The question for us is do you want these companies to be in business and survive or watch or our MF industry fold up, let's face it there are only so many MF buyers out there, we are nothing in the industry as a percentage. Like I said it is a catch 22 and you can only take so much in losses as a company.
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Guy,
Some answers:
- nobody forced Hassy's price drop, it is their own decision,
- more diversity is better, but there are thousand of companies going down everyday. Their common characteristics is their inability to produce products at a price point where people are interested in being them. It is probably sad, but it is inevitable,
- if there is 40.000 US$ value in a P65+ considering the VARs, etc... then Phaseone will keep doing good business. If there isn't, then their price point is off and I don't see what good it does to whom to keep such a high price if customers don't see the value, or the difference in value. Owning the best gear in the world might have value as a
luxury item, but makes little sense for working pros if the performance gap is too small compared to the price gap (this is the difference with high end hifi),
- the fundamental problem is not the price drop of Hassy, the problem is that a HDII39 with a 39MP resolution was until a few days ago 12 times more expensive than another excellent camera with less than twice as few pixels... There are few domains of human activity where
working tools with such a small gap of performance are sold at such different prices. Notice that I am not referring to them as
luxury items but as
working tools,
- the inflation of price of high end photographic gear in the last 5 years is also unique. Until one month ago, it was 5 times more expensive to buy a high end MF set up compared to 5 years before. The price of film of course comes into play, but high eng 35 mm digital cameras also save on film cost and are only twice more expensive that their previous film counterparts were. It could be argued that the 1ds3 was still 4 times more expensive, but that is also an anomally that is now being corrected,
- my view has always been that MF used to be a pretty large market, and that its shrinking is mostly the consequence of the late availability of suitable MFDB and their high prices. I don't believe that high prices are a consequence of a shrinking need for MF, even if the late start did indeed induce a market shrinking. Even if 35 mm digital is now much better, then are tens of thousands of photographers out there who believe that the look of MF is different. If Nikon indeed did decide to go MX, it means that they are seeing it as a growth opportunity, meaning that there is a market for MF still.
High prices are the result of some business decisions, in terms of expetced ROI timeframe,... not necesseraliy a consequence of the actual market needs. A company like Nikon has the ability to lose money for 2 years on MX, and then start to generate revenue once the market has been re-generated. I see this as the best possible thing for photographers.
Cheers,
Bernard
