Konica Minolta quits the camera business

For all the talk of the digital M, the one digital camera I would have rushed out to buy was the

rumoured Digital Hexar AF.That is now just a pipe dream, for Konica Minolta are quitting the

camera business, transferring some of their camera assets to Sony, and focusing on

photocopiers... they are ceasing production of film, too. Bad news for those of us who are

likely to need spares for Hexars AF and RF in the future. Greg Weber has already found

problems getting parts, and I can't imagine Sony will feel a huge commitment to Konica

camera owners. <p>

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/19/

AR2006011900280.html">Washington Post report</a>

Sad:( Both hexars really kick ass. Their value will shoot way up.

so within a month, konica, nikon, and minolta have all quit the film camera business (the

fm10 is made by cosina and the F6 will be sold down from existing stock). i think the 35mm

film era is officially over. somehow i expected more fanfare.

Didn't we just get a new Zeiss Ikon and the ZF nikon mount lenses. Its either the renaissance or the last gasp of a dying breath, we'll see.

another victim of digital revolution, will Leica be the next? the last annual reports its film

camera biz dropped by 50%, the digital R back is no more a success than Contax digital N

body was, and the expected MD does not look that promising either, maybe a good thing

for Sony to buy up Leica as well. It is after all the Sony CCD that is behind the Nikon/

Canon beasts.

Roger,

 

> the F6 will be sold down from existing stock

 

any evidence for your statement? Because that's not what Nikon has said.

Sad. This is yet another reminder for everyone to be vigilent against the trolls here!

Paul - surely KM (or Sony) will have a legal obligation to maintain and service existing

products for a given time after production ceases? In the UK that would be seven years.

 

Karl - Canon make their own chips. AFAIK the only outside one they've used was the CCD

in the original Canon 1D.

 

For all those who say this is more evidence of film's demise, why so? Konica were hardly in

the same league as Kodak and Fuji, or even as well loved as Ilford. At least, I never heard

anyone express the view that Konica film was their favourite brand. More realistically,

wasn't it one of those brands you might buy if your normal type was unobtainable?

Greg Weber - to whom Konica frequently refer people for repairs - is unable to get hold of an

essential rangefinder part for the Hexar RF. Mine is one of a bunch waiting for the

component. Somehow I doubt the situation will be better when Sony takes over the business.

<p>

Before we all start running around like Chicken Little, it seems pretty obvious that some

camera manufacturers are prospering, not least Voigtlander/Cosina. Although everyone here

seems obsessed with the demise of Leica, who, 10 years ago, would have predicted VC would

find - or even generate - such a huge/profitable niche?

I guess that means KM won't be producing a successor to the 7D. That's a shame. It's a fine camera with great ergonomics, and the in body anti-shake is really quite something. I would have liked to have seen something similar with a better sensor.

I think we should see the positive side of all of this. The fact that many traditional companies cease production of their film- related products suggests that we are moving from a hysteric fast moving film-surrender to a more stable profitable small niche market for film related products. Let everyone quit production of film gear, it's no problem. Sooner or later somebody will stand up and make a profitable business of what is left of the film market. That's what usually happens, where somebody is dying somebody else is taking over. It is better to have a reliable small niche market for film than to be in a situation of not knowing where to go (film or digital). Besides that, many of the "good old'" will become fashionable again in the future. When everybody is fed up with their clean and static perfect digital images, we will find an inner spirit telling us to use beautiful 400 tri-x again. Have no fears, film is here to stay! Just don't let the market drive you crazy and let you make a wrong decision! Don't sell your gear and enjoy it for what it is! Amen.

Does this mean the end of the line for their range of light meters? That would

also be a great shame.

I suppose Pentax is next, then maybe Olympus. Who knows about Leica; they'll probably struggle on as long as they can -- it's not like they can fall back on their office products business.

 

Photography used to be its own whole industry, not just part of the consumer electronics sector, and cameras were like cars -- lots of brands could co-exist because people had unique preferences and emotional attachments to certain brands and models.

 

Now that cameras are getting indistinguishable from cell phones and boom-boxes in terms of how they're marketed and bought, you're going to see continuing consolidation and uniformity.

Yes Beau, this is all going to fall to the lowest common denominator, cheap digi cams.

 

Cheap poor processing ruined photography in the US. People get garbage and blame their cameras or film or whatever, not the dolts who process the stuff which is where the problem is. Europe has far higher quality standards.

 

It is no wonder people lost interest in photography.

Fully agree with the last two posters.

 

I recently went on a trip to China with a group of people. They were tourists who shoot with simple P&S digicams and I still remember some of their quotes, which perfectly sumarize what you said:

 

When they found out I was using film and a manual Leica MP -- "You seem to be very artistic. Who knows how to use your type of camera today? It must be so hard to undertsand"--

 

On buying the latest digital gear --"I recently bouhgt a Fuji digital camera. It has 7 MP, and I heard Fuji makes such a good TFT screens for their cameras"--

 

Some tourist was showing his Kodak digital P&S camera to another: --"That camera takes beautiful pictures"--

 

Understand I have nothing against tourists and p&s cameras. It's just that many people who never touched a camera before now seem to become interested in photography because they can buy their camera and develop their pictures at the local drugstore. It is so sad to see.

Don't care about losing their film. Not much involved with their cameras and lenses (as in,

never owned one).

 

DO care about the scanners. I have 2 Minolta film scanners. The MF version ceased

production last year, now I suppose we can go whistle for a 35mm scanner from them.

This leaves Nikon, and given their phasing out the film cameras, how long will that last I

wonder?

 

Better give even more serious consideration to the Imacon 646 I've been pondering.

 

Sorry, this really cheeses me off. After a full exploration of digital, I still favor the look and

feel of film despite all of the arm waving of digital shooters shouting there's no difference,

or that digital is better. It's personal preference for sure, but that's what photography is ...

personal.

thats really sad, I loved the 70/80s minolta slrs....

Photography is supposed to be a beautiful artistic thing to do. Not how to shoot as many pics as you can and then saying that the camera takes such a beautiful pictures. I wonder where the photographer in all of this is. Which youngster today ever heard of shutter speed and apeture? They haven't. Unless the old folks like you and me teach them the craft, a whole generation will get lost in consumer land.

Hmmm, bad news. Think I'll have trouble getting my Konica Instapress repaired now? ;)

I was about to upgrade my scanner...

"DO care about the scanners"

 

Hadn't thought about that. I guess I better go buy another scanner.

Ronald wrote:

 

<< ... It is no wonder people lost interest in photography. ... >>

 

I don't sense a loss of interest in photography. Quite the contrary, it seems that more people -- and in particular, younger people -- are taking photos today, and taking more photos, than at any time I can remember.

 

Numbers may be hard to come by, since so many millions of these new photos never make their way into any camera shop or photo processing place. Many never make their way onto paper of any sort. But my perception (nothing empirical to offer yet, but I'll look around) is that interest in photography has changed, but also has grown.

 

When my wife opens her cell phone, a series of self portraits of our daughter appears in rapid succession, each with a different facial expression, many quite amusing, and taken together, a bewildering pictoral sequence. It's an eye opener :)

 

This may not be exactly what I have in mind when I talk about photography, or what you (any of you, not just Ronald) has in mind, but like it or not, it's unquestionably photography.

Our daughter also uses a Canon p & s digital camera, a gift from her Grandpa, and she uses it frequently and has a large (but largely on computer) album of her photos.

Michael is very, very right on this. Far more people take photographs, are interested in them, and share them. Photography has been in a state of constant expansion since the Kodak box camera over a hundred years ago, and it has been growing much more rapidly in the last few years. We should be celebrating the level of interest in photography instead of looking for ways to denigrate all the people who can easily carry a camera (or camera phone) and now enjoy taking photos.

 

There was a time when it looked like video would eclipse photography, but that seems to have changed.

I wonder if Sony will invest at all in developing the digital

Maxxa(?) -- and, more importantly, the accompanying lens line that KM

hinted would include something resembling the existing 135mm STF

(their 'full-frame'-format portrait lens that sports an apodizing

filter near the aperture, for the most gorgeously gaussian bokeh I've

ever seen). A near-full-frame version of their antishake sensor,

along with a slightly wider choice of primes, could readily vault

Sony/KM to the head of the digital SLR pack, in my book.