Why have the Russians never made digital cameras?

Keith said:
<snip> What do the Russians take their digital pics with ... are they Canon or Nikon fans, is there a waiting list for the X100? The questions are endless but it comes down to one ... why doesn't this enigmatic nation make a digital camera?
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Keith: could it be that Russians buys digital cameras from the Far East for the same reason that the Australians, Canadians and the US does?
 
back alley said:
the canada space arm...
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Is that a joke? (Seriously, is it?)
The Australians are ultimately responsible for the Vauxhall VXR8. That is enough for me!

As for the Russians, I think due to the fall of communism they see no real need to re-invent the wheel. They can just buy what works for them much like the rest of us, no?
 
Keith - I think Bob has the most reasonable probability. When they were more of a closed society, and wanted to show how good they were, and use their reparations, it made sense to make their own stuff. Who was going to sell to them?

Now it is easier to buy from Japan and China.

Of course they also have other money makers; IT theft and nuclear sales. 😀 😀
 
Back to Keith's interesting question: Maybe it costs too much to tool up such an industry? Considering the cheap Chinese labor, it could be that Russia did not see a good investment opportunity by going digital.

No clue.
 
Well, first you may want to ask why Russia never made good film cameras in sufficient quantities. The answer to me is that in Soviet times it was never a priority (softly speaking) to produce high quality consumer goods. Whatever was made to serve the country or people as community was OK or often excellent. What was made for individuals almost always sucked.

Then if you look at what was happening in Russia when digital imaging was emerging, it's no wonder Russia did not even touch this industry. Even former strongholds like aviation industry did not survive that chaos, so what could you expect from the cutting edge high tech.
 
They make no mass market consumer goods that I can think of off hand. Capitalism is just beginning in FSU and it is hard to price lower than people who are set up to do it already.

There are some Hasselblad knockoffs and was 500 and 1000 mm MTO mirror lenses. Also some specialty lenses currently, but I do not consider these mass market, probably not even consumer goods.
 
oleg_hk has a good point ... consumer goods were never a high priority. Ultimately, I think the Soviet Union's collapse was fueled by their desire to spend a huge amount of their GNP on the arms race, and also by the wide-spread inefficiency inherent to Communism. But that's the subject for another off-topic thread! 🙂

Last year I bought a Kiev 88 (with all the goodies) from a Russian emigré in my neighbourhood for a very reasonable price. He explained that during Soviet times, it would have been nearly impossible for an average worker like him to own something like a Kiev 60 or Kiev 88. They were either extremely expensive, or almost never in stock. Considering how capricious and wonky the Kiev 88 inherently is, I don't know if spending several months' worth of rubles would have been a good thing anyways.

Even though the Soviets / Russians would have the intellectual prowess to make a digital camera, they wouldn't be able to compete with the Chinese for cheap labour. Although I suppose they could have made some sort of "Gulag Digicam 2000" ... 😉
 
Keith said:
Oh yes you may well laugh ... but what do you lot produce of any worth aside from maple syrup and snow?
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Ooooo! A fight! OK, you're on...

Oil...lots of it. Really thick and gooey environmentally friendly stuff.
Lumber. Lots of lumbe--so you guys can build houses to live in..
Coal. Yeah, I know, you have some too, but without our locomotive engines to haul it you'd be SOL...
Cows. My understanding is that a lot of your dairy breeding stock was imported from Canuck land...

Take that! Now back to our regular programming...

And, by the way, if you guys can figure out a really fast way to haul it you can have all the snow you want for free. Yes, we really are that nice...
 
Woo hoo ... I've discovered we did actually make cameras here ... back in the thirties apparently. 😱

Look at these beauties! 😀


H005-5-3.jpg
 
jarski said:
yes its strange why engineering oriented Russia isnt using its potential more... Russia inherited e.g. top class avionics industry from USSR, but where are modern Tupolevs competing with Airbus and Boeing ?
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They are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-148 (Ukraine, maiden flight 2004)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100 (Russia, maiden flight 2007)

Worldwide there are something like 240 orders for the An-148, 200 for the Superjet 100. Not surprisingly, many of these come from airlines that used to operate Soviet aircraft, too - which, mind you, is in itself not be a bad thing; the planes were actually quite decent, and here in what's effectively a third-world country, if given the choice between a Yak-40 and a Fokker, both without spare parts for 20 years and operated by airlines blacklisted in Europe, I'd rather pick the aircraft with whose technology ground and air crews are more familiar.

That said, they're not really competing with Airbus and Boing in the large airliner market, but they are competing with Embraer and Bombardier in the regional airliner market (which is arguably a bigger market with more future for third and fourth manufacturer anyway).

To come back to the original question, there were some projects around the time of the collapse of the USSR (such as the Telefot of 1992, basically a digital version of the Photosniper).

At the moment Russia does make some digital cameras, but they are special-purpose devices; for example, the LISD-2F is a binocular with laser rangefinder, speed detector and a built-in digital imaging device for use by road police, made by KMZ since 2008.
 
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Two reasons that I've heard tell of.....

Two reasons that I've heard tell of.....

1) They haven't been able to match the Image Quality of my "Point-Match the Patch-and Shoot" 1952 Kneb (Kiev).

2) They are really struggling to conquer light leaks in their Iskra Digital DSLR prototypes.
 
back alley said:
..and celine (gag me)...
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You can have her back now. Please.

KMZ have looked at making digital cameras; a couple or three years ago there was talk of a digital Narciss, there is a thread around here somewhere about it.
And there is this page about a proposed digital Zenit:http://www.zenitcamera.com/qa/qa-digital.html
The google translation of it reads (in part):
By the end of 90-ies of XX century, it became clear that a purely domestic production of digital photography due to the complete collapse of the electronics industry in Russia - is no longer possible, as well as pointless to continue to expect help from the state (for R & D project DS and DC government agencies for a long time promised to give funding). The way forward is seen now only in cooperation with foreign firms and only on a reciprocal basis, as financial capacity purchase licenses and technologies from companies was not (not to mention the fact that the sale of such technologies the Russian manufacturer was practically unrealistic, see note 2 ).
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Apparently there was a digital Horizon shown at Photokina in 2010--a joint venture with Silvestri according to the page linked to above.

Rob
 
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