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I've been patiently waiting for this to drop for ~5 years, and I was hoping that it would somehow be under $1000. Oh my god. $4400 is... a lot of money. $175 s
by peteforde 5mo ago
I've been patiently waiting for this to drop for ~5 years, and I was hoping that it would somehow be under $1000.
Oh my god. $4400 is... a lot of money. $175 shipping had better include a Jeff Bridges Cameo video.
Don't get me wrong: I suspect that he's spent millions of dollars getting the project to this point, and that it's a mechanically perfect instrument. Huge respect for caring this much and seeing the project through.
But damn.
- armadsen 5mo agoYeah, I've been waiting for it for years too. I thought it was going to be substantially more than $4400 (more like $6-7K). Under $1,000 is unfortunately simply impossible. Used Wideluxes go for a fair bit more than $1K. That said, too much for me right now. Maybe someday.
- Finnucane 5mo agoMy first thought is, that looks cool. [looks in wallet. Looks at cabinet with other cameras. Looks at wallet again.] Oh well.
- _doctor_love 5mo agoJust because we're film enthusiasts doesn't make us SAPS!
- JohnnyLarue 5mo agoNice marmot
- _doctor_love 5mo agoYeah dude, keeping an amphibious rodent within the city, you know, for domestic? That ain't legal either.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- joe_mamba 5mo ago[flagged]
- peteforde 5mo agoLike I said, I was hoping that it would be closer to what an iPhone costs so that a lot more people can justify buying one. I believe that it's better for their long-term viability if they sell 1000 for $2000 instead of 300 for $4400.
- joe_mamba 5mo ago[flagged]
- quickthrowman 5mo agoMost people don’t understand why or how stuff is priced, or that low volume items like this probably have a decent amount of expensive human labor included in the price. You aren’t going to set up full automation to assemble 350 cameras. My car mechanic charges $160/hr.
- joe_mamba 5mo ago>Most people don’t understand why or how stuff is priced You'd think HN users aren't "most people"
- DANmode 5mo agoNot everyone is you. Not even on HN!
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- bdangubic 5mo agowhat’s the margin you reckon on that $160/hr your car mechanic is charging you? human labor is not that expensive, the margins of business employing human labor are. I recently needed a plumber, called up a company, plumber showed up, etc. got an estimate from the company which was outrageous. I was expecting this so I got plumber’s number. called him and asked him if he’d do the job for 1/2 the price - win-win.
- keyle 5mo agoThat is bonkers pricing. There is no way they actually expect a sell out with this price.
- Finnucane 5mo agoA new Leica M6 goes for about $7K at B&H. When you could still buy them, Rolleiflexes were about that much. A mechanical camera hand-made in short runs in Germany? Not gonna be cheap. If you can afford and think you'll use it enough to make it worthwhile, there are worse things you could spend your money on.
- fsckboy 5mo agodon't even have to get esoteric, a Nikon Z9 body only is $5000 at Target right now completely different camera but it's a straight up camera and not strange format. for people who are serious/professional about photography multiple thousands is stiff but that's what they cost.
- ehnto 5mo agoI would put this in the luxury goods category, which has been doing really well. Photography has a lot of gear horders too, so I wouldn't be surprised if on that alone it sells out. Then people who actually want to use it will stay priced out. It's my biggest peeve with artificial scarcity markets, speculators or collectors buy everything and people who actually want to use the item can't afford it.
- whstl 5mo agoSame. When hobby/professional products become luxury/category goods, prices of everything go up because they're now Veblen Goods. The craziest thing is seeing companies closing because of saturation, and prices of discontinued products shooting up immediately.
- wyclif 5mo agoI don't know much about how this camera is priced, but I think you're underrating the human desire for exclusivity. I won't be surprised when that first run sells out.
- marssaxman 5mo agoI feel better now about the $700 I spent buying a 35mm panoramic film back for my medium-format Bronica SQA. It seemed like a real splurge at the time, but for the price of this new camera, you could get a whole Bronica system - including four or five lenses, an alternate viewfinder, a couple of 120 backs, and the panoramic film back - with enough left over for a year's worth of film and processing. People must really like that swing-lens effect. It's not for me, but I imagine that this camera must seem much more compelling if it's what you're after. > Huge respect for caring this much and seeing the project through. Second that: product development is hard, and manufacturing is really expensive in small quantities.
- RobotToaster 5mo agoYou can get an identical field of view with a 30mm lens on that setup.
- marssaxman 5mo agoThat's good to know - though the Zenzanon-S 30mm appears to be both rare and expensive enough that I'd probably count myself content with the 40mm!
- RobotToaster 5mo agoThat's a shame, the soviet Zodiak-8 for Kiev/pentacon is relatively cheap, but can't be adapted to bronica AFAIK.
- blindstitch 5mo agoSame effective fov but the image will not look the same at all. The swing lens makes all areas of the frame look as if the lens is facing the subject dead on, without the same distortion that a wide produces at frame edges.
- spaqin 5mo agoI kind of expected that pricing - although even worse, in Europe, after VAT, it reaches $6000. Yeah it's not for me, and 350 units is probably capturing the whole target audience at this price. The good part that could come out from it I would hope for would be new parts for old cameras. I managed to snag a Widelux F6 for about $800 last year that would need some servicing - sometimes it suffers from the infamous banding...
- kyleblarson 5mo agoThat's just like, your opinion, man.
- fnord77 5mo agoCheaper than Leica
- etrautmann 5mo agoOnly the ridiculous ones. You can get an M6 for 2500 or an M3 for 1200. Lenses are 400-2k unless you go for crazy glass.
- Sam6late 5mo agoI saw an old Soviet-era model that was working and seemed similar to this one, it was bought by my photography instructor, he showed me his weird collection. It used to be attached to the underside of spy airplanes to take panoramic pictures not just satellite imagery and earth maps. Maybe you should look for swing-lens cameras on the used/vintage market today. Look for Horizon line from KMZ, their later models continued under Russian production rather than being brand-new Soviet stock.
- dg247 5mo ago[dead]
- fallinditch 5mo agoYou can get a new panoramic film camera for $69 - the Sprocket Rocket [1]. It makes images with grungy lomography charm - edges are soft but center is surprisingly sharp for a plastic lens. I really like the look of the images it produces. It has a hot shoe and a bulb setting. [1] https://shop.lomography.com/us/sprocket-rocket-35-mm-film-panoramic-camera https://shop.lomography.com/us/sprocket-rocket-35-mm-film-pa...
- antiterra 5mo agoThey used to sell one that was much closer, the Horizon Kompact, that is reasonably available used (https://shop.lomography.com/us/horizon-kompakt https://shop.lomography.com/us/horizon-kompakt)
- austinthetaco 5mo agoWhile cool, there is quite a bit of difference between this and what the widelux is. The widelux rotates the lens as the front cover moves, which creates a drastically different look.
- m463 5mo agoOr people could start exploring panoramic mode on their phone. I do all kinds of stuff with it: - vertical panoramas, like tall trees or buildings - point it down while walking and do a "panorama" with your feet in it - a "panoramic" photo by pointing it sideways in a moving car/train - walk along a long shelf in a store taking a long "panorama" - panoramas of moving vehicles going past stationary you and... - actual panoramas of some nice place you visit
- bensyverson 5mo agoIt’s an esoteric enthusiast product handmade in Germany to extreme mechanical precision. It’s a miracle they got it down to $4400… I bet they’re not making much money on this, and it’s more of a labor of love.