$3,000 for the additional warranty time just seems outrageous.
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It seems like a pretty good little camera, but $7,990 is a lot of money for even a good Mamiya 645.
If I was the dealer I'd hide that $3,000 warranty information way down the page, or better still if I was Phase I'd just throw in a 2 or 3 year warranty, after all you would expect any professional camera to be good for 3 years.
Even better, I'd just offer a second body for $3,000.
In fact if I was presented with these numbers my first question would be, will the camera not make it 3 years?
Even if you take it to the far extremes you can go on KEH and buy two H-1 kits with lenses for $3,700 each, that would pretty much solve the 3 year warranty issue and give you "the assistant dropped the camera" backup for less than the Mamiya and the warranty.
The only downside to this is I don't know if the H-1 firmware works with all the different lenses or backs and I don't really know how you can tell. I guess people more involved like a dealer will know this.
I think Phase and all of medium format needs to decide where they are going on pricing and better yet how they are perceived in the professional market.
Though the H-series camera is not my cup-o-tea, it is considered the standard in medium format, if only because it's been out for a long time and you can pretty much rent one in every world market, major or minor.
So to take this one step further, if your a digital tech, what do you buy to rent to your client's?... a camera that is considered standard, or the Mamiya that is new and still waiting on lenses.
If I was introducing any new camera, my very first priority would be to get these cameras and complete lenses in the rental departments of every major store possible, even if it meant discounting them.
Get them in people's hands so they have a real connection.
My second priority would to be to find away to get these cameras "sold" as quickly as possible, even if it means lowering the price, or defering the cost in some kind of finance plan. A $3,000 warranty would seem to have the opposite effect.
My third priority would be to line the dealers shelfs with these cameras and lenses to give the impression that my new camera is the "new" standard.
I own most if not all of my equipment, but a lot of photographers don't or if they do they own just one medium format camera and some kind of dslr backup, so on the day of their biggest project they have to make sure that thier purchase is compatible and available in rental.
This forum seems to be very technically oreinted towards gear and it seems to attract people that want the latest and newest, (or at least enjoy talking about the latest and newest) but in the real world of making photos for money there are a whole lot of good photographers that produce some amazing work with some less than cutting edge equipment.
To move these photographers to purchase, there has to be a motiivation of either better price, better availability, better use, or to make it a real lock, the product should cover all three of these points the day it's introduced.
In the 5 or 6 years I've shot digital and I've noticed we've gone through a change.
Early on it was a compromised medium, where we either put up with certain workarounds. Now we're into a period where digital is pretty much the standard so whatever is offered really has to be reliable, available and be a no excuse system.
I hope all of these cameras have success as it is a sign of a healthy industry.
JR