Sony's prime prices - ridiculous?

[jamesdak]

Which too me is a bonus. I keep all my gear and one of my two padded bags and have yet to use any supplied pouches from either my Minolta days or the current Canon gear. So, I'd rather not get them at all myself. Both L lenses came with them "for free" but I know that cost is in the final price. Now, I don't agree with Canon's way of selling hoods seperate on thier low end lenses. I consider a lens hood vital and it is important to have that included in my book.
--
Long live the HMS Beagle
Critiques always welcome!

 

[jamesdak]

That lens costs peanuts to make, trust me..its just a cheap lens.

Sony's costs are sod all, because its a mass manufactured lens. They
might be able to justify it, had they beefed up the build, or put a
metal mount on it..or did something!

Says Barry, the Sony Cost Accountant. LOL!!!

"Back to reality" Barry.

--
Refusing to take pictures of my cats.

Some validity to this. Back in the day when Leica used Minolta lenses they extensively reworked and upgraded the few that made it through thier QA standards.

--
Long live the HMS Beagle
Critiques always welcome!

 

[SashaJuric]

...
Maybe you could explain why the 55-200mm costs £100 more, for SONY
stamped on it, than the tamron one?
Costs? I would be pretty certain, that lens rolls off the tamron
production line.
...

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I compared Sony and Tamron specs for 55-200, and found them similar but still not same. Different filter size, different magnification ratio and different look. Looks to me that even if Tamron is making both lenses, there are more differences than just a sticker and $50 of diffeence in the price (at least in the US).

Can somebody explain to the poor, ignorant me, what is making these two so same, except for the fact that these are similar construction lenses?
--
Sasha

 

[fjbyrne]

It makes sense to me that Sony's costs would be higher, at least in
the short term, for starting up the manufacture of all these lenses,
compared to C&N having already established a large base of
manufactured lenses (some being old designs).

Whenever someone brings up legitimate reasons why Sony's cost to produce something may be higher I have to respond with "So what?". The reason is because the general consumer is not going to study some manufacturer's situation and decide if the price is justified. Most people don't care about Sony's startup costs, or costs of re-badging, or debt Sony acquired, etc. They are going to shop around and try to get the best value as they see it. If you have a higher price you had better be providing something more IMO - especially if you are not #1 or #2 in the market. Maybe a more modern design is that something more? Hard to tell.

Sony really needs to keep an eye on Canon and Nikon's pricing IMO. Comparisons to Minolta might be interesting but really have little relevancy since Minolta no longer manufactures or markets DSLRs/lenses. Sony needs to keep their eye on the real competition. And aside from some notable white exceptions I think they are priced pretty competitively at least here in the USA. I would like to see things priced more aggressively to make the A-mount more attractive and bring in more users. They still need to fill out the lineup a bit but overall they are doing OK IMO.

--
fjbyrne

 

[andrea buso]

I bought all my sony primes at onecall.com and I could get them at a few dollars more than what the equivalent nikon canon are. i'm really talking about few tenths of dollars no more. I think also adorama price them similarly.

and the sony's come with nice hoods included, while with the canon and also some nikon have to be bought separately and they are always on the range of 20/40$, which makes up for the difference in price.

in some cases the Sony have a slightly better finish of the N/C, it is not always the case but sometime it is.

Pentax are cheaper, because Pentax have always been an "hard sell", despite making excellent products.

 

[cyainparadise]

It makes sense to me that Sony's costs would be higher, at least in
the short term, for starting up the manufacture of all these lenses,
compared to C&N having already established a large base of
manufactured lenses (some being old designs).

Maybe you could explain why the 55-200mm costs £100 more, for SONY
stamped on it, than the tamron one?

Costs? I would be pretty certain, that lens rolls off the tamron
production line.

This costs argument is rapidly falling apart. Sony price high,
because they want to. Reality will be A mount will not do as well as
they hope, based on this area alone.
--

Two factors for direct cost:

A) Tamron has to markup their cost to Sony to make a profit so
Tamron can sell it for less (Sony only owns about 20% of Tamron they
still have to serve the needs of the other 80% of share holders) so a
profit on the sale to Sony has to be made
B) Unlike Tamron Sony does not have Canon / Nikon Sales to subsidize
the over all lens sales fixed cost, Plus all costs including the
marketing people say Sony needs, the nice Sony guys people want at
local shows etc. the big presence at PMA the TV ads, 3 page magazine
spreads and just the fixed costs etc. All have to be added to the
Tamron price to Sony.

After that Sony gets to add a profit margin.

On top of that.. Dealers are still not discounting Sony stuff much,
but they discount to compete with Canon and Nikon and then price the
same lens for Sony the same price for the other versions. So on 3rd
party lenses we benefit some from the Canon sales volumes.. that does
not happen with Sony branded items

IE if Sony and Tamron had the same price.. Tamron would be make a lot
more per lens then Sony.

And frankly The same reason something at Sears cost $5 more than
Walmart.. Sony is not pricing the be a discount 3rd party lens
provider. So there is no value to Sony in matching the Tamron price
from a brand presence.

------------
Ken - Happy A700 Owner
http://www.cascadephotoworks.com

When I took my business classes in college, up in the Pacific Northwest, we were taught about the way Gillette does business- the selling of the razor and the blades. Gillette sells the razor at a small profit and make t up by selling the blades at a much higher mark-up.

This business model is being used today in the selling of inkjet and laser printers. The companies like Canon and KonicaMinolta, sell their inkjet and laser printers at a low profit margin, and sell the replacement ink and toners at a high mark-up. This has led to many people complaining about the high cost of ink and toner (sound familiar?). Kodak has been the only one who has bucked this business model.

Sony has been known to use this business model, in the selling of their PlayStation 3. When the unit first came out, it was widely reported in the trade publication, that Sony was losing $300 for every game console they sold. It was estimated that Sony would not show a profit on the consoles for three years. This was before Nintendo came out with the Wii, and before Sony added a Blu-ray player and increased the memory. However, Sony has dropped prices on the console to meet competition from the Wii.

So, how do they make money? They make it up on the game cartridges. Sony is doing the same thing with their DSLRs.

Having said all this, Sony and all the camera and electronic companies are facing major increases in the cost of manufacturing and shipping product. The price of raw material have gone up. Electricity costs have gone up, as well as shipping costs. The electronic companies I work with are sending me information about the problems they face trying to stay competitive, especially as people begin to rein in their spending. Even small items like speaker wire using copper, has had major increase in price. Some companies have large warehouses holding inventory, but as the inventory decreases and they re-order, they have to increase their prices to the distributors and retailers.

Sony may use the extra large profit margins that they make on the lenses to ride out raising costs, in hopes that the oil bubble will burst.

 

[primetime4]

Look at it this way... the more you pay now the more you can sell it for later. Check out the used beercan or 50mm 1.4 prices on ebay. A lot are higher than the original price. You can probably buy an new 500mm for 600 and sell it on ebay for 650. Part of it is supply and demand. You can order a Canon L lens off of target.com but Sony being new to the industry produces a lot fewer lenses. If these lenses sat around the market would have push the priced down already.

 

[Iggy1965]

They are expensive because they are hard to get. In the Netherlands there are amost none available and the outlook is bad. I'm thinking of jumping to Canon because of this fact.

16-80 sold out at most places
16-105 sold out
50/1.4 sold out
18-250 hard to get
70-300 g not available (yet?)
24-70 sold out
135/1.8 sold out

The shops were some of them are still available are grey import or the price is skyhigh.

--
Best regards

Iggy

 

[Prana Ferox]

Neat shot. In all honesty, the coffee line was a joke, SSS helps in low light no matter what the lens.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mhess

 

[PhotoTraveler]

Not all products are razor blades.

But further, your not looking at Gillette rebadging Wallgreen made blades.

The Sony lens has to cost more. If it doesn't Tamron who makes the lens will never sell that lens for A mount under their name. Tamron is a 3rd party, Sony is a first, so the Sony has to cost more no matter what.

The Sony has value added because of the name. Don't believe me. Buy A tamron and buy a Sony version. Then a few years from now sell them on ebay, the Sony will fetch more than the Tamron. Heck, just try selling them on ebay right away and see which one goes for more.

Converting cost. Tamron has to make all new casing grip rubber and so forth than their regular version which gets spread out to multiple brands and sold in much higher volume. So much less volume to recoup the NRE on making it. Even the most simple and basic stuff cost a lot. And the Sony version is a very heavy change in the rebadge, even parts like the filter ring size changed.

KM versions of Tamrons also cost more than the Tamrons, nothing changed there.

Nothing about the situation looks odd or wrong at all. It's exactly as it should be. And if you have a problem with the Sony costing more, just buy the Tamron.

Tamron, Sigma, Tokina exist because they sell stuff cheaper. If they make a lens for a 1st party, they have to make sure the 1st party cost more. No one is every going to buy a 3rd party lens that cost less in the 1st party badging.

 

[PhotoTraveler]

You are on the right path.

They are the same lens inside, but as you have noticed, they have been heavily changed between the 2.

Just like how the Sony 18-250 is not the same as the Tamron version. Yes, both are the same basic lens, both made by Tamron, but there has been many a change made between them. Pentax now has a version of this lens too, and guess what, the Pentax is not the same as the Sony

 

[Ken_5D]

I carry dual certifications as a Product Manager and Product Marketing Manager
I also help design and teach a local course on product management.

While there may be a small part of the razor blade thing.. the average DSLR buyer buys about 2.5 lenses so there is not a lot of chance to make up the product cost in the lens.

As has been pointed out the lens is not identical.

In the US there is about a $50 difference.. easily covered in the explanations I have already laid out.

UK pricing is a different beast. Short supply items are sold for more because there is no benefit in selling them for less. If you will run out.. you can't make up margin with volume.
------------
Ken - Happy A700 Owner
http://www.cascadephotoworks.com

 

[PhotoTraveler]

You really don't have a sense of making stuff do you.

ADI is not about the chip involved, or the materials, it's about the cost to design it in there. There is a lot of bits in there that never existed before. A flex circuit, chips, encoder rings, modifications to all the internals, new barrel, etc. Tooling up for all of those things cost a lot of money. But you also have a lot of NRE. There is easily a couple engineer months in there making those changes. Just designing it all could be 3 engineering months, so 1/4 year pay for a Japanese Engineer. I'm guessing those aren't cheap in Tokyo. Lets go with 100,000USD a year, so 25,000USD in NRE just for design time. Sony isn't going to sell more than a few thousand of these anytime soon. Oh, but that was just the design. You have to go do all the drawings, new tooling and molds, updated assembly documentation, test the lens so on and so forth.

Raw materials can be completely in-significant an in products. Even parts like chips are nothing. The cost are in the people who have to design it, and the production of changes. Companies avoid changes to things in products at all cost because it's very high cost to change things. Why do you think in 20 years, Minolta never updated some of these lenses. In your way of thinking, they could have this done in a week for peanuts. Well, it doesn't work that way. If it did, all minolta lenses would have been converted to ADI supporting in a few months way back when and few people would have noticed. Instead it's a big deal. Look at the 35G, it's change was for adding ADI. KM put out a press release for the addition of ADI in the 35G a year before it was due to come. These changes are not cheap.

The tools to make lenses like the fisheye have been around for over 20 years since it was never changed. Now sony had to go thru, dust them off, check everything over, make any changes deemed needed, change focus rings and such (bring them up to RS spec minus some things like circular blades which were optional in RS spec'ing).

 

[Undah]

On the pentax side, it's pretty much universally agreed that the two lenses (Pentax and Tamron) are optically and mechanically identical, down to the lens coating.

What is different about the Sony vs the Tamron?

You are on the right path.

They are the same lens inside, but as you have noticed, they have
been heavily changed between the 2.

Just like how the Sony 18-250 is not the same as the Tamron version.
Yes, both are the same basic lens, both made by Tamron, but there has
been many a change made between them. Pentax now has a version of
this lens too, and guess what, the Pentax is not the same as the Sony

 

[Undah]

umm..
I don't believe Sony gets a percentage of every used minolta sold on ebay.

Why wouldn't they re-introduce it? I think they will.

when there are hundreds of thousands of Minolta 50/1.7s floating
around for about US$100-120? I understand that if you want a new
one, it's frustrating, but from a business perspective, I can
understand their reticence about re-introducing that lens, a low
profit one at that, when the used market is very robust.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see Sony release a new 50/1.7
when the price for used ones climbs another 50-75% (it's already
nearly doubled in one year).

 

[cyainparadise]

You really don't have a sense of making stuff do you.

ADI is not about the chip involved, or the materials, it's about the
cost to design it in there. There is a lot of bits in there that
never existed before. A flex circuit, chips, encoder rings,
modifications to all the internals, new barrel, etc. Tooling up for
all of those things cost a lot of money. But you also have a lot of
NRE. There is easily a couple engineer months in there making those
changes. Just designing it all could be 3 engineering months, so
1/4 year pay for a Japanese Engineer. I'm guessing those aren't cheap
in Tokyo. Lets go with 100,000USD a year, so 25,000USD in NRE just
for design time. Sony isn't going to sell more than a few thousand
of these anytime soon. Oh, but that was just the design. You have
to go do all the drawings, new tooling and molds, updated assembly
documentation, test the lens so on and so forth.

Raw materials can be completely in-significant an in products. Even
parts like chips are nothing. The cost are in the people who have to
design it, and the production of changes. Companies avoid changes to
things in products at all cost because it's very high cost to change
things. Why do you think in 20 years, Minolta never updated some of
these lenses. In your way of thinking, they could have this done in
a week for peanuts. Well, it doesn't work that way. If it did, all
minolta lenses would have been converted to ADI supporting in a few
months way back when and few people would have noticed. Instead it's
a big deal. Look at the 35G, it's change was for adding ADI. KM put
out a press release for the addition of ADI in the 35G a year before
it was due to come. These changes are not cheap.

The tools to make lenses like the fisheye have been around for over
20 years since it was never changed. Now sony had to go thru, dust
them off, check everything over, make any changes deemed needed,
change focus rings and such (bring them up to RS spec minus some
things like circular blades which were optional in RS spec'ing).

And what makes you an expert at how Sony determines how much to charge for a product? Have you actually disassembled every lens Sony has released and done a cost analysis of each part? Or, are you just guessing?

And 'cheap' is relative. To you and me, $10M might be a lot of money to spend, but to Sony, it might be chump-change.

Have you worked for Sony? Have you sat in on a sales projection meeting? Have you sat down with the sales executive or the accountants, do determine how much to charge for a product.

Neither you nor I have access to the inner thinking of how Sony determines how much to charge. Analysts who broke down the cost of the parts and production costs of the PlayStation 3, determined that Sony was losing about $300 for each unit sold, when it was first introduced. I take it, you were not part of the group that came to that conclusion.

 

[Undah]

Neither you nor I have access to the inner thinking of how Sony
determines how much to charge. Analysts who broke down the cost of
the parts and production costs of the PlayStation 3, determined that
Sony was losing about $300 for each unit sold, when it was first
introduced. I take it, you were not part of the group that came to
that conclusion.

How is that relevant? Unless you're saying they plan to do the same with cameras.. give away the cameras and make it up on overpriced lenses?

 

[PhotoTraveler]

You don't need to be sony to figure out why some things cost more.

Anyone who works in any form of bringing physical products like a lens to market has a very good sense of what is involved.

But further, the whole stuff about the PS3 is pointless. Yes, everyone knows Sony was loosing money on them. This has never been a secret even by them. The same as Microsoft has lost an insane amount of money on Xbox.

But one model does not work for everything. That model works for Games, it's the model the game market is built on.

That doesn't mean it works on cameras, you don't just take a business model for one thing, and just start slapping it on everything.

 

[Salgado Photo]

I am new to the A-Mount and SLR photography, not new to digital though, and I do wish the lenses were cheaper only because I want to buy them! As a company they probably decided to make the cameras cheaper and keep the lenses at a higher price. It makes sense because you want alot of people to buy your brand so you sell them quality cameras at cheaper prices then the competition. Those who use mainly auto functions will be ok with ket lenses and the cheaper lenses. They probably think that if they can convince you ( like they convinced me ) that you absolutly love the camera, you will sell whatever else you own to get the glass for it, or charge it, or sell a kidney for it. I am in love with the alpha line and want to collect all 5 models, I am pretty sure I made the right choice with this brand and product and can live with waiting for prices to come down. You get what you pay for I bet you the lenses that I can not afford are amazing. I have seen pictures on here that have blow me away with color.
--
Salgado, N i k o n 5 7 0 0

 

[PhotoTraveler]

Gearing, Coatings, And the casing/grips. The casing and grips are different with the pentax too.

Soon as you change any part, they are no longer the same. And changing the barrels and grips and such on a part is a very serious change, even if in end product it doesn't look like much.