Public relations speak: Canon management was asked if Canon is ever going to release another film SLR camera. The answer was: "I can't say what products we have for the future, but in thinking about a question like that you have to look at the ratio of digital to film users in the market now. I can't really say more than that for commercial reasons."
That's answer enough for me. :)
It's funny to me that they apparently think it would hurt them in the marketplace to simply come out and say "no". The reason they won't develop a new film camera is that the market for it has all but disappeared. (I'd be surprised if they could sell a thousand of any new film camera.) So what's the harm in telling this vanishing market that they shouldn't have any false hopes?
If anything it should help sales of existing film cameras if buyers know that there will not be any new models. Or they may buy a digital camera sooner.
---
By the way, language question: if I talk about a book, I'd say "they sold a million copies in the first year". If I was talking about a camera, the word "copies" seem wrong... but which word would it be instead? You can't just use "cameras", because we are talking about just one specific model.
Update: thanks to Damien for suggesting "unit". That'll do well in the context I describe.
But less well in a situation I had last year: I had bought a camera on eBay, and the one I actually got was the same model (Nikon FM), but was more worn and had a different serial number. So it was a different... (blank).
Looking it up, it seems "exemplar" is a correct word for it. Which is funny, because that's exactly the word I would use in Danish. But I've never heard it used in English, so I wonder if everybody would understand it.
5 comments:
I believe one would talk about "units", or use the name of the camera.
Right, "unit", that could be used.
Makes you ask, whatever happened to William Conrad? Looks like he died in 1994. From congestive heart failure.
I know, two n's. But still.
I would say "They sold a million last year". We already established that we are talking about a specific thing in the previous sentence.
As for exemplar. I would have said, right model but different serial number. The rest is sufficiently implicit.
"I had bought a camera on eBay, and the one I actually got was the same model (Nikon FM), but was more worn and had a different serial number. So it was a different... (blank)."
....item ?
Post a Comment