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03-21-2012, 08:05 PM   #526
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Revenue is not profit. Many a company has posted impressive revenue numbers on the way to Delaware Chancery Court.
Which, of course, is why I called it a 'budget' rather than profit.

03-21-2012, 08:16 PM   #527
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QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
This business factoid still astonishes me every time you post it Eddie. Good gracious - leasing a camera. Must be a tax strategy.
completely a tax strategy
that and it's easy to do here
03-21-2012, 08:29 PM   #528
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QuoteOriginally posted by eddie1960 Quote
completely a tax strategy
that and it's easy to do here
Funny. I do the exact opposite for tax reasons.

FF dSLRs can typically be written off within 4 years because they are digital. And if I purchase them in the first place, I can remove them from the company inventory then. And given as a gift to an employee. Who may sell privately for little loss (taking the D700 as an example). Which means that an FF dSLR purchase for a company is free if revenue from the private sale is considered. With leasing though, I would have to either return or buy the camera after the leasing period.
03-21-2012, 09:22 PM - 1 Like   #529
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Pentax (and no other company) would not pay up front the entire contracted cost for a volume run of a part. Just doesn't happen. High turnover business such as retailers might borrow short term from factors to finance their inventory, secured by the inventory itself, so they couldn't pre-pay for the undelivered items - the collateral isn't there yet to secure the pre-payment.

Capital assets are financed by fixed bank loans or term secured bonds. The loan or bond terms usually match the useful life of the asset they finance. Conservative companies reserve cash each year to repay the loan or bond at maturity (sinking fund)..

Return on Investment (Return on Invested Capital) is an accounting term applied to long-term Capital Assets, such as Plant & Equipment (the discussed Sony wafer fab plant investment). It measures the effectiveness of a company's capital allocation decisions.

Pentax would likely buy sensors under contract at a volume run price, on delivery, with a penalty for under-take at contract termination, or less likely on a guaranteed take-or-pay basis. One possible reason the K-5 is stated to remain in production until 2012 year end, and the K-01 (and maybe K-r replacement) has the K-5 sensor might be to "make" the final contract volume; or rolling the sensor down-model was planned in from the beginning to contract enough volume to attract an allocation from Sony..


Last edited by monochrome; 03-22-2012 at 06:37 AM.
03-22-2012, 03:12 AM   #530
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QuoteOriginally posted by Aristophanes Quote
No. The principle fades as the aggregate market gets larger.
The absolute penalty per sensor is lower, but there also more sensors, so the principle should still apply as a net effect.

I just doesn't make sense to me that Nikon would be able to force Sony to exclude / penalise Pentax when it comes to FF sensors but not when it comes to APS-C sensors.

A lot of what you are saying has plausible aspects, but unless you have insider knowledge, it just remains speculation and could just as well be completely off the mark. If Pentax releases an FF camera within the next 2.5 years, you'll have a lot of words to eat. I don't mean that in an offensive way; I just don't know what makes you so sure about your pessimistic point of view.
03-22-2012, 05:13 AM   #531
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This is the sort of thing Pentax should do.
Canon mirrorless camera concept | Photo Rumors
If canon beat them to it- which they will- it will be a shame.
03-22-2012, 05:38 AM   #532
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QuoteOriginally posted by parsons Quote
This is the sort of thing Pentax should do.
Canon mirrorless camera concept | Photo Rumors
If canon beat them to it- which they will- it will be a shame.
Would it? That's one ugly camera right there. People should leave bad taste where it belonged... In the seventies.

03-22-2012, 05:55 AM   #533
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QuoteOriginally posted by Clavius Quote
People should leave bad taste where it belonged... In the seventies.
People are suckers for vintage..and that looks pretty vintage
Not my cup of tea...I think pentax has stated what it want in the mirrorless department, and ugly brick, centered around IQ. Haven't read much about it so i don't really know if they delivered...
And Olympus beated everyone to that line with the OM-D.
03-22-2012, 08:12 AM   #534
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QuoteOriginally posted by Clavius Quote
Would it? That's one ugly camera right there. People should leave bad taste where it belonged... In the seventies.
I owned an AE it wasn't bad but the K1000 was a much nicer camera IMO
03-22-2012, 08:17 AM   #535
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QuoteOriginally posted by eddie1960 Quote
I owned an AE it wasn't bad but the K1000 was a much nicer camera IMO
AE-1? I always thought shutter priority only was a strange kind of automatic, aperture priority is much more useful. The A-1 though was a breakthrough camera, it was almost scary for its time with its choice of automatic exposure, including program automatic. Didn't convince me to switch though, I traded my MX for an LX in 1982
03-22-2012, 09:25 AM   #536
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QuoteOriginally posted by falconeye Quote
Funny. I do the exact opposite for tax reasons.

FF dSLRs can typically be written off within 4 years because they are digital. And if I purchase them in the first place, I can remove them from the company inventory then. And given as a gift to an employee. Who may sell privately for little loss (taking the D700 as an example). Which means that an FF dSLR purchase for a company is free if revenue from the private sale is considered. With leasing though, I would have to either return or buy the camera after the leasing period.
For me too. We had in 2010/2011 a way for extra taxwrite-off to stimulate economy. So I just put all my cameragear to zero in value and took the taxrefunds. For me to buy secondhand is not an option, since I can get my BTW (producttax) back. I still have to pay for everything so my budget is still limited.
03-22-2012, 09:28 AM   #537
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QuoteOriginally posted by falconeye Quote
Aristophanes, I see what you try to say and you certainly have a point. But IMHO, you push it over the edge.

E.g., your 1 billion $ fab investment by Sony (and IIRC, this wasn't by year) for 50,000 extra wafers/month translate into $1670 per wafer. That's a small figure compared to the cost per wafer which I already assumed anyway. It's more an argument that sensors are cheaper than we think.

And then your attitude to treat sensors as a rare good almost nobody except a few can buy. That's ridiculous. It isn't the way the market works. A CMOS imaging sensor is a product. It isn't contract work. It has a part number and a price per thousand. There may be a few extra deals like the ones between Apple and Intel for early access to new processors. The 36MP sensor seems to have such a deal too. But sensors are a readily available product, in any size.

The reasons Pentax or Olympus aren't entering the market (yet) is IMHO their fear to compete in the $2000+ markets.

While I can understand that fear, my worry is that it will be too late for Pentax to cope with FF when it drops well below the $2000 limit.

And you say FF got more expensive. This isn't how it is perceived by those going to buy one. In the past, FF was either crippled or unaffordable. You had a choice of bad AF (5D), bad resolution (D700) or insane price (the D3 or 1D variants). Now, both 5DmkIII and D800 have changed that and represent a massive price drop from the (now unprotected except for frame rate) 1D or D4. It will push the D700 below $2000 (as soon as production can cope with the demand again) and the entire APSC market in turn. The important test case will be the D400.
1. The # of CMOS sensor manufacturers has dropped as quality has increased for the photo applications. Shopping around is happening less and less because Sony has set the bar too high. Is anyone but Samsung using Samsung sensors? Even Canon uses Sony sensors in their P&S line.

2. Pentax may be very limited in trying to fund al alternative supplier to Sony with both IQ outcomes and price. And trying to do so while funding all the other aspects of creating a new FF system from scratch. To pay that off, this will not be a "value brand" camera system, the hallmark of Pentax's position in the marketplace where the K-5 is less costly than the D7000.

3. It's all about price. The market for cameras over $2,500/unit shrinks substantially and cannibalizes your own brand's APS-C sales, so there is little net gain. They'll just sell fewer K-5's and K-01's, and suffer through lousy margins as APS-C commodity prices give you substantial breathing room that FF won't for half a decade. That's why FF model turnover is less than half that of APS-C.

4. As Sony demonstrated, FF doesn't make people jump from Canon or Nikon. The modest price differences in no way make of for the other tangibles like lenses and flash systems.

5. So Pentax pretty much has to fund FF from its existing consumer base plus very modest natural growth in the installed base. And it has to do so while paying more for a Sony sensor that appears to be in very short supply because at that quality, there's not enough production capacity and yes, Sony and Nikon appear to have a deal. I suspect quite strongly that this deal precludes a purchaser other than Nikon or Sony camera. Neither wants to commoditize FF supply.

6. So if you (Pentax) want more production capacity, you'll need to convince Sony to ante up through a long-term pre-purchase agreement. Sony probably does not want to undercut their 100% purchase supplier in Nikon. If, as you say, there are other suppliers, then Sony will work to keep the one purchaser of 100% of their current FF product. Look at Sony's overall bottom line; Sony needs Nikon far more than Nikon needs Sony. Sony bleeds red ink. They will do what it takes in the medium term to keep Nikon happy, even if that means stalling Sony Imaging's own FF DSLR line for awhile. It is patently obvious that Sony Head Office made that cold, cold calculation when killing the A850 and more recently, stopped production on the A900.

7. The biggest problem with this discussion is that people dramatically overestimate the # of people willing to spend over $2,500 just for a new camera body. it is much smaller than most people here think. The total market worldwide may be less than 10 million souls, of whom 20% are corporate buyers. Add in competing against Canon and Nikon and this becomes a very large hurdle. People would still leave Pentax for Nikon FF for reasons other than the sensor. Pentax has 5% of APS-C right now and a $2,500 body will reduce, not increase unit sales. That is what high priced items do...they shrink the consumer base.

And for the record, ages ago I predicted the D700 would stay in production at a much lower price creating a real problem for a new entrant.
03-22-2012, 11:47 AM   #538
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QuoteOriginally posted by Aristophanes Quote
1. The # of CMOS sensor manufacturers has dropped as quality has increased for the photo applications.

4. As Sony demonstrated, FF doesn't make people jump from Canon or Nikon. The modest price differences in no way make of for the other tangibles like lenses and flash systems.
Just two remarks ...

1. The same happened in the processor market. Did it make Intel processors any harder to design in? No! Sony literally tries to become the "Intel of Sensors". And Sony invests heavily towards this goal. I even imagine "Sony sensor inside" logos emerging This whole argument is easily turned against your way of thinking.

4. As Sony demonstrated, the sensor doesn't rescue an otherwise unergonomic camera with a poor selection of lenses. The D800 however, just now makes more than a few Canon users switch over to Nikon.


At the end of the day, arguments can be found for any position. The question is what was first: opinion or arguments ...
03-22-2012, 11:50 AM   #539
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Re: the Canon old-school FF concept... won't happen. Too many electronic parts required to make a FF dSLR camera that small. (Or at least anytime in the near future.)

edit: actually clicked on the link and I see that it's mirrorless, not a dSLR... could happen. but I kinda doubt it'll look like that. the hotshoe-mounted "prism" EVF is a neat idea, though.
03-22-2012, 11:56 AM   #540
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QuoteOriginally posted by deadwolfbones Quote
Re: the Canon old-school FF concept... won't happen. Too many electronic parts required to make a FF dSLR camera that small. (Or at least anytime in the near future.)

edit: actually clicked on the link and I see that it's mirrorless, not a dSLR... could happen. but I kinda doubt it'll look like that. the hotshoe-mounted "prism" EVF is a neat idea, though.
The limiting factor is the battery.
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