Hi,

Recently, Q.G. de Bakker posted:
(many good points snipped for brevity)
Gordon Moat wrote:

Plus, of course, it (Rollei AF) is not the only option beckoning
those people who do still have money to spend...

Which seems like thriving in a niche market could be an answer. The
problem then becomes what volume of sales will sustain a niche?
Large format is already a niche market, yet there is still
diversity, just as an example.

LF is dead already. It's just that those corpses are pretty well
balmed. ;-) MF has been a niche market since way back when. The
trouble isn't supplying a niche market. The trouble is that people
occupying that niche are leaving. And that hurts.

By leaving, do you mean that they are selling off their MF gear in favor
of another format (e.g. digital), or that the retirement rate exceeds the
recruitment rate? If the former, then I think one would have to determine
whether these folks are no longer shooting MF, or just unloaded part of
their gear to finance the new format. If the latter, then only time will
determine whether that is a concern.

Take Hasselblad: a small company, yet doing very well selling in
numbers that are absolutely nothing compared to, say, Nikon.
Recently, they decided they could no longer survive without the
(financial) support of some large company.
How long will that work should the MF market not recover from the
current dip?

I'm sure that Sinar is also not selling in numbers that compare with
Nikon. Are they worried? I doubt it.

Rollei have put all their eggs in one basket: new customers would
come, and sales go up again, if only they could offer modern AF
technology.
Now they *do* offer AF technology. And? Right: nothing!

Rollei is a bit different from Hasselblad, in that they offer a fairly
wide range of MF products. If AF bombs, that doesn't necessarily doom the
rest of their line. Frankly, in a market where every other MF company
offers AF, Rollei had little choice. I don't know what their sales
expectations are.

I think the price point will always be high. Even with Kodak making
digital backs, any Medium Format direct digital will be high. If you
compare to the cost of a scanner, around $2000, that is the
competition for digital backs, and I don't see them ever getting
close. With that in mind, they (MF companies) should liquidate
assets this year.

Well, if they do not get prices down...
I'll come and tell you "told you so" in, oh..., a year.
;-)

I'm not sure I understand your response, Q.G., but digital backs for MF
have many moving targets that they have to nail to be practical. They have
to exceed the performance of scanners as well as the price point.
Otherwise, small format digital will eat their lunch. They have to perform
with existing film-specific lenses better than the small format digitals
do with digital-specific lenses. If few MF users are willing to buy
digital backs, even fewer would be willing to maintain a redundant set of
lenses, one for film and one for digital. It's unlikely that full-frame,
hi-res MF sensors are going to hit the market any time soon, which means
that even fewer photographers would own a wide angle lens.

But, I think that it is exactly the quality issue that will keep MF
around. Digital images will serve a certain segment of the photographic
market well. But, after the dust settles, I suspect that many of those
that shot MF but "left" for digital will return to the fold once they try
to get the same image quality out of critical shots.

Best regards,

Neil