did d200 hit harder than expected?

I'm not a marketing expert, but it seems to me that Canon's 5D

prices are taking a deeper plunge than expected. D200 was supposed

to be a 20D challenger, but I see many people are opting for it

against a 5D, with a good lens bonus as a promoter. I don't mean to

discuss technical differences, I'm aware of them, but the phenomenon

by which these differences seem more and more... how to say...

marketwise irrelevant? what's you opinion?

Good to hear that the 5D prices are are taking a plunge. Good for photographers.

There are 3 groups of people in the market.

1) people who know full well what they're buying and aren't blinded by marketing talk.

2) people who don't know what they're buying and just buy what their salesperson tells them is the best.

3) people who THINK they know what they're buying but in fact just buy what the marketing says is the best/latest/greatest.

 

People in group pretty much each group are further subdivided by those buying whatever never mind the money, people buying that which is the best for their budget, and for group one people determining which offering is the best value for money.

 

People in group 1 at this stage probably will go for the D200 unless they're lifelong Canonaddicts (in which case they're likely not really in group 1).

 

People in group 2 are probably about evenly divided, with a slight bias towards Canon as Canon tends to give higher margins to dealers from what I hear.

 

People in group 3 will buy Canon because Canon has the more flashy marketing campaigns.

 

Canon lowering the price of the 5D would be an effort to draw more people into their camp who choose the D200 over the 20d, not an answer to dropping 5D sales.

Apparantly Nikon is still perceived as the "professionals" choice, thus desireable. This in

spite of the fact that a large percentage of Nikon professionals have switched to Canon over

the past 10 years or so. Actually a lot of Hasselblad, Mamiya, and Bronica owners have

switched to Canon as well! Don't discount the fact that maybe the D200 is just a better

camera for the money and people aren't as ill informed as the marketing folks think.

"D200 was supposed to be a 20D challenger"

 

Well that's one way of looking at it, but it seems to me that that's probably a misunderstanding of the niche Nikon plan for the D200. Anyway, I doubt that that main thrust of Nikon's marketing strategy is to react to one year old Canon cameras.

 

For many years Nikon have offered a fully capable 'second string' camera providing much of the durability and functionality of their main professional offering, but at a much lower price. The Nikkormats, FE/FM, FE2/FM2 and F100 all occupied this niche, and all are now regarded as classics - and many are still in use. Maybe Nikon have decided that 10MP is adequate (given the currect state of technology), and now plan to replicate the strategy they used cuccessfully with film cameras for decades.

 

So far as the 5D and the FF issue is concerned, Nikon have made their view clear. For the market they are in, they don't regard the APS sensor as inferior or second best to Canon.

 

I don't suppose the D200 will still be in use in three decades like many FEs are, but maybe it will be one of the first 'classics' of the digital age.

Rick:

 

"... a large percentage of Nikon professionals have switched to Canon over the past 10

years or so. Actually a lot of Hasselblad, Mamiya, and Bronica owners have switched to

Canon as well!"

 

That's quite a claim. Do you know that for a fact? Where did you get it?

I'm still trying to figure out where these prices are "plunging." B&H and Adorama both have the 5D at $2999.95.

Bernard, this is not any sort of proof, but Marc Williams points out in the Wedding Forum that a lot of pros have certainly switched to Canon. See his post on January 5 at3:16pm:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EjIK&tag=

 

The way Nikon lost its dominent leadership position in small-format cameras since the late 1980's is probably a good topic to be studied in business schools.

And to think that some forty years ago no pro would have been caught with a Canon in his

hands for fear of being laughed at. It seemed it was Nikon only. And Hasselblad. And

Leica. Period.

 

But arent't the pros themselves prey to Canon's aggressive production strategy - crank out

a new model every three months or so - and their no less aggressive consumer marketing

strategy? Maybe it makes them consider Canon cameras more "disposable" than Nikon

cameras, and they just throw them away and write them off as soon as they're dead or

obsolete. I dont'know...

I'll agree that you don't know. What a load of random nonsense.

Well, obviously Canon has brought out a number of technologies which have turned out to be important: these include USM lenses (where Nikon is still far behind, looking at the whole lens selection), IS lenses, electronic control of the lens (Nikon put it as an afterthought) etc. Nikon has their own advantages but Canon's success has been largely to these technical advances.

Nice, Ocean.

On the general issue, I tend to agree with Ilkka and Bernard, though I would not consider Canon's marketing behaviour as particularly "aggressive" nor "unethical", just in line with our "consumer-consuming" times.

 

I'd rather think that Nikon is closing the 1990's technical gap with Canon, and, thanks to that old time fame of reliability and "small size" craftmanship (no longer true, for sure), is regaining the faith of part of its old aficionados.

 

 

But speaking more specifically about the d200, I feel that it might be the camera with "almost everything" a non-pro photographer would want from a camera. the next nice step (the 5D) it's not worth the price to pay.

Just an initial impression I wanted to share.