Why are SLRs so darn expensive?

[Brent57125]

Could someone please educate me on the reason SLRs are sooo much more than consumer cameras? Is the only difference not just the body and lense.

I don't see anywhere near the gap between conventional comapact cameras and their SLR counterparts.

Will the prices eventually dramatically drop as we saw with computer memory?

 

[Rodger Carter]

Depends on what you mean by SLR. The Sony CD1000 is considered an SLR-type camera, but is only about $800 now even though it has a 10X optical zoom, built-in image stabilization (a modern miracle) and a built-in CD burner. The amazing new Sony DSC-707 would also be considered an SLR, but will have a starting list of $1000. Professional cameras like the Nikon D1 do sell for about $5000, but even there the prices are coming down very rapidly. Actually, applying the term SLR to digicams is somewhat of a gray area because few if any have pop-up mirrors like 35mm SLRs. The higher-priced digicam SLRs do have interchangeable lens capability which increases the cost somewhat, but the overall higher price just reflects the fact that the CCD is a large part of the cost of the camera and they use larger CCDs as well as having more expensive lenses, greater built-in capabilities, more costly construction, etc. If you think they are expensive now, you should have been around a few years back. In 1994 a Kodak DCS460 cost about $30,000! It had a 6MP sensor, but other than that was inferior to the newly announced $1000 Sony DSC-F707.

Rodger

 

[Ger Bee]

Could someone please educate me on the reason SLRs are sooo much
more than consumer cameras? Is the only difference not just the
body and lense.

I don't see anywhere near the gap between conventional comapact
cameras and their SLR counterparts.

Will the prices eventually dramatically drop as we saw with
computer memory?

I think not.

And what gap are you referring to. I can buy a compact for £80 and an SLR for around £150 but to get anything good I have to spend about £1,000 and £2,000 for a professional model like the F5 or the Eos5

Now in digicam I can get one for around £600 and a good one for around £1,500 and the D1X for £5,500.

The prices are higher than they could be but I’d expect the D1X class SLR to retail at about £4,000 in a few years and stay there. The new KodOly will sell for and estimated £2,000 maybe less – it depends on the price point at launch time.

Now I could write a book on the differences between the D1X and the E10 and CP990 for instance – I can produce images from all three that defy the logic of buying an expensive SLR. But one must have a need and a desire and an understanding of these things – sadly they only come with experience.

My views on the cost of the new D1X vanished on using it for the first time – I still think it could be several hundred cheaper – but I don’t care anymore – furthermore I want to sell this at a good price in two years time so I certainly don’t want the prices to fall dramatically on mature equipment. In fact the market trend is for a slight upswing in pricing.

So far each model superseded the other and have been discontinued – until the likes of Fuji and KodOly produce a second generation SLR and continue to manufacture the original at a lower cost will we see anything like a real price drop or competitiveness.

My D1X kit costs me £8,000 (lens, flash battery etc) of which Nikon will get £6,500 and the shop keeps as profit the balance of £1,500 on the whole deal.

 

[Jake. E]

This is from what I can muster,

1. like any SLR (film or digital) it doesnt not have to deal with parralax like you see on a point and shoot.

2. Most point and shoot compact digicams do NOT offer any type of MANUAL control or manual ovveride. On SLR's you can have total control.

3. Speed. Either in frames per second, shutter speeds, or how fast your picture is captured and recorded.

4. The ability to change lenses, the major point of an SLR over any point and shoot. Also most point and shoot lenses aren't as top quality as some of the lenses you can put on SLR's.

5. Durability-- Professional SLR's can live where Point and Shoots would die.(ie. shooting conditions weather, rain, snow, temerapture etc...)

 

[Glenn Whitten]

Brent wrote:

"...Will the prices eventually dramatically drop as we saw with computer memory?"
------------

I'm afraid the value-adjusted price gap between SLR systems (designed to use interchangeable lenses) will not narrow as quickly or as closely as one might think (or perhaps at all?).

Pardon the long post, but here's my 2 cents.

Traditional SLR systems (I own 2) are fancy boxes used for 2 things:
-1- to hang optics on
-2- to hold the recording medium (film)

Everything else from autofocus, to image stabilization, to hotshoes is incidental to 1 & 2.

Not surprisingly 1 & 2 are closely related. It is a source of great frustration to most digital SLR users that all of their glass is subjected to a 1.3-1.5 "multiplier". This is of course due to the fact that the sensors used in these cameras are smaller than a 35mm film frame.

The history of semiconductor manufacturing is summed up in 2 words: "smaller" and "denser" (is that a word?). BTW "faster" and "lower power" are generally by-products of smaller and denser.

Example: Sony produces the 3.3Mp part used in many digicams over the last year. Recently they introduced a 5Mp part which (I think) is the same size as the 3.3Mp part. Denser. No doubt a 7+Mp sensor is in development now.

To comfortably fit a box built for 35mm film (and hence the lenses), we need "bigger" sensors...and unfortunately that term does not appear in the list. It can be done, but only at a cost that exceeds the benefits most of us would stand to reap. The deafening silence from Contax and Pentax regarding their full-frame 6Mp products may be mute testimony to this.

While there are certainly more features to consider than simply the pixel count, most can be applied to higher density, smaller sensors too. They can also be applied more quickly because the development cost can be spread over a larger number of units. What disadvantages smaller, denser sensors might have (higher suseptibility to moise?) are often mitigated by the inclusion of other features...features that add real value to the system, but still cost significantly less that full-frame sensors.

The question is not "if" it would be a good thing to have a full-frame, high-sensitivity, low noise part that covers the full 35mm frame size. The answer to that is "Of course." Rather, the question has to be asked and answered in an economic context.

Will prices come down? The answer is "certainly yes". However the prices that come down the most and the fastest will be those subject to Moore's law:

These include:

• sensors (measured in $ Mpixel, dynamic range, etc.)
• electronic storage (buffer memory, CF cards, Microdrives, etc.)
• A/D converters
• internal processors

By Products of these may include:

• electronic image stabilization
• in-camera correction of

pin-cushioning/barrel distortion

• faster "burst modes"
• larger buffers
• better noise control/reduction
• longer battery life
• faster flush times, etc.

Yes, conventional equipment prices will came down also. But not for the same reason and not at the same rate. Manufacturers have been wringing production efficiencies out of conventinal camera body and lens production for more than a century. And we've already seen that producing larger sensors is "swimming upstream".

Instead, these prices will fall initially because of decreased demand. Or, to put it another way, to maintain production volumes in the face of increasing competition from digital systems. -Not because they are not outstanding products, but because the market for a conventional 35mm Nikon VR or Canon IS lens is much smaller when you can get an electronically stabilized digicam with 3-5-7 Mpixels for less. 80% of the functionality for 10% of the price? (that may not be the best example, but you get my point.)

Eventually, prices for conventional products will stabilize as minimum manufacturing economies of scale are reached and no further discounting is possible. Finally, product catalogs will be reduced. Focusing the demand that used to be spread across 30 lenses to merely 20, or 10. This is the same product life cycle we've seen repeated endlessly in computers and peripherals. Closer to home, it's similar what the AF boom did to manual focus equipment.

Of course, I could post this tonight and then read tomorrow that (you fill in the blank) has just announced shipping production quantities of a full-frame 10Mpixel sensor at a super agressive price point and OEM deals with several major camaer manufacturers. It could happen...but I'm not holding my breath. ;->

Regards,

Glenn

 

[Hubert Tse]

Depends on what you mean by SLR. The Sony CD1000 is considered an
SLR-type camera, but is only about $800 now even though it has a
10X optical zoom, built-in image stabilization (a modern miracle)
and a built-in CD burner. The amazing new Sony DSC-707 would also
be considered an SLR, but will have a starting list of $1000.

Please expalin why DSC-707 a SLR is considered as as SLR.

Regards,

K. Tse

 

[DarrenH]

Because people are paying the price they're asking.

Could someone please educate me on the reason SLRs are sooo much
more than consumer cameras? Is the only difference not just the
body and lense.

I don't see anywhere near the gap between conventional comapact
cameras and their SLR counterparts.

Will the prices eventually dramatically drop as we saw with
computer memory?

 

[Derek Clarke]

Image sensors whethe CCD or CMOS are made like other semiconductor chips, by laying out as many copies of the same chip as will fit onto a 2" or 3" wafer.

This wafer then goes through all the stages needed to turn it into the chips, but like any other manufactiring process errors can occur.

These errors are scattered randomly aound the wafer, so may only affect a few chips.

The larger each individual chip is, the more likely it is to suffer from an error. Lots of little chips mean a few can be discarded , but if you only have a few big chips then the yield can fall drastically.

As the production cost is per wafer, the chost of an individual chip can rise dramatically with the size, as not only do you get fewer chips per wafer, but the discards are amuch greater proportion of the whole.

Image sensors for 35mm SLR bodies have to be physically large, whereas the ones for consumer cameras are much smaller.

So the smaller sensors are much cheaper than the larger ones, hence the exchangeable lens SLRs are more expensive than the consumer digicams, and by a much larger factor than the cost of the mechanical components.

Costs will fall as semiconductor technology gets better, but it may not fall dramatically as the yield available will always be a factor.

Like the computer field generally, what's more likely is that you'll get more and more for the same money.

Could someone please educate me on the reason SLRs are sooo much
more than consumer cameras? Is the only difference not just the
body and lense.

I don't see anywhere near the gap between conventional comapact
cameras and their SLR counterparts.

Will the prices eventually dramatically drop as we saw with
computer memory?