Are you fed up with the ever increasing cost of Canon gear?

Rock and Rollei wrote:

Steve W wrote:

Rock and Rollei wrote:

Steve W wrote:

The issue with EF and RF is the same in trying to support both a $800 to $7000 (EOS R1) with the same family of lenses. Without real third party partners Canon has gotten themselves stuck trying to support three tears of lens quality and only has resources for two and for money that just doesn’t cut it. And its a shrinking market on top of that.

This is not a problem Sony has. Nikon chose another approach with trying to deliver a really nice f/1.8 and f/4 family from the start. It’s actually the same approach Sony took at the start of their full frame development and with five more years of lead time it payed off and they enlisted third parties. They have at least 7-9 partners.

So Canon is mostly producing Premium+ and budget IMHO. Not what a large diverse base needs with an RP, R, R6, R5, R3 and next year an R1 maybe. Som even say they want to introduce a body below the RP.

—
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe! - Words to live by. Albert Einstein

"Third party partners"? That's not the way Canon sees them. "Third party parasites" would be closer to their view. They want to keep lens sales to themselves, not donate that profitable business to others. They don't see not having them as a problem, they will see Sony having them as very much a problem for Sony when it comes to trying to make their business profitable. 7-9 "partners" would be Canon's idea of absolute hell.

And that is why Canon is a more expensive system. In today’s business climate you really need to take a pro-active approach to managing your business relationships. Sonys been able to use its partners to move from lower than 5th to 2nd in digital camera space with the approach they took. Not something to take lightly. It certainly has Canon’s attention for sure.

Whereas Canon's approach has allowed it to remain No 1 in the global market, actually increasing the gap, and most importantly, staying profitable, so they stay in the camera business.

Which approach works better - the best, or the second best?

Of course Canon will be paying attention to Sony, but their last 30 or so years has been the story of them reacting to other manufacturers in a very distinctly Canon way, not by copying what other manufacturers do. That way they've managed to retain volume AND margin, rather than stupidly giving away margin through not selling so many lenses.

The first 15 years of those 30 years there was no sensor tech involved.

When it comes to sensor tech and volume I know who's the winner. Maybe Sony simply doesn't have to sell so many lenses as the bodies themselves are more profitable due to better spread R&D costs as it comes to sensors.