So the 20mp sensor most likely costs quite a lot more than the “cooking level 16mp sensor” and can only be put into bodies that will sell at premium prices.
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Tom:
It is probably more up your alley more than mine, but I have a hard time believing there is a significant cost difference between the 16 & 20 MP sensors. I tried to search for the costs but had no luck. I'm guessing it is probably in the single digits. If not may $20? Even if it were $50 I still see no reason to keep using the old sensor. The 20MP sensor will have been out 3 years in April. Surely the cost differential isn't much by now.
Well I simply don’t know but it is comnon in industry to require a guaranteed level of purchases to get the best price - which can be substantially less if the order is big enough. Quite often the product is only shipped and paid for on demand but if the full order is not bought within the prescribed contract time then there is a back-charge that can be imposed bringing the cost resptrospectively up to the smaller volume price - possibly with added penalties.
Years ago I did see a sensor price list. It sort of went something like (I forget the detail):
$1,100 each for the very latest and greatest sensor, $340 for the best current issue sensor and $30 for a very recently superseded sensor. Quantity orders would get reduced prices of course and I am sure that these quoted figures are not correct then and even less so now - but the huge disparity on pricing was evident. So if the current 16mp sensor was indeed $20 I would expect that the 20mp would be at least $200 unless it was part of a huge guaranteed order. Consequently that “$180” goes straight into the cost of a camera body, plus ancilliary costs and margin. Therefore unless Olympus and Panasonic were willing to place a very large order they could not hope to compete directly with YI. Furthemore there are some vague indications that maybe Panasonic might be thinking of a second source of supply and Olympus could go with it. If there is anything in that then they might not be too keen to tie themself up with a very large contractural purchase of Sony 20mp sensors.
I simply don’t know what might be going on an this is all conjecture. However it does throw a possible reasoning into the equation and I could accuse others posting on this thread as using just as much conjecture as I am doing.
Seems like people see things in a physical manner - there is a 20mp sensor in existence so why are Olympus and Panasonic not using it already and selling it for much the same price as before? In the real world companies have to sell product and plenty of it at prices that people will pay and will still return their company a good profit.
The buying public ar a fickle they always “want” and say that they will buy “if only ...” but when the chips are down and the product is in the shops the product must meet their rigorous specifications and pass all the reviewer’s tests as highly recommended and then they might wait until the price comes down if the RRP is deemed “too high”. Mmmm ... who would want to be in the camera/lens business?
Just looks bad to keep recycling old tech.
I actually might have had interest in the EPL9 since they finally put the flash back (7 iterations later). If there was even a small IQ bump it might have gotten my money. Now there is no way I will buy it.
I have a similar but different issue with the Sony A7R - I have one but dislike using it intensely and the great FF sensor is not enough to overcome my dislike. So my reasoning is that why should I buy a later model (the price has gone up considerably) when I have a perfectly good A7R already that is pretty much the same thing which I would simply ignore - much as I already do this.
Oh and I know that “I could sell it” but that is not my way or the common way in Australia - it seems to be buy and keep until it becomes junk-worthy
So Sony made a big mistake with me when they made all their “Series I” buyers into fully paid up “Beta testers” of a body that was hardly ergonomically sorted out. I bought quite a few dslr bodies before I saw the light but my old bodies were kept in service in parallel with the new ones for years. They were hardly wonders in ergonomics but were not truly bad either. Although I might grumble about the continual roll over cost of the dslr upgrades I think I still had good value as I happily used my older bodies as supplementary cameras for years afterwards until they were truly obsolete.
Yes I am in the public and I am fickle as well
