http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/viewto...48&start=15
ZITAT[...]
There have been some major movements of the gear which was originally sited in Minolta plants. In 2004, it was reported that some teams were made redundant (or changed jobs) and all their equipment was packed up for shipping (under Konica). At that point no new Minolta lenses were being made. Some equipment was definitely sent to the Shanghai Optical/Minolta joint facility, a relatively new optical works. That included everything needed for making the 50mm standard lenses, and others. Any Sony AF lens from the Minolta catalogue which is labelled made in China is a result of that move.
In 2006, it seems that Sony may have re-employed key Minolta staff and started negotiation to acquire the Sakai optical factory or its remaining contents - used to build lenses like the 70-200mm SSM, 300mm. Certainly no more plant was shipped to China. Sony also experimented with using the (or another?) Chinese plant to assemble some lenses, including the CZ 16-80mm (the launch was delayed a few weeks as the Chinese examples were not good enough). Sony then seems to have set up a plant of its own working with CZ, which made all the SAL CZ lenses in Japan - the G lenses were made by the old Minolta team, who seem also to have been briefed on designing new lenses for Sony video.
Konica Minolta retained another optical works - no idea where - which made, and still makes, lenses for photocopiers, scientific instruments, digital cameras and video cameras. I'd guess Malaysia, as Sony does not appear to have any Malaysian products but KM had a full production plant in Malaysia.
In 2009, Sony announced that all the former Minolta production units and their other new Japanese workshops (presumably CZ?) would be moving to a new single facility. Staff would be relocated, I think it's 200 miles from Osaka. In 2010 all Sony Alpha glass and high end video camera system G/CZ glass should be coming from a single Sony optical factory - apart from lenses still made in China, or lenses made by Tamron (in which Minolta had a share and Sony has apparently an 11% stake).
I do not know the exact details of the old Minolta/Tamron relationship but at photokina 2004 I was able to get senior Tamron staff and KM staff involved in a really strange dialogue which involved walking between the stands, making notes of the products, and asking questions - mostly unanswered. KM did get the 11-18mm and 18-200mm lenses shown in prototype form on the Tamron stand. That was my main unanswered question. It was clear both parties already knew KM would have these lenses. It also looks as if Minolta's lens design team was used by Tamron. They were the first company to licence the Minolta hybrid aspheric technology (plastic/glass sandwich lenses) and either they bought the elements from Minolta, or Minolta sold them production systems and then bought the elements back from Tamron.
Whatever the case, both the Chinese and the Tamron optical relationships are not random examples of 'let's just buy in a lens design'. Minolta staff definitely have worked at Shanghai Optical and at Tamron; Minolta technology has been bought by both. The lenses made in China were Minolta designs and still are - the Seagull manual range consists of former Minolta MD designs including the classic 17mm f/4.
Sony has continued the use of both the Chinese and Tamron connections. I have no idea about the SAM lenses.[/quote]
Nicht alles, was David schreibt, deckt sich allerdings mit Informationen oder Gerüchten von anderer Seite, insofern sehe ich seinen Artikel erstmal nur als ein weiteres Puzzlestück im Gesamtbild an, nichtsdestotrotz sehr interessant.
Hier ein paar weitere Material-Threads:
http://www.mi-fo.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25946
http://www.mi-fo.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23786
http://www.mi-fo.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25279
http://www.mi-fo.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23478
Viele Grüße,
Matthias
PS. Vgl. auch: http://www.mi-fo.de/forum/index.php?showto...st&p=259828