Bronica to cease production

[photobackpacker]

The newest PMA newsletter announced that Tamron will cease producing the last of the Bronica Medium Format cameras. The latest casuality to the digital shift.

They emphasized they will continue to service the Bronica brand for 7 years.

 

[Dave Parker]

Guess there still not selling enough of them to jusify, even with the digital back options out there, of course 20K for a back, I could buy and process a hell of alot of film!!

dave

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

They stopped producing the SLR's about a year or two ago, so the last MF model left from Bronica was the 645 rangefinder.

 

[Dave Wooten]

They reportedly ( according to local sales persons) took back shelf inventory of the RF 645...quite a few months back

 

[Nick Zentena]

So does this mean the used RFs will drop in price like the 645 SLR did? Might be a good time to buy in a year for those RF people.

 

[Changeling1]

Tamron IS REQUIRED BY LAW to provide Bronica service

The newest PMA newsletter announced that Tamron will cease producing the last of the Bronica Medium Format cameras. The latest casuality to the digital shift.

They emphasized they will continue to service the Bronica brand for 7 years.

I've been using GS-1s for almost twenty years and the Zenza glass is very, very, good. The bodies are very hardy also. The news about the GS-1, SQ-AM, and ETRS has been known for a little more than a year. The RFs are the last to go. In the last year, I've been able to put together a very nice GS-1 set for a fraction of what it would have cost "back in the day". For a time, in Europe, the SQ was out-selling Hasselblad.

But the real point of this post involves Tamron's obligation to provide service for the Bronica lines.

Tamron is required by law to service Bronica cameras for 7 years which makes me wonder why Kodak shouldn't be required to make film for at least 7 years (after an announcement that they intend to get out of the film business). Thankfully, Kodak has not made any such announcement but it seems reasonable that what's good for Tamron should be good for Kodak as well. In Kodak's case, making film would still be a profitable enterprise even though it might not garner the mega-huge revenues that many big multi-national companies are gunning for. Kodak has already quit making b/w paper without consequences, except to its loyal customers. The loss of Kodak b/w (and color) film without notice and a substantial transition period would create an undue hardship on traditional photographers everywhere.

Kodak should be held to the same legal standards as Tamron.

 

[raucousimages]

A dealer in salt lake told me that bronica offered to buy back of all unsold stock. due to a loophole in the law this allows them to end support in just three years.

 

[Robert Budding]

So does this mean the used RFs will drop in price like the 645 SLR did? Might be a good time to buy in a year for those RF people.

I just bought a new Bronica RF645 body and 65mm lens for less than $550. So, yes, there are some good deals on them if you look.

Robert

 

[Mongo]

Given the quality of the Bronica offerings over the years, I expect that there will be a healthy used market for quite some time to come. I'm sorry to see the rangefinder go, but to be honest I'm surprised it took this long.

Other than actually making the cameras, Tamron "abandoned" the Bronica line a long time ago. They had to be the most under-marketed cameras on the market. I don't think Tamron ever did anything positive for the Bronica name...but I hate to think of what they'll do with the name now. Shall we start taking bets on how long it will be before the Bronica name shows up on a line of digital products? Perhaps some nice Bronica point-and-shoot digicams?

 

[isaacc7]

Check out the CIPA numbers if you want to see the fate of medium format... They aren't pretty, we're talking less than a million yen (around $8500) a month exported. Numbers change from time to time, but the numbers from Mamiya, Fuji, Tamron, and Pentax are grim to say the least.

Isaac