Franke & Heidecke file for insolvency

[Oxide Blu]

A slice of *ANY* kind of fresh cuke is better than an olive in this one -- and I *love* martini olives...

Garlic stuffed olives in chardonnay. :thumbs: About $4.50/jar online, $7.50/jar at Safeway. Go ahead and toss out the extra $3 and pick up a jar at Safeway; they're worth it.

And don't even think about putting them in a martini.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Persian cucumber... must be a California thing, but you are dead on with the cuke in the Martini. Tried it and loved it and I pick my bars these days by who stocks Hendricks. BTW, after a few of these I find I shoot the Contax better than the Hy6

Hell you can do that straight :ROTFL::ROTFL::ROTFL:

 

[shakeshuck]

Consider that if they were any damn good then they would have generated enough sales to be interesting to somebody who would have at least bought the rights to the installed base.

Bob,

It sounds like you're suggesting we should give up on Macs, and get Windows machines instead.
Throw out the hand-made US hi-fi and buy a Sony.

Mainstream Rocks!

Yuk. No Thanks.

 

[carstenw]

I am a scotch man myself, so I'll leave the martinis to you guys.

Franke & Heidecke going insolvent is just incredibly sad. It takes one genteel old camera company out of the equation, and puts undue pressure on two others. I wonder if this is related to Thierry's departure. It sounds like it may well be. If there is no Hy6 to sell any more...

Truly sad. I doubt that anyone in their right mind is cheering, especially at Hasselblad. Although the connection in recent years was likely tenuous or non-existent, there did use to be an aspect of gentlemanly competition between them:

http://www.hasselbladhistorical.eu/HS/HSHmeetsR.aspx

I hope that the insolvency is a call in distress, and that someone hears it. I cannot at the moment imagine who that might be, if not Jenoptik, but hopefully someone picks up the Hy6 and the rights to produce the classic Rolleiflex 2.8F and so on.

 

[Forrest Black]

"Bad business practice" comes to mind. I wonder where that leaves Leaf and its AFi10 now.

 

[fotografz]

I wouldn't know about "bad business practice", I'll leave that to the people that have a better grasp of that kind of stuff.

However, common sense tells me it's a classic case of unfortunate timing ... a relatively new piece of high-end gear with all the attendant R&D costs aimed at an industry that's one of the first to be impacted by a surprisingly potent economic downturn of this magnitude ... well, marketing industries and all their offshoots to be more precise. BTW, this is precisely why I'm a tad worried about the impending launch of the Leica S2.

Just using my neophyte business noodle I'd say F&H, Leaf and Sinar should consolidate as the third big player in MF digital ... it seems that could possibly give them a fighting chance. But I doubt the three "cultures" could mesh fast enough ... unless one dominate player or investor could over-ride all the issues with a strong management hand.

 

[David Grover / Phase One]

It would be great if Kodak could muster the enthusiasm to do it. Could really drive their part in medium format forward.

However, I hear they (Kodak) are more and more interested in the cinema / motion industry as the returns are of course that much higher.

David

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Well my weddings have gone south, hardly a booking as people take cheaper options when I'm already on the edge of what I can afford to provide. Then the guy who is to be my business partner for the opening of a camera rental shop just tells me his bank are cutting up rough about releasing his 50% of the investment money. I was ready to go in just two months...

 

[carstenw]

Ouch, sorry to hear that Ben. It seems as if the bad news won't stop coming. I was just about to sell some stock from my employee stock purchase plan when I thought that the normal spikes would give a small boost if I could wait a couple of weeks. Then AIG hit and if I sell now, I barely make anything. I might have to wait a little longer. That money was going to pay for a film scanner and a panohead. Oh well.

 

[Bob]

Bob,

It sounds like you're suggesting we should give up on Macs, and get Windows machines instead.
Throw out the hand-made US hi-fi and buy a Sony.

Mainstream Rocks!

Yuk. No Thanks.

I am not sure how you read that in what I said,
Macs made it because they DID generate enough revenue to interest investors. They went through a rough patch. had manufacturing issues, and a bit of a slide until the board convinced Jobs to come back and boot Gil Amelio. There was throughout that period an attractive revenue stream.
Mainstream is not my preference generally, but the alt-stream has to be viable, if it is not, it dies.
-bob

 

[shakeshuck]

I might have to wait a little longer.

Take this with a pinch of salt but I have it from two different (and unrelated) sources that the bottom of this mess (in the US, at least; the others should follow suit) should be over and done with by May.

We'll see...

 

[shakeshuck]

Mainstream is not my preference generally, but the alt-stream has to be viable, if it is not, it dies.
-bob

I seem to have a habit of researching products for months until I find which niche item suits my needs the most, only to watch them fizzle and die a year or two later.

It appears the majority don't agree with my idea of what is a good product!

Yes, I have owned Contax 35mm and I still have my Rollei!

 

[Bob]

I seem to have a habit of researching products for months until I find which niche item suits my needs the most, only to watch them fizzle and die a year or two later.

It appears the majority don't agree with my idea of what is a good product!

Yes, I have owned Contax 35mm and I still have my Rollei!

It doesn't need to be a majority, it just needs to be a large enough niche, well executed.

-bob

 

[fotografz]

Take this with a pinch of salt but I have it from two different (and unrelated) sources that the bottom of this mess (in the US, at least; the others should follow suit) should be over and done with by May.

We'll see...

Well, to quote a famous slogan from a salt company ... "when it rains, it pours."

I personally do not think we will even see the bottom by May, and I'm planing accordingly.

Side note to Ben, the oddity of my wedding business is that it is already more than triple that of last year (which admittedly was a bit dismal), and I'm sure to book more yet for 2009 based on the amount of inquiries in the hopper right now. It's a strange mix of 50/50 high-end, full package and "Churn & Burn". Frankly, I'd be happy with a majority of Churn & Burn since it's quick, clean and I can do multiples back-to-back. Handling or making albums and prints has never been profitable enough for me compared to shooting and batching a wedding to DVDs. If I chose to do 5 hours for about 2K and minimal processing I could be booked both days of every weekend plus some Fridays until 2011. However, to be honest, I don't want THAT much wedding work.

What has fallen off for me is the commercial work ... I'm doing some accessories stuff for GM, but all the stuff I did for my ad agency evaporated when it went belly up December 31st.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

I'm actually looking to move into commercial work though at a lower end, I'm going to spend the next few months working on some manufacturers (much smaller end though) to allow me to shoot the advertising images they send to the retailers for them, for free, to build up portfolio. Then I'll see where I go with it. In these days I think that the more pies you have fingers in the better...

 

[Bob]

I am beginning to see a bunch of "private portfolio" business crawl out of the woodwork.
I have no idea why.
-bob

 

[fotografz]

I'm actually looking to move into commercial work though at a lower end, I'm going to spend the next few months working on some manufacturers (much smaller end though) to allow me to shoot the advertising images they send to the retailers for them, for free, to build up portfolio. Then I'll see where I go with it. In these days I think that the more pies you have fingers in the better...

Yes, I knew that Ben. There probably is some market for undercutting established big studios that have a huge overhead nut to crack. The bloated studios around here are dropping like flies at a RAID! convention.

Be careful with the Free marketing proposition to get started ... it may stop you before you can get going.

My motto when asked to do KMAs is "Oh gee, sorry, I have all the free work I can handle." :ROTFL:

 

[fotografz]

I am beginning to see a bunch of "private portfolio" business crawl out of the woodwork.
I have no idea why.
-bob

What's "Private Porfolio" business?

 

[Bob]

What's "Private Porfolio" business?

"Boudoir shots", mostly ladies that want lingerie-or-less shots for their boy friends or husbands.
-bob

 

[fotografz]

"Boudoir shots", mostly ladies that want lingerie-or-less shots for their boy friends or husbands.
-bob

That's what I thought, but wasn't sure.