Japan's Konica Minolta to stop making all cameras

Yahoo News & AFP ^ | January 19, 2006

[HAL9000]

TOKYO : Japan's Konica Minolta, one of the world's leading photographic equipment manufacturers, said on Thursday it would stop making all cameras because the market had become too competitive.

The company plans to slash 3,700 jobs or about 11 percent of its global workforce by 2007 under a restructuring package that will also see part of its business making high-end digital cameras sold off to Sony.

Konica Minolta will also gradually stop making camera film by 2007 to focus on its more profitable optics and medical imaging activities.

"In today's era of digital cameras... it became difficult to timely provide competitive products even with our top optical, mechanical and electronics technologies," the company said in a statement on its website.

"For colour film and colour paper, while considering our customer needs, we will step-by-step reduce product line-up and cease our film production and colour paper by the end of fiscal year ending March 31, 2007," it added.

The announcement comes less than a week after Nikon unveiled plans to stop selling most of its film cameras to focus on hot-selling digital models.

Konica Minolta struggled to adapt to the rapidly changing shift to digital photography and away from traditional film.

It slumped into the red in the first half of the current financial year and forecast a large full-year loss due to falling sales of conventional photo film and intense competition in digital cameras.

The group, formed through the 2003 merger of Konika and Minolta, made a net loss of 3.48 billion yen (US$30.2 million) in the first half to September, reversing a net profit of 8.20 billion yen a year earlier.

In November it forecast a net loss of 47 billion yen for the full year

[Las Vegas Dave]

WHAT ????

I have two Minoltas, a 35mm and a digital, I am very sorry to see them go, they make a good product.

[Riley]

That's a shame. I have a Dimage Z5, and it's a terrific camera.

[paulat]

Digita media is not yet secure. If you want your images to last...STAY WITH FILM!!!

[lunarbicep]

Minolta to stop makings cameras. Whamo-O has been sold to a Hong Kong distributor. Whats happening to the world as I've known it?

[Las Vegas Dave]

Whats happening to the world as I've known it?

You ain't seen nutin yet! Stand by for the demise of two of the big-3, GM and FORD are in serious financial trouble. FORD may shut down up to 10 plants, and GM is much worse than FORD, financially.

Now back to the Konica-Minolta thread........

[DB]

My Minolta Dimage A1 died about 4 months past it's one year warranty. The flash stopped working some time ago. I took very good care of it. I'm not happy.

[DB]

Toyota is destroying them.

And rightfully so.

[Atlantic Bridge]

Sad. Other producers of film cameras suffer from the same problems. Leica in Germany also has its problems i.e.. I own two Leicas and they make terrific photographs that can't be compared with those low-pixeled snapshots of some digital cameras. Furthermore i feel a kind of "erotic" to make traditional pictures if I focus and adjust all by myself.

[DB]

"Furthermore i feel a kind of "erotic" to make traditional pictures if I focus and adjust all by myself."

Don't you mean neurotic? ;-)

[sushiman]

" Stand by for the demise of two of the big-3, "

Good riddance ... Dirty unions and corporate greed mixed with a multitude of lousy designs and so-so workmanship over the past 20 years or so ... is bound to do you in eventually ...

[Atlantic Bridge]

Maybe you see it as neurotic, but to me it is really somehow erotic to caress my good old camera. It is just my way to be a pervert. :-)

BTW - It is a Leica M2. I inherited it by my father.

The other one is a very old Leica II. It looks a littlebit like this one (out of Wikipedia - a Leica I) but is in much better condition:

[CheyennePress]

Only from the mind of Minolta.

How many years ago was that? I must have been like 8.

[Melinda in TN]

I have a Minolta X700 that I bought back in the 80's that is one of the best camera's I've ever owned. I don't use it much since digital came out so it stays locked up tight in it's case. I've had several people try to buy it lately and I've seen a few on Ebay selling for the same thing or more than I paid for it new. I think it's a keeper.

[Pro-Bush]

Oh well....I've always been an Olympus fan.

[KneelBeforeZod]

ha. what happened to the good old days on FR when japanese auto makers would be mentioned, then followed with posts about "my chevy/ford/dogdge will flatten your jap car without even slowing down"

then we entered the denial era...any mention of US cars being low on reliability and resale were countered with "my chevy/ford/dodge has 175K miles on it and all I ever did was change the oil"

/drives an acura

[bill1952]

I think that Ford does make a fine product.

My Mustang does have over 175k miles, and all I've done to it other than change oil, is put in a new clutch.

It's WAY better built than my other car and that is really saying something non PC.

The unions have destroyed American Steel and heavy industries, and have the big three teetering on the brink.

Bankrupty to end the union strangleholds would be a positive thing for the automakers and America in general.

[KneelBeforeZod]

ford does have some cars that are great. the escort and now the focus seem to last forever.

too bad we cant be as proud of US made products as we could decades ago.

japanese electronics used to be a joke. now they are some of the best.

[jonrick46]

I share your allegence to film. Here is a rundown of what I find in the digital world:

Digital Cameras with interchangeable lenses (the only way to go) are off the scale in price. Those with the latest CMOS sensors, like the Canon EOS 10D's 6.3 megapixel, are around $1,300. This camera's 6.3 megapixel sensor will deliver more detail than Kodak ISO 200 speed 35mm film. However, if you want more detail than Fujichrome ISO 50 speed film you will have to buy the Canon EOS 5D with its CMOS 12.8 megapixel sensor, which are about $ 3,000.

To store that 12.8 megapixel photo in a 124 megabite TIF file (gives the best accuracy) you will need 124 megabites of storage space. On a CD having 700 megabites of storeage, you could store about 5 photos. With a DVD storage, which hold 4.7 Gigabites, you would have seven times more capacity and be able to store 35 TIF files. You will need a DVD burner in your computer. Putting such large files on DVD takes lots of time.

Most of your photos could be printed on a ink jet printer using photographic grade printer paper. There are photo services who will enlarge that digital photo to large photographs (such as 16" x 20" I found for $35). I think that the photo grade paper is a bit pricey.

Finally, the sensor in your camera can collect dust and greatly impact the image quality of your photos. Cleaning that sensor yourself could cause irrepairable damage. A damaged sensor would about equal the cost of the camera to replace.

This is just for getting the equivalent resolution of 35mm format film. What kind of TIF files would be equivalent to 2-1/4 x 2-1/4 film? Hasselblad for instance can use the same camera for film as well as digital. Its Ixpress V96C, 16 Megapixel, Digital Camera Back is compatible with the Hasselblad 500 Series Cameras. Cost? $10.000.

[LegendHasIt]

Dang!

Even though I have $7000 invested in Nikon digital camera equipment, most of my best photos come out of my older Minolta 5MP digital.... and I was thinkng of buying a newer Minolta.....

Well, Nikon announced that they are cutting all but 2 or 3 of their film cameras.... I guess that the camera business is going to be really 'interesting' the next few years.