the 3 main parts of why your camera is expensive.

Zachadoodle

Zachadoodle

Well-known member
The reason why a digital camera may cost thousands of dollars has to do mainly with these three main parts and everything else is added onto it. This is obvious to some cinematographers.

*The image processor
*The image sensor
*The CPU in the camera
*And in some cases, the cache

Those parts on top of each other in an array of what makes your camera are what make it expensive. To prove my point notice how your camera is able to input a ton of data going in your camera while also being able to use live view. If it is like 6k or 4k video while in live view, that is a supercomputer of a camera.
 
The sensor.

That is most expensive part. Designing a cinema camera sensor from scratch is tens of millions and two to three years of effort. Whatever the unit cost of the part, you have to pay back that R&D. And even a super popular cinema camera is only selling in the tens of thousands. That is lot of cost per unit to recoup. I bet there are not more than a couple of thousand Venice 2 cameras out there for example.

The other stuff you mention is not so expensive because it does not have the same overhead for R&D. It is just stock components that go in many items.

Why do your posts all seem give off kind of AI vibes?
 
Doug Bee said:
The sensor.

That is most expensive part. Designing a cinema camera sensor from scratch is tens of millions and two to three years of effort. Whatever the unit cost of the part, you have to pay back that R&D. And even a super popular cinema camera is only selling in the tens of thousands. That is lot of cost per unit to recoup. I bet there are not more than a couple of thousand Venice 2 cameras out there for example.

The other stuff you mention is not so expensive because it does not have the same overhead for R&D. It is just stock components that go in many items.

Why do your posts all seem give off kind of AI vibes?
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I'm just kind of weird.
 
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Besides companies like Canon harp on selling the image processor of the unit, for example Digic which is its image processor for most of their cameras that appears on most of their catalogue entries for their cameras. Canon EOS C500 Mark II 5.9K Full-Frame Camera Body 3794C002 B&H (bhphotovideo.com)

And isn't the cpu the workhorse of any form of electronic when it has computer functionality, and because it is shouldn't it be of the highest quality for the unit, for there to be the best efficiency for the camera to function well?
 
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It might be the workhorse but it's a commodity unit. They are ASIC based components.

Components. Stock components.

The specifics of what Canon et al call it and market it as Digic refer to an image processing firmware that is loaded into the COMPONENT.

it's software. Running on the commodity equivalent of a store board dell or HP home computer. That software part is their IP and does have some expense to develop but not anything like what a sensor costs.
 
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Doug Bee said:
You're going to have to be specific.

I can only think of one camera model that has a ND version and a no ND version but everything else is the same features wise.

One is $1995 and the other is $2500, about a 25% difference?



https://www.adorama.com/bmccp6kefg2...BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&utm_source=inc-google-shop-p

https://www.adorama.com/bmccamp6kpr...BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&utm_source=inc-google-shop-p
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Right. FX6 is about $6k and FX3 is about $4k but there are loads of other differences as well
 
Peter C. said:
You're right, it feels like he asked ChatGPT "Why are cameras expensive?" and he wanted to impress us reposting the answer.
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I agree. The CPU is an inexpensive off the shelf unit. The R&D cost in the CPU is born by the CPU company not the camera company. There are other parts that will cost the camera company more than the CPU. eg The design and molds for the plastic case.

So this does appear to be a Chat GPT answer.
 
Camera company often doesn't develop the sensor. For example many companies will use Sony and or just get it from another company. You're mainly paying for their expertise of putting everything together. Same could be said for microphones, mixers, audio recorders etc. They're made for relatively inexpensive electronic components this is how 3rd off brand Chinese manufactures can sell at fractions of the big boys prices.
 
JAMedia said:
I agree. The CPU is an inexpensive off the shelf unit. The R&D cost in the CPU is born by the CPU company not the camera company. There are other parts that will cost the camera company more than the CPU. eg The design and molds for the plastic case.

So this does appear to be a Chat GPT answer.
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Bruh, I'm not a robot.
 
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Zachadoodle said:
Bruh, I'm not a robot. I'm not even so sure robots would wake up erroneously at 8 am in the morning to drink a redneck cocktail of spiked mountain dew with whiskey.
Unless you're Bender:.
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Well it looks like an auto generated post.
The CPU is an off the shelf item
The Sensor and GPU are usually off the shelf, too, except for higher end cameras.
As for "And in some cases, the cache" I am not sure what planet you are on, but that is never expensive. Unless it is being designed on to the CPU/GPU die.

The most expensive parts to develop for a modern video camera are the plastic cases because that is done in house by the camera maker. As you go up the food chain to the highest end cameras, the Sensors become a bit more custom, as does the image processor. However, these tend to be developed by specialist companies, not the camera developers themselves. Where the camera company does develop them, they get used across multiple cameras, again bringing down the cost per camera design.
 
Across most industries a large factor is competition or lack there of. For example my refrigerator could use a new door gasket that's made out of inexpensive materials (plastic and magnet) and is easy to manufacture. No real IP costs either. The fridge door gasket is $380 and freezer door $220, that's roughly 1/2 the price of a brand new refrigerator for two plastic parts. The manufacture can charge that because it's a specialized part that only they make. Now I found a 3rd party that sells if for much less but they still charge a lot because they're going to base their price off the oem, not what it actually costs.

Back to cameras what's most important is the level of competition and the incentive to compete on price. If the market has determined that x amount is what people are willing to pay for a certain camera the true price to manufacture it isn't that important. So if the price of internal components get less expensive why would camera manufactures want to lower their prices. It's not like the end consumer would be privy to the manufactures costs.
 
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Peter C. said:
If the market has determined that x amount is what people are will to pay for a certain camera the true price to manufacture it isn't that important. So if the price of internal components get less expensive why would camera manufactures want to lower their prices. It's not like the end consumer would be privy to the manufactures costs.
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It isn't the BoM as much as the NRE. Or to put it in English you have the Non-Recurring costs. The R&D costs that are huge and you have to set against the expected sales. Then you have the recurring costs which is the cost of building. Partly the cost of the components and the cost of assembly. The cost of components will vary, it isn't fixed. It will depend on the quantity you want (And to some extent what other people want) SO the costs can go up and down over the life of production. However where possible a camera manufacturer will try and use the same components across multiple products.

Then... you get the rest of it. manuals, documentation, videos, (all in multiple languages) launch PR and advertising.... sales stuff to go out to distributors. Most of this is an on-going cost. A lot pre-launch, a LOT on launch and then ongoing.

Of course you now have updates to firmware so R&D doesn't stop dead. (it usually moves on to the next model anyway)

In all that the cost of the CPU, Sensor and GPU are small parts. Most have no large upfront cost. Unless, for the high end cameras the Camera maker wants a semi custom sensor. The CPU's though will be off the shelf. As for cache... never seen that as an expensive item.
 
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