[janneman]

Talk to my local car salesman. some of the best cars are made there but there is also a lot of crap coming from Japan....

[thibs]

but nothing was marked for my own *ist D, DS and K100D units (yes, those sold in China marked nothing, particularly!)

You obviously have a problem then.

[Edvinas]

In the past, "made in Japan" was not particularly a sign of quality, it's just recently that it has been similar to "made in Germany".

As far as I know, in the end of XIX century "Made in Germany" was a sign of low quality, compared to "Made in England"

Times change.

[RiceHigh]

As far as I know, in the end of XIX century "Made in Germany" was a sign of low quality, compared to "Made in England"

Times change.

Classic film lenses made in Germany like those Zeiss, Leica and Contax have not been changed over time and they are the best ones I have ever seen in this planet.

Nowadays lenses are all crap when compared with those German designed and made lenses which are the true state of art photographic equipment in terms of optical quality..

Japanese lenses are still Japanese lenses. In the last century, the closest to German lenses Japanese brand was Pentax, I must say. They are not as good most of the time but they are far cheaper!

Canon lenses nowadays, even L ones, are by no means as good as even those old Pentax glass, but then those were the days. (Yet the latest Pentax glass nowadays are by no means match the Canons IMHO)

The problem now is German companies lack the technologies and manufacturing capabilities of the digital parts, but not the optics. And now, there are fewer and fewer genuine German lenses, particularly those designed by human and with talent and unique characters.

So, time will change something but some other things are yet unchanged over time.

[ghelary]

Rice High, in case you're not trying again to troll, can you please argument on what you've just said ?

[Prognathous]

Does Pentax publish sales figures for lenses? I'm curious to see how many Limiteds they sell compared to other lenses...

Prog.

[MikePerham]

Higher wages usually mean higher quality labours and in return more quality products. There is no free lunch in this planet!

Not necessarily so RH. That statement would be credible if it were applied within a single economic paramater. However, comparing manufacturing costs (which include labor and benefits) between say Vietnam and North America are vastly different but do not necessaritly relflect any quality difference. Benefits alone are huge financial costs to North American companies and workers are much more miltant and quality control problems are rampant.

[GaryML]

Classic film lenses made in Germany like those Zeiss, Leica and Contax have not been changed over time and they are the best ones I have ever seen in this planet.

Nowadays lenses are all crap when compared with those German designed and made lenses which are the true state of art photographic equipment in terms of optical quality..

Japanese lenses are still Japanese lenses. In the last century, the closest to German lenses Japanese brand was Pentax, I must say. They are not as good most of the time but they are far cheaper!

There was an interesting article in Popular Photography maybe 18 months ago by the late Herb Keppler. It discussed the rise of the Japanese photo industry in the early 1950s. Photojournalists covering the Korean War discovered that the Japanese lenses made by Nikon for the Leica and Contax rangefinder cameras outperformed the Leica and Zeiss lenses from the camera manufacturers. It wasn't merely a better value for the money (as the cost to the professionals really wasn't an issue). They were just better lenses. Keppler himself was a big promoter of the new Japanese products (at Modern Photography, I believe), and of course the Japanese dominated the SLR market in the 1960s with systems like the Nikon F and Pentax Spotmatic.

Many people would dispute your claim that the German classic lenses are "the best ones on the planet." I think the modern, high end lenses from all of the manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Zeiss and also Leica) represent the the best lenses ever made, using new optical designs with new types of ED glass, aspherical geometry, and advanced coatings. There is certainly a charm to old classic photography equipment, but the claim that the old stuff has better optical qualities is easily disproved with scientific testing.

Unfortunately, the German photographic equipment industry is just about dead. Just about the only company still manufacturing anything in Germany is Leica, and they are a niche player struggling to stay in business. They lost money in prior years, and the M8 is not exactly a stellar success. I hope they survive but the odds are against it.

[cyg]

As someone who has owned Apple products since the 80's, I disagree. Most Apple hardware these days is total junk in my opinion. I have not owned a single Apple product in the last seven years that has not required repair other than two Mac minis.

Either Apple can't design a product that will last long, or they are poorly made. Either way, I think Apple products are total junk. I only use them because I need software only available on Mac. I wish I could run OSX without issues on windows based hardware. At least I would be able to buy a computer that would not blow a speaker on my lap and scare the hell out of me by thinking it was the well known battery issue.

I would tend to agree that Apple products are not as well made as they used to be, but they're still imho better made than equivalent PCs from most other brands, and prices are a lot more competitive than they used to be. In fact, it seems that the general quality level in that industry has dropped considerably.

Anyway, thinking that moving production in lower wage countries means a decrease in quality is misleading. There is crap «made in China», and there are also some high quality products made there. Similarly the U.S. produce some quality products, and there is «made in USA» crap. The automotive industry comes to mind... Quality control probably plays a bigger role than the country in which products are made.

To come back to the title of this thread: why couldn't Pentax produce FA ltds outside Japan?

[séamuis]

The automotive industry comes to mind..

I sure hope you are referring the the designs, and engineering and not the quality of the work that the workers on the line are doing? do you know how a modern automotive assembly line works?

[Jonson PL]

It has been stated before that as long as there is sale in the FA limited, they will likely not stop producing them. They are the crown jewel in the optics line-up, and their reputations is well deserved.

As I see, this article talks about digital cameras, not lens assembly. And we know that they will cut down on the P&S division.

Pentax does production runs, when it fits in the program. So I don’t see the limiteds ending. Particularly not, if they ever plan on going FF one day.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

...With the higher price of fuel they may discover that the shipping costs will eat up the savings of the cheap labor and then what? ...

At that point (beyond peak of oil) you may discover that you can't afford them anyway...for the shipping cost to New York (or Stockholm) it will not make much difference if they start from Vietnam or Japan!

[cyg]

I sure hope you are referring the the designs, and engineering and not the quality of the work that the workers on the line are doing?

To clarify, the point is that the country where products are made or assembled does not guarantee the quality (or lack thereof) of the final product.

Is that somehow contentious?

Even high-end, high-quality vendors produce in low-wage countries these days.

[raz-0]

Because Apple makes very high quality products in China, where workers get paid something like $4/week.

No apple has very well engineered products. Made by the lowest bidder. In order to mask this, they have a fairly well designed customer support and product return policy. The quality and durability of their products is actualy pretty average. The only thing they DO do significantly better than their competitors is keep the chinese factories from altering their designs and component specs.

The ammount of issue their macbook pros have had over the course of the various intel iterations has been pretty awful. We use them, dells, HPs and toshibas. THe plain old macbooks hold their own with the PC return rate, but the pros are running double to triple the failures of the others. THey sacrifice thermal management for sleek and shiny, and you pay the price.

As far as desktops, there isn't a name brand out there that isn't cutting corners on capacitors. HP and apple are better than average at the moment, but the average is pretty sad. Dell just isn't worht looking at outside their high end machines.

Ipods have whole web sites dedicated to dealing with their deficiencies.

The Iphone? We'll see if anyone makes it to the end of their 2 year contract with one working. REalitively speaking, cell phones are incredibly well engineered, if not well designed, devices and stand up to the use and abuse they take surprisingly well. It's not a level apple has really stood up to before.

Every market has smart, skilled people. The issue is finding them, and keeping the market cost competitive while creating a demand for that skill and talent. Mature markets are not the place to do that effectively. If you cna get into an improving market on the good end of the cost efficiency curve, it is good for you. I've seen some decent optics coming out of both the philippines and vietnam. If you get a company with a history of well designed lenses going in their to build up a decent factory, I wouldn't be surprized seeing some very nice product coming out of the place.

[Albert Siegel]

It has been stated before that as long as there is sale in the FA limited, they will likely not stop producing them.

According to Pentax USA, they are out of production as are the FA 50 and FA 35. There are no more FA lenses in production other than the D-FA macros. This would be why fewer stores have them in stock than a year ago.

Even Pentax no longer includes them in the rebates.. or at least they have not for the past two rebates just like they did with other lenses that were out of production but still available.

It is quite clear that Pentax does not have any plans to enter 35mm full frame any time soon. If they do move on to bigger and better things, it may be in the form of the 645D.

It seems that Pentax does not care about having a full high-end lineup, they just seem to go where the money is. The low-end to mid-range market is where most SLR sales are. Sure, it would be great to have a product line with $5000 bodies and lenses to dream of owning, but how many people would buy these from Pentax when Canon and Nikon are the standard in the pro world and have the lineup and pro support services ready?

It would not make any sense for Pentax to use what little resources they have for products they will not make enough money on. They need to increase their user base first and then worry about the over $1500 crowd.

I would like to see a FF Pentax as much as the next guy, but I am real about this and know it's not going to happen. APS is not bad at all. I am quite happy with the IQ I get from current Pentax SLRs. I will rent a MF with digital back if I ever need that resolution on a job. The current technology is fine. I just want more features on the cameras as well as the lens lineup filled up a bit better.

Pentax simply does not need any FF lenses anymore. They will address this when and if they plan to move into full frame. Otherwise, Nikon makes a great FF camera and has some excellent lenses to go with it.