Canon announces price increases beginning May 1.

Roger

Roger

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http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/conten ... -9309-9419

I was expecting this, but I wasn't expecting someone to actually send Rob G. a copy of the actual letter! And at this point I doubt there will be any rebates in 2008 except maybe for the old models they want to clear out of inventory, but that too is in doubt if you believe that they've already stopped producing the 5D.
 
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Beat me to it. I just found out about it yesterday.. as I was seriously thinking about getting a new Canon lens.

B&H has sold out of both grey market and US versions of the lens I wanted. I have yet to check with a local place that may have some at slightly higher prices but with undeniable local convenience. Plus quick and easy returns if I get a lemon.

I guess I can learn to accept the increase on the lenses, but their accessories are so outrageously overpriced as is that further inflating their prices is just an insult.

But then there's always cheap Chinese knockoffs on Ebay, right?
 
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Interesting business strategy - if you're losing market share to Nikon and not putting out many innovative, new cameras, just increase your prices.
 
I think it's mostly due to the collapsing dollar. The dollar is down 10-15% on the yen since the end of 2005, and almost 30% since 2002! I'm sure Nikon will be doing the same soon enough.

Then again, Nikon is ramping up production of the Sendai plant (currently only making the D3) from 140k units/yr to 500k/yr, so economies of scale may be working there....
 
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"Roger" said:
I think it's mostly due to the collapsing dollar.
Click to expand...

I agree. It is only a matter of time before the rest of the manufacturers do the same.

Dan, I agree that accessories are way overpriced. Its the same with Nikon too. I want to get the Nikon SD-8a battery pack for the SB-800 flash, but I can't justify a $139 for what amounts to a plastic box with a wire coming out of it. Then you've got to buy NiMH batteries to put in it. They've got to be making $100-$120 profit on that.
 
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Suddenly I'm not feeling so bad about my spending spree last year, and my decision to say screw it and jump to the 5D even though there were rumours about a successor flying about.
 
Wow...those Canon white lens hoods must be made out of woven carbon fiber imported from volcanic carbon deposits at Reunion Island and bonded with a special resin from a rare African tree that grows only in a narrow band of the Ethiopian highlands. :o

At least that helps explain why the woman two weekends ago was extremely upset and very hard to talk down.

I was shooting in the wetlands, and a woman who stopped to talk about a bird we were looking at had a Canon something-or-other DSLR with a nice white (big) 400mm lens. We both held out our lenses over the water from a boardwalk pathway over the swamp (my Tamron 200-500 has a huge lens hood too), at about a 35 degree downangle. I zoomed in and focused, and she zoomed in and made a swish-plop! noise. She let out a gasping yelp like someone stepped on her foot, and I noticed her lens looked a whole lot shorter. Not only that, but neat concentric ripples were arching out from beneath her...while the bird I wanted to shoot was now flying away in fear. I guess the hood wasn't locked down right...and it just went right off the end of her lens and into the nice black alligator-ridden swamp.

I tried to console her with the usual 'at least it was just a hood'...not realizing the sucker costs $500-600! She wasn't getting any more relieved either...so I take it she knew what they cost. She wasn't even from around town, and asked where any used camera stores might be - I told her of the only one I knew in the area, about 10 miles away. She marched off - her photo day over - as in the bright Florida sun she didn't have much hope of shooting without it.

I'm thinking of making some kind of tether system for the lens hood, as insurance...even just something like a string that can neck around the lens and attach to a velcro tab or something. Though fortunately my Tamron's huge lens hood appears to be made out of plain-old plastic, and my lens itself only cost 1 3/4 Canon lens hoods!
 
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Hehe, oh boy I'm feeling smug now. The telephoto I'm looking at getting is the 400mm F5.6, the budget (sort of) 400.

The smugness comes from the fact that the 400 F5.6 has a built in lens hood. You slide it out to use it, and slide it back around the lens to make the lens more compact. I'm sure it COULD break off, but it has to be designed so that it won't normally pop off. On the other hand if it did break then replacing it might require repairs by Canon.

Roger:

I had a whole rant on what a ridiculous price that was until I did a little reading on the unit (for a completely different reason, I wanted to know why it had a sync connector). It appears that the unit is more than just a battery box and some wires, supposedly it supplies high voltage (330V) to the flash and charges the capacitor directly. So it's a battery holder and a higher current power supply able to handle more wattage than the unit inside the flash. I'm sure it still costs much less to manufacture than they're selling it for, but it's not quite the obscene margin that it might appear at first glance.
 
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