Canon 50mm f1.8 going up in price?!

bango707 · Jan 29, 2008

I just got back from buying a new nifty-fifty from my local camera shop and while the clerk was ringing me up he mentioned that Canon is raising the prices on them in the next few weeks

I asked him why but he wasn't totally sure, he just said that the owner had just received an order of 30 of them because the price was going to go up. I just thought I would share this with everyone incase someone new something else about the alleged price increase.

Big Mike · Jan 29, 2008

That's interesting...perhaps they are upgrading the design or the build quality.

Sw1tchFX · Jan 30, 2008

or seeing how many people are buying them and realizing they can charge more and still sell the same amount.

Garbz · Jan 30, 2008

More money + more plastic = more profit

Deadeye008 · Jan 30, 2008

Their prices have gone up $10-15 at Adorama and B&H in the past few months.

usayit · Jan 30, 2008

Has anyone noticed an increase in the Canon line in general?

In the US, Leica applied an increase pretty much across their entire line right at the beginning of the new year.

DSLR noob · Feb 3, 2008

God, if they brought back the Mark I design they could sell them for $130 and still move them like nobody's business. ( I have owned both and currently have the MK I, and I want canon to remake them like the MK I just in case mine ever breaks, also, my g/f is saving for an Elan 7 E and I wante to get her the 50 1.8 as a gift, but I'd feel bad giving her the Mk II version after letting her use my 20D with the Mk I)

usayit · Feb 3, 2008

It doesn't make business sense for Canon....

A 50mm f1.8 with metal mount would just take away from sales of the f1.4 design. On top of that, I bet the cost of the this new 50mm MkI would raise the price higher than current pricing even after the price increase. This would do nothing but hit the student/amateur that normally shoot with just a zoom. On top of that, they already have 3 50mm primes on their lineup... tooling would be expensive.

My point is... the market for the 50mm MkII design seems to be aimed at those who can only afford 1 lens.... usually a zoom. The 50mm f1.8 allows that same market to purchase a very optically pleasant (fast) prime as a secondary lens in the bag. It is the same market that would not have considered the 50mm f1.8 as a second lens otherwise.

Besides... optically they are essentially the same. Build quality means little to the low end market. The idea is to have 3 50mm primes (f1.8, f1.4 and f1.2) at the far ends of the cost scale..... to provide this option to as many people as possible.

Garbz · Feb 4, 2008

usayit said:
It doesn't make business sense for Canon....

A 50mm f1.8 with metal mount would just take away from sales of the f1.4 design. On top of that, I bet the cost of the this new 50mm MkI would raise the price higher than current pricing even after the price increase.

I really am not picking on you but for some reason I seem to disagree a bit with you in the past few weeks

I think that's a load of crap. If anything it would probably save them money not having to roll plastic mounts of the line. Do any of their other lenses use it? With the ludicrous economies of scale given that all canon lens mounts are the same, even if the price was more expensive it is probably in the order of only a few cents, raise the wholesale price by $1 and you're back with profit.

I also disagree that a metal mount would eat into the f/1.4 profit. It hasn't in the past, it doesn't for nikon, and for the vast majority of people who buy lenses that cheaply I doubt they look at the back of the lens. Case in point the f/1.8 is significantly sharper than the f/1.4 according to tests at photozone.de And that hasn't eaten into it's sales either.

As an asside given that Canon actually have an f/1.2 I'm surprised they don't just increase the price of the f/1.8 and eliminate the f/1.4 all together.

Iron Flatline · Feb 4, 2008

Oil has gone up - what, 50%? - in the last three years.

Glass takes a lot of heat to make and shape. Plastic is a petroleum by-product. Transportation costs have sky-rocketed, affecting raw material costs, component delivery, and shipment of the final product.

Oh, and there's inflation.

Expect everything to go up soon.