Sauve Qui Peut

It is a bit like that when new camera equipment is announced in the trade.


 It was not always thus - in the dear old days when we had Elvis and dinosaurs the Australian wholesale distributors would be told about new lenses or cameras by their  manufacturing suppliers in America, Germany, Britain, or Japan and would then bring literature and information about these new items to the retailers. They in turn would order the equipment, and when it arrived would unpack it, display it, and advertise it. It was a logical progression.

Now new equipment is designed by someone on the internet with a cartoon thumbnail and a fake name like "Fried Bread"or "Mr. Snxx". They advertise their ideas on forums that originate in Mom's basement and are read all over the world by other people with fake names. Eventually the manufacturers in China take notice and modify the next camera they were going to make anyway to conform to "Fried Bread's"opinion. They make a model that is coloured pink and features "Hello Kitty"recognition for the Japanese market and a plain black one for the rest of us.

Then they trumpet it to the world at large, before digging the foundations for the factory in the Chinese industrial estate that will produce it. Eventually - after the factory is ready for the machinery, the cells are ready for the workers, and the guard towers are manned - it is produced and shipping is started. The sequence of supply is New York, New York, Hong Kong, Frankfurt Airport, New York, Hong Kong, etc...Sydney rates at # 35 and then we get the shipment to Perth.

During this time - between Fried's announcement and the actual thing on our counter, we have a series of phone calls from people who have computers and a great deal of time on their hands. Not surprisingly, they are impatient. We answer as best we can, but not surprisingly, we are frustrated at not being able to exactly predict when the goods will be here. Few of the customers are willing to accept the time frame of "somewhere between now and death".

I suspect that this is the result of the information super-highway replicating real roads...the faster that things go, the less likely it is that they will behave logically or be under any actual control. And there is a world of difference when something goes THUMP if you are in the passenger seat or down on the road surface skittering for your life.

Note: This does not apply to the new Nikon D600. They told us about it before they told you, and we ordered a bunch of them and they arrived here and are ready for sale. How that one slipped by Fried bread is anyone's guess.