Chris_88 Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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philip_pj wrote:
Prototyping never reaches the market with an array of test reviewers, very expensive pre-launch fanfare, website production, listings in the world's most prestigious outlets - none of it happens in the ordinary course of events. Then, it's not a typical camera so the spectre of technological failure looks far more likely as an explanation.
Gamble big on the latest tech and you risk a hard crash. Misread your market and become Nokia. Zeiss made their first camera in almost two decades and, instead of producing a superior quality Sony/Fuji form factor with 2-3 great lenses (on any mount), they went for a high risk move and failed spectacularly - as many here predicted at the time - in Sept 2018.
'Sales of camera lenses have irreversibly shrunk to a niche market..'
But it's their niche! Even in CY days, many CZ lens releases sold less than 10,000 units each, while Canon amassed sales totals of over 100 million lenses, just in EF. As the imaging users at the bottom and middle take the easy option and phone it in, the enthusiast market hardens and clarifies - each new release from the existing makers is given due attention, and former mainstream producers have moved to broaden the market sector: Sigma, Samyang and others.
The M sector is going gangbusters, as further proof of the emergence of a very different and healthy forward-looking market. And for a company serving ultra niche sectors like cine it smells like sour grapes.
And even then they are wrong, as camera sales have stabilised at levels roughly the same as those in the 1990s. It was good enough for them then..but now it's 'irreversible', and this is coming from a niche producer even in the best of their times. The signs were there if you remember - they always said they were only making four (then five) Loxias 'to help Sony'.
As to their being enough Zeiss lenses in the world already, please. Optics are moving very fast these last few years, and CZ are missing the opportunities being grasped by CV, Sigma and Leica. Few photographers are rejecting these great new age lenses because they believe they already have that need covered by Zeiss lenses.
Exactly the opposite is true - people want updated high end lenses with more focus on size, weight and optical excellence. But Zeiss gave the world ugly 1000 gram plus monster lenses like Otus and Milvus primes.
It was another sign they were chronically out of touch and misread the emerging market entirely - ironically enough by focusing on a prosumer sector using MF lenses, the very epitome of 'niche' (e.g. Ming Thein, Lloyd), when partner Sony was leading the way for enthusiasts. How many Milvus images are shot with new age EVF cameras? New management might see them back in the game at some stage, but their silence speaks volumes for their well-deserved plight as yesterday's heroes. ...Show more →
+1
Add to the above the fact that 1) they initially lost out on sales when the Batis 25 and 85 were still without competition, 2) only offered slightly updated versions of older m-mount designs in the popular 35mm and 50mm FL's, and 3) had to deal with the aperture/AF issues of the Batis 40.
Don't get me wrong, the Loxia 21 remains my favorite wide landscape lens, and the Batis 135 and Loxia 85 (or the 35 1.4 ZM, for that matter) too are nice showcases of what Zeiss is capable of doing. It just always felt like too little, too late. t's a pity that they did misread the market like that. I'm sure they could have carved out their traditional niche, if they had been willing to move more aggressively into the mirrorless market. In their stead, Cosina has done an admirable job of producing plenty of (very) fast, yet compact primes to fill the void left by Zeiss.
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