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[OM] Re: F30 review, but partly on topic [was Protective Filters]

Subject: [OM] Re: F30 review, but partly on topic [was Protective Filters]
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 03:14:29 -0700
Winsor Crosby wrote:
> From my memory of what was going on then the 300D was released at an  
> unbelievable price and there was discussion of Canon finding new ways  
> to cut costs in sensor development. A couple of months later they  
> dropped the price of the 10D and the explanation gossiped around was  
> that the 10D also got the new cheaper sensor in the 300D. It sounds  
> like they were not the same and then they were.
>   
I assume all that discussion didn't involve anybody form Canon who 
actually knew. Dpreview concluded that their performance was the same.

I've nattered on at length before about the economies of mass 
production. Suffice it to say that the cost of a component or system can 
change radically without any physical change in product or manufacturing 
process.

As an example, when a subsystem comes to the end of payoff of the 
original start-up cost, like R&D and tooling, the unit cost will drop 
considerably. When the subsystem is chosen to be used in a new product 
with considerably larger volume than the original, unit cost drops, 
sometimes by an amazing amount. If both events occur at about the same 
time, the subsystem can become very much lower in cost.

It can even be cheaper to continue production of an item without change 
when a cheaper method is found, because of sunk start-up costs. People 
who don't understand how manufacturing costs work can come to quite 
erroneous conclusions about what manufacturers are doing and why, based 
on what they see as common sense.

Moose

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