Another fundamental question is what changed in the economics of MF.
We have been told by existing MF vendors that the only viable business model was very high prices/low volumes.
Was it real or did they completely misread the market. Were the low volumes the cause of their business models or its consequence?
In 5 years we went from a P1/Hassy duopoly at 40,000 US$ a camera to having Pentax, Leica, Fuji and now Hassy offering "MF" systems at 1/3 the price.
Cheers,
Bernard
My opinion is that they completely misread the market... MF cameras where selling hundreds of thousands each year during the film days. The existing base was huge for MFDB makers to take advantage of it during the "golden days" some 12 years ago... Instead, they decided on a high price/ low volume policy of some ....8K backs annually altogether which was only a fraction of the existing base.
Additionally, they decided not to support many out of the existing base of cameras and then, they continued to do so by shrinking the demand further to their own platforms. Another major mistake though was the "trade in" offerings... They kept replacing the older backs with new ones that never made it back to the market again... This meant that the new backs had the "trade in" build into the price and that the consumers of new backs that had no trade, they where paying a premium profit on top of the backs price! Further more though, by trading the older backs and never return them to the market, they where restring their own (already small) "market base" further!
And then... the fatal mistake was restring compatibility in their own systems where one couldn't upgrade the back only and keep his platform, or keep the back and change the platform.
Then, LV came with the Cmos sensors and changed it all... Then, Sony came and offered a 24x36mm "digital back" by only adding a shutter and a mount to what a digital back is.... And now Fuji comes to do the same on larger sensors...
How much a "premium" back should sell for? ...well, look at the CFV price and there you are. Now add a mount to it, how much that should cost? I guess the X1D price is the answer for a
premium maker.And now Fuji comes and only adds a focal plane shutter on top of the X1D (
and 12 CPU contacts on the mount so that there won't be an existing lens in the S/H market that won't function all it can with it)... I won't be surprised at all if the MF market will triple within the first year of the Fuji production! it not only is priced "right", but it provides a platform for one to use his Contax 645, Bronica ETRS and SQA, Mamiya 645, AFD, RB,RZ, 6,7, Rollei 6xxx, HY-6 and any other "dead" platform, but Nikon & Canon too line of lenses of lenses on it...
What the Fuji does (other than being priced right) is taking advantage of the huge existing base of customers... all the opposite of what the MF makers where doing up until recently.