The Right Focus

Competition for a pioneer

In recent years, the makers of home photography equipment have had few triumphs to put in their picture albums. Sales of once promising products like disk-film cameras have been lackluster, and videotape recorders have become strong competitors for the consumer dollar. Against this dim background, Minolta has been a bright performer. The Japanese firm's Maxxum, which focuses automatically and sells for about $350 with a basic lens, has turned Minolta (est. fiscal-1985 sales: $975 million) into the No. 1 producer of 35- mm single-lens reflex (reflected-image) cameras, which account for a third of the worldwide camera market. "This is one of...

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