On 8/30/06 7:38 AM, "Pål Jensen", <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> They don't have to be as big. The Pentax 645D is in fact smaller and will > have twice the sensor. Canon make big camera because they sell better than > small ones according to their marketing philosophy (big is expensive; small > is cheap - I saw this in an interview with an engineer; they dicide first > the size of the thing based on marketing, then make it so). Look at the Elan > II; a crappy entry level slr approaching the size of a Pentax medium format > camera for no other reason that it will impress the customer in the shop who > seem to get more (air) for their money. Making something small cost money; > sometimes a lot if you really want to do real miniaturization. Very radical idea ;-), but I do not brush it off. Canon are a marketing machine, but also a shrewd expert of cost cutting which is well known in Japan. I am not saying it's good or bad, but they certainly know how to pursue the profit. I might have posted this before, but in their presentation material for the shareholders meeting, they were talking about a lot of ways to cut the production cost, one example of which was "proto (type) less" production. This is their way of shortening the product cycle by eliminating the prototyping. There are a number of other ways they were talking about. Lime in auto industry, the cost cutting is an important part of the production process, but when it went too far.... Other well known example is their AF accuracy algorithm. Their AF speed is fast, mainly due to hardware (USM) but they also tweaked the software so that the AF accuracy has a bit wider margin than other makers' and stop the AF process when the focus enters into this range, without much hunting. As a result, the Canon lists in Japan are filled with complaints. Perhaps their higher end models have tighter tolerance. But in general, their tolerances, be it on ASF accuracy or lens assembly etc, are looser than those of say, Nikon or Pentax. There are other examples. It does not bother me much as long as their camera's/lenses are worth what I pay for, but I do have this bias that Nikon/Pentax are much more solid machines and generally conscientious (not that Canon are not, but I just do not like their contemporary profit pursuing corporate mentality. I do have some of their equipment and so far no complaint though :-). Cheers, Ken -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
