[surfar]

a company that abandons its entire customer base

Yes, it was terrible!

Then they bought in fully automated mount,Terrible just happened to be a smart business move.

At last count Canon had 47% of ILC camera bodies.

The old manual stuff was destined to be left by tthe wayside, like the horse and cart, it can still be used.

When the time came for a newer mount...R...Canon provide 3 different adapters to cater for the people who wanted to use their "outdated" lenses with the latest technologically advanced camera bodies.

Those bottom feeders are attracting top end sales and are intending to provide high class equipment for those that want to pay.

[lesmore49]

The disagreement we seem to have is you apparently think a company that abandons its entire customer base and gets away with it has made a sound business decision based on the fact they got away with it, quite I think a company has something of a responsibility to the customers that trusted them with their money.
That's OK we can agree to disagree on this one.

And yes, I think we are very lucky that Pentax is still around as a camera brand.....

I don't disagree with your opinion.

Case in point:

I still have my trusty, old Pentax S1a that I bought at Gambles Department store, in Winnipeg, back in 1968. I bought it on the installment plan. Nine dollars a month for a year, I think was the deal.

It still works. And that was after using it for a couple of years to earn part of my daily bread.

And I can use the Super-Takumar 55mm F 2 lens that came with this camera, on my Pentax K-1, which I bought in 2017.

To me that is something, that not many companies do, and it was one of the factors, that cemented my loyalty to Pentax.

[reh321]

The disagreement we seem to have is you apparently think a company that abandons its entire customer base and gets away with it has made a sound business decision based on the fact they got away with it, quite I think a company has something of a responsibility to the customers that trusted them with their money.
That's OK we can agree to disagree on this one.

Apparently we do.

My feeling is still that that switching mounts within a company is less work for the users than is switching mounts and switching companies at the same time, because at least the user doesn't have to learn a new system, as he would have to do if bad business decisions caused the company to go out of business. In fact, that eventually is what happened to Minolta users, since Sony dropped the A-mount 'after a descent interval' - could that have been K-mount instead of A-mount??

[Wheatfield]

Apparently we do.

My feeling is still that that switching mounts within a company is less work for the users than is switching mounts and switching companies at the same time, because at least the user doesn't have to learn a new system, as he would have to do if bad business decisions caused the company to go out of business. In fact, that eventually is what happened to Minolta users, since Sony dropped the A-mount 'after a descent interval' - could that have been K-mount instead of A-mount??

Minolta supported the MD mount right up to the moment they were merged into Konica, at which point the new owners dropped the MD mount. Up until the end one could still purchase two different camera bodies and most of the lenses and accessories that they had in their catalogue in 1985 when the Maxxum cameras came along.
I very much doubt that decision had anything to do with the company failing, I recall that it was the business machine side of the company that caused Minolta to fail, not the camera side, and I really don't think a monolith like Canon would have failed had they decided to continue supporting the FD mount.
Please don't pretend that there was any similarity between a Canon F1 or FTb and an EOS 650 other than they both took film.
Your pretence that a company offering long term product support will automatically put them out of business is a laughable and meritless argument, especially when you try to apply it to a company the size of Canon.

---------- Post added Mar 24th, 2022 at 08:26 AM ----------

I don't disagree with your opinion.

Case in point:

I still have my trusty, old Pentax S1a that I bought at Gambles Department store, in Winnipeg, back in 1968. I bought it on the installment plan. Nine dollars a month for a year, I think was the deal.

It still works. And that was after using it for a couple of years to earn part of my daily bread.

And I can use the Super-Takumar 55mm F 2 lens that came with this camera, on my Pentax K-1, which I bought in 2017.

To me that is something, that not many companies do, and it was one of the factors, that cemented my loyalty to Pentax.

A fellow photographer friend of mine who was heavily into Canon purchased a Canon T90 when it was released in 1986. My recollection is that he had somewhere in the range of a dozen Canon lenses, as well as a couple of F1 bodies.
His T90 hotshoe failed around 1990 or so, so he sent it off to Canon Canada for repair. The camera was less than 5 years old, but by then had been off the market for a few years. My recollection is that they marketed the T90 for around two years and then turfed the entire FD line.
Anyway, Canon sent him back a disassembled basket case with a note that his camera was not repairable, and here is a voucher for a small sum of money off an EOS camera.
Note this was a close to fully functional camera that had a relatively minor problem when sent for repairs, not a non functioning brick.
This is how Canon runs their successful business model. It is not especially customer centric and depends on a user base with a very short memory and who will take the side of the company over their own best interests.

[reh321]

Minolta supported the MD mount right up to the moment they were merged into Konica, at which point the new owners dropped the MD mount. Up until the end one could still purchase two different camera bodies and most of the lenses and accessories that they had in their catalogue in 1985 when the Maxxum cameras came along.
I very much doubt that decision had anything to do with the company failing, I recall that it was the business machine side of the company that caused Minolta to fail, not the camera side

I was comparing the fate of Canon users to users of a company that has gone out of the camera business, so the important thing was the fate of Minolta mount(s) after Sony took over.

[Wheatfield]

I was comparing the fate of Canon users to users of a company that has gone out of the camera business, so the important thing was the fate of Minolta mount(s) after Sony took over.

People need to look at all of the history on a subject, not just cherry pick the bits that they think support what they are saying. The unfortunate consequence of this is that often they will find their arguments are undermined by the facts.

Bye.

[lesmore49]

Minolta supported the MD mount right up to the moment they were merged into Konica, at which point the new owners dropped the MD mount. Up until the end one could still purchase two different camera bodies and most of the lenses and accessories that they had in their catalogue in 1985 when the Maxxum cameras came along.
I very much doubt that decision had anything to do with the company failing, I recall that it was the business machine side of the company that caused Minolta to fail, not the camera side, and I really don't think a monolith like Canon would have failed had they decided to continue supporting the FD mount.
Please don't pretend that there was any similarity between a Canon F1 or FTb and an EOS 650 other than they both took film.
Your pretence that a company offering long term product support will automatically put them out of business is a laughable and meritless argument, especially when you try to apply it to a company the size of Canon.

---------- Post added Mar 24th, 2022 at 08:26 AM ----------



A fellow photographer friend of mine who was heavily into Canon purchased a Canon T90 when it was released in 1986. My recollection is that he had somewhere in the range of a dozen Canon lenses, as well as a couple of F1 bodies.
His T90 hotshoe failed around 1990 or so, so he sent it off to Canon Canada for repair. The camera was less than 5 years old, but by then had been off the market for a few years. My recollection is that they marketed the T90 for around two years and then turfed the entire FD line.
Anyway, Canon sent him back a disassembled basket case with a note that his camera was not repairable, and here is a voucher for a small sum of money off an EOS camera.
Note this was a close to fully functional camera that had a relatively minor problem when sent for repairs, not a non functioning brick.
This is how Canon runs their successful business model. It is not especially customer centric and depends on a user base with a very short memory and who will take the side of the company over their own best interests.

I have a Canon F1, but only one lens, the 50mm FD, F 1.8 it came with. I bought it a couple of years ago, for my collection of film cameras. I also use the film cameras every so often.

I came close to buying a Canon 5D3, rather than my K1 back in early 2017, but a trusted sales associate at a local camera store, who I have relied on for years, for advice, before I buy any camera equipment, advised me to get the K1 for two reasons. I already have a good bunch of Pentax K mount lenses...and he also said, get the K1 as in his opinion, it is a better camera than the 5D3.

I still buy my camera equipment at this store for a couple of reasons. This sales associate's professional, knowledgeable advice and to get the dealer extended warranty, which I've used once.

I'm glad I did, given the fact that I could of laid out a bunch of $$ for a Canon DSLR and some Canon lenses...only to find out about 5 years later...no more production.

---

Last edited by lesmore49; 03-25-2022 at 08:12 AM.

[Rondec]

Yes, it was terrible!

Then they bought in fully automated mount,Terrible just happened to be a smart business move.

At last count Canon had 47% of ILC camera bodies.

The old manual stuff was destined to be left by tthe wayside, like the horse and cart, it can still be used.

When the time came for a newer mount...R...Canon provide 3 different adapters to cater for the people who wanted to use their "outdated" lenses with the latest technologically advanced camera bodies.

Those bottom feeders are attracting top end sales and are intending to provide high class equipment for those that want to pay.

It has been a long time and people forget. I wasn't around back then, but it does seem as though Canon treated their users poorly. If the FD mount wasn't updatable to make it compatible with modern lenses, then be honest about it. Telling your customers that you will continue to support a given mount and then kicking it to the curb a few months later when you have EOS ready to launch isn't the way you should operate. It isn't surprising that there are some people who still are bitter about it.

The issue is really that if you invested in top end FD glass in 1985 it simply turned into a paper weight a few years later. I'm sure the second hand market for those lenses was pretty abysmal, even though the glass was still excellent.

[Wheatfield]

It has been a long time and people forget. I wasn't around back then, but it does seem as though Canon treated their users poorly. If the FD mount wasn't updatable to make it compatible with modern lenses, then be honest about it. Telling your customers that you will continue to support a given mount and then kicking it to the curb a few months later when you have EOS ready to launch isn't the way you should operate. It isn't surprising that there are some people who still are bitter about it.

The issue is really that if you invested in top end FD glass in 1985 it simply turned into a paper weight a few years later. I'm sure the second hand market for those lenses was pretty abysmal, even though the glass was still excellent.

^^^^^^^this^^^^^^^
FD glass was (still is) excellent by anyone's standard. By killing the FD body line entirely within 5 years of releasing the EF line, and removing product support from the bodies (repairs in Canada were difficult at best after 1990 because Canon was no longer supplying parts), they literally kicked an entire user base to the curb.
They got away with it, but I don't see it as being ethical, and neither did a number of other photographers who can't find a pole long enough to touch a Canon with.

[reh321]

^^^^^^^this^^^^^^^
FD glass was (still is) excellent by anyone's standard. By killing the FD body line entirely within 5 years of releasing the EF line, and removing product support from the bodies (repairs in Canada were difficult at best after 1990 because Canon was no longer supplying parts), they literally kicked an entire user base to the curb.
They got away with it, but I don't see it as being ethical, and neither did a number of other photographers who can't find a pole long enough to touch a Canon with.

but, yet there are many, many ‘White Lenses’ out there.
I still say those who switched to the EOS system are no worse off than those who switched to some other system.

[Rondec]

The question is simply what you can get out of your gear if you decide to sell it and move to a different system. When a company drops mount support -- say Samsung discontinuing their NX cameras -- the amount that a person can resell their gear for drops considerably.

Right now, if I decided to sell my Pentax lenses, I could probably get 60 to 70 percent of what I paid for them out of them. They are decent quality and I have taken good care of them. That would be a good start on a new system. But if Pentax discontinues their support of the K mount or signals such, the amount I could get out of them might be half that. I suppose Pentax doesn't owe it to me or anyone else to continue supporting the K mount, but if they send out messages that they are going to do so, it is duplicitous for them to know behind closed doors that they are planning to discontinue the mount in the next 12 months.

Companies do this all the time. They wait until their products on store shelves are sold before they announce that they aren't going to continue supporting that product. It doesn't make it an ethical way to operate.

[Lowell Goudge]

Not surprising. Canon business model is to have the largest system out there. Hence, they have no interest in spreading themselves to thinly over more than one lens mount.
Pentax is opposite selling several different lens mount simultaneously.

I think you’ve got the Pentax model wrong.

Canon is now changing mounts completely for the third or 4th time, with no provision to even mount the lenses on a new body. Forcing their supporters to do a wholesale change.

Pentax is selling an evolving mount with backwards compatibility built into the bodies. The only thing that got dropped was the aperture reading linkage that began with screw mount lenses in the early 70’s and was carried through to the end of the century even though it was made redundant with the a series bodies in the early 1980s, that could give aperture priority without touching the lens.

While that may have limited their sales because people held on to some older expensive lenses, it has kept the company afloat.

[Pål Jensen]

Pentax have had several mounts simultaneously. K-mount, 645-mount and 67-mount. At some point the also had the 110-mount and the Q-mount. Currently they have two mounts supporting three formats.

[Serkevan]

it has kept the company afloat.

It, in fact, has not.
Pentax as a company has not existed for almost two decades - it was drawn and quartered.
It has, however, probably been a good factor in keeping the brand (or the system) alive.

---------- Post added 03-26-22 at 05:09 AM ----------

Pentax have had several mounts simultaneously. K-mount, 645-mount and 67-mount. At some point the also had the 110-mount and the Q-mount. Currently they have two mounts supporting three formats.

And yet Canon has, right now, 3.5* mounts (soon to be two I guess) supporting four formats (five, if you count the Cine series, which have wider 38x20mm sensors).


*Technically EF-S is a slightly modified EF mount, since EF-S lenses can not physically mount on EF bodies.

[reh321]

I think you’ve got the Pentax model wrong.

Canon is now changing mounts completely for the third or 4th time, with no provision to even mount the lenses on a new body.

This time Canon has provision to use the old lenses
In the case of each of the EOS-M and the EOS-R, when the first camera body came out, the company also released a fully- capable adapter for the EOS-EF mount - because of the all-electronic nature of the EF- mount - allowing the user to use EOS-EF mount on new cameras, with complete control over both aperture and focus. In comparison, the expensive Q-to-K adapter from Pentax gave Q users automatic control over neither aperture nor focus. I know, I have one of those expensive adapters , and it has little value for what I paid for it. Yes, this is a different case - the Q-mount is a ‘secondary’ mount - but the adapter has little extra value compared to the much less expensive version from Chinese vendors.