Heres the facts- Sony bought out Konica-Minolta a while back. Then when sony finally put out a dSLR, they made it compatible with all minolta autofocus lenses. Sony also makes lenses now, and has a fair selection for being relatively new to the SLR business. Some of the lenses are zeiss, but by far, not all. The problem i see so far in sony's business model though, is that they charge too much for pretty much everything. A Sony 70-200mm f2.8 sells for $1899 while the same lens made by canon sells for $1,140. its the same story with a lot of accessories as well. There are companies such as Sigma who make lenses for the sony/minolta mount but they usually arent as high quality as stuff made by the camera maker and they dont have thier full selection available in that mount. The A700 has a similar feature set to the canon 40d. 2 more megapixels than the 40d, in body stabilization, no live-view, and they're charging more than the 40d. In order to compete, sony needs to compete in prices as well as features and quality.
I'd agree that almost everything Sony makes is overpriced, but as a business model it does work because profit margins are much higher. You can look at every product they make and find that you pay more for the name then you would another company’s product for the same features.
Play station 3 (to some extent), Point and Shoot cameras, memory cards, computers, cell phones, music players, etc. I personally often find the increase to be worth it, but not always. Since they aren’t trying to become as large as cannon or Nikon they really don't have any reason to reduce prices if they are currently profiting.
P.S. While Sony's lenses and DSRL are extensive, I find them to be create products and if I was in the market I would be very tempted to shell out the extra cash to pick one up over its competitors. You can look at other premium brands (Apple anyone?) They charge far more for their products then competitors yet they are growing at a disturbing rate. Sony uses the same system and when the economy is up, it works, when its down, sometimes it doesn’t.
yeah, i suppose i agree with that, but it seems like sony WANTS to be a big player in the dSLR market by the number of cameras they have out/are planning on making in the next year or two, but the problem is, even though i went with the sony alpha, (partially becasue i had some minolta lenses laying around) i always feel like i maybe should have gone with canon because of their prices, and the fact that the alpha a100's noise levels are on the brink of unacceptable at high ISOs. I think you could probably get a camera of equal or better quality if you bought canon over sony, and you'd end up saving some money in the process. I love my camera but theres always the second guessing that happens after you pay THAT much for something...
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Heres the facts-
Sony bought out Konica-Minolta a while back. Then when sony finally put out a dSLR, they made it compatible with all minolta autofocus lenses. Sony also makes lenses now, and has a fair selection for being relatively new to the SLR business. Some of the lenses are zeiss, but by far, not all. The problem i see so far in sony's business model though, is that they charge too much for pretty much everything. A Sony 70-200mm f2.8 sells for $1899 while the same lens made by canon sells for $1,140. its the same story with a lot of accessories as well. There are companies such as Sigma who make lenses for the sony/minolta mount but they usually arent as high quality as stuff made by the camera maker and they dont have thier full selection available in that mount. The A700 has a similar feature set to the canon 40d. 2 more megapixels than the 40d, in body stabilization, no live-view, and they're charging more than the 40d. In order to compete, sony needs to compete in prices as well as features and quality.
I'd agree that almost everything Sony makes is overpriced, but as a business model it does work because profit margins are much higher. You can look at every product they make and find that you pay more for the name then you would another company’s product for the same features.
Play station 3 (to some extent), Point and Shoot cameras, memory cards, computers, cell phones, music players, etc. I personally often find the increase to be worth it, but not always. Since they aren’t trying to become as large as cannon or Nikon they really don't have any reason to reduce prices if they are currently profiting.
P.S. While Sony's lenses and DSRL are extensive, I find them to be create products and if I was in the market I would be very tempted to shell out the extra cash to pick one up over its competitors. You can look at other premium brands (Apple anyone?) They charge far more for their products then competitors yet they are growing at a disturbing rate. Sony uses the same system and when the economy is up, it works, when its down, sometimes it doesn’t.
yeah, i suppose i agree with that, but it seems like sony WANTS to be a big player in the dSLR market by the number of cameras they have out/are planning on making in the next year or two, but the problem is, even though i went with the sony alpha, (partially becasue i had some minolta lenses laying around) i always feel like i maybe should have gone with canon because of their prices, and the fact that the alpha a100's noise levels are on the brink of unacceptable at high ISOs. I think you could probably get a camera of equal or better quality if you bought canon over sony, and you'd end up saving some money in the process. I love my camera but theres always the second guessing that happens after you pay THAT much for something...