Why are accessories so expensive?

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steveathome

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I understand the technology, design, cost etc that goes into producing studio lighting, so expect to pay into the £100's for the actual lighting gear.

What rattles me is the price of some of the accessories that goes with it.

For instance a single barn door leaf in excess of £20, 4" deflectors both metal and plastic for beauty dishes £41 for a set of 3 or £28 for a single unit, I could go on.

Looking at a metal stockist website, I can buy a 1 metre square sheet of 0.9mm thick aluminium for £14. How many barn doors could be made from that at £20+ each?

I use the Elinchrom range of flash gear, of which I like very much, but lets face it no matter how good the gear may be we are certainly being ripped off with the cost of accessories.

I was just looking at the possibility of buying a grid for a soft-box, a simple cloth made article similar to the shape of egg-crate, they are in their £100's, unbelievable.

I am currently looking for some suitable purpose made "flags" to shield off lighting from the lens. I would prefer to have purpose made, rather than use black card, simply due to it being more robust as well as heat proof etc. Can anyone point me in the right direction for such a reasonably priced item, or otherwise it looks like I'm going to be ordering that sheet aluminium and some heat resist black paint.



Rant over.
 
The key word in your post is Elinchrom.
Elinchrom make some excellent professional lighting equipment and they also make much cheaper products aimed at the consumer market.
Now, professionals who've spent many thousands on high end equipment tend to grin and bear it when they have to pay a high price for accessories, but I understand your frustration at having to pay the same amount when you've paid far less for your own gear.

Elinchrom is a minority producer - a popular one in Europe but my guess is that the number of units they produce is fairly low - so there is a very limited market for the accessories they produce, and very limited incentive for other manufacturers to produce accessories to fit their lights. This means that Elinchrom have the market pretty much to themselves when it comes to accessories in their unique fitting, so the 'right' price is the price that they decide is the right price.
Bowens on the other hand is a much more popular fitting, there are a lot of manufacturers who produce lights with the Bowens fitting + there are a lot of importers who sell both Bowens fit lights and Bowens fit accessories, which means that the market is both much larger and much more competitive.

Elinchrom aren't alone with their pricing policy. The really high end lighting manufacturers (Bron, Profoto, Balcar etc) whose market is pretty much exclusively professional, charge even more.

Since I became involved with Lencarta, the Company has concentrated on developing a range of good quality accessories at what I think are reasonable prices. Creative lighting tools such as beauty dishes, fresnel spots etc (and yes, barn door sets) are a fraction of the price charged by other quality manufacturers, the idea is to encourage people to experiment with their lighting and to invest in tools that take their photography to the next level. Because of the reasonable prices, increasingly larger numbers of these products are sold but the numbers are still very small compared to the number of lighting kits sold, which means that the cost of producing fairly small runs of specialist tools is much higher than some people might expect.

I can only offer two solutions. Buy either Lencarta or Bowens lights and Lencarta accessories or make your own, where possible. It's pretty normal for professionals to make (or adapt) accessories to suit specific needs.

As for making simple flags, surely the answer is to use blackwrap (cinefoil) rather than sheet alluminium?
 
Garry, I've been discussing lighting in another thread with Hoppy (amongst others) and he came up with a reflector cap for Elinchrom. Is there anything remotely similar for Bowens?
 
Treesie said:
Garry, I've been discussing lighting in another thread with Hoppy (amongst others) and he came up with a reflector cap for Elinchrom. Is there anything remotely similar for Bowens?
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by a reflector cap...
 
Garry Edwards said:
Not sure what you mean by a reflector cap...
Click to expand...

She means one of these Garry http://www.theflashcentre.com/elinchrom-translucent-deflector-with-rod-i249.html I've posted a bit more on her other thread, and invited your comments on there too ;)

I think most of the answer behind the price of accessories is simply marketing. They charge that amount of money because they can, and we pay it. The low basic cost of the typical two-light kit itself, usually sold without much in the way of a big softbox for example which most people will want, is because once you're hooked into a brand you will stick with it and buy a few more bits with a lot more profit in them. It's a marketing decision.

Speaking of Elinchrom which I use, there are quite a lot of third party manufacturers who make stuff in their fitting - Bowens for example - just by changing the attachment ring, but they're not cheap either. The major reason why Lencarta are cheaper is because they have no retailers to pay, who might take maybe 30%, but as a result you're effectively buying blind. I was really surprised (and disappointed TBH) that Lencarta are not even going to be at the Focus show (March 7-10, NEC - good show it is). That's not a really a criticism though, just an observation. Their marketing decision.

Unfortunately, we are surrounded by rip-off prices in all sorts of areas, especially specialist stuff where very often the price bears absolutely no relation to the cost. I paid £30 for a plastic Canon lens hood. £100 for a polarising filter. Another example recently came directly from a guy that sells a lot of tripods of a brand very popular on here. They are actually manufactured for him in China (by Slik) and he speculated that the real cost of a top end carbon tripod that might sell for £400 was not much more than forty quid! :eek:

EdiT: I've got to say though, that price, cost and value are entirely different things, and none of them is any indicator of profit either!
 
HoppyUK said:
Unfortunately, we are surrounded by rip-off prices in all sorts of areas, especially specialist stuff where very often the price bears absolutely no relation to the cost. I paid £30 for a plastic Canon lens hood. £100 for a polarising filter. Another example recently came directly from a guy that sells a lot of tripods of a brand very popular on here. They are actually manufactured for him in China (by Slik) and he speculated that the real cost of a top end carbon tripod that might sell for £400 was not much more than forty quid! :eek:

EdiT: I've got to say though, that price, cost and value are entirely different things, and none of them is any indicator of profit either!
Click to expand...

In many fields cost and price bear absolutely no relation, for example it's £300 or so extra for metallic paint on your average new car, the difference in actual production cost? probably a few pennies a car....
 
Ah right, now I know what we're talking about and I've now seen that other thread. I've been away for a couple of days so haven't kept an eye on new threads.

As far as I know there is nothing similar for Bowens, although as you rightly say they make (expensive) softboxes that reflect back part of the light and the same effect can be created easily by a bit of DIY.

Yes, there are a few third party Elinchrom accessories available but IMO they're pretty poor and nowhere near as good as the genuine article, they are also very limited - e.g. softboxes and barn doors.

As for Lencarta not being at Focus - yes, that was a marketing decision based on the cost of exhibiting there amongst other things. Lencarta is well aware of the need to get their products in front of people and a big upgrade of the website is going on at the moment, among other things, but Lencarta is a small Company and it's always a balance between cost of promotion and the effect this has on sales. Large companies can sink large amounts of money into marketing without having much effect on prices, small companies can't, and when the emphasis is on producing good value for money and the money is spent on providing good customer service, something has to give.

Lencarta is working on this however, and although it continues to be a direct-to-customer business Photomart is now selling part of the range, and it can be seen at their showroom in London. Photomart are having an open day on the 25th Feb.
 
I didn't mean to come across as critical of Lencarta, if I did, it's just a comment.

For what it's worth, I think that Lencarta's decision to sell direct is probably rather a good one today, and use price as the sales hook. But you've at least got to tell people what you've got, even if you cannot demonstate it in a hands-on way, and Lencarta's decision to invest in improving their website is spot on. They could make that site the reference point for all information on studio lighting, and I'm sure sales would soar. From what they have now, it would not be hard to make it dramatically better (and that is a criticism ;) ).

Also, I think they could develop a profitable line of strobist accessories for hot-shoe guns too. You can't avoid the fact that a lot of people are doing things that way now, or integrating the two types of lighting, as I do now and then.
 
Thanks for the comments Garry. at least I now know its not worth searching any further :) But I do have a question for you, do you personally use this 'reflect back' lighting setup?
 
Treesie said:
Thanks for the comments Garry. at least I now know its not worth searching any further :) But I do have a question for you, do you personally use this 'reflect back' lighting setup?
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No I don't. I've added a fuller reply in your thread, to avoid hijacking this one
 
Thank you (sorry Steve at home:eek:)

However on the subject of expensive items I can't believe the price of the Bowens wafer light banks. Does giving it an upmarket name have to mean a huge price tag? :nono:
 
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