Nikon Z5 below $1000 in the US

There are many reasons for the pricing, most will be unknown outside of Nikon.

One is, market share.

This may be a move to try to get more market from or prevent losing market share to Canon and Sony.

To me, the big one, is not losing market share to Canon, as both migrate from dSLR to mirrorless.

There is also the old razor strategy.

Give away the razor and people will have to come back to buy the blades.

So you lower the price of the camera, to sell more expensive Z-FX lenses.

If this had happened several years back, I would have made the move from DX to FX.

It would have significantly lowered the cost of migrating to FX. At the time, I think the D750 was over $2,000.

In a similar way, it could be an effort to get the DX dSLR owners to upgrade to FX mirrorless, by lowering the cost of migration.

"market forces" sounds like a polite term for "fire sale."

Likely there was a lot of margin in the original price, and the price is started high when a product is most competitive and is expected to be lowered as the product ages to maintain some sales. This happens to pretty much every product. Fire sale is something that happens when a product is damaged by a fire for example (or e.g. in the case of the D2H which was deeply discounted because it turned out it could brick itself (the blinking green light of death affected many Nikon cameras at the time) which was considered unacceptable for a professional camera, so Nikon brought out the D2Hs with fixed circuits; of course Nikon also fixed the D2H's but still if your camera stops working it's pretty unusual and a bad situation), or when a company is facing bankruptcy, but this isn't the case for Nikon. In the past they've deeply discounted many cameras and that wasn't the end of the story. Sony also sell their older models at around half their original price in some cases and they too stay in business.

Note that in Europe the Z5 continues to be priced at around 1500 €. Perhaps the US market just isn't interested in this model or has tougher competition. Why not focus on the positive and think of it as an opportunity to get an affordable entry into the Z system.

I guess the same goes for Nikon DX ML cameras, handily labelled Entry Level.

There's precisely one, the Z50. There are just 2 kit zooms.

Where are they going with this?

Yes, body wise it's ~1/2 the price of FX.

I guess the same goes for Nikon DX ML cameras, handily labelled Entry Level.

 

There's precisely one, the Z50. There are just 2 kit zooms.

 

Where are they going with this?

I'm not sure if they need to be going somewhere with it? Another broader range DX standard zoom is in the roadmap. These are the most common DX lens purchases on the DSLR side, so they focus on where they think there will be some volume.

These are the most common DX lens purchases on the DSLR side

There's still a view that Nikon DX DSLR users were left wanting with regard to dedicated lenses.... other than a raft of kit 18> XXX slow zooms.

I fear they're doing the same to DX ML. Unless market research has told them there's not much market for specialist or fast DX glass?

I suppose it would be interesting if they made a ML D500. I guess it would be a mini Z9.

Then again, if the Z9 is 50MP plus, there's no reach advantage with a 24MP DX Z body. But I guess higher frame rate would be easier with twin Expeeds and a smaller sensor, say 20>30 fps.

Have no interest in the Z5. To me it still doesn't make sense for a APS-C Z mount body. About in tuning, for me as long as I understand what you said I am not picky.

Your post is unclear, but the Z5 is an FX body.

Likely there was a lot of margin in the original price, and the price is started high when a product is most competitive and is expected to be lowered as the product ages to maintain some sales. This happens to pretty much every product. Fire sale is something that happens when a product is damaged by a fire for example (or e.g. in the case of the D2H which was deeply discounted because it turned out it could brick itself (the blinking green light of death affected many Nikon cameras at the time) which was considered unacceptable for a professional camera, so Nikon brought out the D2Hs with fixed circuits; of course Nikon also fixed the D2H's but still if your camera stops working it's pretty unusual and a bad situation), or when a company is facing bankruptcy, but this isn't the case for Nikon. In the past they've deeply discounted many cameras and that wasn't the end of the story. Sony also sell their older models at around half their original price in some cases and they too stay in business.

 

Note that in Europe the Z5 continues to be priced at around 1500 €. Perhaps the US market just isn't interested in this model or has tougher competition. Why not focus on the positive and think of it as an opportunity to get an affordable entry into the Z system.

Think you should Google "fire sale." Need I remind you that 2020-21 hasn't been "business as usual" for most manufacturers. Nikon hasn't had huge success in their tardy and lacklustre MILC roll-out, either. Being late to the MILC party is costing them now.Another year of pandemic sales doldrums could be deadly. But then I don't live in the Nikonista alternate reality.

Considering the proximity of the Olympics, does anyone think the Z9 is out in the wild yet?

When you consider the Olympics is a year late, it would be easy to surmise that Nikon had prototypes ready to go for the 2020 event.

The advantage they have now is that they've had another years worth of R&D to polish them.

Your post is unclear, but the Z5 is an FX body.

My bad I thought iit was the Z50. Hey I missed the zero. Sorry.

Being an FX body I think it's great for the price.