Nikon's announcement: My hypothesis

Mattykins said:
The camera isn't designed for the hobbyist. Even for the intermediate photog. It is designed to compete in the medium format market. 8,000 for a camera that can compete with the 20,000 hasselblad is a good camera. It will be used by photo journalists, advertising firms, fashion photographers.

People who get paid for photography.
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This is kind of my point. The market is changing. It's just a matter of natural course that FF35mm cameras are producing imaging conquerable to medium format digital cameras. It's just the natural path of progress. Technology is always getting cheaper. The fact that this new Dx3 and for that matter 5DII are equal to medium format is a reality that is hasselblad's problem. Should computers today be priced at $10 grand because they are equal to computers costing 100 grand 20 yeara ago. The $20,000 Hasselblad is no longer worth 20,000. There is a whole restructuring of value similar to what audio recording gear underwent in the 1990's. The 5DII is the bench mark. You can't price the D3x at 8,000 when the 5DII is 2,700. I know Nikon is thinking, well that is where the 1DsIII is priced, but that is not really so, because Canon's line is upside down at the moment with the 5DII being the better camera in many respects. That will be rectified when the 1DsIV is released with 35MP, 4" high res LCD etc. Where does that leave the D3x then? Certainly not at $8,000. The real people that need to be sweating right now is Hasselblad.

Pros are business people that make business decisions. I don't see them throwing 8 grand at the D3x. If they do, they have their heads in the clouds about the future of tech and the realities of this economy.
 
Paul V Doherty said:
You've missed my point completely:

Nikon ought to repackage the D90 in a motion-friendly form-factor, i.e. a box.
This would certainly allow for XLR's, amongst other things.
:thumbup:
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yeah still my point, not gonna happen because its not meant to be a camcorder. if anything its just an afterthought
 
50$ says the "big announcement" is a Medium format camera system... or a Nikon Digital Medium format Back thats low cost for Current Digital medium format shooters. a $5,000 32MP digital back, on a 2,000$ contax body will be AMAZING. As opposed to Hasselblads $30,000 Digital back.

If they made a cheap Digital back...... I would TOTALLY migrate to Medium format.
 
Good guess, Timur. Possible. I don't know what's been happening on the medium-format digital back scene these days. However, I have really seen but one medium-format digital back in use this past year, over dozens of pro photo shoot set visits (I do a lot of high-profile, behind-the-scenes shoots). The last several dozen pro photo shoots I've been on have all been Canon or Nikon DSLRs. And these were all for national magazine covers and editorials.

Recall that Nikon at one time made Super 8 movie cameras. They must be aware that the filmmaking community has long been a fan of using Nikkor lenses as inexpensive primes. I'm guessing (hoping) that the rumor reported by another member has some truth to it. That Nikon (and this is pure rumor from an unknown source) may be working with another Japanese camera manufacturer (presumably one with video experience) to make a true D-Movie capable kind of imaging device. One designed from the get-go as a motion-imaging device, and not simply a "tagged-on" feature to an existing still camera body design. Hopefully, Nikon will be among the first traditional still camera manufacturers to break the mold (literally) of the traditional DSLR form factor, and create the first truly affordable, large-sensor motion-imaging device.
 
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f64manray said:
Should computers today be priced at $10 grand
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You don't think there are computers that cost that much and that there's a market for them?!? This discussion is weird. When did $8,000 for a pro camera become expensive? It's ridiculous for sure but that's just how it is when someone's willing to pay. Do you have any idea how much people spend on glass? Studio rental? Lights? Pro video cameras cost 20-50 times as much är consumer and even prosumer ones yet there's a huge market. No, i don't think the market is changing in that respect, and no, i don't think rates will go down much even though there will be fewer jobs.
 
mattsand said:
You don't think there are computers that cost that much and that there's a market for them?!? This discussion is weird. When did $8,000 for a pro camera become expensive? It's ridiculous for sure but that's just how it is when someone's willing to pay. Do you have any idea how much people spend on glass? Studio rental? Lights? Pro video cameras cost 20-50 times as much är consumer and even prosumer ones yet there's a huge market. No, i don't think the market is changing in that respect, and no, i don't think rates will go down much even though there will be fewer jobs.
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Yes, I think the market is changing in that respect. What's happening in video this year is mirroring what happened in the audio recording industry in the 1990's. A totally automated mixer in the 1980's with flying faders cost into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today the same features can be had for under $3,500. That was a major revolution. Today you can have a studio for around 10-20 grand that would have easily cost a million in the 1980's. We are seeing the same thing today in video, and it's beginning with FF35mm sensors like the 5DII. Technology will increase exponentially as prices decrease at the same rate. As sophisticated recording technology and high fidelity became available at reasonable prices to the musician masses, rates plummeted and many professional studios went out of business. We'll see the same phenomena in the video industry in the next decade.

Ask SSL how many $600,000 consoles they're selling to big rooms these days.
 
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f64manray said:
Yes, I think the market is changing in that respect. What's happening in video this year is mirroring what happened in the audio recording industry in the 1990's. A totally automated mixer in the 1980's with flying faders cost into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today the same features can be had for under $3,500. That was a major revolution. Today you can have a studio for around 10-20 grand that would have easily cost a million in the 1980's. We are seeing the same thing today in video, and it's beginning with FF35mm sensors like the 5DII. Technology will increase exponentially as prices decrease at the same rate. As sophisticated recording technology and high fidelity became available at reasonable prices to the musician masses, rates plummeted and many professional studios went out of business. We'll see the same phenomena in the video industry in the next decade.

Ask SSL how many $600,000 consoles they're selling to big rooms these days.
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Yup, I agree with your analogy. ProTools, Logic, and cheap, large HDDs have really taken over. I think the answer to the SSL question is . . . not too many. Someone I work with bought a $12,000, 16-track, reel-to-reel recorder in the early 1990s, a product whose marketability was neutered a month later with the introduction of $1,000 ADAT machines (which are now also obsolete). Another friend still has his ADAT, and is always scrambling to find S-VHS tape to feed it. Too bad good mics and micpres haven't seen the same kinds of price-reductions.

The D90, though not perfect, is a game-changer. RED was revolutionary. But only for those with about $22,000 to spend and an 8-core MacPro. Even lower-end 2/3" HD cameras are out of range for most start-up filmmakers, although the HPX500 is becoming more and more affordable everyday. But the holy grail . . . that big, fat DX-sized sensor . . . now, that's finally do-able, albeit with limitations. Some of those limitations, fairly severe. But the price of entry was low, so I was willing to bite. If Nikon doesn't introduce a more cine-friendly form factor, Canon or someone else will. The game has changed. And boy, are we all better for it.
 
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There's still more expensive studio equipment out there if you want to pay. The mbox people can get the d90, to continue the analogy. Besides we're not talking millions, we're talking something that costs two hours of work, or a few percent of a photo shoot budget.
 
mattsand said:
There's still more expensive studio equipment out there if you want to pay. The mbox people can get the d90, to continue the analogy. Besides we're not talking millions, we're talking something that costs two hours of work, or a few percent of a photo shoot budget.
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Yes, but f/64 brings up an interesting point. I used to see medium-format film (a lot of RZ67s) and medium-format, digital-back cameras almost exclusively on magazine shoots. Now, all I see are Canon and Nikon DSLRs.
 
Ralph Oshiro said:
Too bad good mics and micpres haven't seen the same kinds of price-reductions.

.
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Interesting point. Class A analog audio circuity always will command a premium ie; Manley vox box mic pre - $3,500, Neuman 149 microphone - $4,000 plus, but on the flip side MXL is making large diaphram tube mics for $2-300 and they gain praise from many. It was unheard of to buy a quality large diaphram condensor for under a couple of thousand until AT introduced the 4050 ($699) in the 1990's, and then Rode followed with a $1,500 large diaphram tube mic which was unattainable for less than about $4,000 previously. Alot of this was driven by the untold thousands of want to be recording stars and the emergence of the home studio. Companies like Neuman quickly realized it was to their benefit and much more profitable to sell to the thousands rather than to the hundreds and wisely created a high quality professional products downline like the TLM 103 for $999.

It's exciting to see this paradigm come to video. There will always be much more money selling to "wannabes" than the "already are somebodies". The DVX100 (but not quite there to me) was the beginning, but now it looks like an actual professional product can really be done. The flood gates are opening with high quality cinema images being available for thousands instead of hundreds of thousands. The real question is how many "wannabe" film makers are there out there? How huge is the suction for these products. Everybody wants to be a rock star in music. I think there may be many more wannabe musicians than film makers. That market was easy. The cinema market seems more vague, unless your selling to musicians that are making music videos. ;-)
 
mattsand said:
There's still more expensive studio equipment out there if you want to pay. The mbox people can get the d90, to continue the analogy. Besides we're not talking millions, we're talking something that costs two hours of work, or a few percent of a photo shoot budget.
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I'm not sure if you're in the industry or not, but I find it hard to believe that any pro doesn't wince at $8,000 when there are already tools that can do the same thing for much cheaper. If you're a pro, it's not just $8,000, it's $16,000 because you need two.

It's not like you wake up in the morning punch the clock and and start earning $4,000 an hour. These jobs have to be booked, and there may only be one a week or one a month. Listening to Laforet who works with clients at this level, money is much tighter even over this last year. Clients are not springing for those rates like they used to. Magazines are going under. There are fewer clients and those fewer clients have less revenue because advertisers are disappearing. When that happens, you're competing with many more photographers. That rate gets cut from 4,000 an hour to 1,000 an hour pretty quickly.

I'm not sure who all this pro gear is sold to. I think many well to do hobbyist buy it because they "wannabe" pro and want to be percieved as such. I know some pros buy it, but I also see just as many pros shooting with gear that just gets the job done. When I was shooting in LA, I saw many shooting with the original Canon digital Rebel. Why? because it was getting the job done. I'm sorry but even at $500 a sitting, $8,000 is alot of money for a camera that will be obsolete in 18 months. Technology filters down the line. People shooting with the current Rebel XSI $699 are basically shooting with the old 5DI $2,500 and even older $7,000 1D. It's insane to always be shooting on the cutting edge and doesn't make much business sense IMO. The lesson here is to invest in premium glass, and treat your camera bodies like the disposable obsolete trash that they will soon become. Get the job done, get paid, spend $500 bucks on the next version as the $7,000 highest version trickles down the line.

This isn't the old days when I bought a F1 pro body and kept it because basically there was no significant advancement in tech and 100,000 or more shutter firings was an advantage.
 
i'm a working still photographer and dp, and i do own a recording studio, so i'm in all the businesses discussed. :-)

/matt
 
i used an f90x (n90 in the u.s. i believe) when everybody else were using f5's, it worked just fine at half the price. there has always been a top of the line that i thought was overkill but that found a market. nikon always had cameras in all segments and it's not surprising at all that they continue like that. what's wrong with the d90 for example, as well as all the cheaper as well as more expensive upgrades of the rest of the line that are bound to be released? there will always be a market for the most expensive cameras and while i know a lot of photographers who think it's way too much i know a few who have no problem paying $8,000 just like that.

/matt
 
f64manray said:
It's insane to always be shooting on the cutting edge and doesn't make much business sense IMO
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the keyword/letter being "M". i happen to share your opinion, but that only proves that you're not who's supposed to buy this camera. as for enthusiasts/wannabes i think you are correct they are part of the market, and i also think that for them 8 grand is not too much, it could very well attract them even more.

/matt
 
mattsand said:
the keyword/letter being "M". i happen to share your opinion, but that only proves that you're not who's supposed to buy this camera. as for enthusiasts/wannabes i think you are correct they are part of the market, and i also think that for them 8 grand is not too much, it could very well attract them even more.

/matt
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I agree. The more expensive, the more exclusive the club. But it doesn't have much to do with getting the job done. They certainly may feel like a pro holding that 1DsIII, and that may be worth $7,000 dollars right there.

...And then there's always the pulitzer prize winning photographer (can't remember his name) that dumped his 1DsIII anchors in favor of a so called semi pro hobbyist camera 5D because it was lighter and smaller as he was photgraping troops in the harsh environment of Afghanistan. If anybody needed a rugged sealed pro body, it was that guy shooting in that environment. Even he thought it was just to much camera and not worth the effort.
 
Michael Reichmann is canceling his D3x order

Michael Reichmann is canceling his D3x order

From his website:

http://luminous-landscape.com/whatsnew/

1 Dec, 2008 - Nikon D3 Announced : Pricing Comment Update Added

«It seems to me that at a $3000 premium over the otherwise almost identical D3, and at some $5000 more than the Canon 5D MKII and Sony A900, the pricing of the Nikon (especially in our current crisis economy) is simply out to lunch. A $1,000 premium I could have understood. Maybe even, $1,500. But with only more megapixels on offer I simply find the D3x to be financially out of tune with the realities of today's marketplace.»

You still have more here:

2 Dec, 2008 - Judging Value

«There has been a lot of speculation on this site's forum as well as others as to why I cancelled my Nikon D3x order after learning its price yesterday. Below is a paraphrase of a reply which I posted to our forum earlier today, but which I'll repeat here as well.

(...)

But, even if buying cameras wasn't a business expense, and even if one can afford something, that doesn't mean that it's good value. My late fatherinlaw was financially well off, but he'd drive miles out of his way to buy gas for 2 cents a gallon less than at the station just across the street. When I asked why, his reply was simply that it was the principle of the matter.

That's something of what I feel about the D3x and why I cancelled my order. Yes, I can afford it, but I simply find it not to represent good value. After testing the 24MP Sony A900 (which I purchased for less than the equivalent of US $2,500 here in Toronto last month) the thought of paying US $8,000 for a camera that that has the same resolution, the same frame rates, a similar large and bright viewfinder, etc, just seemed to me to be a bad value proposition. The Canon 5DII at well under $3,000 is another current alternative in a full-frame 20+ MP camera.

With the value represented by the Nikon D700 as compared to the D3, and the Canon 5DII as compared to the 1Ds MKIII, I feel that the days of the mega-pro DSLR are numbered for many photographers. Yes, of course they offer superior AF, weather sealing and maybe a slight edge in image quality, but the price differential is enormous, especially now as the world enters a serious recession, if not worse.

So yes, there will be some that buy the D3x, just as there are still those that buy the wonderful Nikon F5 film camera. Nikon is known for fighting rear-guard actions and doing so well. I'm sure that Nikon will still sell some D3's and D3x's, and Canon some 1DMKIII's and 1DsMKIIIs, but I now believe that the days of these cameras as mainstream are passing, as much lower cost and competent alternatives become available.

That was the reasoning behind the cancellation of my D3x order – simply the acceptance that an era has passed, and that the perceived value wasn't there (for me) at the US $8,000 price point given the current economic and technology environment.»
 
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