You don't need to be a camera engineer to see that in the overall cost of designing and building these cameras that this INCREDIBLY simple and cheap part removal COULD NOT result in any signifigant cost savings due to the much more massive engineering costs required for the rest of the camera and also the much much higher overall parts costs.
This cheapo part was in ALL Pentax cameras for over 20 years even real cheap bottom line models where the entire complex camera sold for $150 so for you to say that unless youre a camera cost engineer theres no way to estimate maximum cost savings is not being very observative. Secondly, the whole product support issue seems to be lost on you. Its not a simple matter of how many new units will or wont sell without a given part in it. It a matter of continued support of legacy products whenever possible within reasonable or no costs. And in my opinion, my strong opionion, it is NOT a reasonable decision to cripple the K/M lenses at this time because of this dirt cheap parts removal from a $600 plus camera unless there is another model that does support it and there isnt... Thirdly, If Pentax starts blatantly screwing their former customers, even very recent ones, then HOW MUCH is that going to cost the company in lost sales in ALL THEIR PRODUCTS when former customers just jump ship and go with Canon who has more selection of both bodies and lenses. the only reason to stick with pentax was the compatabiliy issues which are worthless if the support is removed by $5 parts which have nothing to do with compatability whatsoever...Lost sales means lower production means HIGHER production costs per unit means removing $5 parts today can make the same camera $50 more expensive in a few years... jco -----Original Message----- From: Mark Erickson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 1:27 AM To: 'pentax-discuss' Subject: Camera engineering (was Re: Rename request) J. C. O'Connell wrote: >> see my last post, engineering dollars? >> that cam sensor was engineered 35 years >> ago dude. Do you even know what we are >> talking about here? Its ONE pot with >> three wires on it read by a single A./D channel? >> That's freakin' childs play. >> >Yes, the actual part is insignificant $, and most of the R&D is already >paid for. I say most because each camera has pretty much its own unique >firmware, so there is a piece of firmware (and R&D) that has to be added >to every camera mode in order to support this. But this small delta >cascades in many directions, i.e. in the user manual, it has to be >documented, I already mentioned the firmware, the chip has to have that >extra A/D channel you are talking about or you need a different more >powerful (more expensive) chip, the support of that extra A/D channel >plus voltage to the pot requires more power, hence reduced battery life, >more wiring, a place on the circuit board to accept the wiring, hence >requiring more space, more testing to make sure the firmware works in >all the different modes, more testing to make sure the aperture >simulator works, etc., etc. the list goes on I'm sure. Exactly. In addition, you can divide the costs into two parts: NRE (non-recurring engineering, which is done once per model type and not once per unit manufactured), and per-unit costs due to parts, assembly, and testing. Even if the per-unit costs are zero (i.e., the additional parts and manufacturing are free), it may not be worthwhile to add a feature if the development costs cannot be recovered via additional sales. My guess is that the number of people who refuse to buy a Pentax DSLR because of their lack of support for K/M lenses is not that big. What are the NRE costs involved in including full K/M compatibility in a camera? I don't know. I'm not a high-volume digital camera engineer. Anyone here with manufacturing engineering background care to actually make some estimates? Say in the number of engineering hours, broken down into design, development, integration, and test? Anyone care to estimate the number of lost sales of *istD and *istDs cameras due to limited K/M support? 100 cameras? 1000? 1 million? --Mark
