Years ago, the Russians had a very large camera industry. And they made pretty good 35 mm SLRs-I boght one (online) 10 years ago.
It was a “Zenit” model, and it was the equal of a good japanese SLR-at about 1/3 the price.
Now, I don’t shoot film any more-so the old Zenit sits gathering dust.
But I don’t see any Russian DCs on eBay-or anywhere else.
They made excellent lenses, and low prices-did they just give up?
The Zenit factory seems to manufacture just one civilian photographic product at present: a gyroscopically stabilized camera for distant objects - looks interesting. Probably a spinoff from their military range.
Sorry, have to be the first:
In Soviet Union, camera makes you!!!
Again, I’m so sorry…
Moderator Warning.
I’m not sure what provoked you to do this, but it was out of place in General Questions. Don’t EVER do this again.
samclem, Moderator
Whoa, that was harsh. I feel like I dont recognize the dynamics of this board anymore.
I think we have to define by “make”. The US and almost all other countries do not make a digital camera from start to finish. Well, there are a few exceptions, such as more specific scientific or military options, and preliminary R&D efforts.*
China is probably the only country that can make a camera from start to finish. I’m not going to say that this is going to be a great digital camera but they have everything they need to make a so-so one. The US on the other hand, we might be able to design and finance it, but we’ll more than likely out-source as much as is economically feasible.
*I can think of one exception, and this is a maybe, as I’ll have to look it all up. But I know Kodak, back in the day, was in the forefront of digital cameras. They made digital backs for various film cameras. And, was heavily into the prototyping and design phase of commercial products. But, this is awhile back and I do not know if they actually had the DSPs and CCDs made from scratch in the US or abroad, or, if they re-purposed existing technology.
As someone who was sick of that lame-ass meme a decade ago, let me say I fully support a slapdown for that in any forum, but especially in GQ.
And OT: no, there are no Russian manufacturers that make their own digital cameras. Russians buy their cameras from China like everybody else.
Oh, lighten up. I didn’t notice that “having fun” was against the rules in GQ now.
From what I can tell, cameras has been pretty much absorbed into the general consumer electronics industry - and as far as I know, Russian does not produce much consumer electronics. They may produce specialized components, like lenses, but that’s not the same as producing cameras.
Also, the correct quote is “in Soviet Russia…”
Thank you, I wholeheartedly support this smackdown and wish any use of this meme ever were a bannable offense.
Since the question has been answered I’ll just say that I had a Zenit once too that I bought second-hand - really nice little SLR that finally developed a mechanical problem with the shutter that made me have to total it.
Yeah, I thought that was too harsh too. IMHO a Mod Note would have been more appropriate. I appreciate the joke’s old, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a “In Soviet Russia…” joke wasn’t the first thing that came to mind after I read the OP.
And as to the OP: I agree that cameras are sort of a general consumer item now. Like almost everything else they appear to be assembled (if not actually made) in China nowadays.
The market is dominated by Japanese companies – Canon and Nikon each account for about 40% of sales, and Sony and Olympus each account for about 6% of the market. Fifth is Pentax, another Japanese company.
[moderating]
ATMB is the place to discuss moderator actions. Please don’t post any more comments in this thread about the warning Sam issued. Thank you.
[/moderating]
The Russian manufacturers are/were all making manual focus gear - essentially the same stuff they’ve been building for decades. I don’t believe they’ve moved on to auto focus, let alone digital.
While true about the parent companies, it seems that some of the actual manufacturing of components is also done in other Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam (if my Nikon Rumors page and others like it are accurate).
There was also a lot of crossover between Japanese brands and certain German brands. Contax/Yashica, Leica/Minolta come to mind.
When I was doing camera repair in the 80s, I generally found that the Russian(Soviet) and East German brands often lacked the finishing of Western European and major Japanese brands. For example, gears, while sturdy, didn’t always mesh consistently. Shutter curtains would have lots of play in them. Lens helicals would be very rough cut. And other things which weren’t so much a problem, but did seem to show a lower level of manufacturing (imho,ymmv). Could such an issue be part of why these companies are not into digital yet? Closer tolerances, etc?
If you have a look on the box (or the camera itself), it will generally say where they’re made. I can’t remember the last time I saw a digital camera that said “Made in Germany” on it. All of the ones I’ve seen while working in electronics retail have been made in China, Vietnam, Thailand, or Malaysia. There have also been a few from Japan, but they weren’t at the cheap end of the scale IIRC.
That’s not a comment on the quality of the units themselves, just providing some background to my “They’re all made in China [or South-East Asia]” comment earlier.
Some of the Sony Cybershot digital camers have Carl Zeiss lenses on them, from what I’ve noticed.
Good catch. Sony and Zeiss are also paired in DSLR world (A-mount, first introduced on Minolta Maxxum 35mm SLRs). Sony took over the Konica/Minolta mount stuff. So you have Sony/Zeiss/Leitz/Konica/Minolta :eek:
I also later thought of the Kodak/Scneider-Kreuznach combo.
To be fair, I only noticed the cameras and lenses coming in for problems, being a repair shop. Generally speaking, the Eastern bloc photo equipment was made well enough to be quite serviceable. Now the Chinese cameras from that era were VERY rough finish. The 2 1/4" TLRs I remember looking at had very sloppy focusing and uneven spacing in film winding. A lot of students would bring those in quite regularly. They sold for around $100 mail order. Lutibel? Seagull?
I noticed the other day that my Olympus DSLR was made in China. The film SLRs were all Japanese.