Jobbing out camera manufacturing

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Cruising through Walmart for dog food, I glanced at the Pentax Optio
50, a pocket digicam. Cheap plastic, three-button thing, wouldn't last
a year. Three cameras down, sat an identical Vivitar digicam with the
same three buttons, mode dial, and all other bits the same. Price
difference: about $10 USD.

I know Vivitar is a brand, not necessarily a manufacturer. But I didn't
anticipate Pentax jobbing out some (perhaps most) of its digicam
manufacturing to Vivitar's OEM.

I wonder how many other low-end digital cameras with respected brand
names are actually jobbed out?

-Cardamon Dave

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Cardamon Dave wrote:
> ...
> I wonder how many other low-end digital cameras with respected brand
> names are actually jobbed out?

Or for that matter, how many high end cameras are jobbed out?

I think most of the big name Japanese brand cameras are no
longer made in Japan - though I'm sure they are made to
the Japanese company design and manufacturing specs with
significant parent company quality controls.

Nowadays, I suspect that only a smaller and smaller number
of companies are doing their own design. How many make sensor
chips? How many actually design their own optics? How many
grind their own lenses? How many design their own control
circuitry?

For that matter, do they even design the camera bodies and
user interfaces? Or is that contracted out too?

Global capitalism is a new ball game. "Virtual" companies
that are now little more than a marketing brand name abound
in all the industries.

Alan

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On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 17:22:51 -0700, Bob Salomon wrote:

>> But I didn't
>> anticipate Pentax jobbing out some (perhaps most) of its digicam
>> manufacturing to Vivitar's OEM.
>
> Or possibly Vivitar buys it from pentax? Or they both buy it from
> Preimier?

From disassembling other electronic devices I've discovered that
apparent similarity on the outside isn't always followed through
with the same electronics on the inside. A shell might be reused
because it's cheaper to use the same mold. Or a company might
request a design "similar to that other manufacturer's model". An
example of this is the Grundig YachtBoy 305, and Radio Shack sold a
near clone of it, the DX-375 IIRC.. The same number of buttons in
approximately the same positions, all serving the same function.
The same unusual use of 2 C cells. The same performance. The same
AM/FM/SW bands and operating modes. The same lack of a clock. On
the inside, the Radio Shack model used a completely different
circuit board, and the internal ROM program used a different number
of minutes for the "sleep" function, but otherwise it was the same
radio, and notably, its circuit board contained the silk screened
legend "305". Both radios were manufactured in China, and for all I
know, in the same factory too. My guess is that the Chinese
designers produced a radio for Radio Shack that had only minimal
differences from the one they earlier produced for Grundig. Or,
similar to what you said, Radio Shack could have also paid a
licensing fee to Grundig.

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In article <xZ5Ve.2011$6Z3.1536@fe06.lga>,
"george" <nowhere@newsonly.com> wrote:

> Rollei that was getting some products from
> Samsung...

Of course for most of the time Rollei was selling Samsung cameras Rollei
was owned by Samsung. Samsung has since sold off Rollei and Rollei no
longer uses Samsung cameras. When Samsung bought Rollei they bought
Rollei from Schneider in Germany. The better Rollei and Samsung PS
cameras then used Schneider lenses. Since Samsung sold Rollei Samsung
may still use Schneider lenses on their higher end cameras. Rollei no
longer does.

--
To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.

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On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 22:45:54 -0400, george wrote:

>>
>> At the SLR level, it hasn't happened yet as far as I know because as
>> far as I've seen, the individual models still retain so much of the
>> 'look and feel' of how Nikon or Canon or Pentax cameras are supposed to
>> work.
>>
>> T.
>>
>
> If I'm not mistaken, I seem to recall that the Nikon FM-10 is a Cosina
> designed
> and manufactured camera... Anyway, this sort of thing has been going on for
> quite
> some time with some Leica stuff having been made by Minolta (some CL related
> products and then Leica manufacturing the Minolta 80-200 design for Leica's
> R-
> series) and I believe it was Rollei that was getting some products from
> Samsung...
> It doesn't mean the products are necessarily identical (i.e., Leica or
> Rollei might
> want their own lens incorporated into the design or the quality control may
> be
> quite a bit tighter...or looser). For many years, shutters have been
> "purchased
> components" for most cameras and leaf-shuttered lenses. In the case of low
> end merchandise, it is VERY common to go to some Chinese or Korean
> manufacturer
> and have an existing design re-badged. (There is even a magazine, "Asian
> Sources", to promote such Asian manufacturers.)
This isn't new. Somewhere around 40 years ago there was a splash in a
magazine (poss, Amateur Photographer) about a new Nikkormat slr being
made by Nikon instead of the manufacturer of the old version (I think it
was Ricoh but was a loooong time ago).

--
Neil
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Cardamon Dave wrote:
> Cruising through Walmart for dog food, I glanced at the Pentax Optio
> 50, a pocket digicam. Cheap plastic, three-button thing, wouldn't last
> a year. Three cameras down, sat an identical Vivitar digicam with the
> same three buttons, mode dial, and all other bits the same. Price
> difference: about $10 USD.
>
> I know Vivitar is a brand, not necessarily a manufacturer. But I didn't
> anticipate Pentax jobbing out some (perhaps most) of its digicam
> manufacturing to Vivitar's OEM.
>
> I wonder how many other low-end digital cameras with respected brand
> names are actually jobbed out?

The largest manufacturer of digital cameras in the world is actually
Sanyo. This is one clue as to just how many low-end cameras are jobbed
out. It's the rule, rather than the exception. Most electronics
manufacturing is now done by assembly houses such as Flextronics,
Solectron Corporation, Sanmina-SCI, Celestica, Jabil, LG, etc. Many of
these places will also do the design work.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital (More info?)

In article <bob_salomon-EB0498.11491112092005@news.isp.giganews.com>,
Bob Salomon <bob_salomon@mindspring.com> wrote:

> In article <pan.2005.09.12.14.10.13.267179@btopenworld.com>,
> Neil Ellwood <carl.elllwood2@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
> > At the SLR level, it hasn't happened yet
>
> Happened in the late 50s and early 60s with the old Nikkormat. It was
> made by Ricoh and labeled Nikkormat. Then there were Sears Tower cameras
> and all kinds of variations of the Contax D.

And, of course, Leica used SLR bodies from Minolta.

--
To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.

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Bill Funk wrote:

> And Kodak sold a DSLR body made by Sigma.

Not sure that they actually ever sold any though.

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In article <1126480498.005683.109730@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
"Cardamon Dave" <davek57@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Cruising through Walmart for dog food, I glanced at the Pentax Optio
> 50, a pocket digicam. Cheap plastic, three-button thing, wouldn't last
> a year. Three cameras down, sat an identical Vivitar digicam with the
> same three buttons, mode dial, and all other bits the same. Price
> difference: about $10 USD.
>
> I know Vivitar is a brand, not necessarily a manufacturer. But I didn't
> anticipate Pentax jobbing out some (perhaps most) of its digicam
> manufacturing to Vivitar's OEM.
>
> I wonder how many other low-end digital cameras with respected brand
> names are actually jobbed out?
>
Happens all the time... My G4iMac has a Toshiba Combi-drive. Karl Zeiss
seems to supply Sony with lenses...

What does it matter who makes what? These things we buy are just tools
to do a job. If it does the job you expect it to do, what the heck? The
advertising fraternity seems to have you by the short and curlies now
and you're angry that someone is 'apparently' cheapening a brand name...

Digitals are there to fulfill various jobs and having two or three sizes
is not a bad idea (see - even I'm caught up in this consumerism)

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In article <65dXe.5174$N35.4631@trndny09>, Jeremy <jeremy@nospam.com>
wrote:

> There is something untruthful about taking a generic product and
> associating it with a brand name. Legal, yes. Ethical? I don't think
> so. In the end, it will hurt the manufacturers who allowed their names
> to have had their reputations diluted. But we live in a world where the
> only thing that is important is the current quarter's financial
> performance, not the prospect of building long-term brand loyalty.

This has in fact been going on a long time, and it doesn't always
involve outsourcing. I remember when Okidata computer printers were the
workhorses of the computer industry, and commanded a premium price.

At a point some time ago, they went all consumer oriented, and
drastically reduced the build quality. They were extremely profitable
for 2-3 years, but then people wised up and the brand has never
recovered.

Flash forward to THIS century, and brand loyalty has dropped to the
point where study after study have shown it's cheaper to find new,
uninformed customers than to keep existing ones happy.

So they don't bother trying, and the ONLY concern now is to make a
product more cheaply than you did the previous quarter.