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From...
Digital cameras get cheaper for the holidays
October 7, 1998
Web posted at 2:45 PM EDT
by James A. Martin
(IDG) -- With digital cameras, one picture used to be worth a thousand dollars. That's because you often had to pay about that much to get a camera capable of capturing a high-resolution digital image.
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But as digital camera vendors attempt to attract consumers, prices for high-quality cameras have fallen significantly-often within just a few months of the camera's release. The street price for Toshiba Imaging Systems' PDR-M1, for instance, has dropped $400 within four months. Last June, Toshiba unveiled the megapixel camera, capable of resolution of up to 1280 by 1024, at a street price of $900. Last week, the company announced the camera's street price is now $500.
"Digital cameras still aren't as easy to use as film cameras, and most of them don't offer image quality that's as good as film, so the vendors are trying to create demand by lowering prices," explained Bruce Kasrel, a digital imaging analyst for Forrester Research.
Among other recent price drops, Epson said last week it had slashed prices on two digital cameras as much as 20 percent. The PhotoPC 700, introduced in May at $700, is now $600, while the PhotoPC 550 fell from $249 to $199. The PhotoPC 700 offers a megapixel resolution of 1280 by 960, while the PhotoPC 550 is limited to 640 by 480 pixels.
Ricoh introduced its RDC-4300 camera in June at $899, then lowered the price to $599 three months later. The RDC-4300 captures images at 1280 by 960 or 640 by 480 pixels and includes a 3x zoom lens. And Olympus America recently slashed the price of its D-320L megapixel camera (with up to 1024 x 768 image capture) from $700 to $500.
Forrester Research's Kasrel expects the steep price drops on high-quality cameras to continue. "This year's expensive high-end model," he added, "will be next year's low-priced overstock."