Don't you also need a special lens in a special electronic shutter too?
Printable View
Don't you also need a special lens in a special electronic shutter too?
As long as they are still available (which they always will be), and you like yours, why worry? Now with digital you can get some great MF systems real cheap. Check E-Bay and see the prices.
I don't think anyone should pay attention to price. I just replaced a $600 first generation DVD with a $69 DVD from Target. That's a 1:10 price differential in just a few years.
It is very easy to say "Well at $25-thousand dollars, this technology will not really have an impact". It will be $10-thousand next year, and $5-thousand the following year, and $1000 the year that a $25,000 single shot, high-speed 4x5 digital back is introduced, which is just four years before it comes down to $1000, which will be the same year that the 8x10 back....
And on and on, faster and faster every year. Don't be fooled by high prices.
dgh
</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (David Hall @ Mar 3 2003, 03:20 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I don't think anyone should pay attention to price. I just replaced a $600 first generation DVD with a $69 DVD from Target. That's a 1:10 price differential in just a few years.
It is very easy to say "Well at $25-thousand dollars, this technology will not really have an impact". It will be $10-thousand next year, and $5-thousand the following year, and $1000 the year that a $25,000 single shot, high-speed 4x5 digital back is introduced, which is just four years before it comes down to $1000, which will be the same year that the 8x10 back....
And on and on, faster and faster every year. Don't be fooled by high prices.
dgh </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Hey you... quit makin' sense!
So how many 4x5 backs will your local mall sell?-)) Never mind things like consumer DVD players. The volume isn't just different it's massively different.
I hear you (well, read you) Robert, but I see the same thing in other areas of niche technology. A Mac work station to do sound production was $25k just a few years ago, now it's less than $2k. There are probably more radio station and recording studio production managers than there are 4x5 shooters, but they're more or less in the same ballpark. TV cameras, the ones TV news crews use, used to be $100k just about five years ago. Now a good digital Canon is what...maybe $10k at the most? That would make for a value decreasing twice as fast as those mass marketed consumer DVD players at Target.
dgh
Steve:
Nope, you'd just use it on the standard camera and lens. They've even got an adapter to attach the back to an RB/RZ setup. For LF, it's just a filmholder with a SCSI port on the top.
</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (docholliday @ Mar 3 2003, 10:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Nope, you'd just use it on the standard camera and lens. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
OK, that sounds smart at least (probably a one-shot back). I had thought you needed an electronic shutter to synchronize with the back (is that only for multipass scanning backs?). The statement about prices eventually coming down is true. It all boils down to tooling/manufacturing costs and quantities. The more of somethng you make and sell, the cheaper you can price it once you recoup the intial startup money. That's why the first run of anything costs a mint.
Yes, I agree with what everyone is stating. "Economy of Scale" is definitely a consideration of every product ever produced. The question that then arises, in the case of MF, does "Sufficient Scale" actually exist? I think that as one moves up in format size "Scale" decreases proportionately. There are fewer MF shooters then there are 35 mm and still fewer LF and ULF shooters then the formats beneath them in size. For this decreasing market base, I do not foresee the rapid price decline that one would find in items of great mass demand such as video and music players. Certainly, I can see that MF will probably be affected by advances in technology. I do not see it as a vanishing format, however.
I'd think the best comparison would be to look at current large format cameras. If you can sell a camera which isn't much more advanced then anything produced 50 years ago for a fairly hefty chunk of change then why would any one sell something like a fancy digital back for give away prices?