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Thursday, January 19, 2006

All these sound business decisions nevertheless threaten to tar me as a "film photography buff"

Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. will stop making cameras after more than a century in the business to focus on printers, as it seeks to bolster earnings from a projected loss. - Bloomberg, January 19, 2006
Obviously a sound business decision for them, but it's sad to see these two venerable (and now conjoined) names exiting the business. Especially Konica, which has been around longer than Kodak and built cameras longer than Leica.

I have a real soft spot for Konica, in particular, because, as I was telling someone yesterday in another connection, I live for the superior overlooked thing. (The photos in the previous post are from my little Konica digicam, not that it matters.) Konica seriously knew how to make lenses (although the really sweet one I want was produced fleetingly) so perhaps their partnership with Sony will yield some interesting results. On the other hand, despite being the third-largest manufacturer of film, they never seemed to be very good at that and it's hard to lose much sleep over the loss of those products. Apparently after the Konica Minolta announcement, Fuji felt compelled to issue a press release stating that they would continue manufacturing film, but there was also an unrelated market panic going on on the Nikkei.

If there is one lesson to take from this post, it is this: go get one of these (reviews). You'll thank me later.

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posted at 7:11 AM

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