Wow! D-SLR Pricing Dance Continues: $2000 US?!
By
Dave Etchells
(Wednesday, March 6, 2002 - 10:02 EST)
Some new information from our friends to the north about pricing for Canon's EOS-D60.
From various hints and rumors, pre-PMA, I'd been expecting to see some *really* low prices announced for the latest digital SLRs from Nikon and Canon. I didn't want to repeat what I'd heard publicly, because at that point, it I had it only in the form of scattered rumors.
I was surprised then, to see Canon officially announce the price of the D60 as $2995, and to hear nothing official from Nikon about the pricing of their D100. (I did hear unofficially that its price would be "about half that of the D1x," which would place it somewhere around a $2600 street price.) I could only conclude that we'd see lower prices as we got closer to shipment of the two products, to match the numbers I'd heard rumored. (Said numbers seeming feasible, given what I know of the two companies' product cycles, etc.)
At PMA, it was obvious that Canon and Nikon were engaged in a complicated dance, neither one wanting to be the first to announce a price that the other could then undercut, but neither also wanting to cede any territory to the other.
Given some just-heard news from a "reliable source" in Canada though, I'm now comfortable revealing that the price point I'd heard rumored from the US dealer channel for the Nikon D100 was a mere $2000 US. I do think that both the D60 and D100 will end up selling around that price pretty quickly, even if they initially come out with higher price tags attached to them. (If they initially appear at a higher price, I expect we'll very quickly see "bundles" announced as well, that package them with things like Microdrives, lenses, extra batteries, etc, to result in an effective cost for the camera close to the $2,000 price point.)
Here's what I've just heard from my Canadian source: Canon Canada has been showing the D60 to dealers in that country this week, and quoting a *LIST* price of $3500 CDN for it. This works out to about $2200 US. While the initial shipments will likely go at full list price until the first flush of demand is met, normal discounting could easily result in "street" prices of only $2000 US, matching rumors I'd heard about the D100 in the US dealer channel.
This of course, is fantastically good news for fans of both Canon and Nikon SLRs. $2000 gets down to the level that folks like me can seriously contemplate owning one, with the result that truly huge numbers of both cameras will end up being sold. ($2000 is a serious hunk of change, but it's within the range I'd personally consider stretching to, to get my hands on a real, no-excuses digital SLR I can use with my full kit of Nikon lenses. I suspect there are a *lot* of others out there with similar desires and budgets.)
Final prices may vary up or down by a couple of hundred dollars (I'm personally betting on down, not up), but what's clear is that (a) this is going to be a very hard-fought battle between Nikon and Canon, and (b) this is clearly going to be the year that the high-end "enthusiast" market (not to mention a significant bulk of commercial 35mm shooters) converts fully to digital.
Exciting times indeed!
Special thanks to my "reliable source" on this one!
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