Update: Fujifilm announces new, high-priced GF670W (Medium Format Wide Angle) Camera

After announcing the GF670 medium format folder in December, 2009, Fuji has followed up this with another camera announcement for a wide angle version of the GF670 at this year’s Photokina 2010 show in Cologne, Germany (setpember 18, 2010).  However, to no surprise, Fuji has not announced a target price and given their recent experiences with the GF670, this could prove very interesting.  In this post I discuss the GF670’s pricing history and speculate on the market factors that may influence Fuji’s pricing of this new camera.

January 9, 2011 Update:

The GF670W is still a no show . . . no additional information since Photokina 2010.  Very curious given Fuji’s long tease/pre-announcement of the X-100, digital pseudo-rangefinder.  Marketing dollars being spent here to develop a market . . . but all quiet regarding the GF670W.

Update: Cosina Voigtlander announces price of Bessa III 667W

See the last paragraph for new pricing information on Bessa’s version of the 667W . . .

Sadly from my point of view, the GF670W camera is not a folder and interestingly, the press photo that Fuji has published on the camera so far only shows it’s view from directly in front of the lens.  We have no way of knowing what its profile looks like, something that is rather important if portability matters to you (and it certainly does to me).  Here’s the press pic:

Fujifilm GF670W

The fixed lens is a 55mm focal length EBC Fujinon lens, which delivers approximately the same field of view as a 28mm lens on a 35mm camera.  See this article for a good discussion of comparing focal lengths on medium format and 35mm cameras.

Update: Voigtlander Bessa III 667W

And from a link provided by a reader, here’s an image of the “sister” camera (same camera, branded as a Voigtlander).  And it’s a profile view!

From my point of view, this camera represents a low risk product extension of the GF670: it appears to employ the same body, dual format masking system, metering and shutter system, and rangefinder system.  Missing from the announcement is any mention of a suggest price.

And the price is?

Now the absence of a suggested list price from Fuji is the source of some speculation for me because of the short history of the GF670.  You may recall that when the GF670 began to ship in late 2009, it had a list price of $2,499 USD and Fuji announced that it was to be a limited production camera: only 5,000 units would be manufactured.  Every business person knows that scarcity breeds demand so one would have assumed that Fuji would have held the price at $2,499 for at least a year.  But that’s not what happened: within 8 months of its ship date, the price in the US had been cut by almost 30%.  I purchased mine a couple of weeks ago for that price from B&H Photo Video in NYC.

Contrast this experience with Nikon’s D300.  My wife purchased her D300 in November, 2007, about three months after its announcement.  The price was $1899 USD for the body only.  Over 18 months later the price had only dropped $100!  Why was this? Simple: high demand coupled with an adroit management of the supply chain by Nikon.  They carefully monitored supply and kept sufficient quantities on hand to meet the demand but at the same time did not flood the market with so much product that it was chased into the discount channels.

Now there are many things I don’t know.  For instance, higher than forecasted demand could have motivated Fuji to increase production of the GF670 beyond the initial 5,000 unit run while at the same time giving them room to reduce price and further stimulate demand.  There could well be some demand elasticity associated with the product’s pricing and Fuji could be using the GF670 to explore the parameters of that demand band.

Or, the shipment rate of the GF670 in 1Q 2010 could have failed to meet expectations and the product manager decided to accelerate a price cut to see if the market would respond.  There is “chatter” on the net about the initial price point of the GF670.  There are two polls on Rangefinderforum.com that are interesting, both posted by “davidb.”  In the first, he asks, “Would you buy the new (GF670) Fuji rangefinder?”  Over 75% of the nearly 600 respondents said, “yes.”  This is not surprising given that he is polling a community of dedicated rangefinder users who also continue to use film.  In the second poll, he asks, “At what price would you buy the new rangefinder?” and he offers four choices: $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, and $3,000.  Of the 267 people who responded to this poll, almost 65% said they would buy the camera at $1,000 and 22% said they would purchase the camera if priced at $1,500.  Only 7% said they might buy the camera if it was priced at $2,000 which is, by the way, $500 less than the launch price for the camera.

The second poll is telling because it speaks to perceived value on the part of a committed target user community.  Rangefinderforum.com users generally still use film (I infer that from the composition of the forums) and have therefore likely reconciled themselves with the trade offs associated with film workflow and results.  But because very few new film cameras are being manufactured and the prices of used models (with a few exceptions) continue to decline, it is understandable that the majority of this target group is unlikely to pay more than $2,000 for a new film camera.  They simply don’t have to in order to get a high value film camera.

Now there is one more data point that is worth mentioning.  If the GF670W is not a folder, then the whole mechanical component required to support a folder — something that is expensive to manufacture — can be dispensed with.  If the price of the unit is driven by cost (and that always is a factor), then I would expect to see a launch price less than $2499.  I will be watching this with interest.

Update: Voigtlander HAS announced a list price

According to this article (in German), Cosina has stated that the Bessa III 667W will have a list price of 2,000 Euros, or approximately $2,608 USD at the current exchange rate.  So, a price above the launch price of the GF667 folder . . . hmmmm.

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Go here to read my impressions of Fuji’s GF670 in comparison to Leica’s MP.  If you’re interested in how the Fuji and Leica MP compare in an architectural setting shoot, you might enjoy this article.