Photoclubalpha

"No prospect of recovery".

Nikon too. Bummer.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/busines ... 67951.html

It is a pretty epic disaster for Thailand. It is surprising that it has hardly been reported on the news in the UK.

FTA: "Sony Corp. manufactures all of its digital SLR cameras in the industrial area of Ayutthaya."

Is that only since the earthquake in Japan? Both my 700 and 350 say "Made in Japan".

Dusty

Same with my a580. Made in Japan....

Didn't someone say that was where NEX production was based?

There was some footage on the news here showing them trying to fix the dyke around the industrial complex that sprang a leak, to no avail, they couldn’t stop it. According to this http://www.nationmultimedia.com/busines ... 67351.html there were some of the latest Sony cameras produced there, and was ok up until the dyke failed. Looks like it’s back to China now, I wonder what became of Malaysia? I thought camera companies liked that country for setting up shop at one time.
Greg

Greg Beetham wrote:I wonder what became of Malaysia? I thought camera companies liked that country for setting up shop at one time.
Greg

KM certainly had a plant there, don't know if Sony would have picked it up.

I can tell you that Nikon has been affected in a relatively serious way. Shirley visited this factory, and photographed in when they started making the Nexia APS SLR there.



A 2004 scan of a 1999 picture taken on APS panorama format neg film but rather dark.

David

I wonder who make their "risk assessments" there. We had the under dimensioned wall surrounding the nuclear power plant at Fukushima and now a total loss of plant in Thailand. Clearly saving money is more important than protecting against the "worst possible event". Geologists had uncovered a tsunami a thousand years ago that matched the current for destruction. The evidence it happened every thousand years was ignored. I wonder if Thailand have experienced similar rainfall in the past and this was also ignored.

Thailand has been a water-based place for ever. But it was not a built up, concrete and tarmac, developed place. In Britain, I am not allowed to tarmac my courtyard and they won't even much like paviors/bricks - gravel is preferred because of the amount of water the ground can absorb. Even my gravel doesn't stop flooding to the extent of pools of standing water.

If you removed all the factories and new buildings, the chances are the Thai landscape would have taken the rain without causing more than a rise in river levels, paddy field flooding, etc. What I do not get is that where Sigma for example have built their plants in mountain upland regions (many Japanese camera companies did this for the clean air, just as German/Swiss/Austrian optical companies used to) - why then did the Japanese think that low lying floodplains were even vaguely right for clean-room precision optical assembly?

I wonder if there is still a Timex factory in Dundee. They made the Nimslo cameras there and most of the Polaroids, other Polaroids were made at Leven near Loch Lomond. Scotland has a good history of camera manufacture but I fear we have no plant left now.

David

What you all may find rather less savoury is that I have just been told Canon reps are contacting UK dealers and offering to fill voids in stock orders which have been cancelled because of the flooding.

Vultures swoop. The dealer who told me was not impressed either. They are also trying to ramp up their dealer prices because of the the stock shortage.

David

Business is business as they say so no shock on Canon trying to take advantage of the situation.
I'm more concerned about the Hard drive problems predicted. WD are saying this will hit production well into the next half of 2012.

David Kilpatrick wrote:I wonder if there is still a Timex factory in Dundee. They made the Nimslo cameras there and most of the Polaroids, other Polaroids were made at Leven near Loch Lomond. Scotland has a good history of camera manufacture but I fear we have no plant left now.

David

It's long gone, David. All Dundee has left is Oor Wullie, The Broons, and a shrinking games industry.

I guess we could dream of having a camera company in the west that could make cameras like Canon, Nikon or Sony do, it doesn’t hurt to dream. But a dream it shall remain I think; I was just thinking idly of the infrastructure that does not exist in our respective countries that would have to be brought into reality, among them being a sensor fab, a processor fab, an assembly plant and a lens making factory from the ground up, as well as the optical section specialists, engineers and designers, technicians etc.
If someone as rich as Bill Gates decided to do something like that I wonder who could afford to buy our equivalent of an A77 or a 1DX…no one for sure, is the short answer….unless the whole thing was automated to the degree that you didn’t have to employ many people or pay much in our kind of wages for our cost of living conditions; actually come to think of it robots don’t have high living standards or overtime penalty rates so that would bring the unit cost way down….hell if we could invent that we could give up making cameras and sell robots instead…we’d make a killing.
Greg
Ps it is mighty neighbourly of those Canon reps to offer to help out with any shortages, I’m sure Nikon and Sony will appreciate that.

No need for me to look towards Canon to solve any problems. We have reached a stage where most people wanting to buy an A77/65 or NEX-7 don't actually need the camera. What they have is perfectly adequate. My A700 could do what I required. Nevertheless I bought an A350 because of the extra pixels and the movable rear screen. I then bought the A550 and later could not resist the A580. Better get one before Sony and OVFs divorced. All these cameras can do what I require. I also bought a NEX-5 with 16mm 18-55 and the W/A converter. I want a NEX-7 in the spring (provided more suitable lenses are made available) but the NEX-5 is perfectly adequate for my purposes. In fact there is no need to panic and I agree with David Kilpatrick that one must wonder why Nikon and Sony built factories on flood plains. I have placed an order for the SEL55-200 as Sony have kindly offered me a "cash-back" of 30 quid. Thanks for that. That will be a useful lens (when I get it) to complete my NEX kit for the time being. Time to get the best out of our current equipment.

It's not outwith the realms of possibility for a major manufacturer to start making cameras in the UK, as with the way things are going, people will work for third world wages out of desperation. As long as they don't build the factories in Scotland. We seem to get monsoons too, these days....