I'd be shocked to see the MF guys actually undercut Nikon (my criterion for whether I buy the D3x I have in preorder (without money down) is simply "does the image quality match 31 mp MF at 24x36 inches?"). If it does, I'll go for a D3x instead of moving to MF - right now, it's too early to tell, but it looks good. Not counting used gear, the entry price for MF is still hovering at about twice the price of a D3x, and that's after a round of 40% price cuts this summer. Can the MF makers cut prices like that twice in a year and survive? I'd imagine not. I'm also not sure if they can survive if Nikon (and I'm sure Canon is working on a camera with the same image quality - everything I've seen says they don't have one yet, but they will in six months or a year) grab the bottom end of their market. MF could be left without a really viable product below the 50 MP backs, which sell for $30,000. If they cut the price of 50 mp to $15,000 - $20,000, they'd have something, but they'd lose most of their margin. The older sensors they sell in the $15,000 market right now would simply not offer enough advantages over a $8000 DSLR to be viable, and their production costs per unit are probably too high to sell them for $8000. The second wall the MF guys are running into is "how do you view the images". A point will come where printers and wall space in galleries are the driving concern - a 24x32 or 24x36 print is already very large, and a 44x60 or 44x66 print is huge - how many markets are there for 44 inch prints of the highest quality? If you can make a 24 inch print from a $8000 camera that is as good as one from a $15,000 camera and hard to tell from one from a $30,000 camera, that squeezes the more expensive cameras into the very small niche of the largest prints.
Of course, the same thing is happening TO the $8000 cameras - there are $3000 cameras that are almost as good. Even if one of the $3000 cameras can be noisy, and the other one has black spots, their existence demonstrates that it's getting close to the time when a $3000 camera can equal low-end MF - maybe a year or two... The Alpha ISN'T there yet, from looking at prints, but it's very, very good for its price. How long can it be until someone builds a $3000 camera that equals the performance of 31 mp MF (and of the D3x)? That will reset the top price in the DSLR market to $5000 - $6000 - there will always be a "body premium" for ruggedness, the best AF and secondary things like long battery life. I'm convinced the D3x will be $6500 next year and $5500 in 18 months (but I have a $2000 tax advantage to buy a camera by Dec. 31 that I won't have next year , so I'm willing to pay the $8000 because $2000 of it is not my money).
if the high end of the DSLR market in a year looks like:
$3000 buys nearly but not quite state of the art IQ in a cheap consumer body (5DII, Alpha 900)
$4000 - $4500 buys state of the art IQ in a good compact body with good AF ("D700x", "EOS 3D" - the long-rumored pro compact Canon)
$5500 - $6500 buys state of the art IQ in a big pro body (D3x after a price drop, EOS 1Ds mk IV)
And "state of the art IQ" makes 24 inch prints of the most difficult, detailed subjects without blinking
What are the MF makers to do? They have a $15,000 product that competes with products in the $4000-$6500 range, and a $25,000 product that has unique image quality, but it takes a 44 inch print to see it. Their best bet is to drop the 25-33 MP lines entirely (unless they can sell them under $8000 and say "we know the image quality is effectively the same as the best DSLRs, but we like our lenses, our DOF and our expandability"). They need to sell the 50 mp systems for $15,000 ($25,000 for 60+ MP full frame 645), and hope there's enough volume there to survive. Fortunately for them, the laws of physics protect the 50 mp+ market to a large extent - at some point between 25 and 40 MP, cramming more pixels on a 24x36 mm sensor becomes counterproductive to image quality - MF can keep going up to 80+ MP. They'd also better hope and pray that 44-inch printers sell well (perhaps even team up with Epson or HP (Canon wouldn't do it because of their DSLR business) to offer a "we'll give you the printer" promotion at some point).
-Dan
