pearl Harbor.

These obedient subjects are an asset to fascist states that can rely on them to single mindedly "follow the leader."

That may have been a strength in the eras of Stalin and Hitler, when mass movements were still possible. However the superiority of free open societies was conclusively proven during world war II.

You could argue that Germany and Japan could have won World War II, were it not for a lack of imagination. Take the technical prowess of these two states, as well as the incredible courage, loyalty and devotion of their people and soldiers, and then wed that to a higher cause, say the overthrow of colonialist rule in Asia (in the real liberation sense, and not simply attempting replace western rule with Japanese rule, which is what the Japanese tried to do), and it is really conceivable that the west would have lost that battle.

More later...this is all pertinent to camera design

Ok, now this discussion is very interesting because you've hit at the Achilles Heel of Japanese economic power. The Chinese have both Japan's ability to copy and miniaturise, but they also have the independent free spirit found in the United States.

Where the Japanese know their place and how to obey their superiors, the Chinese could care less.

My boss here who visits China quite often explained to me that in China it is taken for granted that you will be ripped off, and the one who allows himself to be ripped off is the bad person, the idiot.

Japanese take it for granted that you do not cheat people, and a cheat is held in very low esteem. It's not that one or the other is right, it's simply a cultural difference.