starbase218
Senior Member
I was just looking at this Youtube video about Betamax and VHS and I started to wonder: Sony eventually started to produce VHS machines, just like Philips gave up on V2000 and did the same thing. Later, HD-DVD and Blu-ray fought a similar battle with the latter coming out on top and companies like Toshiba jumping from the dead HD-DVD format onto the Blu-ray bandwagon.
We have so many different mounts, and all but one - at least that I can think of - are owned by one company that produces both bodies and lenses for that system. The sole exception is micro 4/3 (I know M42 was popular as well but I'm talking about current systems) for which both Panasonic and Olympus make bodies and lenses. And it seems like a very wise decision to do that: as a company, you don't have support the mount all by yourself, a good lens has a much wider target audience to sell to, and a good body can be used with a lot of existing lenses. So why isn't the photography industry more like the consumer electronics industry in that regard? I mean, basically what we have now is all manufacturers trying to do the exact same thing in slightly different ways. Of course with mirrorless you get a shorter flange distance, so ok, I get that. But the flange distances of the K-mount, EF-mount and F-mount are all very similar. The EF-mount has all-electronic contacts but that's really the only major difference I see, and the newest Pentax and Nikon lenses have electronic diaphragms too. So even that is no longer a real difference.
We have so many different mounts, and all but one - at least that I can think of - are owned by one company that produces both bodies and lenses for that system. The sole exception is micro 4/3 (I know M42 was popular as well but I'm talking about current systems) for which both Panasonic and Olympus make bodies and lenses. And it seems like a very wise decision to do that: as a company, you don't have support the mount all by yourself, a good lens has a much wider target audience to sell to, and a good body can be used with a lot of existing lenses. So why isn't the photography industry more like the consumer electronics industry in that regard? I mean, basically what we have now is all manufacturers trying to do the exact same thing in slightly different ways. Of course with mirrorless you get a shorter flange distance, so ok, I get that. But the flange distances of the K-mount, EF-mount and F-mount are all very similar. The EF-mount has all-electronic contacts but that's really the only major difference I see, and the newest Pentax and Nikon lenses have electronic diaphragms too. So even that is no longer a real difference.

