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p.3 #8 · Primes! Has Nikon forgotten? | |
turnert wrote:
mjmetts wrote:
I have a lot of trouble buying that 1% figure. Every serious photographer I know presonally owns at least one prime lens - many own several.
There's the rub, I think. What's the ratio of serious photographers that buy primes to soccer moms wanting a D40 with a few slow zoomers?
EXACTLY! OK for the sake of argument, let us say that it is ten times what Herb sais, 10% of Nikon's lens sales is prime lenses. Still then, it does not make sence for Nikon to update the WA primes when there are zooms (i.e. 90+% of sales) that needs to be updated. Logically Nikon would update the zooms first.
IT IS ECONOMICS PEOPLE!!!!!
Next, of the primes from WA to Tele and Macro, it makes sence to do the long teles first for a variety of reasons:
-- There is no zoom equivalent of the long tele lenses (200-400 excepted) and f/2.8 is needed for sports.
-- Most WA primes are used for landscape etc, and are therefore stopped down. Yes, the PJ photogs like speed and f/2.8 is usually all they need especially with the ease of getting high ISO these days.
-- Free advertising. yea, those sports photogs get a lot of visibility on the sidelines with camera in hand, more than any landscape photographer does.
-- Price/profit per unit compared to R&D costs. Those big lenses may not sell in large numbers but the profit per unit is much larger than it is for WA primes. However, R&D costs are about the same I bet. Optics is optics and only at the normal range is anything "inexpensive"
So what's left in the prime area? WA lenses, mid-range, short tele's (<200mm) and specialy lenses (macro and PC).
-- Specialty -- yep, need at least one macro updated as this is a big area of use .. oh, we have two, the 85PC and the 105VR. Sure would be nice to have a WA PC lens, but sales of the 28PC were low as was evident with the $400 used resale price of a $1200 lens.
-- short tele's -- spead is needed for sports and PJ, but hey, that 70-200 f/2.8 is so flexible that that's what they use ... OK wedding and portrait photogs have the excellent 85 f/1.4 and 105DC and the 135 ... these are fast and fast AF is not needed for these applications. All set here ... for now, but of all the areas, this is probably next as volume sales to professionals and avid ametures will be high in this area.
-- Mid-range -- well those 50mm lenses are so damb cheep, where is the profit in spending the R&D
-- WA lenses -- OK, the f/2.8 WA are fine for 90+% of what most people use WA lense for. Same with NO VR and AF-S. A few PJs and other crazy people want faster but this is maybe a few percent of a market sector that is only 10% of the over-all. Why would people pay big $$$ for an f/1.4 WA when most are happy with an f/2.8 WA More pros will buy a 300 f/2.8 or even a 400 f/2.8 than a 28 f/1.4 and the profit margin on the tele lenses is higher for roughly the same R&D costs. Yea, this is the last area Nikon will likely do anything to upgrade.
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