Originally posted by WillWeaverRVA I figured it'd already been discontinued. Surprised it's been active this long.
While it's easy to determine when a camera is introduced, it's a lot harder to figure out when it's discontinued - or at least what we mean by discontinued.
At some point a camera goes out of production (its production line gets used for something else) and never comes back. However, the camera company may have surplus inventory designed to last until residual demand fades away - so it stays in the catalogue or price lists until supply runs out.
However, these days, a camera or lens will likely stay up on the company website for quite some time after it's no longer available for order, and that's because dealers may still have stock on the shelves. Consider that it would be very unkind to see a dealer order in half a dozen cameras in March, only to see it discontinued and promptly yanked from the website in April. It stays up on the site for up to a year after new inventory is no longer available, maybe longer as in the case of the Q-S1.
Back in 35mm days, it wasn't unusual to see traditional camera stores happily keep discontinued models in inventory sometimes several years after they were gone. There was always some guy who would complain that the newer model wasn't as nice as the one it replaced, and wished they'd bought the old one when it was available. "Wait, I've got one new in the box in the back room...."