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Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

dpreview.com

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Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#61

Post by chunkyks »

jacquesm wrote: post #43
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

> It's not like that company would put their brand on anything crap. No, but that company no longer exists and the owners of the brand really have no problem selling the name for use on crap. You simply bought into that myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad#Fuji,_Shriro,_Imaco...

It's true that I bought into the myth, but it's also because I don't care; as not-a-photographer, this seems to do a great job of taking pictures of my baby & dogs, at a resolution at least as good as the screen I look at them on. Anything else is gravy.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#62

Post by rich_sasha »

One point of interest is that Nikon and Canon, the giants of DSLRs, were very resistant to do mirrorless, even as Sony, Fuji and Olympus went down that way. They are now going into mirrorless big time.

Part of it I guess is that the technology got better, but also oh what an excuse to sell everyone their lenses again! You can use adapters on older lenses, but usually with some (minor) loss of optical quality, and more clunkiness - bit like with dongles I guess! Old DSLR lines are also being phased out, making sure all the pros move sooner or later.

What the article doesn’t mention in full is that there are now new independent makers of lenses. These are often (not always) inferior optically, often don’t have autofocus etc but are much more affordable than branded equivalents.

Interestingly, even there you find they evolve out of cheap and cheerful to quality for a price! Samyang comes to mind first and foremost.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#63

Post by sensitive-ears »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #15
epx wrote: post #11

Some niche markets are irrationally expensive e.g. bicycles.

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.

Cheapest ones (new) around me are 2k. For the people buying it, yeah, it's a lot of upper class people, but also a lot of people using an ebike to replace a second car, which works out way cheaper in insurance/fuel/maintenance/etc.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#64

Post by mceachen »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #56
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.

Neat! Are you using `photostructure sync $DIR` to import the new directories after they're copied over?

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#65

Post by boulos »

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.

Versus night sight? The single shot with wide enough glass is definitely going to be better: there just aren’t many photons on the little sensor! But the stacking that night sight does “in camera”, particularly since the Pixel 4, seems to outpace “cheap DSLR”. Here’s a basic Nikon vs Pixel 2 a couple years ago [1].

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/9rb53o/weekly_...

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#66

Post by marlor »

AmVess wrote: post #58
marlor wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

The Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM is optically just fine if you stop down slightly, and the RF version is even better. It’s not much more than $100.

The Olympus 25mm f/1.8 is absolutely fantastic, and smaller. As are all the Olympus fast primes. You can get it for $250.

More expensive fast primes are worth the price for me. But the entry-level ones are optically pretty great these days.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#67

Post by Bancakes »

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…

Won't it be enough to shoot a few hundred pictures with a negative and a digital camera, and run some ML with a precomputed heuristic, to make a digital filter?

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#68

Post by jacobjuul »

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,…

what I do is have an SD card reader for my phone and ipad. It's miles better (of course) than all the different connectivity apps that the camera brands offer.

Re: Why have cameras and lenses become so expensive?

#70

Post by aoeusnth1 »

mceachen wrote: post #64
aoeusnth1 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Neat! Are you using `photostructure sync $DIR` to import the new directories after they're copied over?

Yes, that’s right. I sync any directory which has files moved into it.
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