Mechanical watchmaking is one of the rare examples of rebirth in a complex pursuit that is a unique combination of art, craft, and engineering. Even fully handmade mechanical watches. Many of these are very expensive, but people want them.
Wouldn't it be nice if there could be a rebirth in making mechanical cameras and lenses, to add some other options along with the Leica rangefinder 35mm film cameras.
With Seiko (watches and lens shutters), there was even an overlap...
But I guess the really expensive watches are pure collector's items (plus some rich people bling), at least all north of a few thousand dollars, so more Leica territory. Then Lomo is Swatch. Pentax could take the Tissot/Seiko/Nomos slice?
Teac manufacture cassette decks, probably as nice as they think necessary today.
Of course, Leica are themselves a watchmaker now! Although, I don't think they have their own manufacture.
But I would prefer Dornblüth & Sohn.
Of course, Leica are themselves a watchmaker now! Although, I don't think they have their own manufacture.
But I would prefer Dornblüth & Sohn.
Of course, Leica are themselves a watchmaker now! Although, I don't think they have their own manufacture.
But I would prefer Dornblüth & Sohn.
Is this who makes the Leica watches?
My understanding is that there’s only a single Chinese manufacturer making a single (not great) cassette transport now, and any cassette deck you buy, from any manufacturer, is using that. It’s not an altogether dissimilar situation as with film cameras, except there’s no Leica equivalent for tape decks, just the equivalent of cheap plastic reusable disposable film cameras.
Didn't know this one, not bad looking! But of course, both because of the Dresden camera industry history and because I was born in Dresden a long time ago: Glashütte, the village just a few steps outside Dresden. And there, I like Nomos' design and prices a bit better then some of the other players.
Zeiss Ikon (mainly Dresden) bought shutters from Deckel (compur etc, in Bavaria) and Gauthier (e.g. prontor, this one is actually in the Black Forrest and might be the one, or related to, the one which you mention for Leica), and owned shares of both, but I don't know about links to the local Glashütte watchmakers. But after WW2, the Dresden camera industry was cut off from these sources and focused on (in-house?) final plane shutters instead of leaf shutters...
Get equipped with Pentax.
I don't understand the comparison with cassette decks -- these are still made. Teac manufacture cassette decks, probably as nice as they think necessary today. But I don't doubt that they could make a higher-grade model if they wanted -- they do, after all, also manufacture USD 38,000 CD players with drives that look like this. I am sure other of the old makers could make cassette decks, if there was an interest.
I imagine the abandonment of a new super 8 camera was more that it was going to be more expensive than they wanted rather than that they couldn't do it, but I don't have direct knowledge of the specific example you mention.
I think cost is the issue a lot of the time. Surely capabilities could be brought back or rediscovered if people thought it worthwhile. I think there is just a different mentality today, not usually for the better, about what products are valued and what people expect.
I saw a good quote once from someone about photomultiplier tube drum scanners: "Drum scanning is one of those old gems built in the days where engineers where given free reign to solve problems to the best of their abilities - that's why it's still unbeatable (quality wise) today." And it is true. The last drum scanners are from an era in publishing that has not been surpassed and represented a high point (for books and magazines that include photography) -- when publications were photography with transparency film, scanning with PMT drum scanners, and printing with offset lithography or gravure. People don't value that character and quality in the same way anymore.
The comparison with cassette decks.....reasonably recent technology which requires an intricate, complex mechanical system to do it well. The reason TEAC (who don't actually manufacture anything, they buy in parts) produce a piece of crap cassette deck is because the knowledge and expertise to do better has gone. they are the last major name standing and produce something with a bought in cheap-o-crap transport mechanism made by Tanashin in China because they (and another company who copies them) are the last standing in manufacture of cassette transports. The wow and flutter are woeful even compared to an entry level deck of the late 70s. All the knowledge that went into producing the machines that followed has gone. the knowledge that culminated in late 90s and early 2000s entry level $140 decks performing better than the high end decks of the early 80s. It's gone. Yamaha, who were the last to manufacture a truly decent deck as late as 2004 did look into bringing back their last model some 15 years later. And they concluded that it could not be done.
The point is, despite some wishing to paint the Pentax engineers as either liars or incompetent....it is not at all without precedent for a once ubiquitous product manufactured by dozens of companies to become nigh on impossible to recreate just twenty years later. Yes, economics are involved. Nobody is claiming that it is actually impossible to make a new Pentax K1000 or whatever. But there are real issues with younger engineers brought up on 3D computer models not fully understanding a 2D paper drawing. They're simply not taught any more....at least not at school level, we go straight to 3D on the computer. So I do actually believe it when Mr. Suzuki says in his videos that the young engineers had trouble understanding how the mechanism worked. An older engineer could visualise the parts moving. They could not.
Same reason nobody makes a half way decent cassette deck these days. There's sufficient interest to sell a few thousand a year. Sankyo with their idea to doa new super 8 camera about 20 years ago was similar, the blueprints and even a stash of parts wasn't sufficient. They couldn't even put a prototype together. Just look at the new Kodak branded super 8 camera (actually manufactured for them by a small engineering company) has been beset by problems and the estimated price has gone up fivefold since it was announced. And I believe it's still not actually on sale.
Watches are a good comparison too, small complex mechanisms. Once very common, now only a few boutique organisations can make them. But the difference there is that there's always been a small market for expensive, mechanical watches. It never completely died. I guess a bit like Leica soldiering on at the high end and Nikon theoretically offering a film SLR until recently.
Yes, the Glashütte watchmaking heritage is quite impressive.
Nomos does make some interesting watches.
And of course there are some of the legendary makers there, like A. Lange & Söhne and Moritz Grossmann, who would probably have to be classed even above Leica in an analogy. Maybe Linhof or the old Franke & Heidecke Rolleiflex would be the closest analogy in cameras.
Wempe also do some interesting watches in their in-house manufacture and are one of the last makers of a real mechanical marine chronometer, for around USD 40,000.
Don't forget about Glashütte Original.
I'll be glad when this thing finally surfaces so that we can move on. I'm still not convinced that, with all the other manufacturers who are currently making brand new product, including Lomography and others, there's a business case for this thing but we shall see. Personally I think there's enough legacy kit out there, either still working happily or just in need of some minor TLC, to keep people like me going (not that I need anymore cameras currently!!).
As I have mentioned, I think Pentax needs to do something more firmly in-between Lomography and Leica, and they might get there eventually if they are able to continue their return to film cameras. But like you say, we will see.
....forgot to say, apparently Ricoh are making some kind of formal announcement on their YouTube channel at 5:00 a.m. Japanese time on June 15th. Be there or be square....
I'm just not sure the market is there. There is a growing clutch of instant film cameras, that compare favourably in price with the now very significant cost of buying and developing film and prints, and Lomography's product range runs from large format to 110, with several art lenses costing several hundred ££/€€/$$, so it's not clear what Ricoh is planning to do with what seems to be a fixed lens half frame compact. I truly believe that part of their problem is that, despite being a global company, they are very Japan-centric and a lot of what they do is driven by the market there which is very different than the rest of the world.
I'm just not sure the world is ready for, or needs, another relatively unsophisticated film camera, especially when it's not clear how much longer this fad - and much of it is a social media fad - can continue. Just as with Pentax nailing its colours firmly to the DSLR mast, it could turn out to be a very risky strategy.
I'd rather be square than be vertical.
Seriously, I'll be interested if Pentax makes SLR in the format that no SLR manufacturers care : 24mm X 24mm. It will not get 72 exposures but it will get 50 which is still a lot. Besides, nobody from the smartphone generation have time to wait for 72 exposures to finish.
And that could be a really good excuse for me to create an Instagram account.
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