[Leica] Re: Internet Years vs Leica Years

[Jim Brick <jimbrick@photoaccess.com>]

At 06:49 AM 4/21/00 +0000, Donal Philby wrote:

>Yep.  Yesterday I handled a Kodak DCS (Canon version) that costs about
>$16,000.  Life expectancy (not operational life, but technologically
>current life) is certainly less than two years.  One way to tell this is
>to check the cost of leasing.  With this camera, it cost vastly more to
>lease than buy.  The leasers know that there will be no market for it in
>two years.  
>
>A photo agency is considering buying it for use by several
>photographers.  Only everyday use can even begin to justify such an
>expense for such a short life--or the potential sales increases for
>timely pictures running around the world.
>
>Of course, you can also consider the higher level DCS that has just been
>reduced (some indication of new model in offing) from $29,000 to
>25,000.  Shoots an 18 meg file.
>
>donal 

This is why many of the Pro Labs that jumped heavily into digital, are in
trouble now. Providing professional digital services to the photographic
community is very expensive. Scanners and printers cost $80,000+ each and
have a life expectancy of just a year (or two if they're lucky). The amount
someone will pay for these services is not enough to sustain the business
since new equipment is always necessary. If the piece of equipment you
currently have is the "previous model", sometimes you cannot get it
serviced. This recently happened at Calypso Imaging when their drum scanner
went down. Took nearly a week to fix. And as Donal said, leasing is s-o-o-o
expensive, it is usually not an alternative.

On the contrary, a film or paper processor (C-41, E6, Ilfochrome, etc...)
will have a useful life of a decade or more.

Calypso bought a LightJet printer. With a RIP, a calibrated computer for
correcting and profiling, and the other bells and whistles, it was about
$250,000. A 20x24 costs me $36 and a 48x60, $210. Even at 100% profit,
that's $15 plus $100. How many prints, how many shifts, how large of a
customer base must be maintained to make this viable? And what happens to
the customer base when a piece of equipment is down for a week? Technology
changes so fast that I'm surprised that anyone would even consider getting
into that business.

I'm glad they are as it sure makes my large print life easy.

Jim