I have been working for electronics manufacturing for over 17 years,
for almost all product, eventually every bit of cost is from the
material. E.g. smaller and lighter product use less casing material,
higher frequency switching power supply uses smaller ferrite core,
less copper wire, you may need different ferrite which is higher price
at the beginning but finally the price drop with quantity. Even the
warehouse and shipping cost will be lower with smaller product. No one
will think the memory price is so cheap as now, but when the yield is
under control, the price of of 128Mb RAM will be not much different
from a 512Mb.
I'm sure smaller lens is cheaper to make as you can see from the price
of zoom P&S, Olympus uses glass elements but the price is very cheap,
the reason is smaller lens element. Many people thing smaller is more
expensive that is not true, it is the manufacturer want to make more
profit for the so call "state of the art" miniature equipment.
When technologies reach there the smaller device will be cheaper in
cost - it is the fact and I didn't count the R&D cost for developing a
completely new product. I'm sure eventually all camera manufactures
will come up with smaller SLR DC system and only such system can live
to next decade.
C.H.Ling
> I don't see a correlation between smaller camera body and
> lenses equaling lower cost in this case. I'm sure this new
> system will be quite pricey, and digital prices don't drop
> over time because they produce more of an item, they drop
> due to newer and more capable technologies coming along.
>
> George S.
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|