mpmendenhall wrote:
The 300D was introduced as a $1200 camera, plastic-y and with a small viewfinder, when a very nice near-pro-level film camera would be <$500 (and a usable point-and-shoot film camera would be <$50).
It was a steal compared to what companies charged for digital cameras before. Aside being build worse than conventional film camera those days, it offered something that many people felt to be very good: they could shoot many photos at a time and view them on the computer as soon as they got to their homes. This great ability will make photolab irrelevant several years after and also is why I shoot digital now.
Technician wrote:
It was a steal compared to what companies charged for digital cameras before.
And the new crop of mirrorless cameras are a "steal" compared to a Leica M8/M9, especially when ignoring build quality. I'm not trying to show that digital didn't turn out to be an important advancement with wide-reaching impacts on photography, but rather that the perception of leading new trends in photography being overpriced is not at all a new phenomenon, but instead the historical norm.
mpmendenhall, honestly, if someone will release FF mirrorless, I'll buy that camera in a heartbeat. But looking at the current tendencies, there's no doubt: the price of that sweety will overtake DSLR FF offering.
snowboarder wrote:
Is it me or it's getting completely stupid? How can Fuji charge $1700
for a camera which will be 100% obsolete in a couple of years?
It's all electronics, getting improved every month. One year is like a century.
What are they thinking? Seriously. I don't mind paying for a lens I know
is gonna last and be as good as today. But cameras are pretty much disposable.
I think $600 for NEX-5N is a fair price. $1200 is too much for NEX-7,
remember, it's gonna be half of that in 6 months! Look at the m43 cameras,
those prices go down so quickly, no doubt as they release a new one every 4 months...
It's ridiculous, it supposed to be getting cheaper, not more expensive.
It's only expensive if you intend to sell the camera after 6 months. Why would you do that?
I bought a D700 when it was launched for 25.000 SEK and sold it three years later for 13.000 SEK. That's 333 SEK or ~$50 a month. Really nothing for a great hobby. And I'm sure it's a lot less expensive in the US, especially considering your much higher incomes.
A few people understand markets but just a few so far anyway.
If you jump all over the place and find a need for every whim, and a scratch for every itch, real or imagined - then of course it will cost enough to feel excessive. People who do this are playing their game! If 'every new thing' (tiny cams, mirrorless, etc) develops into a need...
I shot film in medium format for a decade and I now reflect on how dodgy it was for my use, costly and unreliable, bad handling, heat affected and processing dependent, hard to scan and prepare - it's fine as a peripheral hobby, I see that, for people with time and skill at the craft aspect.
'Whether you shoot 500 or 72, somehow the number of great shots at the end of the day stays about the same.'
Get better lenses, ones that are perfect for your work, and the best cam for you as well, and you might agree this statement is plain wrong. And if you put the same effort into each composition, and your keeper rate stays the same, more shots = more keepers...that is why digital cameras are 'expensive', because they are not.
chez wrote:
But do these cameras somehow explode after 1 year or do they deteriorate somehow? If not, then they must take the same quality images a year later as they did when you took them out of their wrapping. Who cares how much they are on the used market...just continue making great images. You'll never win the "need the latest greatest" technology race.
Exactly! I keep hearing how "every new digital camera is obsolete within two years", but somehow my now 8 year old 1Ds II keeps cranking out great images. Hell, the 7D is over two years old now and I really fail to see anything wrong with it either...
I think those who deem cameras "obsolete" just sit and stare at dpreview crops and dxomark scores all day long and never venture outside to take pictures. The "huge" difference in noise between camera X and camera Y might not even be visible in a 13x19 print, but they'd never know because they just look at 100% crops of test shots.
Mind you, I am looking hard at the new mirrorless cameras, but not because they are the latest and greatest but rather because they now have the featureset I want (decent AF performance and a good viewfinder). If I get one I'll probably keep it for a very long time; in five years it will make prints just as good as it will today.
Any technology that is developing at a fast rate (how much is a three year old flatscreen TV that cost you 2000$ worth now?) will deprecate in market value rather quickly.
What the camera costs is what the manufacturer needs to take to make the business go around. In cases like Leica, Fujifilm, HB/PO and a few others this means that you have to keep some pretty steep margins (exc production cost) to break even, maybe even turn some profit.
I don't understand why this is surprising. People will gladly shell out a hundred dollars on a cheap rounded piece of glass, often costing less than a dollar per square decimeter (4x4") including coatings, mounted in a 50 cent brass mounting ring. AND say how much "value" the product is. The profit margins on filters are usually around a few thousand percent for the larger manufacturers.
snowboarder wrote:
the dollar is actually strong right now, so this excuse can be thrown out the window....
Strong against which currencies?
If you look at the 10 year trend against the JPY, the USD is worth about half of what it used to be, especially since around 2007-2008. Naturally, this has an influence on the prices set by the (Japanese) camera manufacturers.
curious80 wrote:
I wonder how did leica survive before internet then?
I think I can answer this
I've been looking at leica's financial reports for the last 10 years and guess what, their photography business was making losses 10 years straight, until they finally made a profit in 2011. And the shareholders kept covering these losses out of their own pockets to keep the business going. Why? Beats me, but I'm kinda glad they did.
Not pre-internet data, but gives you an idea what kind of company we're talking about. So, when leica charges you $5k for a lens, it is because it cost them something like $4.5k to make and distribute, which is largely because they paid a skilled person on a German salary to design, test, and assemble it by hand. And by the looks of their financials, they would do the same regardless of what the market thinks is reasonable. Take it or leave it. (and eventually they took it)
Fuji is a different story, it's no Leica. The X1pro is an x100 with a mount, a newer sensor, an additional lens in the viewfinder and some extra R&D mainly for the sensor and materials for a bigger body. So it's understandable why it costs more than the x100 did on launch. But why was the x100 so expensive in the first place? It's a carefully put together, but nonetheless cheap camera. I know that from experience, my whole shutter button assembly came apart because I had a soft release on and it got cought somewhere in the bag. Springs and washers everywhere. Had a look inside, the base of the shutter button assembly was plastic, and it gave way. And yet it sells for ~$1k. Profit is definitely one reason but I suspect the main one is that Fuji reinvented the wheel with this camera, it created a technology and a camera segment that didnt exist before. And they did a reasonably good job at it too. Thats no easy or cheap business, I'd hate to see the R&D bill for that.
I was also caught unawares when Sony announced that the NEX7 would be that pricey. The Fuji price only exacerbated that feeling. My guess is that this is also because the EVIL cameras are progressing so rapidly. From NEX 3/5 to NEX 7 in 18 months is a huge leap. I am pretty sure that the next 18 months will be slower moving and prices also IMHO. Though I d love to be wrong....
snowboarder wrote:
Is it me or it's getting completely stupid? How can Fuji charge $1700
for a camera which will be 100% obsolete in a couple of years?[/rant]
I don't agree on two points.
(i) If it performs as expected, it's worth every penny. The X-Pro 1 is a bargain compared to my 1D-series EOS bodies, and it will fulfill equally useful purposes for me. Last year, I spent $1300 on my X100 (before tax), and it's worth every penny.
(ii) It will not become obsolete in a couple of years. My 5D goes back to 2005 - that's seven years; it's not obsolete. I replace cameras when they stop working reliably and when I need a new capability, not because of their age.
Οh yeah, I forgot that the Fuji is 1/4 of the price of the competition (new cameras in production), in the "mirrorless system with OVF" segment. Not interested in the segment? Different story. Thousands are interested, and a good chunk actually forked out $6-$7k for an M9.
As for obsolete, personally I dont see it.
The Canon 5D had everything I wanted in a DSLR, so I bought a Canon 5D and I finished buying DSLRs. That was 2005 or 6 from memory, since then I take an occasional look at the DSLR market and I never felt I'm missing out on something. 5D still ticking away merrily, a true love story.
Obviously we all know why cameras cost what they do. People buy 'em.
The real question is why do people buy them. I think the answer to that would be more complicated, and more interesting.
I'm often confused by the disposable society I'm forced to live in by fate of birthdate and birthplace. I don't participate in large parts of it, but I still have to wade through endless junk to find anything decent, whether I'm looking for a book, a pair of shoes, a watch, or a camera. And decent stuff – designed with care to solve a problem in an honest and moral way, and made with care and good materials so that it might do so for a long time – is today very expensive, since people do not buy products with these qualities in large quantities.
Ay, there's the rub. There's a huge market for junk cameras at $500, but a much smaller one for genuinely well-designed and well-made cameras at $1000. Maybe that's because everyone intends to replace their camera with another one in three years or less. This leads to design decisions that baffle and offend me, such as penta-mirror viewfinder prisms (a $5 cost-saving at best?), cheap battery doors on otherwise nice cameras, lenses with plastic cams that wear out in a few years, etc.
Consider yourself lucky that your main complaint is price! I wish I could find a camera I genuinely like (not that I could hope to afford such a thing). Of course, on better days I might say my camera does nothing substantial to get in the way of my taking photos. It's just not something pleasant to contemplate, in the way my Arca-Swiss monoball Z1 or Mac mini are pleasant to contemplate.
S Dilworth wrote:
I'm often confused by the disposable society I'm forced to live in by fate of birthdate and birthplace. I don't participate in large parts of it, but I still have to wade through endless junk to find anything decent, whether I'm looking for a book, a pair of shoes, a watch, or a camera. And decent stuff – designed with care to solve a problem in an honest and moral way, and made with care and good materials so that it might do so for a long time – is today very expensive, since people do not buy products with these qualities in large quantities. ...Show more →
The thing is, the quality products often are not more expensive and in fact CHEAPER over time. Just take something as simple as paintbrushes (I am renovating a 64 year old house, in case you are wondering...). I can get a cheap crap brush for 10 SEK. It does a mediocre job (dropping bristles constantly, and leaving highly visible streaks) and might last for two rounds of painting trim before it is in bad enough shape that I can't use it. OR, I can get a really nice brush for 80 SEK. It gives an excellent result, makes everything faster and easier, and will last years if you wash it after using it. In the long run, the more expensive brush is far cheaper to own, and gives much more pleasure to use.
Same goes for clothing and such. You can buy a pair of winter boots for 150SEK on sale and be lucky to have them last a season before falling apart. Or you can buy a pair for 800SEK and they will be fine for many years, and are far nicer to use.
Yet, people insist on buying the cheap crap, fooling themselves into thinking they are saving money by doing so.
edit: Since we are on a camera forum... I bought a 1Ds II three years ago for $2050. Today I could probably sell it for $1700-1800. Meanwhile I know people who have gone through 4-5 cheaper bodies, and have no doubt lost at least $1000 on depreciation over time. And all along I got to shoot with one of the finest digital cameras ever made instead of a plasticky Rebel.
S Dilworth dont worry there's the peak oil theory that says we're already past peak oil production globally, we're slowly running out and soon petrol will become too expensive to use economically. That means there will be no more petrol products for consumer use either, so most plastics and rubber will be out of our life.
mmmm car interiors made of leather, chrome and wood
not too sure about the wooden tyres though
pinkflood good luck with the reno, been there done that, NEVER doing it again.
Spyro P. wrote:
As for obsolete, personally I dont see it.
The Canon 5D had everything I wanted in a DSLR, so I bought a Canon 5D and I finished buying DSLRs. That was 2005 or 6 from memory, since then I take an occasional look at the DSLR market and I never felt I'm missing out on something. 5D still ticking away merrily, a true love story.
And I'm sure it's a lot less expensive in the US, especially considering your much higher incomes.
