Re: Mamiya is history

[Ryan K. Brooks]

Pål Jensen wrote:
Paul wrote:
Glass half full interpretation:
Now there is only Hasselblad to compete against in the MF digital 
niche. A
smaller company can survive quite happily with a small percentage of the
overall market. Look at Apple who have had 3-5% of the PC market for 
years.
Even pre iPod (but post iMac) they were doing quite well with this small
fraction. Pentax have always been a "think different" kind of company 
and
probably just need one "cult" camera to survive.


...but 3-5% of the PC market is still huge and will benefit from 
volume production. The market share digital backs enjoyed by 
Hasselblad is miniscule and will probably collapse completely the 
moment sensor prices drops
Wow, you're really obsessed with Hassie dying.   I absolutely hate to 
say it, but Pentax seems more at risk- they're being chased into lower 
and lower margins by the market leader (makes for great ist Dx prices 
though) and they don't have any MF cameras that are used commercially.   
Except for a few artists, commercial MF is digital. Period.  No one is 
going to migrate back to the once-great, "but I got burned on the 
digital transition" 645 and 67 lines.

Sensor prices aren't going to plummet like Moore's law- die sizes have 
stayed the same now for a long time.  Smaller transistors don't make 
bigger or better sensors.  Sure, they'll get 2x as cheap, 3x, but not 
magnitude after magnitude... and besides, this helps those who decouple 
the back from the camera more anyway.  

-Ryan
-Ryan



And why