On March 1st, 2010 Noktor officially announced their first 50mm f/0.95 lens for m4/3. If I remember correctly, they were even taking pre-orders at some point. Well, Noktor is now officially gone - this tweet came just few minutes ago:
Their official website is also gone. Here is a better picture of the Noktor 50mm f/0.95 lens which was based on existing f/0.95 lenses for CCTV:
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If they have gone on from selling rebranded lenses to selling rebranded batteries, I would have thought they could have come up with better than “Batteryfire” as a brand name.
Noctilux + Nikkor + Nocton = Noktor
Surefire + Ultrafire + Spiderfire = Batteryfire
ROFL
LOL!
On a more serious note, I wonder if some people burned by pre-ordering the lens.
On a side note, I wonder how much of LeicaShots was a scam, a website being setup just to organize the 10000$ Paypal lottery.
lol. it was a joke to begin with.
anyone actually see the pictures of the prototype or promotion?
i hope no one actually was foolish enough…
Weren’t they looking to make an EF lens or something with the same speed… tsk tsk
lol, batteryfire
It should be remembered that this mob didn’t make any lenses. The lenses were made by a Japanese OEM company and I expect just one small batch was produced.
All glitz and no substance or commitment. I too hope no one was burnt by this fly-by-night mob and that they don’t do it again but the ‘threat’ of “on to bigger and better things” leaves me sceptical.
I called them out when they were the hot new kid on the block. Peter’s research showed they were a fly by night operation operating out of a residential address, so basically anyone who bothered to google them would have known.
However, I am prepared to given the benefit of the doubt. I think they wanted to bring these lenses from obscurity in the commercial CCTV market to the enthusiast M4/3 market. They showed brilliant marketing skills. If they had been a bit more forthright about the origin of the lenses and had better follow-up, they’d have made a decent business out of it.
Likewise I hope they conducted their business ethically and that nobody got burned in the process.
I thought : Hey i know that nickname… But where from ? O yes it is ZDP from britishblades the famous knife maker .. nice to see you here too.
Indeedy, ’tis me. I’m happy to confirm the same by PM on BB.
They’re gonna feel pretty stupid if #batteryfire ends up selling defective remarqued chinese batteries that explode or ignite, which is pretty common for bad battery designs/materials.
It’s a brand and disclaimer all in one. McMakeUFatDonnalds.
Rebadging a battery is much worse than rebadging a TV lens. I am pretty close to the Ultrafire and Spiderfire guys, I’m a regular high-volume customer and they count me as a friend. I get to hear all sorts of problems, the fakery of their products is galling even for China. I was told that most of their batteries are good quality batteries produced in Japan, but the people who sell fakes use reject batteries that have failed QC tests and either won’t hold the charge, won’t last long and might not meet safety requirements. Fakes vastly outnumber real batteries. Consequently I will only buy Chinese branded batteries direct from an authorised dealer.