Originally posted by biz-engineer Yes it does makes sense, especially if you consider that the supposedly cheaper solenoid costed a lot more of damaged the reputation for Pentax. And I tell you that the reason of failure of solenoids in Pentax cameras isn't due to the cost of solenoid but the failure of Pentax reliability testing when introducing that new part in camera designs. Typical engineering/quality process failure: the purchaser found a new solenoid cheaper, Ricoh/Pentax decided to go for the new part without taking the time to test it's durability. Do you think they would have decided to save $2 and have lots of cameras fail in the hands of customers after 10K photos?
With respect, that wasn't my point... Hoya didn't know that solenoid was going to be a reliability issue. Presumably, it chose the components for its Pentax cameras based on suitability for the designs and
cost. $2 may not make much difference to the price of a camera, but when it's one of (say) thirty components with similar savings, that's sixty bucks per camera. At sales of ten thousand units, that's six hundred thousand bucks - ten peoples' salaries - paid for, right there...
So, whilst I agree that component testing for reliability and durability should be better, I don't believe it's practical (nor likely) for camera manufacturers to use top end components in every model and control functionality and performance through software, even taking the savings of volume pricing into account. Where they can, they're going to save on on individual components, materials and design aspects because that all quickly adds up on a model-by-model basis.
Just my opinion, of course