[texandrews]

Folks in Pentax land have been discussing entry level cameras for a while, so here's what a giant is doing:
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/cheap-cameras-and-printers-are-a-thi...ast-says-canon

[Wasp]

Interesting news. I suppose this has been coming for a while, but it is still a bit of a shock. The thing is, with a smaller market the numbers at the low end do not add up.

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/the-average-camera-price-has-tripled...-years-but-why

That said, the experience of picking up and handling the likes of a Canon EOS 4000D in the shops has been very underwhelming for me. The thought of spending what is a tidy sum of money on something so plasticky is rather depressing,

[reh321]

Interesting news. I suppose this has been coming for a while, but it is still a bit of a shock. The thing is, with a smaller market the numbers at the low end do not add up.

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/the-average-camera-price-has-tripled...-years-but-why

That said, the experience of picking up and handling the likes of a Canon EOS 4000D in the shops has been very underwhelming for me. The thought of spending what is a tidy sum of money on something so plasticky is rather depressing,

Pentaxians use “plastic” as a negative term.
‘Space age’ materials can be light while being strong.
That is a positive to me.

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

Pentaxians use “plastic” as a negative term.
‘Space age’ materials can be light while being strong.
That is a positive to me.

People Put too much into how the camera is manufactured If we look at the most critical connection between the lens of the Pentax camera bodies and the sensor for all but the 645z and the 645d are all made of plastic. and all of the load from the lens to camera's body is done thru a plastic box

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Last edited by Ian Stuart Forsyth; 11-27-2022 at 03:58 PM.

[luftfluss]

Mkes sense. Let older midrange products trickle down to "entry level" at $800 or so.

[Wasp]

Pentaxians use “plastic” as a negative term.
‘Space age’ materials can be light while being strong.
That is a positive to me.

The plastic lens mount is a real deal breaker. It does not inspire confidence and looks like it will wear out if you change lenses a lot. I have also seen reports that the plastic mirror boxes do not last. More upmarket Canons do not have these problems. The only conclusion is that the plastic keeps the cost down. The light weight is quite disconcerting when compared to say an EOS 77D (or - heaven forbid - a Pentax K10D).

Do check out an EOS 2000D or EOS 4000D and draw your own conclusions - before they are all gone...

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

I have also seen reports that the plastic mirror boxes do not last.

Has the K10d lasted ? It has a plastic mirror box as is the K20d K7 K5 K3 K3II K1 K1 II

[Wheatfield]

The plastic lens mount is a real deal breaker. It does not inspire confidence and looks like it will wear out if you change lenses a lot. I have also seen reports that the plastic mirror boxes do not last. More upmarket Canons do not have these problems. The only conclusion is that the plastic keeps the cost down. The light weight is quite disconcerting when compared to say an EOS 77D (or - heaven forbid - a Pentax K10D).

Do check out an EOS 2000D or EOS 4000D and draw your own conclusions - before they are all gone...

Plastic lens mounts were only put on the lowest of the low end cameras. That user tends to not be a daily user, more likely a seasonal user, and is a shooter who tends to not do a lot of lens changes. The person who only uses the camera to photograph their kids playing seasonal sports probably has their 80-300 pretty much glued to their camera,
If a plastic lens mount is a deal breaker, you aren't the intended buyer.
Same with plastic mirror boxes. Do they wear out faster? I don't know. Presuming they do, again the camera that has it is not marketed to a heavy a heavy user, so it doesn't matter so much what the wear on it is.

Using plastics rather than metal is certainly there to lower production costs, and those savings allowed the manufacturer to put out a low end camera that was full featured and worked well for a mass market. Because they expect to sell boatloads of these cameras, they are willing to drop margins to sell them. If nothing else, competition from other manufacturers will force a lower margin to make the sale.
That's called the race to the bottom, with cost cutting allowing lower prices, which means more cost cutting to stay competitive, and on and on to where we are today with cameras made from just about the cheapest materials available that will do a semblance of the job they are expected to do.

Try hanging a heavy lens unsupported off a cheap Rebel compared to an EOS1. Check how much the body flexes. It's an extreme but educational comparison.

The mass market is definitely imploding, so these low end cameras no longer make sense to keep in the lineup. My sense is that manufacturers will all go away from budget cameras entirely, and all that will be left is midrange cameras in the US$2k range up to very expensive cameras.

[reh321]

Plastic lens mounts were only put on the lowest of the low end cameras. That user tends to not be a daily user, more likely a seasonal user, and is a shooter who tends to not do a lot of lens changes. The person who only uses the camera to photograph their kids playing seasonal sports probably has their 80-300 pretty much glued to their camera,
If a plastic lens mount is a deal breaker, you aren't the intended buyer.
Same with plastic mirror boxes. Do they wear out faster? I don't know. Presuming they do, again the camera that has it is not marketed to a heavy a heavy user, so it doesn't matter so much what the wear on it is.

Using plastics rather than metal is certainly there to lower production costs, and those savings allowed the manufacturer to put out a low end camera that was full featured and worked well for a mass market. Because they expect to sell boatloads of these cameras, they are willing to drop margins to sell them. If nothing else, competition from other manufacturers will force a lower margin to make the sale.
That's called the race to the bottom, with cost cutting allowing lower prices, which means more cost cutting to stay competitive, and on and on to where we are today with cameras made from just about the cheapest materials available that will do a semblance of the job they are expected to do.

Try hanging a heavy lens unsupported off a cheap Rebel compared to an EOS1. Check how much the body flexes. It's an extreme but educational comparison.

The mass market is definitely imploding, so these low end cameras no longer make sense to keep in the lineup. My sense is that manufacturers will all go away from budget cameras entirely, and all that will be left is midrange cameras in the US$2k range up to very expensive cameras.

I was a Canon user for twenty years - three cameras {one film and two Digital Rebels}. I still have the film camera - the Digital Rebels ended up in the dump related to processor failures. The film camera had a metal lens mount - I don’t recall a plastic mount amongst the Digital Rebels. Of the lenses, my 50mm lens had a plastic mount, and worked fine. I remember “space age” materials being used in parts where weight was more important than strength. In twenty years {of year-round - not “seasonal” use}, I never had a failure related to structural integrity. I think the discussion about materials is basically dumb.

[Rondec]

Has the K10d lasted ? It has a plastic mirror box as is the K20d K7 K5 K3 K3II K1 K1 II

I suppose you are joking, but my experience with flagship Pentax cameras has been generally good. The biggest issue with the K-10 was that it didn't have a focus adjustment for lenses which later camera bodies included. It wasn't great at high iso, but its low iso images were extremely nice.

[Serkevan]

Has the K10d lasted ? It has a plastic mirror box as is the K20d K7 K5 K3 K3II K1 K1 II

Not all plastic is created equal at the same expense

[normhead]

At Lensrentals, they showed no difference in practical use between plastic and metal mounts. The biggest difference they found, was in damaged lenses, the plastic mounts are much cheaper to repair. After a drop, usually a plastic mount lens only needs the mount repaired. Metal mounts often damage the part the mount attaches to may need repairs to the camera.

I don't have a horse in this race, I don't care what the mount is made of. I use lens rentals opinion because he actually sees a lot, buys a lot, and repairs a lot of lenses. I'm not sure how the opinion of someone without that kind of experience would be relevant. Always use the best information from the most reliable source.

Lens rentals found no difference in performance. I'm not sure where that information came from. They also noted there may be high-grade plastic parts on some very expensive lenses. Assuming that metal has characteristics that can't be matched by a high grade plastic, needs an engineered evaluation. Opinions from people who have no experience with materials testing are at best anecdotal.

I scratched my head a few years ago, when someone on another forum, a Canon user returned a very costly lens because it came some plastic parts. Otherwise she was quite happy with the lens. That's when anti-plastic bias ends up negatively impacting your experience.

Lens materials should be evaluated on their physical characteristics, and their suitability for the tasks at hand. Without some method of testing appropriateness, it's not something you can blindly assess with confidence, at least my confidence. Others have different standards of course, like "may dad said so" or "some really good photographer said so." I've never seen science brought to the issue. Just opinion formed before modern plastics. But I'm absolutely confident, when an engineer determines plastic will be the best for the purpose, they have a lot more information than I ever will.

I sometimes think opinions like this are done to make the idea holders life easier. By arbitrarily cutting down the amount of information to be considered, decisions become easier. They may not be the correct decision practically, but considering fewer option makes the decisions easier. And most people's assumption about how much plastic is in their lenses, are wrong.

Cost isn't the issue. I guess they could use gold for camera parts... but would that actually make a more durable camera? Definitely not. When legacy opinions are impacted by developments in manufacturing, like the development of high strength high performance plastics, things need to be re-evaluated.

My FA 35-80-probably 20 years old now has a plastic mount. As far as I can tell, it still functions perfectly. You can't say a metal mount would be better if it does it's still doing job. And it still functions perfectly. Because the designer picked a material that was appropriate for the intended use.

Now if anyone has an engineer's perspective on the characteristics of the plastic and metals used in lenses and where each might be used appropriately, that would be good reading.

[Bob 256]

Plastic has its positives and negatives. When I first started 3D printing, I didn't take the final products seriously but have since made lens mounts that I would trust in most cases. High temperatures are the failing of 3D printed plastics where they soften and can deform, but there are thermoplastics out there that can take all kinds of high heat and hold up pretty well to wear (though they aren't applicable to 3D printing). Personally, I think I would shy away from plastic lenses (though I have one in my collection with no regrets to date), but if a good optically performing lens came out in a plastic mount, I wouldn't necessarily look the other way. Same applies for camera bodies.

[normhead]

I just checked my DA 55-300 PLM. It has a metal mount. I appreciate that. Old biases die hard. AMong my lenses, The FAJ-18-35, DA 35-80 and DA 35 2.4 have plastic mounts. The noticeable factor being that they are all light weight and designed as entry level. But all, still great values and the DA 35 is optically excellent. The FA 35-80 is a kit type lens but still decent, the FA 18-35 is a lower than average lens optically, but still quite useful if 3840x 2160 is all you need. And they are FF compatible. There's not a lot of new light weight lenses being made these days. These lenses are irreplaceable. I can toss any of them in my camera bag, and not know from the weight that they are even there. Especially the FAJ 18-35. It has no equal even at double the weight. It's not a quality lens, but compared to nothing it's much better in situations where you just brought it "just in case" when your camera bag was mostly full of the lenses you thought you needed.

[Serkevan]

The lens mount shouldn't be too much of a problem: it doesn't have to sustain a lot of stress unless the lens is very heavy and it's a large piece that can be secured quite easily with screws etc. The only issue would be the friction when mounting, but I'd expect nothing worse than some scuffing over a long time, if a reasonably hard plastic is used.


Now, say, the zoom mechanism in the barrel... that one, or other pieces that are under more mechanical stress, I'd much rather see in metal (the infamous plastic gears of the mirror mechanism in the MZ series cameras come to mind). Most metal handles friction/abrasion much better than most plastics.