True, but the situation is very different now:
- from an economic standpoint, it is clear that the MF players still alive are not serving the market well with their elitist pricing,
- The future of these small operations is unclear and investing 60.000 US$ in those is a true act of faith,
- There are hundreds of thousands of photographers worldwide who think they need the MF look and would be interested in a more affordable solution that works,
- The prices of the lenses have doubled or tripled in 5 years,
- The prices of the DSLR are going down fast, and there is no way Canon and Nikon can hope to expand their revenue staying where they currently are, nobody is switching brand anymore...
So I am not saying this will happen, but the fact it didn't happen in the film days is IMHO no justification for this not happening now.
Cheers,
Bernard
Yes it is different ... in a way that makes it far less profitable than MF film:
- The "elitist" pricing is the consequence of greatly reduced sales volume, due to the combination of far higher unit unit costs and the greater range of photographic needs now met by 35mm and even smaller formats, not due to MF makers suddenly getting greedier than before;
- the "hundreds of thousands of photographers worldwide who think they need the MF" are mostly talking but not buying, and never will buy, due to the inherently far high prices.
- The tripling of lens prices (and similar increases in prices of bodies, apart from back costs) is primarily the inevitable consequence of declining sales volume, though it starts a vicious spiral through depressing sales volume further.
- The prices of the high end DSLR's are not going down one iota: every high end, high res. 35mm format DSLR from the original 1Ds to the 1DsMkIII and D3X has come to market at the same US$8000. The less expensive, lower spec. 35mm format models like the 5DMkII sell in such greater volume that 35mm format DSLR is overall probably far more profitable than it was in the era before the 5D: that increased volume is how Canon and Nikon expand their revenue, not by investing in a very small and shrinking market sector.
But why do I bother: predictions of MF from Canon and Nikon have been popping up like weeds for years, and it is impossible to refute such a prediction until the word comes to an end! (Some people refuse to acknowledge that the teaser ads last year misinterpreted as being for a coming Nikon MF system were actually for the D3X!)
P.S. Nikon's making of some manual focus large format lenses has very little with the idea of developing a MF system; Nikon's discontinuation of those lenses early in the digital era is more indicative of the dominant trend away from the larger formats rather than towards them.
