The following is not aimed at any manufacturer. It is all my opinion, from a people shooter in a major market. Full disclosure: I have a P30+ on an AFd and I love the image quality. My dealer has been fantastic.
The new product announcements from Phase and Blad are symptomatic of the problem with the MFDB and photography industries in general. The reality is this, at least for most people shooters: Rates are down, clients want more services for less money, clients want tethered, most clients don't care or want to know about file size or what you are shooting (they care more about catering), and the investment in equipment has gone up and up, and you must reinvest every three to four years. On top of that, there is less and less need for high quality print collateral. Demand is still there, but you really need max of 30 meg 8 bit CMYK tiffs for most mags, and yes, those bus stop ads from a 1ds look just fine.
In this market, with these realities, we get more expensive backs that give us bigger files? Do any photographers look at ROI? Anyone? Bueller? I know I do. The ROI on an MFDB sucks. No really, it does. Its worse than it was even a year ago because even on editorial shoots they are balking at paying me to rent my own back or they have an arrangement with a rental house, or they want film. Compare this to buying a Sony EX1 for $6500. Complete kit with extra batteries and a few PCI-X 16 gig cards is $10k, that's right, less than a P30+, about on par with a P21+. Just showing up with this cam and pulling focus for 8 hours nets you over $2,000. That's not even directing etc., which, for a one day shoot and some simple motion graphics for a department store's in-store display, gets you $15k. My point is that even mundane jobs with video provide a much, much higher revenue than stills, and gets there with a quarter of the investment. This is why buying two 5D's or used 1ds/1ds2's and a few lenses for less than $10k, renting an MFDB when needed, is the SMART move.
This predicament is, I think, the result of how photographers work versus the way our motion picture bretheren work. Stills require less collaboration on the whole, so stills shooters work in a vacuum. Most studios of most photographers consist of the shooter and a studio manager, perhaps a first assistant. None of these actors are really equiped by education or training to run a business, and they have little contact with other studios regarding rates, practices, etc because we all compete with each other. Motion guys and gals must work with large groups of people because of the complexity of a motion picture shoot. There are also production companies and very sharp business types who have little to do with the technical and artistic side of movie making. These people make the business decisions. With stills, its one guy wears all the hats, and he can't be good at all of functions of running a business. This results in less than optimal business decisions regarding equipment purchases, not to mention getting raped on rates by clients.
Could you imagine if stills guys unionized? The motion guys have been unionized forever. We can't even get the ASMP to respond intelligently to legislation that could take away part of what's left of our IP rights. We can't even stop eachother from undercutting eachother on rates.
This has veered around, but this is the reality of the market these new backs are being pushed into. A situation like this cannot last. There will be a market correction. The question is who or what will be the change agent? I think maybe Red. A new camera that is for the future and that is priced to give a healthy ROI given the fading print market. Then who will be left? the market will be over saturated with manufacturers of pro cameras. Nikon and Canon, Sinar because of their technical/view camera expertise and surprising forsight in making a camera like the ArcTec, and maybe Blad because of their marketing prowess. That being said, they need to get prices down to expand the market. And if they can't because they won't make any money if they charge less, well, that might be end of some companies, or maybe a consolidation.
One question: who really owns Mamiya? Is it really Cosmos? I've heard it was not Cosmos, but rather some other more interesting player. Anyone? Thierry?
