In this day and age of Digital Cameras, where entry level DCs still costing 4 to 5 times the price of their film based counterparts, which is outrageously expensive, yet end users help defend manufacturers’ high pricing strategies, saying something like if the upcoming mid end DSLRs were to be priced at such low prices, then the manufacturers would be killing both their entry level models and flagship models.
The fact of the matter is, DCs are mostly electronic components with some direct descent mechanical components from their film based bodies. It is the mechanical parts that cost most money. Electronic parts, by the time any model has been selling in the mass market with a mass production well in its way, costs should not be far from a film based. Although I do not have any figures, I’d bet DSLRs have been selling much better nowadays than film based did a few years before the digital camera era. Which should mean higher revenue, and with the higher volume, in turn should mean an even lower production costs.
Yet, with these outrageous pricing, even with a flagship DSLR costing over HKD$36K, we still see so many having problems as basic as focusing as mentioned here and here . Not to mention the same problem with other models and a whole bunch of other problems such as the missing flashed images problem that I have experienced with my older model.
I have been using 135 film based cameras among other formats for over 30 years. Perfect focusing is the basic essential of any camera. Of the tens of film cameras that I have owned over the years, I have only come across one used 6×6 camera that had a focusing problem where it was nothing more than a new proper focusing screen that couldn’t rectified. However, here with these DSLRs, frustrated customers after paying a huge sum of premium for the body and lenses, they have to deal with red tapes, incompetence, and unwillingness of the service department to get any service at all. Ridiculous.
Although there might not be much we end users could do, I think it is time for the manufacturers to face the problems head-on and prevent them from surfacing at all if they choose to continue selling at such high prices. After all, even though people are buying, no mass produced camera is actually worth that kind of prices - enough to buy a decent used car for crying out loud! Especially when the product life cycles of DSLRs is not even half that of their film based counterparts!
WhaUSay?!