Why do major manufacturers like Canon, Nikon, Sigma not make manual lenses?

[table1349]

I had a whole big notepad file with responses to various things, but it got too long and cumbersome. So I will address only three overarching points:

1) Some people thinking I'm annoying in how I discuss things

My goal is not to just fight without any care as to learning anything. Quite the contrary, if I didn't push people about things, indeed often outside my experience, then I wouldn't learn as much! It's quite effective at finding and understanding answers to questions, actually. I have found this much more effective than just asking and then politely nodding your head. Because if you just ask and then walk away or don't push at all, the only thing you get an answer to is whatever you asked, which is usually not the right question if you didn't know what was going on to begin with. Devil's advocacy steers a conversation several steps in the right direction beyond that.

This is why, for example, scientific journals are much more likely to print your articles if you say "This theory is the best thing since sliced bread, and these other 3 are totally wrong" even if you only actually give about a page of explanation why for each one and only disprove 30% of their theory with data. That sort of rivalry and effectively devil's advocacy advances science more rapidly, by lighting fires under people's butts and making them engaged in firing back with more experiments conducted at fever pitch about precisely the weakest parts of their theory, thus everybody strengthens their understanding.

This is how I have been trained to learn things. It does however piss some people off. Others not as much. I'm old enough now to have learned that in a recreational setting like this, there's no reason to please everyone though, and instead I should just focus on the people that the core nature of my being does not piss off (overly much). If you (or anyone else this applies to) are not one of those people, by all means avoid my threads.

I will not be insulted or anything!

2) The actual issue of the thread, and various arguments about economies of scale:

All of these arguments about overhead, and how small runs might offset any cost benefits that were the original goal, etc. are all very convincing, in and of themselves. But there is one major loose end that has not IMO been sufficiently addressed at all and that sort of undermines all of it:

Rokinon currently manufactures half a dozen NON-luxury, extremely affordable (~$300-$500) fully manual lenses brand new for DSLRs. So we don't need to sit around and muse about whether it is a feasible or profitable venture or not. It's a FACT that it is. This is not a halo product or a random experiment by Rokinon. It's their main bread and butter product line, and they have been steadily rolling out new models for years.

So the question that I still don't see any real answer to, and that has nothing to do with the economies of scale arguments, is "Why is Rokinon doing this over and over, but Canon/Nikon don't do it at all? What stops major manufacturers from participating in that market (and quite possibly stealing it by doing a more competent job) on top of everything else they do?"


3) Most importantly of all: the issue of Deloreans

Deloreans did temporarily go out of business, but they are back now (possibly under new owners, but still), and you can in fact buy a 2013 newly made Delorean.

Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series. That way I will get the story in a third of the time.

 

[480sparky]

Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series. That way I will get the story in a third of the time.

I can sell you the Cliff Notes version for $25......

 

[table1349]

Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series. That way I will get the story in a third of the time.

I can sell you the Cliff Notes version for $25......

Does that cover your R&D, set up costs, materials and allow for a bit of profit?

 

[runnah]

Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series. That way I will get the story in a third of the time.

I can sell you the Cliff Notes version for $25......

Does that cover your R&D, set up costs, materials and allow for a bit of profit?

Sorry won't make it past the editors because only 2 people would read it.

 

[Gavjenks]

Why doesn't Nikon start making cars? It's working quite well for Nissan, Honda, and Toyota. Why doesn't Canon start selling snack products? It's working quite well for Frito-Lay.

Answer these questions, young padwan, and you will learn much about item #2 in your previous.

So your explanation is that the difference between a manual focus and automatic focus camera lens is the equivalent of the difference between a potato chip and a camera lens?

(Yet the difference between a manual and automatic transmission -- which all three of those companies make both of -- apparently doesn't bother you at all)

Rokinon is in lens making to make affordable lenses that sell to people who cannot afford the prices charged by the older brands. The sad fact is that at Lensrentals.com, one of the largest lens rental shops in the USA, FOUR of the FOUR WORST lenses as far as shortest average time to malfunction are...Rokinon manual focusing lenses.

Rokinon is in the business of slam-banging out lenses that are shoddily built, and which can not withstand much use. The fact that they make two lenses that averaged eight weeks, and 11 weeks, before malfunctioning, speaks to atrociously poor quality.

I have some Nikon manual focusing lenses that were made in the mid-1970's...and ALL of them still work. Flawlessly. Bringing Rokinon into your arguments as some kind of "example" seems to me to be a fool's errand.

Yes, but the only way that this would be an argument against Canon or Nikon making manual lenses would be if there was a very strong correlation between people who were interested in newly made manual lenses and people who are extremely frugal with their lens purchases.

I don't see any particularly obvious reason why that would be the case. And if they are not highly correlated, then that means Rokinon is capturing the frugal portion of new manual lens interested people, while the high-quality-demanding portion of new manual lens people is an untapped market, which one would expect to be of similar size (or probably larger... I don't know many people who prefer easily broken lenses, no matter how cheap).

Just because that's exactly what Rokinon is making does not mean that is exactly what the market is.

Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series. That way I will get the story in a third of the time.

I used bold font to highlight the most important 2 sentences for you, since I knew it was a long post. No need to be snarky.

 

[runnah]

while the high-quality-demanding portion of new manual lens people is an untapped market

A market small enough to not justify the expense of bringing a new product to market.

It's super simple.

 

[Kolia]

Gav, you claim to argue for the sake of learning.

Yet you are totally close minded to anybody's opinion and/or informed point of views that differ from whatever conclusion you have came to before you started the topic.

Not trying to be mean here.

 

[amolitor]

No, Gavjenks. I mean that if you understand why Canon does not make potato chips, you will be well on the way to understanding why they do not make manual focus lenses.

I don't mean that a potato chip is the same as a lens. Nor do I mean that you are the same as an ass. I just mean that by thinking through the ONE question, which is probably pretty easy since it brings the relevant issues into clear focus, you will learn much about the answer to the OTHER question.

If, on the other hand, you continue to be flippant and dismissive, you'll probably learn very little.

 

[Kolia]

Aha ! "Clear focus" ! Well placed...

 

[table1349]

Apparently it is not only raining in Iowa, but there is a guy there named Noah building an Ark.:mrgreen:

Jenksie, here is a little common sense thought for you. If you really want an answer to your question call or write Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Fuji or any other lens manufacturer you feel like and ask them your question. While you are at it ask them how and why the come to develop what they do.

If however you are just trolling for an argument under the guise of "learning" well just keep posting. We will all know the truth here real soon.

 

[480sparky]

Would somebody please PM me when this is made into a mini-series. That way I will get the story in a third of the time.

I can sell you the Cliff Notes version for $25......

Does that cover your R&D, set up costs, materials and allow for a bit of profit?

Yep. R&D is $0, set up is $0, materials is $0. Profit is $25.

 

[Gavjenks]

I didn't ignore Derrel's point. It explains everything, but only IF frugal people are correlated with manual focus people. I doubt that's the case, but if somebody has a decent reason why, then okay.

A market small enough to not justify the expense of bringing a new product to market.

It's super simple.

Again this is only true if most of the people who are interested in new manual lenses happen to also be the extremely frugal people.



Here, I'll do some tables to make it clearer in general
GREEN here is the market Rokinon is catering to.
BLUE is an untapped market.

Derrel's argument works out if the chart looks something like this:

	Will consider manual lenses
	Will only buy autofocus lenses	90%	5%

[TD="width: 86"][/TD]
[TD="width: 86"][/TD]
[TD="width: 225"]Refuse to buy lenses that fall apart[/TD]
[TD="width: 228"]Willing to buy lenses that fall apart[/TD]

[TD="bgcolor: #00FFFF"]1%[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #00FF00"]4%[/TD]

But why on earth would the green people outnumber the blue people? It makes little sense to me that just because you are interested in manual focus lenses, you suddenly stop caring if they fall apart...

It's much more likely that the top two rows mirror the bottom two rows, and look something like this:

	Will consider manual lenses
	Will only buy autofocus lenses	90%	5%

[TD="width: 86"][/TD]
[TD="width: 86"][/TD]
[TD="width: 225"]Refuse to buy lenses that fall apart
[/TD]
[TD="width: 228"]Willing to buy lenses that fall apart[/TD]

[TD="bgcolor: #00FFFF"]4.75%[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #00FF00"]0.25%[/TD]

Which would mean that the untapped market is much larger than the Rokinon market, so if they can make a profit, somebody fulfilling the untapped one should be able to as well.


Or if you have no predictions at all, then you should just assign equal proportions to each:

	Will consider manual lenses
	Will only buy autofocus lenses	90%	5%

[TD="width: 86"][/TD]
[TD="width: 86"][/TD]
[TD="width: 225"]Refuse to buy lenses that fall apart[/TD]
[TD="width: 228"]Willing to buy lenses that fall apart[/TD]

[TD="bgcolor: #00FFFF"]2.5%[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: #00FF00"]2.5%[/TD]

And still, even here, the untapped market is equal in size to Rokinon's.





The only way it doesn't add up is if for some reason, quality preference reverse when you move from autofocus to manual focus market. Which would be utterly bizarre.

 

[Gavjenks]

If you really want an answer to your question call or write Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Fuji or any other lens manufacturer you feel like and ask them your question. While you are at it ask them how and why the come to develop what they do.

That's a decent proposal. I will do that. I doubt they will just hand over marketing strategies for the asking, but worth a try I guess.

I'm not sure gramatically what your second question there means/is though. "Why they come to develop what they do?"

 

[table1349]

I can sell you the Cliff Notes version for $25......

Does that cover your R&D, set up costs, materials and allow for a bit of profit?

Yep. R&D is $0, set up is $0, materials is $0. Profit is $25.

That is not possible. I want the Cliff Notes with an automatic page turner, and automated voice reading them to me using Zooey Deschanel's voice. If that is not possible I want to know Why....why....why.....why.....why!!!

 

[amolitor]

You sure like to pull numbers out of your butt. Bayesian models require SOME actual measured input. Bayesian thinking cannot produce valid conclusions from completely random, and indeed thoughtless, inputs.

What reasons are there to purchase a manual focus only lens? How would those reasons correlate with other aspects of a potential buyer? One actually can make some intelligent guesses here, you're just not making any of them.