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It was pretty much obvious that after the recent superkit deal offer on the A99 (here at Amazon) someone would start to offer the A99 body for a much lower price. Today you can have the A99 body for $2,460 via official [shoplink 17676 ebay]ebay Deals Action (Click here to see it)[/shoplink]. That’s also the lowest price I have ever seen for the new A99.
By the way, the imperfect Amazon rankings (Click here) show that thanks to the new A99 superkit action the A99 is selling well (finally!).
17 Responses
Where is the promised NEX7n ? Was not supposed to be announced on April 3 ?
New specs ? new timelines ?
Closer to my budget and expectations
Thanks
Nat
You may missed it but I wrote it has been delayed!
Amazon is already sold out!
It’s so frustrating that this site keeps expecting the a99 to sell well on Amazon.
You have to understand the MECHANICS of this marketplace. The vast majority of shooters who will spend more than $2000 on a camera, already have lenses. Already are in a system. Just UNDER-pricing the a99 alone won’t make it magically jump into the best-selling list on Amazon.
The only way you’ll see the a99, long term, selling well, is if the Alpha system and it’s adopters, have time to mature.
No one I know is leaving their Alpha a55, a57, NEX-7, etc, for Canon or Nikon…but people (in my neck of the woods) are FLOCKING from Canon and Nikon to Sony….but they’re not doing it at the full frame level. They’re buying the a57 primarily, the best deal in photography.
…but be patient. As a percentage of those adopters mature to full frame, you’ll see Sony a99s sell faster.
The a99 is NOT OVERPRICED. By repeating that bad information, you just create a problem where people refuse to buy the device because SAR said it was too expensive.
The a99 is a STEAL at the it’s original retail price, and now that it’s been on the market a while, it’s coming down, and becoming an even better deal.
Looks you have were ripped by initial A99 price by Sony and now you try to explain to yourself and other you weren’t 🙂 It is not single person or some antisony people opinion. A99 was and still is overpriced! By making grip and flash offer Sony is stating the same thing, sorry we overpriced this camera.
The problem is it still overpriced and can not stand against 5d3 and D800. This camera should be priced close to D600 and 6D.
When you are talking about system, you are forgetting that A99 is only second Sony FF camera in it’s short history (A850 doesn’t matter). Lack of pro cameras, lenses and accessories is important issue. Something that Sony might never solve with A mount when E mount sells much better.
Oh and for those poor people like me who live in Europe A99 is about 400$ more than D800, that makes it almost twice as much as current offer in USA (when you sell flash and grip)
I absolutely HATE it when people claim that A99 should be priced the same as entry level FF 6D and dust-tastic D600, while the 6D is a pretty good camera, it is rather basic with the primitive AF system compared to the 5D3, the D600 is better value with the improved AF and DX lens support but it has been plagued with the dust collecting problems of the sensor.
Have you ever heard anyone complain that their A99 is sucking in dust? have you ever heard anyone say that the A99 lacks features? the A99 is designed to be a more higher end/professional full frame camera as the 5D3 and D800 are meant to be, by pricing it with the entry level full frame cameras Sony would be under-valuing their whole camera line-up and would undercut profits.
Research and development takes money. Production of goods cost money. Marketing costs money. If the price A99 to be the price of 6D/D600, how are they going to price a new Sony entry level full frame? $1500? Sure, Sony might as well just chuck a wad of money at you 😛
The only reason (well, theres tons of reasons) Sony would price it with the 6D and the D600 is to gain some market shares as you’d get more bang for your buck at that price point, but its hard to overcome giants like CaNikon overnight.
1. A99 is also entry level FF 🙂 If not then please show me cheaper current FF from Sony.
2. Sony AF system is years behind Canikon. A99 is similar to D600 and 6D all three cameras have sensors in central area due to be APS-C based. D800 and 5d3 are different systems designed for FF size.
3. Sony priced A99 so high because it is last A mount FF camera and they aim to keep it for about 3 years on the market without any A mount upgrade. There is nothing exeptional inside this camera that leads to this price – initial almost 3x more than A77.
4. Their pricing policy failed, that is why they have this 2800$ – 930$ free accesories offer – one third reduction to the D600/6D point. It willl give short boost in USA sell, and will limit sells in EU even more.
5. EU prices were really unfairly from beginning now are even more compared to this offer. Sony intentionally made cameras with NTSC settings only for US market. EU version has NTSC/PAL settings but costs almost 2x more now compared to US. You can’t blame TAXex because Nikon D800 is 400$ cheaper here than A99.
6. We were told there are two main reasons for introducing SLT – price and video. Both those things failed in A99, price isn’t smaller and video is awful. A99 video can’t stand even against NEX-5n.
A99 is one huge fail, probably one of the biggest in digital photography history, next to Sigma SD1 🙂
You may think what you like, it is you money. But market and even Sony already decided that A99 is overpriced.
You can no longer claim it was fairly priced when Sony gives you 930$ free accessories! My guess is we will see even more price falling because this camera and whole Sony system has so many issues that pricing it on the D600/6D is not enough. Resale value will be really bad next year.
@ Yes_You_Can
You are exactly right. This was a camera built for nobody. The fanboy forum posters demand all the trinkets and video but have no intention of actually buying the camera once sony delivers. On the other hand Sony Pro / Semi pro users see no good reason to upgrade from their 850 / a900’s. Also this offering certainly had no way of luring anyone from the Canikon camp away from their systems like the a900 did.
a99 was released without the 36mp sensor in order to fullfill a video spec (face palm). Whoever at sony rubber stamped that genius idea should be fired post haste.
Yes_you_can, you just have all the answers don’t you? I am happy with the A99. I use it to shoot fashion, commercial, and events just about every other day, every weekend. I owned and used the Canon Mark II and Nikon D3/D3X. The AF from the Mark II was a joke, the original reason I jumped to Sony. Nikon has great AF but the skin tones leave much to be desired. Ergonomics is all preference, I prefer Sony.
At any rate… there’s no convincing you, or anyone else on an internet forum to change their mind, but just thought I’d let you know that I make my living with this camera, that I personally thought $2800 much less $3500 is a great deal for this camera, and it has proven itself already. It is far from perfect, but far from the failure you seem to love exaggerating.
Images from my A850 and A99 can be viewed on my website and tumblr: http://www.frankwithersphoto.com
http://www.fkwstudio.tumblr.com
If Sony priced the a99 for $500.00 you would still find something to gripe about. The original pricing was good.
If Sony priced the a99 for $500.00 you would still find something to gripe about. The original pricing was good.
Why is it we keep seeing the it should be the same price as XXXX or cheaper than XXXX?
For the people who actually want the camera they will buy it when it is a level they are happy to buy it at?
I waited and got mine with grip for the price of the camera alone = happy!
It will drop in price as all technology does in time, but if it was the same price as whatever you are comparing it to you would still come on here moaning when you will never actually buy it anyway?
So for anyone not sure just buy it and you will love it! I had A77 for a year but the A99 is a league apart in every way!
If it drops in price I don’t care I got mine and am enjoying it NOW!
Why does this camera cost more then a850. It had a a100, a700, and now I have a a850, a580, a77, nex5 and nex6. The nex is my favorite camera with the older a mount adapter with out the mirror. I think the full fame nex is really going to be mirror less motor less dslr, I believe Sony well stop putting focus motor in body soon thats why all lens are going Sam or ssm. I think the combo out now is nex6 with old adaptor and u can still have auto focus, I am not impressed with the a77, color shifts and pixels are blurry it didn’t seem to bad at low isos
I am a professional photographer. After waiting on the fences since the a99 was released, I purchased the a99 when this bundle was announced (and sold my Canon equipment). The bundle enticed me with accessories that were necessary for me, but the reason I waited was not so much the value proposition of the a99 (although a price under $2500 would be nice), it was more concerns about the following:
1 – EVF – I have always liked using an optical viewfinder and will probably continue to prefer it, I like being able to frame without sucking battery and seeing the world through the lens (I stare at LCDs enough during daily life). If there were an OVF variant, I would purchase it (or an OVF accessory)
2 – Video Quality – The mixed reviews have me concerned. I hope that it is at least as good as a Canon 5D2.
3 – Lack of lenses – Particularly a flagship 14mm rectilinear and Tilt/Shift options
4 – Off-camera flash triggering / Lack of Radio Control
5 – Lack of firmware improvements. Canon’s willingness to add features via firmware shows that they stand behind existing products and consumers, I haven’t seen any evidence that Sony does the same
If Sony focuses more on growing the ecosystem, I believe they will attract more professionals beyond releasing new camera bodies.
Hello ‘C’
Very well stated and I agree with you an every point. No, I’m not ready to jump on the A99 bandwagon but I will be buying a new blue-label lens fairly soon. I will be content just to see Sony stick to a roadmap long enough to instill confidence.
@ C:
Try the Phottix Odin for Sony. It offers perfectly flawless TTL HSS radio triggering for the Sony flashes.
If Sony would have used the 36Mp sensor and not switched the Flash Mount I would have purchased one but since they messed that up (Badly)(And The AF Area) I wont buy one at almost any price….