On 1/01/07 4:40 PM, "Digital Image Studio", <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> There was an interview article with Nikon on FF subject. Among other things >> they said, they have been observing Canon 5D sales for a while but it never >> went beyond 5% of total DSLR sales. FF sensor cost in case of 5D is still >> over 6 times that of APS-C. Nikon says that they are always watching the >> market demand but for now, they do not see FF cameras being popular. In the >> meantime, DX lenses (their DA equivalent) are becoming ever popular and >> settling almost as default DSLR format. >> Despite some speculations that their F mount is too small for FF DSLR, that >> is a myth. They have sufficient margin left for FF digital lenses. > > If you want to talk numbers, then if the above is correct (total DSLR > sales) Canon is selling half the number of 5Ds than Pentax sells DSLRs > in total. And even if you really meant to write total Canon DSLR sales > the numbers for 5D sales are still significant and given that Canons > estimated profit per unit is four times that of Pentax they are making > relatively good money on each sale. Guess why they sell FF DSLRs then. I was just passing Nikon's current views on FF, but I remember they said that the current world wide sales of 5D (per month) is something like 10,000 to 12,000 units. Obviously, Nikon views this not significant to venture into at this point. Kodak completely withdrew from 14n venture and so far nobody but Canon is playing this game. They were also talking about some specific number of APS sensor yield and FF size sensor per 300mm wafer and the difference is still huge (I should have saved the article as it discussed pros and cons of FF vs APS in quite a detail). As someone else said, if sensor cost comes down sufficiently and if everybody else started offering FF, then I am sure Pentax would do the same. Reduce image circle lenses could still be usable on FF, if it ever happens, by automatic crop mode when DX/DA lenses are attached to FF bodies (Nikon said it would be one of good ideas). Meantime, the way Nikon was talking about 5D was as if Canon was acting as a guinea pig, giving them yardstick to measure the market response/maturity. I do not know if your assumption of profit level of 5D and K10D is true or not. Did they reveal their profit level somewhere? And I do not think K10/100D are selling because of deliberately low price Pentax set. If anything, they would be the last one to go for the thin margin. Reading some recent articles, they did make a lot of effort to squeeze as many useful features as possible into K10/100D while shaving cost off here and there. It is still sub $1,000 camera and they still did not anticipate the overwhelming market response (i.e., miscalculated :-). So, I would applaud their effort and ability to offer these models at that price level. Re FF, still too much speculation. Ken -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
