B&H raised their price today on the Canon 300mm 2.8 IS...increased by approximately $200. This may be a supply and demand issue on just the older 300mm/400mm lenses until the version 2 arrives.
Gochugogi wrote:
What's amazing is the fact Canon has implemented so few and tiny price increases these last couple years and yet most of their major products are still made in the motherland, whereas many other companies have moved almost everything offshore to hold back costs.
Didn't Canon build a plant in Taiwan a few years ago?
M Vers wrote:
Didn't Canon build a plant in Taiwan a few years ago?
My memory is really fuzzy on this but I thought Canon was in the planning stages of building a plant in Taiwan a couple of years ago. I then thought I had heard they had put those plans on hold during the economic meltdown. But I could be wrong.
I was also under the impression that the new plant was for building point and shoots and entry level DSLRs rather than for lenses.
M Vers wrote:
"Lenses (both EF and digital), compact APS, (some) compact film and lower end SLRs are produced at other plants in Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia."
That is a really old, old article. They're talking about the D30 as if it were a new body. In fact, they don't even reference the Utsunomiya factory, which is where virtually all present-day EF L lenses are made.
Indeed, you can't infer from the quote that any EF lenses are produced outside of Japan, since it is possible that the lenses are made in Japan, but the other products mentioned (compact APS, film, lower end SLRs) are made in Taiwan or Malaysia.
When it comes to lens production, the optical glass itself is most likely manufactured in one place--this ensures a more uniform product. Other components like the electronics, USM, and barrel, could be produced and assembled elsewhere.
Please don't challenge the very foundations of Capitalism...the maximization of profit and the migration of assets from those that are poor to those that are not!
Except that healthy profits push up the value of the shares that are in the pension funds of ordinary working people...
Actually, if Canon is confident enough that it can raise prices in the US, then surely that's a good sign as far as the American economy is concerned.
I can verify that the list on canonpricewatch.com is in line with the upcoming increase in prices. Based on what I've seen in the marketplace, the information posted is a very good representation of what's to come.
Like DocsPics said, if you're on the fence, you better make a move fast!
You'd think whoever wrote the e-mail would have spelled "effecting" [sic] a little "different"?
Strived? I have often striven, never strived...yet. But then again, the creeping "regularization" of past participles in English has seemingly accelerated the past decade or so. We can thank Al "interwebz" Gore, right?
(holy smokes that 17% figure on the 800mm....yikes!)
Interesting that even their most recently announced and just starting to ship products like the 70-300L and TCs are also going up... usually those are skipped over in the first increase after launch.
sirimiri wrote:
You'd think whoever wrote the e-mail would have spelled "effecting" [sic] a little "different"?
Strived? I have often striven, never strived...yet. But then again, the creeping "regularization" of past participles in English has seemingly accelerated the past decade or so. We can thank Al "interwebz" Gore, right?
(holy smokes that 17% figure on the 800mm....yikes!)
Yeah, I noticed that too.... at least they didn't add something like "strived not to loose market share..."
Assuming that list of all lens price increases is genuine, the 17% jump in 800L price seems oddly high, particularly so for a recent lens model. However, such jacked up price would be more in line with the anticipated price positioning of other MKII supertelephoto lenses. Otherwise, 800L would be cheaper than the new 400/500/600 big ones, thus creating additional demand for 800L at the expense of shorter albeit faster lenses.
anthonygh wrote:
Sounds like a voice crying in the wilderness!!
Please don't challenge the very foundations of Capitalism...the maximization of profit and the migration of assets from those that are poor to those that are not!
More leftist tripe. The poor are not the ones with assets. Leftists want to take the assets from those that are not poor and make everyone poor.
wickerprints wrote:
Your lame attempt to tie this to some kind of political agenda is not only offensive and against forum policy, but it is also simply WRONG.
One of the central tenets of capitalism is the law of supply and demand. A decrease in demand for a good or service without a corresponding change in the supply results in a decrease in the equilibrium price of that good. If Canon wishes to maintain a healthy profit margin, they may indeed choose to increase the price of their products, but as they know consumers are cost-sensitive, to do this in a lagging economy is not without its risks. A miscalculation of the price elasticity of demand for their products can result in pricing the good or service too high. They can make fewer units, but then they are also selling fewer units.
Pure capitalism is about pricing according to what the market will bear. But in the face of fluctuations in exchange rates, it is entirely possible--as any major corporation must know--that too strong a domestic currency can adversely impact exports to foreign markets. It doesn't require a coordinated effort by the customer base (not that it is possible on a sufficiently large scale to affect Canon in the US, anyway). All it requires is that in the aggregate, photographers decide that their utility function is not what it was before, due to other economic concerns.
To put it in plain English, so that even a knee-jerk right-wing simpleton such as yourself can understand, in a struggling economy with a low dollar, many photographers are finding they might not be able to afford expensive lenses. What might have been an acceptable luxury purchase or work-related expense, may no longer seem worthwhile. They may elect to purchase cheaper alternatives (do more with less), buy on the used market, or simply wait. That's how capitalism works. Canon is under pressure from a weak dollar to adjust prices upward, but there is clearly an upper limit on their ability to do so, for then the US market simply ceases to buy at sufficient volume. Thus, Canon's possible remedies include actions like improving operating efficiency or decreasing production costs. This is why, in a bad economy, tangible goods tend to decrease in quality or feature set. It's not Canon's fault, nor is it the fault of the consumer.
It's nutjobs like you that give real conservatives a bad name....Show more →
The price of energy and food have gone up recently as well. You think photographic equipment is suppose to be exempt from price increases? Everyone is going to make adjustments when the price of items go up. There is many reasons for Canon price increases.
