150 - 400 f4.5 DELAYED HIGHER DEMAND THAN EXPECTED

[BDR-529]

That last gray area about "End of Production" is disturbing. Could be they made X amount and that's it, and will let JIP sort out who gets them. Maybe Sigma will make something similar.

Don't worry about that part. This is just a standard disclaimer.

And given the fact that we are talking about a $7500 lens for a niche manufacturer, it should be obvious that this is a "build to order"-product. JIP will also not not even start manufacturing these before they have received a large enough patch of confirmed orders to justify ramping up production line.

Oh, and since someone already reminded that these are hand-made one by one, this is only true for final assembly and testing. We are not talking about a one-off product like Hubble here. This is still a mass manufactured consumer product, albeit a very, very low volume one.

Components like lenses, housing and (electro)mechanical parts are not cast/molded and milled/ground manually one at a time. They are made in patches which must be large enough to be profitable and of course the estimated lifetime sale volume must justify launching the whole product in the first place.

On the other hand, if we assume that at least one patch is ever made, better be in that because the next patch may have to wait till kingdom come. I'm pretty sure that Olympus designed this lens as a flagship that was going to increase Olympus brand value á la Bugatti for VW.

Remember that VW makes a loss of $6,25M with every Bugatti they sell but this is exactly how they planned it. They will cover these losses with increased profit from increased sale of lesser premium cars which are made at profit. Or that was the plan anyway.

 

[Stanga]

Don't worry about that part. This is just a standard disclaimer.

And given the fact that we are talking about a $7500 lens for a niche manufacturer, it should be obvious that this is a "build to order"-product. JIP will also not not even start manufacturing these before they have received a large enough patch of confirmed orders to justify ramping up production line.

Oh, and since someone already reminded that these are hand-made one by one, this is only true for final assembly and testing. We are not talking about a one-off product like Hubble here. This is still a mass manufactured consumer product, albeit a very, very low volume one.

Components like lenses, housing and (electro)mechanical parts are not cast/molded and milled/ground manually one at a time. They are made in patches which must be large enough to be profitable and of course the estimated lifetime sale volume must justify launching the whole product in the first place.

On the other hand, if we assume that at least one patch is ever made, better be in that because the next patch of these may have to wait till kingdom come. I'm pretty sure that Olympus designed this lens as a flagship that was going to increase Olympus brand value á la Bugatti for VW. Temember that VW makes a loss of $6,25M with every Bugatti they sell but this is exactly how they planned it.

That might well be true of the mass produced lenses, but I am not convinced that manufacturing process you described is accurate for all lenses.

 

[Mike Wingate]

Sad.
lies.
more lies.
incomprehension.
demand exceeds supply.
only another 2 months to wait.
what camera bag shall I buy?
bad planning.
still cannot get an Olympus 100-400.
my world has ended.

 

[RichardC]

Sad.
lies.
more lies.
incomprehension.
demand exceeds supply.
only another 2 months to wait.
what camera bag shall I buy?
bad planning.
still cannot get an Olympus 100-400.
my world has ended.

....before it even began.

 

[Mike Wingate]

Ah, but, reviewers have had a few lenses to review around the world, so some “pre production “ models were available. Did they not make any production models. This lens was announced in January 2019.

 

[RichardC]

Ah, but, reviewers have had a few lenses to review around the world, so some “pre production “ models were available. Did they not make any production models. This lens was announced in January 2019.

It's a colossal international telephoto zoom lens conspiracy.

 

[RAH]

I am a little confused about the idea of the manufacture of the 150-400 being less automated in a factory. Canon sells many VERY expensive lenses (those big grey ones) and I've always assumed they mass-produce them (not like kit lenses, but still a fairly large number). So is this whole thing a function of it being a smaller lens producer like Olympus? I mean, $7500 is not really all that expensive in this rarefied category.

 

[The Grumpy Snapper]

Look at it this way. A mass produced car or motorcycle engine is fine for road use. If you want to use it on the track you blueprint the engine, rebuilding it to the tightest tolerances specified in the the original design.

I would much rather have a lens assembled by a skilled technician who can spot potential issues than a lens slapped together on a production line.

The real question is, will Olympus leave any skilled technicians behind when JIP take over?

 

[Stanga]

The real question is, will Olympus leave any skilled technicians behind when JIP take over?

What sort of question is that? JIP is taking over the camera and lens factory in Vietnam as well. They are not just buying the brand name.

 

[Reflector]

There are critical components components are most likely built in batches and Olympus made assumptions that there would be x amount of interest in the lens and likely had lower projections than reality and thus they made orders for those components accordingly. This probably just means they have to setup their lens grinding equipment for those groups or otherwise make an order to another company that can grind the elements for them (and/or assemble it, since ghost constructors are a thing) and that'll be the wait for everyone that's after the first batch of already built lenses in addition to whatever un-assembled lens components they have on hand. It might not even be the optical elements and instead be something mechanical like some injection molded parts they'll have to setup the mold machine for again to produce a few additional ones. It could also be something stupidly mundane like the sensor used to determine what's going on with the manual focus ring needing to be ordered from whatever supplier and they're backordered out a few months because of the pandemic and because its such a small order.

Why there's controversy and speculation behind this is beyond me. This happens when projections are off from what's been ordered and is in production was produced. Screwing up on projections is nothing new, especially if there's an assumption that the pandemic along with the general market is basically the death knell for photography so this was a "swan song" lens to the point Olympus just made whatever ones beyond their development and testing models and expected that they'd likely not sell through them immediately.

I say this as someone that's been involved with a company that works with suppliers to produce things. Sometimes you absolutely get hosed because you make a purchase order for x amount of things and demand is higher than expected or otherwise the supplier is clearing backlogs for months out.

 

[Aristophanes]

What sort of question is that? JIP is taking over the camera and lens factory in Vietnam as well. They are not just buying the brand name.

There is no Vietnam camera factory.
There is an Olympus facility in Vietnam assembling both medical and camera equipment. It is presumed that JIP will continue leasing that space as Imaging has no dedicated assembly and distribution centre, and the economy of scale and infrastructure of the Vietnam facility would be challenging to move or replicate.
There was a dedicated P&S camera manufacturing and assembly plant in China, but that was sold a few years ago after the camera market fell apart.