but why so expensive - LF cameras.

[inunnguaq]

Several 1000 dollars for a couple of metal frames and a few bolts and nuts, Ok I know it is precision made high quality materials made in small numbers, but.. it seems expensive- and thats without the lens and stuff!
Sorry if this has been explained before, I was not able to find any explanation.
Cheers
Inunnguaq

[eddie]

what format are you talking about?

4x5 monorails can be had for $75. run of the mill 4x5 lenses in a copal shutter can be had for under $150. lens board for $20. so that is $245

8x10 folding camera can be had for $400. lens for $200 with board in a shutter. that is $600

[vinny]

Google

[Steven Scanner]

First of all, I'm a complete novice when it comes to LF photography. I just started to get into it.
A quick search on "the Bay of E" gave me some LF cameras, from 200 Euro up to 3000+ Euro. It all depends what you want. You want the best of the best, dig deeper into your wallet. If you just want to have some fun with LF photography, get yourself a cheep starters model. If you think you can make your own, go right ahead. There is a thread here about DIY camera's.
You are right though, it's just a couple of metal frames and a few bolts and nuts. But it's made as a precision tool, with equal amount of specialists manhour in it. Rare or exclusive things are expensive. It's about demand and supply, with a hint of name branding.
I'm making my own LF camera and I find it is relatively easy to make it work. Trick is to make it work right and accurate. My crude version of a LF technical camera costed me the surplus wood I had laying around in the shed and about 50 Euro's in nuts, bolts and miscellaneous. I could have gone for some exotic hard wood and precision tool manufacturing, but instead I went for plywood and 2x2's and a handsaw.
Correct me if I'm wrong but many hobby LF photographs visit second hand stores, thrift shops and garage sales looking for camera's and components. Getting a bargain is part of the fun.

[IanG]

It's simple manufacturing costs are high, they are hand assembled but then the manufacturers importer (distributor) and finally retailler have to make their mark up and pfofit.

It's not unusual in some trades for the final retail price to be 5x or more the initial unit cost of manufacture.

Ian

[Drew Bedo]

When I started in LF, I got a Speed Graphic with a lens and a couople of film holders. Little movement, but I was shooting. Worked with that rig for a while and bought an old Burk & James 5x7 with a reducing back. Learned about movements some. Traded "up" to a baby-Deardorff knock-off from India (Rajah) and so on.

I now use a nice little Zone VI 4x5 and a few "modern" lenses from Nikon, Fuji and Rodenstock. I still spire to owning a 'Dorff.

Get into LF at the low end. shoot some film and see if this is for you. If you find that this is really your cup of tea, then get into it for whatever you can afford . . .and elcome to the world of LF.

[Steven Tribe]

Dear Inunnguaq (inuit?).

These cameras and lenses have almost garanteed at least 100 years of life in front of them.

I have specialised in German/French 18x24 travel cameras and the big early Studio type and I can say that these will last for ever. These cost a lot when new and required large amounts of man-hours, which was fortunately/unfortunately very cheap at the time.

If you think of the expense of modern large format cameras you must remember that:

-volume is very small. I think very few production lines have been large enough to cover the original design time, production set-up and tooling costs.
- no economic rational person would go into this kind of manufacturing - unless wage costs are very low. The present wave of good/well priced LF cameras from China will soon be a thing of the past.
- the number of economic shipwrecks amongst producers is very high.

New cameras don't turn me one - but they really are cheap in consideration of the points I mentioned above for those who are so inclined.

[rdenney]

Prices are what they are because people pay them.

Let's say I create a new camera, the RickField. I do my marketing research, and find that at a price point of $5000, I might sell 20 RickFields. And at $2000, I might sell 50. Maybe at $1000 I'll sell 200, and at $400 I'll sell 1000.

Now, let's say my costs, including the cost of sales (which includes what my sales force and dealer network will need, by whatever sale model I choose) add up to $2500 if I make 20 cameras, $1000 if I make 50 cameras, $800 if I make 200, and $750 if I make 1000.

Right off the bat, I cannot sell at the $400 price point, because it is lower than my cost at that production level. At the $5000 price point, I'll gross $50,000. At the $2000 price point, I'll gross $50,000. And at the $1000 price point, I'll gross $40,000. Right away, I can eliminate selling at the $1000 price point.

Now, let's say that I can only make 20 of these cameras a year at the quality model I want to build. That settles it: If I can only make 20, then I have the right to expect to sell them to the 20 people willing to pay the most.

Sometimes, increasing the price increases the market, in a market driven by fashion. That might happen with the wood field cameras, which are fashionable. It certainly happens with digital cameras, where the marginal improvement is a sliver for a price increase of 400% at the high end of the market. Often, though, price for a fashionable item is constrained by supply. The fact that I can only make 20 RickFields might be the reason it can attract 20 buyers at the $5000 price point. But at that price point, they will have be gorgeously beautiful in addition to beautifully functional.

I can also aim at a lower price point and come up with a way to reduce costs. Shen-Hao reduces cost using cheap labor and materials purchased in a low-cost market, while Ben Syverson is reducing costs using an ultra-simple design. At the price point he is hoping for, his market will be pretty large, I expect.

Back when film-based monorail cameras were used routinely in commercial applications, they were able to charge very high prices for them, but they had to support a quality model to fetch that price from commercial photographers. Sinar, Arca, and Linhof had high costs, so they built high-end products with the quality and flexibility needed to attract a high-end clientele. Cambo and Toyo were aiming at a lower price point, with amateurs in mind. Calumet invented the amateur monorail camera market by providing a good one at a very low price point. But when you compare the production quality of an Arca, Sinar or a Linhof to a Cambo or an old Calumet, you find a lot of precision machining in the former and a lot of casting with adequate machining in a the needed spots in the latter. What makes high-end monorails cheap now is the glut on the used market. Before that happened, I would never have been able to afford a Sinar.

Rick "price is determined by the market" Denney

[inunnguaq]

Thanks all, thinking of 4x5, -yes I am aware you can find cheap stuff on ebay and such, just wondering why new is so expensive.

[BrianShaw]

Thanks all, thinking of 4x5, -yes I am aware you can find cheap stuff on ebay and such, just wondering why new is so expensive.

A lot of the "cheap stuff" is inexpensive because it is being sold by people who no longer has a need for it. Many of these folks seem to have "gotten their monies worth" and don't need to turn a significant profit. Many are supporters of the arts and almost happy to sell at a decent price to people who want to get into LF.

[rdenney]

A lot of the "cheap stuff" is inexpensive because it is being sold by people who no longer has a need for it. Many of these folks seem to have "gotten their monies worth" and don't need to turn a significant profit.

I don't think it's only that they don't need to get more, I think it's that they CAN'T get more. Sinar F2's languish on the for-sale forum at $600, for example. Most everyone who wants one has one, so the price has to go low enough to attract an unmotivated buyer to give it a try. The seller has a choice: lower the price or find no market. The price will settle to the point where it meets buyer motivation (i.e., willingness to pay).

This would be as true for the guy who bought the F2 new last year and is taking a $2500 bath on it as it is for the guy who bought it in 1992 and has fully depreciated it. Remaining depreciated value is a cost consideration for the seller, and it may drive the price asked. But the price paid will be determined by the market.

Rick "well steeped in the difference between price and cost" Denney

[BrianShaw]

"well steeped in the difference between price and cost"

Yes, of course. Thanks for the clarification.

[Jim Jones]

Sometimes there is detail that most LF photographers overlook in quality cameras. For example, in my early Inba Ikeda field camera, the slots in many (but not all) screws are aligned. This was common in very expensive firearms, but not in cameras. Some plated brass hardware is inletted into the wood instead of merely being attached to the surface. Such details are signs of hand craftsmanship, not assembly line production. Some people can afford the luxury of owning craftsmanship that goes far beyond good functioning. With luck and patience, the rest of us have a chance to buy such cameras at a fraction of their production cost.

[E. von Hoegh]

Thanks all, thinking of 4x5, -yes I am aware you can find cheap stuff on ebay and such, just wondering why new is so expensive.

Very high quality, very limited production. The materials are the cheapest part, labor in manufacturing and cost of design and setup are the major costs. Look at any limited production high qualty item that requires meticulous hand work, it's the same.

Buy used, there are incredible bargains out there.:)

[E. von Hoegh]

Sometimes there is detail that most LF photographers overlook in quality cameras. For example, in my early Inba Ikeda field camera, the slots in many (but not all) screws are aligned. This was common in very expensive firearms, but not in cameras. Some plated brass hardware is inletted into the wood instead of merely being attached to the surface. Such details are signs of hand craftsmanship, not assembly line production. Some people can afford the luxury of owning craftsmanship that goes far beyond good functioning. With luck and patience, the rest of us have a chance to buy such cameras at a fraction of their production cost.

Gandolfi and a few others line up the screw slots. I saw it done on a Russian tailboard camera. Lining up the slots in woodscrews is child's play compared to lining up the slots in machine screws on a fine firearm.

[John Kasaian]

Thanks all, thinking of 4x5, -yes I am aware you can find cheap stuff on ebay and such, just wondering why new is so expensive.

Nothing is cheaper than a pinhole camera, and they are large format. If it weren't for digital driving down the prices of used gear I probably wouldn't have started shooting large format unless I came across some financial windfall. New LF cameras are expensive, but can you imagine the cost of building one? Just the fine cabinetry of a woody like the Tachihara or the start up costs in dies for something high tech like a Walker are prohibitive when you think of the potential market, which is miniscule by comparison, versus the cost of production Add to that the metal work, some of which is custom and not just stock nuts and bolts.

There are those who can afford a new camera (bless 'em)and there are those of us who have families to raise and buy used, but used LF cameras are rugged by comparison and timeless, so it's not an issue for me. I am amazed and gratified that people still build and buy new LF cameras. They should as it puts craftsman and designers to work and is good for the art. But it has never occurred to me that because I can't afford to order a new Deardorff or Linhof that I am somehow being deprived, or that I should complain about it.
It is not unlike driving a used truck as opposed to a new. As long as it's a good used truck there is no practical difference, it there? Yet a new truck will set you back tens of thousands of dollars, while my surplus forestry dept. truck cost barely more than a set of tires. They all will take you to the same places.

A sheet of film dosen't know, nor could it tell you if it was exposed in a brand new camera or an 80 year old camera, any more than it could tell you if the camera was a $700 Shen Hao or $5000 Linhof or $100 Calumet 400

[rdenney]

It is not unlike driving a used truck as opposed to a new. As long as it's a good used truck there is no practical difference, it there? Yet a new truck will set you back tens of thousands of dollars, while my surplus forestry dept. truck cost barely more than a set of tires. They all will take you to the same places.

This is a good analogy. The pros who are selling off those high-end Swiss and German cameras used them routinely. They might even be worn out by their standards. But most of us will apply a duty cycle that could only be called "gentle retirement" for those cameras.

I don't mind buying the old used truck if I'm only going to drive it a few thousand miles a year for recreational purposes. But my daily driver which I have to depend on to get me to work every day--that gets a bigger investment. I have a couple of old Toyota trucks (pushing 400,000 miles between them) that are fine for occasional use but would quickly come unglued if I drove them every day.

Rick "whose cameras mostly get to lay on the couch and watch TV" Denney

[Ivan J. Eberle]

OProfessionally targeted cameras that were sold to studio and commercial photographers at premium prices in large numbers until about 15 years ago as state of the art analog tools-- this is where the greatest bargains are found. It's because the amateur used market can hardly absorb all this gear that prices have become so low. Heck, less than a decade has passed since I had an all analog workflow myself.

[Armin Seeholzer]

It has been never so cheap to go into LF like now!
If you take a chinese camera, its much cheaper even new then 10-12 years ago!
Its only expensive if you would like to buy a new Ebony or Linhof, Sinar, Canham etc.

In the past even the used one had been almost as much as a new chinese one!

Cheers Armin

[eddie]

Thanks all, thinking of 4x5, -yes I am aware you can find cheap stuff on ebay and such, just wondering why new is so expensive.


New LF has always been expensive.

Stop looking at new stuff and go buy some used cameras.

[Lynn Jones]

Here's the real reason, lack of VOLUME!

During the period when the greatest number of view cameras and other large format instruments were sold internationally from about 1966 through about the very early 1980's I was involved in both the manufacture and the import/distribution of LF cameras.

Calumet from 1964 to 1972 (when I was personally involved) made 85% to 90% of these cameras. There were 3 4x5 models at 89.95, 109.95, and 134.95. The C1 8x10 magnesium camera was 305.00. We sold 12,500 or more of these internationally. The rest of the world fewer than 2,000. As an example, the Calumet CC400 sold for $89.95 and the actual cost to produce (remember, in Chicago, IL) $46.35. We could have made a great deal more for the cameras but we preferred to also sell lenses, film holders, tripods, filters, and various other accessories, not counting the geatest number of stainless steel sinks, processors, and numerous other dark room devices in the country.

Later when I was VP of B&J we imported about 400 Toyos, and when VP of BBOI we imported about 400 of the 600 or so Cambos then made (the Super Cambo usually sold in the US for about $135.00 then). To give you a rough idea, there was a beautiful wooden flat bed view camera (usually improperly called a "field camera") and we decided to import and distribute these under our own name and so we offered to buy 50 of these every three months, they refused because they couldn't make more than 50 per year, and we couldn't afford to advertise and catalog fewer than 150 to 200 a year. These are the problems you encounter, manufacturers create a few at a high price. You pay lots or buy used.

Lynn

[Thebes]

Buy used. I've owned a dozen large format cameras, several dozen lenses, and countless odds and ends. I've bought 1 item new, an instant film back I bought recently because I had a gift card for the retailer.

This stuff has a very long lifespan. I have a lens over a hundred years old, several over 50, and several cameras older than my going-grey self. Those buying new in this market are mostly the well-off hobbyist, full-time pros, or entities with internal purchasing rules favoring the purchase of new items.

I note also that even my more heavily used LF gear has depreciated less than the US Dollar.

[evan clarke]

Thanks all, thinking of 4x5, -yes I am aware you can find cheap stuff on ebay and such, just wondering why new is so expensive.

Do you make things?Why does Information Technology cost ANYTHING? Can't eat it or use it..