Lens Plant Tour Videos @ Sony Japan site

[Richard Peters]

On the Sony alpha Japan web site they created a section on lens design and production called “alpha Plant Tour” and “The G Spirit”.
They have a lot of videos showing assembly, testing, right to shipping the product. Unfortunately (for me) it’s in Japanese but the videos alone are worth the visit. . Interesting to see the SSM lens portion put together and how much manual labour is involved in producing the final product.

David I would be interested in hearing your comments.

( I also posted this link on dyxum)

link:

http://www.sony.jp/dslr/products/tech-l ... ntent_Area" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Richard

[Dr. Harout]

Thanks for the link, Richard.

[David Kilpatrick]

I looks very much like the assembly we saw in 1986, when they were making the 28-135mm Minolta AF by hand at Sakai. Later on that became the G-series plant, and I was told that the first following series AF zooms - 35-70mm f/4, 70-210mm f/4, 100-200mm f/4.5, 28-135mm f/4-4.5, 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6, 24-50mm f/4, 80-200mm f/2.8 original - and the original prime lens series including macros (16, 20, 24, 28, 35mm f/2, 50mms, 100 macro, 135mm f/2.8, black 200mm f/2.8, and of course the first 300mm f/2.8 and 500mm RF) were all made there.

The first lenses not made there were, I believe, the 35-105mm f/3.5-4.5, 28-85mm f/3.5-4.5 though they had the same style. The macros, primes, and G series continued to made by small groups (eight people known as a 'Quality Circle') working for a period on one lens, then moving to a different lens, to ensure they stayed fresh. They also rotated tasks within the QCs, and had quality targets as well as production targets.

Canon had introduced semi-automated lens assembly in 1976, using polycarbonate components. The first equipment assembled this way was the Canon AE-1. Minolta attempted to change the way manual lenses were built, and moved over to using the same type of machine-operator assembly where it was not possible to pin one lens down to a particular workgroup. It seems it retrospect that this is the time when Sakai started working on the AF system, as well (presumably) as making higher end MD lenses. Eventually, Minolta opened a factory in Malaysia which closely copied the pioneering design and assembly methods Canon had sprung on the world with the AE-1. That factory was responsible for most of the 'plastic' from the early 1990s on. What's interesting is that it was high precision, and able to produce the (superior) Vectis system which was even more thoroughly based on polycarbonate/precision plastic parts.

Looks from the Sony site as if the methods operated by Sakai have been incorporated in G lens production. I can not understand it all, but it looks like workgroup based 'one person per stage' manual assembly of lenses. That's exactly what made Minolta glass the best in the world 25 years ago. It's expensive, unfashionable, but at least they are publicising it.

David

[PhotoTraveler]

It looks like Sony is trying to make clear to the world (in non-english) that they are building them now. Not KM. And showing that the ZA's are assembled by them too (looks like a 24-70 getting assembled).

[KevinBarrett]

At last we can understand the Sony premium on lenses. I imagine that continuing several of the older Minolta lenses means keeping their production methods, and that since they're employing these masters anyway, they might as well assemble the newer lenses. I wonder what kind of sales volume would justify the investment to design lenses for and make them in a more automated facility?

Also, I have to wonder how the similar designs between Tamron and Sony are made.

[PhotoTraveler]

You can't really automate it much. Unless you are talking something like an 18-70 which is snap fit type lens, like other cheap kit lenses like the old 28-100.

Proper Lens mechanics have stuff coming in all directions, lots of screws, lots of checks and such, not stuff that can get very automated. Especially considering the lifetime production of some lenses might just be a few thousand, verses say the 18-70 which they have probably made 0.5-1Million.

If you are making a lot of something, and it's something expensive and doing it manually is very expensive, and time is important, automation can work. Car engines for example can and are completely assembled by robots. Parts loaded in one end, complete engine comes out the other end. For a camera lens, when you are talking higher end lenses, you are making them in batches of 500, 1000, 5000, and you put all the tools away for the year, or decade. So no point automating.