Why does Sony's 500 f4 cost $13000?

[steelhead3]

Great shot

 

[MedicineMan999]

Someone just got a Sony 500mm/F4 off ebay last nigh/this morning for around $9500...I think it was a 'demo' from Adorama.

Thinking it might be someone who posts here??

That is quite the deal compared to 13K.

But didn't the Canon 500/4 outscore it and it is still 5-600 cheaper than that demo price.

 

[steelhead3]

The Canon is a great lens but the sony 500 is quite good with the 99II.

 

[lhkjacky]

Someone just got a Sony 500mm/F4 off ebay last nigh/this morning for around $9500...I think it was a 'demo' from Adorama.

Thinking it might be someone who posts here??

That is quite the deal compared to 13K.

But didn't the Canon 500/4 outscore it and it is still 5-600 cheaper than that demo price.

If you buy the Sony 500mm f4 in Japan, you can buy it less than $8500 new.

 

[tbcass]

Tom, unless you are up in space with the Hubble (a flawed but magnificent lens), where you are looking through the telescope at the stars is much more important than the optics.

I'm sorry but that makes no sense. Whatever, with telescopes extreme resolving power is of extreme importance, possibly more so than with camera lenses.

 

[Douglas F Watt]

When this costs $8000.

http://www.meade.com/lx600-acf-14-f-8.html ;-)

Because it's not a mirror lens. The 500mm F4 has some very expensive fluorite crystal glass and, unfortunately, doesn't have the economy of scale the Canon and Nikon equivalents have.

But the mead is 2800+ mm focal length and f8. It includes computerized tracking, a finder scope and a huge heavy duty tripod. It also includes high quality eye pieces.

I have a Celestron spotting scope that is 530mm, f5.3, has ED glass, completely air and water tight air purged nitrogen filled body, 22x-67x eyepiece with absolutely superb optics that sells for about $760.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/917620-REG/celestron_52306_regal_m2_100ed_spotting.html

Now I realize that it's manual focus only but if I can get this scope for $760 there's no way the 500 f4 is worth even half what Sony sells it for.

--
Tom
Look at the picture, not the pixels
------------
Misuse of the ability to do 100% pixel peeping is the bane of digital photography.

I feel your pain Tom. But without two big and pretty much invisible numbers (development costs and unit sales relative to Canon), you can't really say that Sony is gouging us. It's a crazy price, everyone agrees on that, but given that the equiv. 500 f4 from Canon is STILL going for $8k, if Sony's sales are 1/10th of Canon (which would be generous frankly - it's probably worse than that), we have no basis for judging if they are making money at that price, breaking even, or, perhaps even losing money.

Anyone notice that the 500 f4 was going for $9k on Evilbay?

--
Sony A99ii-A77ii-RX10III-RX100III
Sigma: 8-16 f4.5-5.6, 500 F4.5 EX DG APO
Tamron: 70-200 f2.8 USD
Sony ZA: 24 f2, 85 1.4, 135 1.8, 24-70 2.8 SSMII
Sony: 16-50 f2.8, 100 f2.8M, 70-400 f4-5.6 G2
Minolta: 600 f4, 70-210 f4 ('Beercan'), 28-135 f4-4.5 ('SH')
DFW

 

[tbcass]

You have to sell product to make money. Sony isn't selling many at $13000. Maybe if they dropped the price to a more reasonable level they would increase volume enough to at least equal what they're making now.

 

[Douglas F Watt]

You have to sell product to make money. Sony isn't selling many at $13000. Maybe if they dropped the price to a more reasonable level they would increase volume enough to at least equal what they're making now.

 

[Sonysking]

I was lucky enough to get one last year in Australia for $8,500. Ex demo.

 

[MedicineMan999]

Someone just got a Sony 500mm/F4 off ebay last nigh/this morning for around $9500...I think it was a 'demo' from Adorama.

Thinking it might be someone who posts here??

That is quite the deal compared to 13K.

But didn't the Canon 500/4 outscore it and it is still 5-600 cheaper than that demo price.

If you buy the Sony 500mm f4 in Japan, you can buy it less than $8500 new.

How does that work exactly? What are the hidden costs (like taxes on the lens when one returns to the US)? So I'm googling return flight prices to Tokyo as I type

 

[lhkjacky]

Someone just got a Sony 500mm/F4 off ebay last nigh/this morning for around $9500...I think it was a 'demo' from Adorama.

Thinking it might be someone who posts here??

That is quite the deal compared to 13K.

But didn't the Canon 500/4 outscore it and it is still 5-600 cheaper than that demo price.

If you buy the Sony 500mm f4 in Japan, you can buy it less than $8500 new.

How does that work exactly? What are the hidden costs (like taxes on the lens when one returns to the US)? So I'm googling return flight prices to Tokyo as I type

The listed price in Japan is 968,000 Yen

Loading…

goo.gl

I guess they may not shipped the lens to oversea directly, but you can buy it when you visit Japan or you can use proxy shipping to redirect the lens to you.

 

[MedicineMan999]

Someone just got a Sony 500mm/F4 off ebay last nigh/this morning for around $9500...I think it was a 'demo' from Adorama.

Thinking it might be someone who posts here??

That is quite the deal compared to 13K.

But didn't the Canon 500/4 outscore it and it is still 5-600 cheaper than that demo price.

If you buy the Sony 500mm f4 in Japan, you can buy it less than $8500 new.

How does that work exactly? What are the hidden costs (like taxes on the lens when one returns to the US)? So I'm googling return flight prices to Tokyo as I type

The listed price in Japan is 968,000 Yen

https://goo.gl/rgyzRu

I guess they may not shipped the lens to oversea directly, but you can buy it when you visit Japan or you can use proxy shipping to redirect the lens to you

Thanks for that research. I just converted 968K Yen to USD, $8400, now that seems reasonable (if anyone could consider the price of this lens or any other in its league reasonable) compared to the Canon equivalent.

So I just priced the round trip tickets=close to $2K.

So now to study proxy shipping. If you have clues on that too I'd be curious.

Thanks again.

 

[lhkjacky]

Someone just got a Sony 500mm/F4 off ebay last nigh/this morning for around $9500...I think it was a 'demo' from Adorama.

Thinking it might be someone who posts here??

That is quite the deal compared to 13K.

But didn't the Canon 500/4 outscore it and it is still 5-600 cheaper than that demo price.

If you buy the Sony 500mm f4 in Japan, you can buy it less than $8500 new.

How does that work exactly? What are the hidden costs (like taxes on the lens when one returns to the US)? So I'm googling return flight prices to Tokyo as I type

The listed price in Japan is 968,000 Yen

https://goo.gl/rgyzRu

I guess they may not shipped the lens to oversea directly, but you can buy it when you visit Japan or you can use proxy shipping to redirect the lens to you

Thanks for that research. I just converted 968K Yen to USD, $8400, now that seems reasonable (if anyone could consider the price of this lens or any other in its league reasonable) compared to the Canon equivalent.

So I just priced the round trip tickets=close to $2K.

So now to study proxy shipping. If you have clues on that too I'd be curious.

Thanks again.

I have used Tenso before, but I never tried such expensive product. ;-)

Loading…

www.tenso.com

 

[MedicineMan999]

Well it certainly furthers the point that the 500/4 should be selling here in the U.S. for $8400. That certainly stings but I'd suffer the 8400 long before I'll ever darken $13K.

 

[lhkjacky]

Well it certainly furthers the point that the 500/4 should be selling here in the U.S. for $8400. That certainly stings but I'd suffer the 8400 long before I'll ever darken $13K.

The currency of Japanese yen is low now.
1 usd = 115 YEN

But at 2012, 1 usd = 75 YEN
968,000 yen were about $13k at that time.

 

[MedicineMan999]

Tenso looks reliable and tested. I don't think they care what the item costs, but the weight.

So basically you find the product somewhere in Japan, purchase it, have it shipped to Tenso, Tenso ships to you. What could go wrong? Me thinking overall the Japanese are honorable and less likely for deceit or theft there.

 

[MedicineMan999]

lhkjacky

One more question.

Why not just buy from some place like this-

Loading…

www.yodobashi.com

It appears they ship to U.S.

 

[Michael Fritzen]

Hi,

seems that an important question to ask is how the Customs handle such an import (taxes / fees), independant if you carry it personally or if it's shipped to you.

In addition it might be interesting to check how possible warranty issues would be handled. Because the servicing of such a lens might set you back by an amount in overall cost advantages when you're w/o any warranty coverage.

--
Cheers,
Michael Fritzen

 

[MedicineMan999]

Michael, all good points you make. Interestingly, having owned 74 lenses (currently owning 62) I've only recently had a problem with a lens (that devlish Minolta 400 APO)...not saying that's a good reason to gamble on a lens of this price but the odds are good if it could arrive safely eh?

Well I am considering the options but in the back of my mind is a quote from one of the Sony execs, paraphrasing he said that Sony will compete with Canon and Nikon. To do that in any seriousness they will have to bring forth long glass worth only one kidney and not two!

Too many reports are showing the a99ii as capable as the flagships from Canon and Nikon for sports/wildlife/wedding/BIF/etc. Only glass is needed.

Yes I know the a-mount line and every FL is represented, and nicely I might add; but the long glass is just unobtanium for even the zealous.

 

[lhkjacky]

lhkjacky

One more question.

Why not just buy from some place like this-

http://www.yodobashi.com/ソニー-SONY-SAL500F40G-500mm-F4-ソニーA/pd/100000001001474615/

It appears they ship to U.S.

Yes, you can buy from them or any big camera store, if they can ship to US directly.

The average price of the 500mm F4 in Japan is around $8.5k~9k.