SHAME on you Sony!

The new pricing requires you send your camera into service and have the S-Log permanently installed. How much is that worth, to be out of your camera for a week or who knows how long?
 
not to sound trite, but sony is sony. and yes, that can mean they're on the other team. i had an on-going issue with them in the past and as angry as i was that they could just say, "tough luck, buddy," the truth is i had no recourse. what's worse, i knew i would be buying more sony products.

i'd feel burned, too. but don't kid yourself about who you're buying from. you got what you paid for, and it works. it could be worse.
 
Running a small business I look at it like this:

Early Adopters get the hot new tech and form relationships with their gear before everyone else.
Late Adopters get a product with most of the bugs worked out at a bargain but may not be able to get their foot in the door because the work went to the early adopters.
It's also more difficult to earn your money back as a Late Adopter because by this time rental prices have dropped off in favor of newer technology.

imho
 
If you need it, but it. Chances are that if you're shooting something that REQUIRES S-LOG, it should pay for itslf after that one job. Having said that, Sony is Sony, and technology is technology. Sony will always cripple otherwise capable products in order to extract as much money from you as possible, and today's technology will almost always be inferior to the stuff that'll be out next year.

In order for the F3 to remain relevant against the C300, they had to do it...now if only they bumped up the internal codec.....
 
petemack said:
This is simply NOT a case of selling last years cars off the lot. There is NO product to replace it and it is not a subjective debate. We're talking about a $3,000 price swing over-night for the SAME product that was only just released in the end of 2011 and has been heavily marketed as the key to unlocking this camera. I know they gouged me when I bought the upgrade. It really has no material value. It costs them nothing, but an SxS card. But it's because of early adopters like us that technologies like this become main stream. Screwing your clients (particularly your early adopters) is bad business anyway you slice it. Try charging a client 40k for the SAME project you charge another client 10k and we'll see how long you stay in business before you get run out of town. For those of you who now have the opportunity to get S-Log cheap, I am stoked for you - it's awesome. I have no gripe with you. But remember that we are the consumers here and Sony is the corporation, so don't forget which team your on. In the mean time, indulge me while I blow off a little steam in Sony's direction. Maybe they'll hear me and float me the new beta S-Hog technology I heard they are releasing at NAB.
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+1

Maybe they can give the people that paid full price on S-Log a firmware update that records 50 Mbps 4.2.2. Internally the camera can handle the data rate, as can the SxS card. I can dream...
 
Duke, you basically have an Alexa camera when you shoot f3 with s log. Early adopters take risks. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't. You should only buy if you are willing to gamble on this knowledge.
 
I predicted this would happen back on these pages a few months ago when sLog came out and held off occordingly. That doesn't mean I approve of Sony's handling of this though. There should be some kind of rebate.

My own guess has always been that Sony thought sLog was a minor deal compared to 444 and just bundled it in - the cost really being for the 444 engineering and that eventually they would give away what is nothing more than a gamma setting. They were probably surprised to see that sLog was so popular.

Incidently is the $899 upgrade only for 422 sLog? If so then I'm sure I was right.
 
There was a thread about people who put money down for full DaVinci Resolve suites, only to find it become 'freeware' a couple of months later (their whole marketing strategy was built upon their exclusive and expensive software suite)....

Hell, everyone knew the original price for Slog was ridiculous for the software it was. Sony has been crippling its cameras for too long. It took Canon C300 (with a proper broadcast standard codec) to shake them up. The F4 will have it inbuilt as standard.

Ultimately the consumer wins.
 
Sony/Abel Update

Sony/Abel Update

fyi - I filed a complaint with Sony and just talked with AbelCine as well to see if we can get any deals besides a useless 13k zoom or their high priced recorder. Abel guys were very cool. They really got hung out to dry as well and are working on a solution. We'll see what happens. It's an odd situation in that Sony created value for this technology, let Abel market it and then pulled the rug out on everybody. For me it's not really about the money, but more about the principle. Back to work.
 
I'm old enough to remember (mid nineties) when Sony first launched the DVW-700 Digibeta at £50,000 + in the UK. Within a year it was selling for around £10,000 less and the original purchasers had lost out big time. Nothing new in this business... price of being an early adopter?
 
I bought the Sony VX1000 3CCD version when it came out for like $5000. I was only in my twenties and DAMN that was a lot of money. How do you think I felt with everything else that came out from that point afterwards?

:S
 
Erik Naso said:
+1 I would be very cautious to give them more money until you see whats coming next very soon.
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Nothing is free, they will charge $899 forever to get those of us who already own F3's and want it, and later, likely after March Sony will offer $899 rebate for new F3 purchases. It can never be 'free'.
 
Barry_Green said:
I can see you're mad, but -- I mean, seriously, what are they supposed to do -- sit on a product that isn't selling, to "protect" you?

They didn't drop the price because they were selling out as many as they could make, obviously. They grossly overpriced the product, and very few people (apparently) bought it, so they re-evaluated and came up with a plan they think will work. And instead of just saying "too bad, you lose", they at least made some offers to their prior customers.

If you want to say "shame on you, Sony" for something, look at the way they handled the PD150. They put out a "pro" product with lousy hissy audio, then when people complained they issued a fix -- and CHARGED the end customer $150 to repair their defective camera. That was shameful. Here, they didn't screw anyone over, they released a product at a price point that you apparently found good value for the money (i.e., they charged $3700 for it and you said "I believe that is worth it, hence I will pay it"). They didn't rip you off, you accepted their deal and paid their price.

Apparently very few other people did, so now they have a choice: go out of business by offering a product nobody wants at a price nobody will pay, or respond to market realities by repricing the product at a point where people will pay it. You're a businessman, which would you do?

Say you rented your F3 out to IBM for a corporate shoot for $600/day. And the next week someone else moved to town and started offering F3 rentals for $350/day. What would you do? Would you insist on charging $600/day, even though nobody would pay it, they'd all rent from the other guy? I doubt it. You'd grumble and gripe but you'd cut your price to $350. And then what -- should your IBM client call you up and say "SHAME ON YOU, DUKE M, you overcharged us and now you should refund us all that money?"

Some how I doubt you'd do that. I think you'd say the same thing I am -- "hey, you made a deal, you thought it was a good deal, I did my part, you did your part, the check's cashed, let's move on."

How furious should Red One owners be, spending $40k on their camera packages, and finding that there's so many of them flooding the market that people are charging $200/day for a complete kit? Should they be saying "shame on you, Red, for selling so many cameras to clueless operators who have no business buying them?"

I bought an AF100. A couple months later they started giving away free 14-140 lenses with it, an $800 value. I missed out on that deal. Was I mad? Not really. I wish I would have gotten that free product, but I didn't, I got what I paid for, I can't really complain about it. Recently I bought another AF100, and a month later they started giving away a free $500 American Express rebate card with it. I didn't get that either. Was I mad? Not really; I mean, I can curse my timing, I guess, but in the end I needed the product, bought it, used it, and moved on.

Simple raw hard fact: technology will advance, prices will drop. How furious are you going to be when the F3's successor is announced? Because it will be. And it will be substantially improved over your current camera, and it will cost less than your current camera. Just like your F3 is substantially advanced over and substantially cheaper than the $100,000 F900. That happens. It will happen again. And again and again and again. Today's $16,000 C300 buyers are going to be apoplectic when Canon introduces a $6,000 C100 within a year, with the same sensor and the same image quality. But it happens. It will happen again and again. The windows between product introductions and price drops are growing shorter and shorter. If you can't make your money back in the ever-shrinking window of time you're allotted, you should reconsider whether you should be playing this game, because it's only going to accelerate.
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Yep. I gotta agree with Barry on this one. In fact....this move on Sony's part really should "vindicate" the opinions of some. It seems that some folks really thought that this feature was over priced (not that it isn't the BOMB)....just that it was over priced. And now, in the fashion that Barry and others (myself included), due to lack of sales (I'm guessing here, maybe it was out of the kindness of their hearts, who knows, lol) Sony had to drastically cut the price to hopefully inspire sales.

In fact, I'm only hoping that this exact same thing happens to Canon on the C300. I like what I see, and I know that there are MANY folks willing to pay 16K. It's my personal opinion that it is simply over priced for its feature set. Now....the best thing about our current system is this: We will certainly find out! Maybe I'm wrong.....maybe you'll be saying "Shame on you Canon" in about 15 months. :) No disrespect. Sincere compassion. Cheers!
 
I think "irked" in a big way is the key word for me. I had serious reservations about paying out the money in the first place, one because it's just a KEY...and two, because I thought something like this just might happen. But I paid the money, warily.

And now this. Fine. Barry's right, these things happen. But the timeline is terribly short on it this time, to the tune of 3 months for me. Irked. Not burning pitchforks.

In addition, the minor hubris of $2500 off big ticket times of their choosing still benefits Sony North America, not ME.

Give me $2500 off any Sony Broadcast item and I think we'd be square. I might like a 24" OLED to go with my 17.
 
For me it was about 6 weeks between purchase and the price drop. Usually you want to amortize equipment over time. (That's what the IRS requires anyway.) I had enough time to shoot one feature. One. If the flood gates are now open and nearly everyone has S-Log we won't get much of a premium for having it. It wil be expected that we will provide it. Eventually they probably will include S-Log in the sale price of the camera. I hope not soon.

I realize that with it Sony keeps the F3 ahead of the C300 and Scarlet in dynamic range as a salable feature. And I don't begrudge them the strategy to sell more cameras. It was the extreme cut and short period of time that kills it for prior purchasers.

They could have, should have, offered a usable deal to early buyers. Something like $1,000 off any Sony product for people that bought S-Log between two dates. I would buy a new monitor rather quickly and pay the difference.
 
Hey Barry -- if you think the '150 was bad, you should look at the history of the DSR-200. A lot of people (myself included) took a real bath on that one....
 
Why not contact Sony directly and let them know you feel taken advantage of, and that you think other rebates are in order? I mean, what's the worst that could happen - they say no? Then you're no worse off, right?

Sony has been unusually responsive and proactive with the f3 and fs100. Maybe they would be open to a constructive dialogue with their disenfranchised customers?
 
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