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Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

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Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#51

Post by marlor »

boulos wrote: post #32
perardi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your phone camera is not as good as a cheap DSLR paired with a cheap 35mm f/1.8 in absolute terms. Your phone camera is way better at the job to be done , which is to quickly share pics of your cock, cats, or kids, depending on what age bracket you are in. Traditional cameras, in which I include mirrorless, are still terrrrible when it comes to quickly bouncing a photo to Instagram, and arguably even worse when it co…

> cheap DSLR paired with a cheap 35mm f/1.8 in absolute terms. I think this depends on the shot. The Pixel 4 easily beats “cheap DSLR” in several settings, particularly low light. I know folks who have an iPhone as a phone and a Pixel as a camera :). It’s true that it’s also much better at “photo production” (capture => minor edit => post), but I think you can find examples where the photo itself is strictly better.

In low light, I’ve never seen a smartphone that will beat a fast prime on a mirrorless or DSLR camera.

A kit zoom lens will struggle in low light, but you can get extremely high quality fast primes for a couple of hundred dollars these days that will blow away any smartphone.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#52

Post by dopidopHN »

jurassic wrote: post #48
marderfarker2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so difficult with removing an SD card and popping it into your PC? If you’re a prosumer, you probably review and edit photos, which is better done on a bigger monitor anyway.

It would be easier if I had more ports on my computer, but the trend from Apple and other computing providers is to reduce, streamline, and eliminate opportunities physical connectivity. Even with a top-end Macbook Pro, you've only got 4 ports. One for power, two for external monitors, and you're down to 1 for everything else. So I have a big nest of dongles and adapters to accommodate my keyboard, mouse, microphone,…

Oh ok, sorry I just posted a comment and you address my question here.

Yah. With modern laptop I consider a docking station mandatory.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#53

Post by jurassic »

dopidopHN wrote: post #49
jurassic wrote: post #20

I'm a prosumer hobbyist with a Nikon D850 and a handful of expensive lenses that I enjoy, but I'm not sure I would buy them again. I love the experience of shooting with them and loath the experience of getting my images off the device and onto a computer or phone. It creates a film-like experience where by the time I get around to processing images I've often forgotten what I've shot. What I really want is an iPhone…

Thanks for that comments, that’s help me a bit in my understanding but bear with me, I haven’t use a camera in 5 or 6 years. My favorite methods was to remove the SD card from the device and plug it into my computer thought a clunky adaptor. Usually I would do that once a month. Is that not a option anymore?

It is, and it's still clunky.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#54

Post by AmVess »

perardi wrote: post #18
dboreham wrote: post #4

Lower volume, higher unit price. Also cameras and lenses are (generally) much much better than they used to be. Perhaps people are willing to pay more for a better thing.

Also cameras and lenses are (generally) much much better than they used to be. They really are. The cheap-o kit lenses they include nowadays use molded aspheric elements, and they are designed in such a way to take advantage of in-camera distortion and vignette correction. They are far better than the kit zooms you’d get back in the film days.

That depends on the kit lens of then and the kit lens of now. There was a lot of variability then, and the same holds true today.

I bought a body only Canon M50 as a glovebox camera, and read the reviews of their 15-45 EF-M kit lens and thought that it couldn't be that bad. I bought a new one on Ebay for $50. It is horrible in every single aspect. I've had numerous 35MM kit lenses over the years, and the Canon leads the pack for pure trash factor. It essentially turns the camera into a toy camera.

The higher end kits from different manufacturers are ok, but those are regular lenses vs designed to be in a kit at the lowest possible price.

Canon and Nikon are going to be in real trouble unless they increase the quality of their cheaper wares and make software that works.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#55

Post by etrautmann »

perardi wrote: post #24
jurassic wrote: post #20

I'm a prosumer hobbyist with a Nikon D850 and a handful of expensive lenses that I enjoy, but I'm not sure I would buy them again. I love the experience of shooting with them and loath the experience of getting my images off the device and onto a computer or phone. It creates a film-like experience where by the time I get around to processing images I've often forgotten what I've shot. What I really want is an iPhone…

Preach it. Shooting on an interchangeable lens camera is still effectively like shooting a film camera. They do have software to pair to your phone. I am most familiar with Fuji’s solution for that, which is, to put it charitably, execrable. It is painfully slow and glitchy. (I’ve heard better things about Nikon’s latest, but I haven’t used it.) Thing is: I think that would require a partnership with Apple or Google,…

I recently bought a sony a7r IV, expecting the phone integration to be much better than my 5 year old Fuji X-T2, and both are unbelievably slow and painful to connect and download photos. It's such an outdated and bad experience, and the apps are glitchy and connections fail the first 2-3 times.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#56

Post by aoeusnth1 »

jurassic wrote: post #20

I'm a prosumer hobbyist with a Nikon D850 and a handful of expensive lenses that I enjoy, but I'm not sure I would buy them again. I love the experience of shooting with them and loath the experience of getting my images off the device and onto a computer or phone. It creates a film-like experience where by the time I get around to processing images I've often forgotten what I've shot. What I really want is an iPhone…

I shoot mostly around the house (kids), and the Sony FTP transfer feature is a godsend. Images get uploaded to my NAS over my wifi as I’m shooting, and subsequently filed away under dated folders and synced to Photostructure and NextCloud by a small shell script using inotifywait.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#57

Post by aoeusnth1 »

chunkyks wrote: post #7

My new cellphone literally has a Hasselblad camera on it. I get all the things that make better cameras better, but I already have stupidly high end living in my pocket. It's not like that company would put their brand on anything crap. So, it's really basic economics. The middle of the market is getting eating by what used to be the bottom. So all that's left is the top

Sure, there’s a camera manufacturer involved in making cell phone cameras. What you’re missing is only the small matter of inherent physical advantages of larger sensors and lenses.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#58

Post by AmVess »

marlor wrote: post #51
boulos wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cheap DSLR paired with a cheap 35mm f/1.8 in absolute terms. I think this depends on the shot. The Pixel 4 easily beats “cheap DSLR” in several settings, particularly low light. I know folks who have an iPhone as a phone and a Pixel as a camera :). It’s true that it’s also much better at “photo production” (capture => minor edit => post), but I think you can find examples where the photo itself is strictly better.

In low light, I’ve never seen a smartphone that will beat a fast prime on a mirrorless or DSLR camera. A kit zoom lens will struggle in low light, but you can get extremely high quality fast primes for a couple of hundred dollars these days that will blow away any smartphone.

You aren't going to get a decent, fast prime for a few hundred dollars, much less an excellent one.

Apple's low light performance in their new phones is excellent, and they are making huge strides in every area with every generation. A minimum acceptable DLSR with an acceptable fast prime will cost $1k, which is also the cost of Apple's excellent pro iphone that will rival the quality of the former for the average user.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#59

Post by tachyonbeam »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #39
tachyonbeam wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was shocked when I started shopping for an electric bike, to see that in my city, there are multiple bike shops selling e-bikes from 5K to 15K a piece. I'm surprised that these businesses can all survive, because the median income before taxes here is about ~62K. I mean who's actually buying this? But I guess if you're selling 15K bikes, you only need to sell about two a month to pay the bills.

They are all over Marin County, CA. And I'm jealous. I wish I had a high end electric bike, but my patched together Zapp bike is kinda ok for now. If I was younger, with money, and connections; I would be all over manufacturing electric bikes. These high end bikes are basically motorcycles. They look fun, and practical. Right now they are not regulated, and I hope it stays that way. They have given out of shape, or d…

Yeah I used to have a decent ebike I bought for 2K, and even at that price point, I didn't bring it anywhere that I couldn't keep a constant eye on or bring inside. With a 15K ebike, you need insurance.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#60

Post by sdenton4 »

kemayo wrote: post #6
alephnan wrote: post #2

Supply and demand. Everyone has a capable smart phone now. This removes the middle market for cameras, and only the pro/prosumer high end cameras which adds all sorts of bells and whistles.

Not sure precisely where you draw the prosumer line, but the article is also comparing the prices on the same models of pro camera over time and still seeing an upwards trend. I'd suspect this means that smartphones eating the middle-tier of cameras has had a spillover effect to also hurt the pro/prosumer market. I'd speculate that although even a cheap DSLR is still better than a good smartphone camera, the phones a…

I wouldn't be shocked if the wide bottom of the demand pyramid was doing a lot of work to support the tiny, pointy top... Economies of scale on lens and body production. For example, with lenses, you can produce a thousand lenses with somewhat random quality, sell the best ones to the pro market, and then sell the not quite as good ones to the cheaper end of the market. When you take out there low end market, you then need to either produce more consistent high end lenses, or raise prices since the low end market isn't there to buy the lower quality outputs.
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