You would think that..

[KevinA]

... in a Global recession companies would be doing everything possible to make a sale, well not Canon. I just phoned around the dealers and got the same reply from them all, equipment like the tilt/shift and 24mm f1.4 have not been seen, all the good quality stuff just does not arrive on their shelves and they are non to pleased. They could sell it if they could get it. I can't believe Canon can't meet the demands in probably the slowest market ever. It can't be to keep the prices high because they are not selling any as there is nothing on the shelf. So here I am looking to spend money in a recession and nothing to buy.

Kevin.

[michael]

The same thing applies to many Japanese produced products, such as the Panasonic GH1. There appears to be huge demand yet dealers have been told not to expect more till September.

I've also been told that a number of products, such as a large sensored Canon camcorder (XL3? (only 4 years late)) which were ready for market earlier this year have been delayed until Q1, 2010 because of recession fears.

Maybe they need to learn a lesson from Apple. Produce a great product and the world will beat a path to your door, even during an economic downturn.

Michael

[Boris_Epix]

... in a Global recession companies would be doing everything possible to make a sale, well not Canon. I just phoned around the dealers and got the same reply from them all, equipment like the tilt/shift and 24mm f1.4 have not been seen, all the good quality stuff just does not arrive on their shelves and they are non to pleased. They could sell it if they could get it. I can't believe Canon can't meet the demands in probably the slowest market ever. It can't be to keep the prices high because they are not selling any as there is nothing on the shelf. So here I am looking to spend money in a recession and nothing to buy.

Kevin.

Well... I'm not sure if that is actually true or just my ignorant assumption:

... but I'd guess that most DSLR manufacturers are producing their products in batches and not all year long. For example they may produce 10'000 of a given lens in a batch and then the line goes to produce some other lens. Now even if you could sell 100 lenses ramping up the manufacturing line or even freeing capacity might not be feasible or profitable. Another assumption would be that they fired manpower because of the economic downturn which certainly wouldn't help the production capacity.