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Why are lenses expensive?

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RBFresno said:
If reading one of the many " ....Books for Dummies" is mocking, then I mock myself, as I've read many of them (and I have 3 Stanford Degrees).

(With more than 200 million books in print and more than 1,600 titles, "Dummies" is the world's bestselling reference brand).
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You have 3 stanford degrees? But why?
 
To give another data point, I believe one of the videos linked above says that the cost of optical glass can be as much as $1000 per kg. If the weight of one of the big guns like a 500/f4 is half glass (I have no idea if that's right, but it seems reasonable), that would mean that the glass alone costs a couple of thousand dollars.

Ray
My blog: http://www.rritchie.com/wordpress
 
Forgot to mention my glassblowing tour in Venice. Tried it at home a few times with disastrous results. :)

Thanks for the complement.
RBFresno said:
RBFresno said:
You "have an idea" about lens making because you "once visited" a lens factory?
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RBFresno said:
I once toured a nuclear plant -- now the government calls me when there's an imminent meltdown.
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Great analogy!

Watching start to finish lens construction and visiting a nuclear plant of course leaves the visitor with equal levels of understanding of the two.

(BTW, Jake, you take really great pictures!)

RB

http://www.dpreview.com/members/2305099006/challenges
http://www.pbase.com/rbfresno/profile
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Spot on Ray. Aside from the cost of manufacturing optical glass, the biggest thing that stands out is the shear amount of time it takes to machine and polish a lens element. The running material costs would also be high, in just about every proccess there are abrasives, industrial diamonds and polishing pads involved.
 
More good info.
Thanks again.

I also hadn't realized that relatively few of the better lenses (and especially the top primes) are produced annually, so there must be a greater cost per lens as a result.
 
..and this is why I have asked questions, rather than asserting that lenses are grossly overpriced and the manufacturers are just a bunch of greedy pigs.

I enjoy learning about many things and was curious to know what factors make lenses relatively expensive.

Glad to have gotten some informative replies.
 
i
RBFresno said:
RBFresno said:
I agree with the point of economies of scale,
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That's an interesting point!

I wonder what the per unit manufacturing costs of say a 500VR would be, if a few hundred thousand of them were made a year? As you point out, with that type of volume there might be justification for a different (i.e. cheaper) means of manufacture.

RB
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blue_cheese hit the nail on the head.

I'll take an uneducated guess
18-55mm VR = 9.2 oz ; retail = $120 (kit price ?)
500 VR = 139oz ; retail = 139/9.2 * $120 = $1800 retail

same technology, just more or it.

And neither are mega-market items selling in tens of millions, like smartphones. From a Business Week article on Foxconn:

"When Apple's iPhone4 was nearing production, Foxconn and Apple discovered that the metal frame was so specialized that it could be made only by an expensive, low-volume machine usually reserved for prototypes. Apple's designers wouldn't budge on their specs, so Gou ordered more than 1,000 of the $20,000 machines from Tokyo-based Fanuc"

That's $20 million in tooling costs just for the frame.
 
Funny that ianz should choose watch mechanisms for comparison...

For fun, I have and still do disassemble/reassemble and perform repairs to watch movements, which then function properly.

Though I can't say it with absolute certainty, I suspect that I could disassemble and reassemble a working lens without doing any harm to its functionality--and it would be nice to not need a loupe just to see some of the parts!.

I can't imagine that a lens assembly is as complicated as a typical mechanical watch mechanism.

As others have mentioned--the fact that smaller numbers of the more expensive lenses are produced must play a significant role in lens pricing.

Add to that the reportedly high cost of glass and the prices of lenses seems at least a bit more reasonable.

To the fellow who suggested buying and disassembling an inexpensive lens, I replied that it is something which I fully intend to do, eventually--just to satisfy my curiosity.
 
Some of the larger lens elements used in Nikkor lenses take six months to make.

Actually longer than that, some of the glass blanks take a six month period to cool, obviously under a computer controlled environment, even then there is a percentage of the glass which fails final inspection!

Tony

http://www.pbase.com/wildoat
 
Good analogy. If nobody else is producing it for less, then we just bend over and take it. Even though we know we're getting raped we don't have a choice.

But in the case of lenses, there are third party mfrs. that should be able to keep the playing field level, so to speak, and it doesn't seem to be happening. My guess is there isn't enough volume in high end lenses for them to be interested in that market segment, so they tend to avoid it, leaving it to the camera mfrs themselves.

I understand a fast lens requires more materials and design to produce than a lesser performing lens, but the price differential seems to be excessive. But until someone else offers a 400mm f2.8 for less, they can charge pretty much what they feel like charging.

I've seen this in several other products having nothing to do with photography, but the concept is the same. If there's not enough volume to get independent representation in the field, the main line mfrs can have their way with you.
Petruska said:
Same reasoning pice/demand....just like gasoline and oil.

We are willing to pay the price, look at Nikon recently, no more price discounts allowed at certain big stores, all pricing will be the same across all sellers, big and small. If Nikon felt that the demand for lenses would decrease they wouldn't institute this policy.

Bob P.
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Ding Ding Ding!!!! We have a winner.

During business school, we did a "case" on the cost of making sure that there were actually 12oz of beer in can of beer.Turned out it was hard and expensive to get the error rate down from X to X-Y.

I would imagine building a 70-200m VRII requires incredibly tight tolerances.
sshoihet said:
manufacturing goods with tight tolerances and high precision is expensive, even if you have a significant amount of automation present in the process.

Accuracy costs money.
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I don't know about Stanford, but the Yale Book Store (which is run by Barnes and Noble) has "Dummies" and "Idiots Guide to ..." books for sale.
RBFresno said:
RBFresno said:
You have 3 stanford degrees? But why?
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B.A. '77 (Undergrad), M.A.(Research Degree) '77, M.D. '80.

(And I can assure you that the "Dummies" Books are for sale and purchased in the Stanford Bookstore!).

RB

http://www.dpreview.com/members/2305099006/challenges
http://www.pbase.com/rbfresno/profile
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Stanford, '77?

I was in Trancos, then Manzanita...ended up an RA in Burbank. where were you?

To keep it on topic, I love your work!
--
Kevin
 
Once you have bought a Nikon or a Canon your are locked into their lenses.

Obviously Sigma et all offer a lower cost alternative which in many cases is very high quality.

But the normal Nikon lenses cost X, semi pro nikons cost Xx2 and professional Nikon lenses cost Xx10 ... and that just is the way it always has been.

The price of anything is just the amount someone is prepared to pay.

Mark
 
Well, finally, somone has gotten to the big issue with big glass.

It's no different from digital sensors...the bigger the sensor, the more expensive, and not just geometrically. Let's say you're manufacturing a big sheet of digital sensors. Say, 10cm x 10cm. If you have a perfect production system that leaves one 1mm flaw per 100cm2 sheet, you've got 99/100 perfect sensors ready for production.

But if your sensor is 20cm x 20cm, and you still have one bad sector, your utilty has gone down to 96%...big difference.

Same with lenses. One small flaw in a big sheet of glass intended for 52mm might lose the manufacturer a small bit of product. Say 100 glass blanks and one is bad...well in a 52mm environment, that's 99% good. Three bad inclusions brings that down to 91%...still OK.

But one bad inclusion in a 105mm element might make your production 90% usable...and three bad inclusions might bring your six months of glass making efforts down to 70%.

You do pay for what you get.

--Kevin
 
I have never been in lens factory, but there are obvious financial logistics that apply to any manufacturing plant:
  • aside from the specific manufacturing cost, there are research and development costs to be written off, these must be written off over the expected lifespan of the lens on the market or better, a specific time period, say three years.
  • there are also overhead costs, such as wastage (bad lenses that are not certified), costs of plant and machinery that need to be written off over their useful life, specifically very technical plant, therefore aside from glass cost, there is machinery costs, computing costs, labour cost, electricity etc, those are direct costs
  • indirect costs such as salaries for executives, office rental, marketing etc also have to be approtioned over the sale items, for a well developed and successful company, I would expect that marketing budget is higher, executives get bigger salaries than some third party (say Samyang) and offices etc are better equipped and cost more.
  • a large established company would have certain committment to quality and guarantees, thus costs of servicing etc may be quite higher than other off name brands, so a name brand may have four or five repair centres to another's one (just epeculating), while these may charge by repair, they may also require some subsidy for ongoing maintenance.
  • dividends to shareholders are now a hefty sum, capital is not cheap and shareholders demand a good return, so budgeting for dividends can be included.
Thus, there are many financial factors that would contribute to sale price being higher than 'manufacturing cost'.

Asi I said, thiis applies for any manufacturing or service industry, not just lenses/ cameras.
Cheers
--
.....Just from an amateur......
 
Sigma makes some "Super Telephoto Lenses" as 300mm, 500mm and 800mm primes.
While these cost far less than Nikon lenses, they aren't super cheap either.

In reading the replies that addressed my questions by providing some concrete information regarding the cost of glass itself (rather than simply stating the obvious) , it seems that materials cost far more than many of us had supposed.

Added to all the other factors that go into the cost of actually making a product, the pricing now seems at least a bit more reasonable.

As for ink costing more than a printer, perhaps that's true of very cheap printers.

If it meant the total cost of ink over the life of the printer, then you could make the same statement about your gasoline costing far more than your car, with very few exceptions.
 
Remember too, that R&D costs for a larger company will include write-offs for products that do not come to market, whereas third party manufacturers focus on one thing i.e. say an 85 1.4 lens etc. and thus their write-offs of potential products should be quite a bit less.

Nikon just came up with a whole new system, while one may say that would take care of itself, if it does not the R&D costs have to be repaid somehow, what about those products that do not make it? That is further apportioned costs to all those that do.

It is part of business, when Nikon replaces the current 180 2.8 D with a 180 2.8 AFS, that was after research, design and prototypes.

And remember, sometimes they might charge more for a lens, but probably choose to write off over an extended period, just to stay competitive (just guessing).

--
.....Just from an amateur......
 
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