Originally posted by gaweidert In the US the price collapse on the 150-450 lens is nothing short of incredible. As an early adopter of that it smarts. Does anyone think that there will be similar drop in the 70-200 lens within 8 months of availability?
Yep. Quite confident of that. Ricoh is (IMHO) learning the market and starting very high on everything. They then watch the sales numbers, play with pricing until they reach the most profitable level of sales that still moves the volume they want. These (150-450 and 70-200) are completely new products being dropped into a vacuum. The initial demand will be high and so will the price. When volume of sales slack the price will drop to maintain that volume.
Perhaps a bit mercenary on Ricoh's part, but smart business when you really do not have any track record to go on.