Why is photography equipment so expensive?

pg333

pg333

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In this day of mass production where exact replicas can be made over and over again, why is it that photography equipment seems to be more or less immune from price reduction?

My laptop costs a third of the price of my camera and yet it is infinitely more useful to me. When I want to upgrade the hardware in it, it also comes at a fraction of the price that an upgrade to a new lens or flash, etc might cost in the camera marketplace.

The design and sophistication of the products and their manufacture must be reasonally comparable, so what gives - its not like there's not many people buying cameras so that costs per unit are necessarily high. What happened to price competition in this sector? Is it all sown up by the big 5 or 6 companies or what? Or is it all due to unfavourable long-term import prices? I know some of the materials included in cameras are on the rare side, so may cost a bit, but that goes the same for computer bits too.

So why is photography equipment so expensive? I suppose its because people still keep buying and so "they" can just carry on charging the same for it.
 
I don't believe it's the same situation in terms of mass production when it comes to lenses, I suspect that a lot of glass goes through the manufacturing process only to be discarded due to flaws.

The same can be said of the sensor in camera.

That and the fact that we the 'mugs' will actually pay the prices these companies are demanding. I have no problem paying for something that's expensive to develop and produce - what really annoys me is the price differences outside of the UK.
 
gingerweasel said:
I don't believe it's the same situation in terms of mass production when it comes to lenses, I suspect that a lot of glass goes through the manufacturing process only to be discarded due to flaws.

The same can be said of the sensor in camera.

That and the fact that we the 'mugs' will actually pay the prices these companies are demanding. I have no problem paying for something that's expensive to develop and produce - what really annoys me is the price differences outside of the UK.
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Not to mention the Fluorite elements in some of the lenses, that are machined out of a single "grown" crystal...

Theres a bit of detail of the series of processes that go into lens production here

Have to admit, that the dollar to gbp conversion seemingly being done by simply keeping the digits and replacing the symbol does wear a little thin at times though:lol:
 
Exactly - and of course I forgot to mention that in my original post - but the point is that it is NOT funny. Notice the total lack of smileys in my post! We are known as Treasure Island to foreign companies and with good reason time has shown over and over again. I do my bit, by always shopping around for the cheapest of any deal - I wish you rich buggers would do the same - that's the only way of getting prices down!
 
Why should the price of a camera have anything to do with production costs.
like everything else it is more about what the market will stand.
Photography established its place in the market many years ago at a premium position.
It has no reason to change that now.
 
They must have one hell of a heating bill!!!
 
Last time I looked, camera equipment was even more expensive in Germany/Austria.

Some of the difference between dollar and pound prices is due to value added tax and I'm sure the European Union has introduced plenty of import taxes on electronic goods.
 
I guess its like anything, you can go from cheap-cheap to mega-bucks e.g. the Hasselblad. Similar with cars. Unfortunately we are limited to what our budget can afford. Still, I'd like to meet those who can afford a 39m pixel Hassie as a hobby camera ...
 
Economies of scale, and R+D.

Comparing with computers, cameras, especially DSLR's ship in small numbers. Every house in the UK has a computer pretty much, most have more than one (I have a work laptop, a home laptop and a desktop).
So the R+D cost is split down greater and the greater production quantities are also.

WIth DSLR's these are much smaller numbers, with a higher rate of technological advancement per item sold, and are also precision instruments that require more skill to construct than an average computer.

Hence the higher cost.

Also people pay the big bucks for them, so why not charge it.

What gets me is things like flashguns, tripods, filters etc.

Tripod design has not really changed greatly for years, baring carbon fibre, so what with them still having three legs yo uwould expect them to be cheaper than they are.

And flashguns fit many different cameras, so for a smaller unit, that is not as precision as a camera, manufactured on a larger scale cost should be less.
 
I think you'd have to tell the producers of the microscopic semi-conductors and PCB manufacturers that its not as skilled as assembling a camera's circuitry - I'd have thought that the dslr camera designers must borrow heavily from their computing fraternity and more generally the electronic component industry who must have invested the lion's share in R&D in comparison to the camera market!
 
Agreed, but PCB's etc are built by machines, as are much of the electrics for a camera. However, the only interface that a computer generally has with th eoutside world is the keyboard and mouse. A camera has a precision sensor which has to be calibrated corerctly to ensure that the lights hits it correctly. It also has mechanical moving parts, which apart from a fan and a cd draw a computer doesn't. Once the connections are made and the wires soldered on a PC, job done. Bit different with a camera.

ANd yes the componant industry will have invested many times more money than the camera market into research. However they are able to sell the compants over a much greater marketplace and in much greater volume, therfore diluting the research cost per item to a much smaller amount than the camera market can ever acheive. Hence the greater PER UNIT R+D cost in the camera market.
 
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Computers are built to a standard. Everyone designs to the same specs, so R&D costs are minimised. The chips in a £20 set-top are probably as complex as any chip in the camera bar the sensor (which is huge by comparison and must be disproportionately expensive to produce). Having said that, the STB chips sell in millions, rather than the lower numbers of DSLRs.

Cost will be a mix of R&D, hardware costs, manufacturing costs, shipping costs, tax and profit. Personally, I don't think cameras are horrendously expensive compared to other systems (take a look at dedicated astro cams if you want to see expensive ;)).

PS. I work for a silicon manufacturer, so know what the typical production costs are. :)
 
@lawrie29 Far from it, computer motherboard manfacturing is still semi-manual with some of the components being placed onto the PCB by hand using microscopes in vast hermetically sealed environments in the Far East, which as with photographic equipment, must be more fiddly and involved than deeply intellectual rocket science.

Of course, the R&D involved is immense over time, but concepts are built on and extended as time goes on, which delays the overall cost of development too. I guess I was really referring to camera equipment borrowing technology from other industries - components and techniques are shipped in (at cheaper cost than developing internally), so possibly at least half a camera's components are made by other core industrial means and industries - camera body moulds for all we know are outsourced, batteries, transistors, capacitors, etc, etc.

Also, computers may appear to be easy to communicate with (keyboard and mouse), but then there's the technology and sophistication of the software that needs to be developed - the hardware drivers to move the mouse and to take an input from a keyboard and translate it into pixels on the screen or letters in a newspaper headline, although, again, as above, is clearly heavily borrowed and built upon.

Successive generations of mice, for example, are subsequently manufactured and costs for the hardware and the software can become cheaper and cheaper (VERY cheap in the instance of a mouse) and so the computing world lowers its prices accordingly (optical relaces ball, scroll wheel now effectively "free" in overall cost, extra buttons becoming more common on budget units).

In the camera world, let's pick on the facility to do post-image-taking cropping on the camera - that software module can be copied from one camera generation to the next fairly easily one would assume, but its still another "feature" in the advertising that goes towards adding up the total bill that rarely seems to go down in price in the same way that it does in the IT world - think of how many "free" bits of software there are on the internet to do very useful things!
 
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arad85 - it isn't just the cost of the camera itself that seems expensive - its just that anything to do with photography in general is expensive - as already mentioned - tripods, bags, filters, official wireless remotes, etc, etc. They seem to attract an unhealthy premium which prevents a wider audience from considering buying and keeps the aspirational people aspiring to buy more and more expensive equipment that infuriates me.

Anyway - enough ranting from me - I'm going out to take some pictures whilst the sun is shining!
 
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if it really annoys you so much pg333 - why don't you take up some other hobby - say offshore power boating, or polo ?

I don't LIKE paying lots of money for my kit, and I do all I can to get the best price for what I buy, but I have a simple way of dealing with the prices - if I can afford it, out of money in the bank, and if nobody will have to miss out on anything because i've spent the money - it's my money, and I've earned it, then I'm going to buy what I want. If I can't meet those criteria, I don't buy it. Simples. I've never borrowed to get kit, or financed anything. If I don't think somethings worth what it's being priced at - I don't get it. Which is why you won't find any Leica kit in my bag :)
 
pg333 said:
why is it that photography equipment seems to be more or less immune from price reduction?
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People can speculate and debate but there's only one factor which determines price and that is the customer.

If people refuse to pay the asking price then they will have no choice but to reduce it. We can only blame ourselves.
 
I can see both sides of the argument here, while I agree that equipment is expensive I still understand that its a business and they are out to make money, most things cost more than what they are worth its just how capitalism works.

Its very frustration though, I work for my money as well but I don't have a lot of disposable cash. Even putting £200-300 by for a used DSLR probably won't happen this side of Christmas.

But thats life though.
 
I don't think photo equipment is very expensive. It's actually damn cheap compared to what we used to pay. My first good camera, a manual only Minolta with 50mm lens, cost a bit over £4k in today's money (inflation plus earning power) when I bought it in about 1970.

Cameras were all precicion mechanical/optical and hand made in small numbers in those days, and the only cameras that are like that today are really Leica - cost about £4k.

The bottom line is that photo manufacturers do not seem to be making excessive profits and it is extremely competitive. Many of the great names from the past have gone bust, and most recently Minolta have failed to make the grade in digital. Pentax are clinging on, but are probably fated. The newcomers are electronics giant like Sony and Panasonic and Samsung, but they're not exactly ripping up trees, or savaging prices.
 
I've been quite impressed with what you get for your money where lenses are concerned.

When you compare them with decent bino's or scopes, which are simarlarly priced, but don't have to auto focus, switch aperture or zoom, usually. The lenses also seem to have much larger glass lenses than scope equivalent.

I'd obviously like gear to be cheaper but I don't feel expoited, at all!
 
EDIT: Totally got it wrong. You're talking about cameras, not lenses!
 
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pg333 said:
In the camera world, let's pick on the facility to do post-image-taking cropping on the camera - that software module can be copied from one camera generation to the next fairly easily one would assume, but its still another "feature" in the advertising that goes towards adding up the total bill that rarely seems to go down in price in the same way that it does in the IT world - think of how many "free" bits of software there are on the internet to do very useful things!
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I should think the development costs of the software in a modern camera, while not insignificant, are relatively small compared to the hardware.

The comparison/contrast with the computer industry is not entirely unworthy, though. I'm using Apple as my benchmark as I have first hand familiarity with their pricing over the last 20+ years and a single manufacturer allows you some consistency.

You would have paid around £1000 for a brand new entry-level Mac Classic in 1990. Same 8 MHz processor and 9" monochrome screen, but with a SCSI interface and built in 20 MB HD.

Buy a much higher specced (but comparable) entry-level iMac today and it will set you back £999.00. Granted that £1000 today is worth less than it was in 1990, but over the last 20 years, that has pretty much been the same price point for a complete entry level Mac system from Apple.

You might buy an iPad that retails for £429, which contains far more processing power and utility than a 1990 Mac Classic, but it's in a quite different market sector, one closer to Netbooks.

In much the same period, the price of a cheap desktop PC system from a 'name' brand like HP has probably remained fairly constant at around £500 (with the bargain basement drifting slowly toward the £300 level).

Now the price of a Canon 300D with an 18-55 kit lens was a little under £1000 when it was launched in 2003. I know because I bought one.

The entry level DSLR offering from Canon today, the 1000D kit with an 18-55 lens, will set you back £499.99 at SRP (though look around even a little and you can buy it for significantly less than £350).

The 10D had an SRP of £1,499.00 for the body in March 2003. Its modern successor, the 60D has an SRP of £1,099.00 and the 50D it's replacing can be had on the street for about £650.

Bear in mind also that none of these prices are adjusted for inflation.

Now, you might suggest that Apple are more or less immune from price reduction for various reasons, but Canon don't seem to be, at least as far as bodies, packed with modern electronics, go. I'm afraid the the hypothesis in the OP doesn't stand the test of the facts.

That aside, the reality of the situation is that there is a certain price level that must be maintained in order to make enough margin for both the manufacturer and their retail channel to keep them all in business and developing new products.

With each successive generation of computing technology, prices remain more or less constant, you just get more bang for your buck - and that has been a hell of a lot more bang in both computing and digital camera bodies over the last couple of decades.

I doubt you'll ever see the day of the £25 DSLR or the £30 desktop computer.
 
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You've gotta admit, the R&D costs with photography must be pretty high as it's all precision stuff and I'm guessing there's probably a fair amount of quality control required with the major brands.
 
It's probably also worth noting that the digital imaging market (outside of labs and some pioneers) is barely a decade old. While it's grown spectacularly, especially over the last five or six years, it's very far from mature.

We are where the personal computing market was in the mid-late 1980s, or the motor car around 1920. The rules are still being written - witness the recent rise of m4/3 and other mirrorless systems in just the last 12-18 months. That is a lot of uncertainty. Uncertainty = risk and risk = cost.

Some of these costs can take very long periods to amortise. Patents last for 20 years, tying some of the better ways of doing things to their patent holders or their licensees until they are available for use to everyone.


pg333 said:
I suppose its because people still keep buying and so "they" can just carry on charging the same for it.
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Ultimately, yes. If people don't buy in sufficient numbers to be profitable, "they "will stop making the things.

Nobody forces you to upgrade your camera.

That's a market.
 
Putting all the comments & info about R&D,time taken to manufacture,VAT etc etc the other big reason for high costs is that for the majority of users it's a niche hobby. From Joe average buying a Powershot to the customers who need all the latest gear to" keep up with Jones's" it's a hobby & that puts prices up.
Bikers have the same issue,for the majority a bike is a toy but by god does the industry make a small fortune out of us.
Just my opinion,getting me coat now....
 
Thank the lord for brands like Sigma,Tokina, Tamron, makes photography that much more accessible and affordable than pro lenses like Canon, Nikon.
 
Its mostly down to time. People don't like doing things for free.
The glass is refinded heavily and the people who write the software for DSLRs spend hours and hours doing their best making sure things don't go wrong.
Theres videos on youtube, one of them shows the exact process of making a 50mm 1.4 and it takes about a week or so
 
blondie606 said:
Bikers have the same issue,for the majority a bike is a toy
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Are you talking about push bikes or motorbikes? My GSXR was definitely no toy; it was a pure piece of engineering genius! :D Well, until the rear of it failed to stand up to a Golf GTI and a psycho Indian lady on the A4. What a lovely 40 metres of bumber trapped pain that was! lol Hmmm, in retrospect I guess it was a toy - expensive one though.


Graham00 said:
Thank the lord for brands like Sigma,Tokina, Tamron, makes photography that much more accessible and affordable than pro lenses like Canon, Nikon.
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Until recently I never realised how underrated Tokina appear to bear. I just got a 28-80mm f2.8 and the build quality and performance is ridiculously good and at 1/3 of the price of the Canon 24-70mm f2.8, I'm certainly well chuffed! :D
 
Musicman said:
I should think the development costs of the software in a modern camera, while not insignificant, are relatively small compared to the hardware.
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Agreed - I was just pointing out that by having the software doing all sorts of "clever" things like cropping and rotating and lightening pictures onboard the camera, all add up in the sales pitch, yet from generation to generation, these features do not really "cost" the manufacturers any more. Develop once, deploy anywhere, is the saying.

Musicman said:
You would have paid around £1000 for a brand new entry-level Mac Classic in 1990...Buy a much higher specced (but comparable) entry-level iMac today and it will set you back £999.00.

Now the price of a Canon 300D with an 18-55 kit lens was a little under £1000 when it was launched in 2003. The entry level DSLR offering from Canon today, the 1000D kit with an 18-55 lens, will set you back £499.99 at SRP (though look around even a little and you can buy it for significantly less than £350)... I'm afraid the the hypothesis in the OP doesn't stand the test of the facts.
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OK, but you could have probably shopped around and knocked off 10-20% off the RRP of any Apple and HP products you care to quote, but I take your general specific points. However, the difference between PCs/Laptops/iMac, etc and camera equipment is like comparing apples and pears ('scuse the pun!) as the computing world has branched out into so much more than just typing out letters in Word or whatever people used to do with them in 1990.

Now people watch TV, play online games, make music, create new businesses, etc with their computers. Cameras in comparison, still from what I can see, still only take pictures and perhaps now videos too. Quality-wise, you could argue old SLRs are just as good at taking pictures as DSLRs, if not better, depending of course, on the photographer.

My point is, other technologies, that are just as sophisticated and required lots of brain-power to get going, for example, computers, are a lot more vital to life in the 21st century, which you might have thought would increase their premium, but in fact, its the opposite.

A cheap "computer" today is most probably now a laptop which frequently sell under £200 - I can't imagine many DSLRs ever being under £200, yet if there was some, can you just imagine how much more useful the laptop would be for its price! I suppose I'm really talking about relative usefulness and price.

For example, macro shots on my brand new £700ish Nikon D90 deal are not as good as I'd have imagined them to be and its been said that to solve it, I probably need another dedicated macro lens that costs probably at least another £200!

If the cheapo £200 laptop was not that great, you'd upgrade the memory or HD for £xxs rather than £xxxs. Everything is just simply too expensive in the camera world. In fact, the only thing I am relatively impressed with is the cost of SDHC cards - some very good value for money deals.

Musicman said:
That aside, the reality of the situation is that there is a certain price level that must be maintained in order to make enough margin for both the manufacturer and their retail channel to keep them all in business and developing new products.
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Agreed!

Musicman said:
I doubt you'll ever see the day of the £25 DSLR or the £30 desktop computer.
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No, but its more likely to get to the point where you can get a £100 laptop than a £100 DSLR and I stick to my guns when I argue that a laptop is just as technologically advanced as, but more useful than, a camera!
 
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pg333 said:
No, but its more likely to get to the point where you can get a £100 laptop than a £100 DSLR and I stick to my guns when I argue that a laptop is just as technologically advanced as, but more useful than, a camera!
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1. Utility, necessity and cost are rarely related. :)

2. As I mentioned in my last post, it's still a very immature market.

Ten years ago the idea of a £200 laptop would have been pretty well unthinkable. Ten years ago, you could buy a £200 (film) SLR or even one for £100 that would take reasonable pictures. Actually, in terms of functionality beyond those directly offered by the digital bit of the Canon 300D, it possibly offered as much or more.

If the DSLR survives another decade as a mainstream photographic platform, I don't think it's unfeasible that we will see entry level options around £100, certainly £150. They may not be that fancy, but they could well exist.

edit: Argos were selling the Olympus E420 on clearance at £209 only two months ago. We're quite close.
 
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pg333 said:
arad85 - it isn't just the cost of the camera itself that seems expensive - its just that anything to do with photography in general is expensive - as already mentioned - tripods, bags, filters, official wireless remotes, etc, etc. They seem to attract an unhealthy premium which prevents a wider audience from considering buying and keeps the aspirational people aspiring to buy more and more expensive equipment that infuriates me.

Anyway - enough ranting from me - I'm going out to take some pictures whilst the sun is shining!
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You can get a tripod for a tenner, or one for £300... depends on the quality and brand) you want to invest in. Likewise, you can get a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens for £300 or so, or you can go for a Nikon one at £800+. Bags... you can get a cheapo rucksack for 30 or so, or a Lowepro Dryzone for £200

R&D must be massive for companies like Canon and Nikon, who are trying to create a range of products with varying degrees of tech so to get the right balance at the right price must cost a fortune. For a smaller lens company like Tamron for example, the costs won't be nearly as high, which is why they can offer such competetive 3rd-party products.

It's not like you can't get a bargain; it's just dictate by how much of a comprise you want to make. You can get perfectly decent filters on the web that are much cheaper than, say, Hoya Pro versions. Likewise, you can get flashguns for £50 from Yongnuo that do everything a used SB28 (which would sell for £100 used in the shops) will when you connect it to an OCF set-up.

I'e given up thinking things are expensive; I just try to limit my drooling over things these days. :D
 
Cistron said:
Last time I looked, camera equipment was even more expensive in Germany/Austria.

Some of the difference between dollar and pound prices is due to value added tax and I'm sure the European Union has introduced plenty of import taxes on electronic goods.
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Yarp...much more...I get far better deals buying in the UK...plus the German version of VAT is 19.5%.
 
You could just as easliy look at it with surprise that DSLRs are as cheap as they are. They are a relatively low volume/high cost item with a high R & D cost.

That coupled with just how precise a piece of engineering they are adds to the feeling they are actually pretty cheap. Think about what happens when you press the shutter button, in the fraction of a second the apperture blades are shut to a precise point, the mirror flips up, the shutter works, maybe at speeds of up to 1/8,000 (two curtains to the shutter remember), the mirror closes, apperture blades, open again, photo is written to the card and maybe you sync with a flash too. This can then be repeated up to 11 times a second. Thats after you think about all the light measuring, complex sensors and auto focus gubbins there are in an SLR.

Without even touching on machining glass and developing AF systems etc etc...for lenses I'd still argue they're not exactly expensive for what they do.

Hugh
 
pg333 said:
I am of course, only being facetious, but you could say that about a solar powered calculator!
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?

Taking due account of your facetiousness, a solar powered calculator is made of very few, simple components an integrated circuit, PV cell, display, keypad and shell - probably most of them off-the-shelf generic items. :)

Anyhow, some more numbers.

Worldwide sales of all types of digital camera in 2009 - about 106 million units, of which SLR cameras with interchangeable lenses comprised 9.9 million (though it's a little unclear from the CIPA figures whether they include m4/3 in this category but it looks like they do).

Nikon and Canon took 3.42 million and 3.8 million sales in the category respectively, Sony just 0.9 million. Nobody else sold more than 0.4 million units.

Worldwide sales of all types of computers in 2009 - about 293 million.

HP and Dell sold 59.9 and 38.41 million units respectively.

And that's just computers. The sub-components, such as hard drives, processors, screens, etc. get used in many other environments (embedded systems, ATMs, PVRs, televisions, etc.) though, to be sure, the camera industry itself does benefit from some of these economies of scale.
 
You may find this (or page 11 and thereabouts) interesting relating to costs: http://www.robgalbraith.com/public_files/Canon_Full-Frame_CMOS_White_Paper.pdf

An 8" wafer costs well over $1000 to produce (can't remember how much - I haven't needed that information for a while) but with manufacturing defects you can guarantee that the sensors themselves are very expensive to produce. Far higher price than anything you'd have elsewhere.
 
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