My Photo Booth Photo Blog

So this is it. The company of the one of the most influence on the photography market retires. Konica Minolta declared to stop the production of cameras till march 2006. The company that developed such innovative things as first auto-focus camera (Dynax/Maxxym 7000, 1985), the fastest shutter (1/12,000 sec. in Dynax/Maxxum 9xi, 1992) or CCD-Shift mechanism (Dynax/Maxxum 7D) resigns as a producer of photographic equipment. Nevertheless, the production of films can continue until march 2007 and company will go on with office equipment and other.
What can I say… It is really sad. All the more, Sony will be in charge of that part of Konica Minolta. So now we can expect that we will not see any SRL camera with Minolta’s spirit anymore. There were some rumours about an SRL which would be Sony and Konica Minolta effort so an SRL can appear under Sony’s name. But no-one believes that Sony will risk to enter the SRL cameras market. They will rather expand their influence on the compact cameras market where they are one of the leaders.
I am still in favour of classic photography but I think I can see an inevitable end of an era.