ZI ship date delayed

H

Huck Finn

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From www.zeissikon.com

". . . the Zeiss Ikon camera body, originally planned for shipments from late May 2005, is now scheduled for serial deliveries to start in august 2005. Additional time has been allocated to further improve the camera in order to meet the highest possible customer expectations. The total time for deliveries of the Limited Editions is expected to be four months.

"Deliveries of the ZM lenses Distagon 2.8/15 mm and Biogon 2.8/21 mm will also start in August 2005. The Sonnar 2/85 ZM lens is scheduled for start of deliveries in September 2005."

I understand the delay for the body, given Cosina's production demands & possibly quality control issues that may have emerged during testing. I don't understand the delay for the lenses since 2 of the 3 are being produced at Zeiss production facilities in Germany & should be unaffected by production schedules in Japan.

Huck
 
Unfortunately, this is not a surprise to me. I fear Cosina is going through some growing pains which are effecting their ability to produce to the level of the increased demand of their growing product line. Is there any source of employment figures for companies in Japan? You have to think that Cosina has had to hire quite a few new employees to manufacture the new cameras and lenses they have added in the past year or so.
 
I think that you're right on the money, Rover, but I don't understand why Zeiss is behind with the lenses in Germany. The May date was already 4 months behind the date that the other lenses started to come out of the Cosina factories in Japan. I hope they're not getting cold feet.

Anyway, I won't have the ZI to show off to the group in New York in June.

Huck
 
Way back in the 70's I remember the annoucement of the Contax RTS - Real Time System. It took Yashica awhile to deliver them - QC was the issue. So don't fear, Zeiss is trying to get them right before they go out.

Hasselblad had the same problem with the XPAN & Fuji.

I am sure we will have plent of ZI bodies for Christmas!
 
Huck Finn said:
Aizan, when it comes to the lenses, it would appear that you have a point.

huck
Click to expand...

In the press release, it stated that the lenses already released had higher-than-expected demand, but supply is now good. Maybe that demand delayed final engineering, prototyping and/or production line setup of the other lenses that are to be delayed.

This is all not unusual for such an effort ... brand new camera, new lens designs, new production lines in two locations, cross testing, etc. Gives me more time to save, especially given what I think will be a longish period of high demand for the body once it is released. Price will stay high for quite a while, I expect.

Trius
 
It's not unusual for a new product to have teething problems, especially one as complex as the new ZI camera will be. I'm as anxious as everyone else to see it but I also would prefer to wait a while longer and not be sending it back to be repaired or modified because it was released for sale before it was ready. A little patience now can pay large dividends later.

Walker
 
Manolo Gozales said:
Hey:)

Yes, it would be nice if for once a company did their beta testing in house, instead of in your house! :rolleyes:

ManGo
Click to expand...

:D :D :D

Right on, Manolo. :cool: When some of the duds come off the assembly line, they should go straight to the "out house."

Huck
 
Lars Menzel said:
Huck, do you know whether there is another improvement to the camera than the
quality issues?

Lars
Click to expand...

Lars, none that I know of. About a month or so ago, I e-mailed Hasselblad to ask if there were any improvements made from the prototype that I had seen in October. The reply was that, that LED symbols for shutter speed had been added to the viewfinder & that other improvements were "internal." The shutter speed LEDs are not an improvement to the viewfinder design; they were just not included in the prototype, which was for demo purposes only. "Internal improvements" without elaboration seemed sufficiently vague that I assumed that there were no other changes to the original design.

Huck
 
I viewed a demo ZI at the Focus show, NEC, UK. The lens looked great and the one on the camera was fine. There was no working shutter in the camera so I can't comment on shutter noise, shutter trip feel etc. My main concerns in handling this expected GBP999 camera body was: v. poor casting/stamping of the lever on the left hand side of the body (is it a self timer or view finder frame preview :confused: ), the very floppy cheap feeling rewind crank, loose feeling shutter button and shutter lock :eek: . Hopefully suspected QA issues are sorting out these build quality problems before the ZI's final release :rolleyes:
 
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