What Makes Expensive Cameras Expensive

[dolina]

 

[Jeff15]

The price difference is sometimes unjustifiable, that said the lenses and chips will probably be superior. and of course the name on the camera.

 

[cgw]

Very little that's very obvious that's told at great length. Then there's "investment" fallacy. When did you get more on a trade-in/sale than you paid? Ironically, I have on mint film cameras but I digress...

 

[21limited]

Reminds me of a few years ago, when a dude with a Pentax K-x and 18-55 kit lens, won one of the “best photo” categories, I bought the same kit (and traded it for a painting a few years ago) for $483. All those people who paid thousands for their kit, finished behind him in the public voting. If you aren't winning prizes, don’t blame your camera.

I think he missed a few points. My incentive for buying a Sony, Nikon or Canon would be the dual processing busses. ON one of those cameras, you can shoot continuously. MY Pentax’s buffer for birding and wildlife has buffer that holds 23 raws. AFter 23 shots in burst mode, the camera has to stop and process the images, ad you can’t do anything until it clears. You can’t change settings, My K-3 was about $2500 Canadian. For $7000 CAD I coud have bought a 1Dx. That could be useful. I know pros who gave up thier sponsohip becasue they shot in setting that didn’t allow for down time, fashion shows concerts etc.

MY feeling here is, if somoene offers me a contract that will pay me, and for the camera, I’ll buy whatever is best for what I do. If I’m not under contract, I’ll shoot with the best ccomprimises I can afford. And after 10 years with a 23 shot buffer, I can say, there’s only been my 5-10 times when it became an issue.

 

[Golem]

Its the economics of scale.

As long as theres several models up and down the model series, you will encounter disproportionate increases at each upward step. This is driven by consumer choices.

If the next model above the bottom costs 20% more to build, its higher price will mean it sells at lower volume than the bottom. If it could sell at equal volume, its price would only be 20% above bottom. But at less volume it must sell for 40% more instead of 20%.

Repeat this, more severely, at every step upward in the line and its similar to the effect of compounding interest on a loan.

The numbers I chose are not meant to be accurate, but only to explain an effect in simplified terms.

When Nikon had only the F and the Nikkormat, the two were priced within a reasonable range of each other. With only one stepup in the line there was no aggrevated "compound interest" effect. IIRC, the pair were around $175 and $275.

 

[21limited]

I remember a line from my. photography commerical studio prof when asked the question, What’s the difference between an expensive camera and a cheaper one?” He responded “The expensive ones cost a lot more to repair."

 

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day all

One could ask the same Q about shoes (trainers I think you call 'em in the US)
Why does a Nike shoe cost hundreds of dollars more than a Dunlop (for example) as sold by K-Mart or Wal-Mart?

To me - it's simply advertising and greed

However - one also needs to accept that any company must get back their investment and design costs (+ 1001 other costs) before they can start to make a profit, and over time the initial selling price will / should come down

Phil

 

[Don Fischer]

Ya know, if there weren't people willing to part with ton's of money for a camera, it wouldn't even exist in the first place! Doesn't make any difference how good a camera might be if the guy with it can't figure out how to use it. Helps if he's willing to do the best he can and live with it! I think the bottom line is a $7000 camera in the hands of someone that doesn't know how to shoot it won't Proform better than a $600 camera he can! Other side of that, I believe is that $7000 dollar will only take as good a photo as the person using it can get and the guy knowing how to use his $600 camera, that knows how to use it, will equal the outcome. Will a Porche serve you any better going to the store for grocery's than a Ford Pinto?

 

[21limited]

Ya know, if there weren't people willing to part with ton's of money for a camera, it wouldn't even exist in the first place! Doesn't make any difference how good a camera might be if the guy with it can't figure out how to use it. Helps if he's willing to do the best he can and live with it! I think the bottom line is a $7000 camera in the hands of someone that doesn't know how to shoot it won't Proform better than a $600 camera he can! Other side of that, I believe is that $7000 dollar will only take as good a photo as the person using it can get and the guy knowing how to use his $600 camera, that knows how to use it, will equal the outcome. Will a Porche serve you any better going to the store for grocery's than a Ford Pinto?

I always say, if you aren't taking good pictures now, you probably won’t be much better with a more expensive camera if at all.
SO many things go into good picture. Framing, awareness of pose, awareness of background, understanding depth of field, understanding exposure, understanding light angles and contrast, understanding post processing.

OH, ya, and you need to spend at least a couple hundred bucks on a used camera. MY old K-5 (like Nikon D7000 is worth less than $200, but it still takes good pictures and is still rated ahead of many more modern expensive cameras on DxO. Learn with what you have, don’t buy until you’ve reached the limitations of what you have and decided it’s worth it. My current camera only does 8 fps. For few grand I could push that to 12 or 15. But, I honestly don’t think that would get me better images. I get more than I need shooting 8 fps. I’d be more likely to try 6 FPS in my K-1 than 11 FPS or higher. I just don’t do that bad shooing 6 fps. The images are not different, when I shoot both and compare. SIx fps is already aniamge every .16 of second. You don’t really miss much shooting 6 frames a second. And many cameras can do 6 fps. Personally, I wouldn’t buy camera that shoots less than that. One of my photogrpaher buddies back in the day, show 6 FPS with his Nikon F-4 and motor drive.