Why are cameras so expensive?

>>2885854
If they weren't then even more retards would be able to make stupid shit

Think about this; you have an analog device which counts photons in an interesting way. The more photons hit it, the more power it lets through. Now you have to cram 12~50 million of them on a board. In order to collect color information you need a tiny dye over every one. the color must be relatively exact and consistent. Then you need enough ADCs to sate all of them, and interface them with computers which must decode and process the data from every single one every time a photo is taken. Some of these cameras can do it nearly ten times a second, possibly more if you're spending THAT much.
And we haven't even started talking about the camera yet

>>2885866
Lol!!! The concept of a digital sensor is complicated therefore the camera is expensive!!

Does mass production mean nothing to you? Incredibly complex objects such as camera sensors and CPUs can still be made for incredibly low prices.

>>2885854
Because from a business/profit standpoint, the customers are still willing to buy it at the price you have set it at.

You could argue about companies needing to be fair and just in their practices/pricing, but their entire modus operandi is to make money.

If they could reliably get their customers to spend 10 grand on a single product out of an entire product line, you bet your ass they would set the price at 10 grand. The only factors that really limit their ability to do just that is the fact that there are competitors willing to sell their shit lower. It's the reason why monopolies, while lucrative to a degree, are shitty and unhealthy for a diverse economy in general.

If you get it in your head though that you wouldn't do the same, you're not being honest with yourself. If you could sell someone the same thing for either one thousand or one hundred (and they'd pay either way), which would you choose? The thousand, right? Because who in their right mind would pass up a thousand for a hundred?

>>2885883
What? Isn't complexity a perfect reason for price? A big part of the reason sensors are so expensive are yields and die area. Unlike a cpu, you cant have chunks of an image sensor not work and still have a shippable product. The die size is also a constant cost because it isnt possible to miniaturize a sensor of a given size. Semiconductor prices are largely determined by what portion of a silicon wafer they take up, and sensors are pretty large in that regard.

>>2885883
>Incredibly complex objects such as camera sensors and CPUs can still be made for incredibly low prices.
You're grossly underestimating the upfront costs it takes to design the fabrication processes/facilities involved before a single ic rolls down the line. Sure mass production will lower the prices, but it doesn't automatically make the sensor/cpu dirt cheap. Initial costs for a new components R&D and fabrication systems can be extremely high. Using Intel/AMD as an example, the fab hardware alone for a new facility is in the billions; the same goes for those $100/pill drugs from the biopharma industry although that's mostly R&D. Also consider a huge chunk of that revenue needs to be pumped back into the R&D cycle to begin work on more cutting-edge yet robust components (I imaging you would want high ISO w/ lower noise, right?) or patents to compete with other competitors ever evolving imaging systems. >>2885892 argument also serves to raise prices.

>>2885883
>Does mass production mean nothing to you?
you should look into how much it costs and how much tech is needed to produce integrated circuits such as processors and sensors

>>2885854
Capitalism

>>2885883
>CPUs can still be made for incredibly low prices.

>Doesn't understand cost has A LOT to do with the years of research and design behind complicated products

>>2885854
Wait to China enters in the DSLR market

>>2886001
The typical full-frame sensor costs a few hundred bucks in BoM, and a medium-format sensor like the Sony 33x44 used in the 645Z, Hassy X1D, and various digital backs costs $2000+ iirc. Just the raw chip. It's easily the most expensive part of the camera, and in cheap camera bodies with FF sensors (A7) it can easily represent a good chuck of the price.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that the digital components of the system alone are 80% of the camera's price, or more. If you noticed, there is barely any difference in price between SLRs and mirrorless cameras - a 5DSR costs just $500 more than the A7RII, despite there being considerably more mechanical complexity to a camera that has a mirror, pentaprism, discreet AF and metering modules, and more raw materials for the larger body. Outside of the super high-end, cameras and lenses typically have tight profit margins on them, so you get what you pay for.

>>2885854
Because people are willing to pay.

You can buy a decent point and shoot for under $100.
Even your phone has a perfectly usable camera.

But companies make products for any budget.
If someone want to spend $50k on a camera, someone will make them a $50k camera.

>>2885892
>If they could reliably get their customers to spend 10 grand on a single product out of an entire product line, you bet your ass they would set the price at 10 grand. The only factors that really limit their ability to do just that is the fact that there are competitors willing to sell their shit lower

Competition doesn't drive the prices down.

Competition forces companies to improve their product: it's all about making your $10k camera better than the competitor's $10k camera, not about undercutting them on price.

Price undercutting only happens in budget orientated markets, when consumers look at the price first and the quality second.
With luxury items like camera's, consumers look at the quality first.

>>2885854
>first day at camera store today
>first customer
>sell him a 3rd party super zoom for his rabal
>sell him a $150 uv filter
>sell him a fanny pack practically identical to the one he walked in with, but 2 inches deeper, to fit his now much larger rabal
I am become death.
Where is your god now?

>>2886060
>150 $ for a uv fliter
This is the only part that offends me

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>All these gullible people ITT falling for the Digital Jew

>>2886168
I bought a Rodenstock 72mm thin CPL filter for less and that's pretty high-end. I have no idea what kind of gullible idiot would buy plain clear glass for that money.

>>2885854
A professional FF camera body is like $4k these days.

The real yearly disposable income per capita in the USA is ~42k. A statistically average person can afford 10.5 such camera bodies per year if they just live frugally.

Never mind a non-prol $1k camera body and then a $1k lens an accessory kit and printing expenses and what not every four to six years or whatever is still going to be essentially perfect for most people. So it's actually *even cheaper*.

Of course there is income inequality and all that anyhow, but cameras are not really expensive. You are either just on an income that severely looses in the big money redistribution game, or prefer (/got baited) to spend your money on something else.

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>>2885883
You can fit a whole lot of CPUs on a wafer because the smaller you make them the better. Sensors have to be big, and the bigger they are the better. That means less sensors per wafer and a lower portion of those sensors will be usable. You also can't take a sensor which came out a little bit off and bin it to sell it as a cheaper model, you have to completely trash it. Sensors are an electronic chip but unlike every other type of chip, they can't really benefit from miniaturization.

Also, there's an enormous market for CPUs. The market for image sensors is still huge but a lot smaller. The marker for large sensors (1" or more) is much smaller and only gets smaller with increasing sensor size. For every full frame camera there's probably 10 APS-C cameras, and there's probably a thousand full frame camera for every digital medium format camera.

>>2886190
Hoya 72mm Pro HD bro :^)

>>2886249
>they can't really benefit from miniaturization.
But in a way they can. Sony managed to revolutionize the level of dynamic range a sensor can pull due to on-sensor ADC, which traditionally was a completely separate chip that received analog information from the sensor.
The reason Sony got away with this was via miniature process with which they could actually print circuitry in-between pixels, allowing them to read data immediately while not compromising on pixel size.
This now requires trust in the chip maker to also produce a good ADC, but I think the results speak for themselves.

>>2886244
>real yearly disposable income per capita in the USA is ~42k
>tfw the average yearly income in your country is $6k
Russia stong.

buy the p900 from nikon thats the best and not expensiv

For all that goes into building a modern digital cameras, they are dirt cheap. Thank modern manufacturing tech for making a device that would cost half a million to build by hand costing only couple of hundred.

>>2885854
Cameras are now the cheapest they have ever been.

You don't need that $5000 pro DSLR.

>>2886275
Fairly sure you just described every CMOS sensor ever made.
Not just Sony sensors.

And you're completely missing his point, btw.

>>2886249
I doubt the yields scale like that though.

A small flaw that ruins a CPU won't necessarily ruin an image sensor.
They probably use machines capable of much higher precision than needed, to give them plenty of room for error.

>>2886358
>I doubt the yields scale like that though.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=19&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjelPq22IDOAhVPxCYKHdp2Ahg4ChAWCEkwCA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fultra.pr.erau.edu%2F~jaffem%2Fclasses%2Fcs470%2FMCLperchip.ppt&usg=AFQjCNF1b-SaC6Qq8ebyMMauClF9_rDm7w&sig2=b8LBsZ1s8fFKwLjLgRgA0w&bvm=bv.127521224,d.eWE

>A small flaw that ruins a CPU won't necessarily ruin an image sensor.
Why not? I would be pretty pissed off if my camera took photos with a big black hole in one corner because all the pixels there were ruined by a defect. Have you ever owned a camera that did that?

>They probably use machines capable of much higher precision than needed, to give them plenty of room for error.
If those machines existed, everyone would be using them already because wafers are too expensive to be throwing away a huge portion of them for no damn reason. The problem isn't really precision from the lithography either, it's usually dust or other shit which ends up embedded in the wafer.

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Why are cars so expensive?

I mean you just need to get to point B from A and a Geo can capably do that. Why spend more?

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>>2886341
This. My last three ilcs cost me $200, 250, and 133. And that's progressively better cameras over 5 years

There is actually an international camera group that controls how low the price point of bodies/lenses can go (dead serious)

forget what it's called though

>>2886275

He meant miniaturization in terms of total sensor area, not individual features.

>>2886045
not luxery, pro market.
luxury market is all about making something that people THINK has a higher value, when really it doesn't. case in point rolls royce, they charge 10x the amount the car would be sold at if it was any other maker, that extra cost is all in the brand name.

the pro market you look at quality first, because if you need it, you need it, there's no getting around that need, second is up front price and how long you will be in the red because of the purchase. If the cost isn't worth it, then you go a step down if the quality is still acceptable.

>>2886045
no, even in the pro market competition drives the price down. the issue is a patent can fuck you if you go to competition, or you have to change an entire ecosystem, so you cant just go to the cheaper one (that is better or equal to your current) right away.

look at cameras, the moment you buy a camera body, that will likely be the cheapest thing you buy overall, everything else will likely be proprietary lens and systems that only work with that camera. so instead of moving to another camera that is better+cheaper, you have to ditch what could be 20-30,000$ worth of equipment.

>>2886341
Now that i have a dslr, even though its objectively shit in terms of being a dslr just the best cheap one you can get, i would never go back to a point and shoot.

anything that happens that is a 'oh shit i need a camera' a cellphone has you covered, wish there were more camera phones like that nokia 40~mp one (note, at 40mp the camera wasn't great due to optics, but scale it down to 8mp~ or 3x4 size and its amazeing)

but when you are going somewhere you know you want to take pictures of, a dslr gives you such a better picture. Hell, i took a night shot of the christmas tree this year, many different settings, seeing what would give the best result, that level of control isn't had on point and shoots, and cellphones that give you that still take a shit picture compared to what i got.

not to mention, the ability to auto focus video... fuck me has that seen allot of use too.

>>2885854
just buy a used one on craigslist. either work with a cheap point and shoot or do film conservatively. i love doing film more than anything, developing just costs money. $20 will get you a good slr film camera and with proper care and knowledge you can do some solid shots. fuck high def photos, just train and work hard with what you got. it really does mean something when people say, "the best camera is the one you have on you"

im paraphrasing here

>>2886244
>The real yearly disposable income per capita in the USA is ~42k.
That's a completely pointless figure.

The median household salary in the US is $54k...

You actually think the average American has $42k of annual disposable income?

>>2886379
My dslr has a flaw on the sensor, it is a 20 pixel dot that if light hits it, its white.

i payed 300$ for the camera, any image i get out of the camera is VERY easily shrunk for printing, and the flaw is not noticeable, a small pass in photoshop eliminates the flaw entirely.

personally, if i could get a 3000-5000$ camera for 1000$ because of a flaw, i would take it, because of this, it would also drive the price of the perfect censors down too because you aren't wasting half or more of an entire wafer.

>>2887027
I love film too, however, ease of use, cost, and seeing the pictures right then and there is something im not willing to give up on.

that said, even with a disposable camera, someone who knows what they are doing gets amazing shots, its all personal skill.

>>2887029
This. People forget the 80:20 rule; 80% of people share 20% of the total wages in any given country

>>2885854
Cameras are cheap. Its the lenses that will forever hold their value bro.

>>2886379
>If those machines existed, everyone would be using

No, everybody is using those machines to make chips as small as possible.
.....except image sensor makers.

>>2885854
Because they're state of the art technology, with that comes a lot of money through developing such technology and fabricating it. But I'm guessing the answer you want is "because camera companies are all jewish topkek lels"

>>2886341
>You don't need that $5000 pro DSLR

But I want it.

You're buying a handheld computer that based on the light coming through a hole the size of your thumb, (if not smaller,) will analyze the scene for optimal exposure, and convert some of this to mechanical motion to adjust the lens, all within a split second.