When you make a purchase of a new piece of equipment for your photography there are a number of elements which you can use to dictate whether to buy or not. Do you know which ones you really value? Let's find out.
- Price. Some people buy primarily on price. A product at US$X gets an immediately higher ranking than one with a price of US$X+Y. The bigger Y gets, the more that these folks buy the former over the latter.
- Performance. Some are more attuned to the low-level performance of the product. The pixel peepers tend to fall into this category, as small differences in noise, dynamic range, resolution, etc., are important to them. Unlike price, it sometimes only takes a very small difference for someone to decide that product A is worth buying over product B.
- Quality. This is the old Yugo versus Toyota thing wrapped into a different product category. Why buy a product if it is likely to break, or if you might get a sample that's less than perfect?
- Brand. A relative of the quality argument, but it goes further. Brand loyalists will buy Brand J over Brand K even if the price is a little higher, the performance a little less, and the quality a little less. Why? Usually one of two reason: (1) they bought into a brand in the first place, and they're constantly trying to validate that choice; or (2) they bought into a marketing message and are now a "believer," even when evidence might contradict their choice. Essentially, a brand purchaser has bought into a first premise (belief), and it's near impossible to break someone of that. When you do, they're clueless and have to start from scratch in their assessment, which makes them defend their first premise more.
- Newness. Hey, ain't capitalism grand? New is always better, right? This is another first premise thing: somewhere along the line the marketing folks managed to program your brain into believing that a newer product is more valuable and capable than an old one. Sometimes it is (though not always in every way). Often it's just new. (Companies can't claim the term "new" after certain time periods elapse, usually 12 months in most jurisdictions, so they change something small and claim it's new.)
- Feature. A specific aspect of the product that you were waiting for and wasn't available to you before. Unfortunately, some get the feature/performance line so blurred that they misinterpret one for the other. One good case was the move from 10 to 12mp sensors. 12 is better than 10, right? More resolution is a feature, and it's a performance gain. Well, yes, it's a feature, but the question these days is "just how much performance gain?" And is that gain worth paying for?
- Size/Weight. Really a feature, but I've broken it out for a reason. Here's a category that some of the camera makers are partially ignoring. I say partially because they are coming up with lesser cameras (Nikon 1, for example) to achieve the size/weight difference. Why the camera makers are ignoring one of the top requested features and one of the things that would provoke the most upgrading amongst existing users I don't know. They seem to fear something about selling a 24mp FX DSLR that's the size of an FM2n and not the size of an F100 or F5. Or even a 16mp DX DSLR that's the size of an FM2n. But it's clear to me that a good deal of buying is now being considered with size/weight in mind, and the world around me just amplifies that. I can't carry even a full DX kit to Africa without hitting the 30 pound mark, a mark that goes beyond virtually every airline and bush plane limit I'll be exposed to getting there.
So in the context of all the new product launches earlier this year we get:
- 1Dx v. D4, 5DIII v. D800, Canon v. Nikon: this is really the Brand argument, though people keep trying to wrap in the Price, Performance, Quality, and Feature arguments. Personally, I don't see enough differences in those latter four arguments to make a strong call one way or another, thus the discussion is really about Brand. I just don't understand the brand switchers. We've had at least four measurable migrations in 13 years, and really only the first two had enough difference in the other factors to be remotely justified. If you're switching brands now, it's because you're switching brands, period.
- OM-D: Olympus has threatened to make good on the Size/Weight argument for almost nine years now. With the OM-D it looks like they may finally be able to say "smaller with near equivalent performance."
- Fujifilm X-Pro1 or Canon G1x: Here we have a Feature doing all the talking. For the X-Pro1 it's a hybrid viewfinder, for the G1x it's a big sensor in a compact body. If either is what you've been waiting for, then you're good to go: you now can get what you want, so pony up the dough, boy.
- Panasonic: I'll be posting a bunch of Panasonic reviews on sansmirror.com shortly, but one thing I'm struck by is this: Panasonic thinks New is the way to go. The GH1 and GF1 were fine cameras. Not a lot to critique about them other than some nits about m4/3 sensor performance. GH2, G10, G2, G3, and GF2, GF3, GX1 later, and...there's not a lot to critique about them (because they are refinements on the originals) other than some nits about their sensor performance. Now, if you ask Panasonic, they'll say the new cameras are all about Features and Performance. Sorry, but the Features are gimmicky (e.g. touch screens) and the Performance didn't move much from, oh, say the GF1 to the GF3. Even the 16mp versus 12mp sensor change didn't move the Performance bar much. So I'm personally just left with New as the primary driver. Only problem with that is that, here in the US, Panasonic barely manages to deliver the New before they've launched a new New.
- Closeouts: Meanwhile Price is driving a lot of the m4/3 uptake here in the US. We're seeing E-PL1 and other older bodies on incredible closeout sales, and that's finally moved some market share from DSLR to mirrorless here in the US.