There’s a huge wave of anti-Japanese sentiment sweeping across China, with violent protests popping up all over the country in response to the ongoing dispute over islands in the East China Sea. Amidst the public anger, Japanese brands are taking a hit… literally.
Read more…
Swedish YouTube user AnteboyanRox received an interesting surprise after purchasing a brand new HP laptop recently. After finding the operating system already configured, he/she discovered the above video sitting inside the “My Documents” folder. Apparently an assembly line worker at a factory in China was testing the laptop’s camera and then forgot to wipe it afterward. Chinese manufacturing companies are generally quite secretive, so candid videos like this one aren’t easy to come by. Last year something similar happened to camera megastore B&H.
Here’s a promotional/educational video by Canon that explains both how digital cameras work and how it manufactures them. Interesting fact: lenses are so precise that if they were to be enlarged to the size of a sports stadium, the margin of error would be less than the thickness of a business card.
Having released three (count em’) new cameras yesterday, you’d think Leica would be spent; but it looks like they had one other camera up their sleeves, a special edition of their M9-P called the “Edition Hermès.” If the name sounds familiar that’s because it is: every few years Leica announces an “Edition Hermès” of one of their cameras in collaboration with Parisian house Hermès — only this year they’ve also decided to include a making of video to go along with it.
Read more…
This “How It’s Made” segment provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the manufacturing process for modern Walker Titan SF 4×5 large format cameras.
(via NSOP)
Here’s an interesting “How It’s Made” segment showing how optical lenses are made. Here’s a hint at why lenses are so expensive: slabs of optical glass cost up to $1000 for 2.2lb!
(via Reddit)
Digital Trends has published an interesting “inside look at what’s behind the little (but growing) lens-maker that could”, Lensbaby. You might be surprised at the relatively small size of the operation:
Lensbaby is located on Portland’s east side, in a popular yet quiet neighborhood. The headquarters neighbors family homes and local coffee shops, and does something that not very many offices do anymore: makes things. The entire team is made of up some 40 employees, 15 of them in production, working in minutiae with the disciple of devoted inventors. And while there are many things that make Lensbaby different than its competitors (or the closest thing to, given its very unique position in the market). “The main difference is the kind of people that are making the lenses,” says Strong.
Forget the factory: How Lensbaby creates its custom glass [Digital Trends]
Full disclosure: Lensbaby is a sponsor of this blog
This video offers a glimpse into how Schneider-Kreuznach LS lenses are manufactured for the Phase One 645DF camera body. In the past we’ve also featured videos showing Canon, Leica, and Voigtlander lenses being made.
Here’s a photograph by the The Bangkok Post showing Sony’s sensor manufacturing plant in Thailand submerged under flood waters roughly 3 meters (~10ft) high. The shutdown of the 502,000 square foot, 3,300 employee plant doesn’t just affect Sony, as other companies — including Nikon and Apple (in the iPhone 4S) — rely on Sony image sensors as well.
(via Bangkok Post via Nikon Rumors)
Image credit: Photograph by Pattarachai Preechapanich/The Bangkok Post
A week ago we shared a photo showing Nikon’s factory in Thailand submerged due to the catastrophic flooding happening there. The latest news is that both Nikon and Sony have had their camera factories severely damaged, which may have cause delays of at least 1-2 months. 90% of Nikon’s SLR cameras — the low to mid-range ones — are produced at the company’s Thailand plant, while 100% of Sony DSLRs are made at its now-damaged factory.
Nikon was expected to announce a new DSLR by the end of this year, but it seems like that may be postponed indefinitely at this point. Sony’s new NEX-7 and A65 cameras have been pulled from Amazon due to “manufacturing concerns”.
(via The Nation via 43 Rumors)
