What Makes Expensive Cameras Expensive

[dolina]

 

[Jeff15]

The price difference is sometimes unjustifiable, that said the lenses and chips will probably be superior. and of course the name on the camera.

 

[cgw]

Very little that's very obvious that's told at great length. Then there's "investment" fallacy. When did you get more on a trade-in/sale than you paid? Ironically, I have on mint film cameras but I digress...

 

[21limited]

Reminds me of a few years ago, when a dude with a Pentax K-x and 18-55 kit lens, won one of the “best photo” categories, I bought the same kit (and traded it for a painting a few years ago) for $483. All those people who paid thousands for their kit, finished behind him in the public voting. If you aren't winning prizes, don’t blame your camera.

I think he missed a few points. My incentive for buying a Sony, Nikon or Canon would be the dual processing busses. ON one of those cameras, you can shoot continuously. MY Pentax’s buffer for birding and wildlife has buffer that holds 23 raws. AFter 23 shots in burst mode, the camera has to stop and process the images, ad you can’t do anything until it clears. You can’t change settings, My K-3 was about $2500 Canadian. For $7000 CAD I coud have bought a 1Dx. That could be useful. I know pros who gave up thier sponsohip becasue they shot in setting that didn’t allow for down time, fashion shows concerts etc.

MY feeling here is, if somoene offers me a contract that will pay me, and for the camera, I’ll buy whatever is best for what I do. If I’m not under contract, I’ll shoot with the best ccomprimises I can afford. And after 10 years with a 23 shot buffer, I can say, there’s only been my 5-10 times when it became an issue.

 

[Golem]

Its the economics of scale.

As long as theres several models up and down the model series, you will encounter disproportionate increases at each upward step. This is driven by consumer choices.

If the next model above the bottom costs 20% more to build, its higher price will mean it sells at lower volume than the bottom. If it could sell at equal volume, its price would only be 20% above bottom. But at less volume it must sell for 40% more instead of 20%.

Repeat this, more severely, at every step upward in the line and its similar to the effect of compounding interest on a loan.

The numbers I chose are not meant to be accurate, but only to explain an effect in simplified terms.

When Nikon had only the F and the Nikkormat, the two were priced within a reasonable range of each other. With only one stepup in the line there was no aggrevated "compound interest" effect. IIRC, the pair were around $175 and $275.