To many of you, the shortage of Japanese electronics, particularly professional photography equipment, is old news. But I hadn’t experienced the stock slump until recently when I went hunting for a Canon 1D Mark IV.
British newspaper, The Guardian, reported back in mid-March that the Great East Japan Earthquake would create a shortage of many Japanese electronics, driving up prices. Canon, Nikon, and Sony factories suffered some damage but not even a month later, the majority of their factories were operational, some fully humming. However, the rolling blackouts, material procurement problems, and the high demand haven’t prevented the worldwide shortage we’re having now.
“The factories are doing fine. It’s their subcontractors that are suffering because of the damage they took,” Tommy Gonzalez, owner of Carousel Studios in Miami, FL said.
This makes sense as many factories have several if not hundreds of subcontracting companies that supply them with parts and materials such as microchips, plastic and metals, and other parts camera manufacturers need to assemble their products. So, even though our favorite brand has announced that many of their production facilities are up and running, they may not be able to receive materials from their suppliers. The 9.0 earthquake has caused a massive ripple effect throughout Japanese industry and the world.
Americans have been cushioned from the Japanese electronics drought, but no longer as major camera retailers and smaller brick-and-mortar shops are showing “out of stock” or extremely limited stock on their professional lines of camera gear — lenses and bodies. At the time of this writing, Amazon.com is showing only two available Nikon D3S bodies and no Canon 1D Mark IV bodies. Mainstay professional zooms of both brands, including their Sigma and Tamron counterparts, are showing similar shortages with only a handful of each. B&H and Adorama are also showing those red-lettered phrases no customer wants to see.
The United States managed to keep itself out of the Japanese electronics drought because of its special trade relationship with Japan. The U.S. foreign trade rate with Japan hovers around 50% and therefore more product comes into the U.S. than to other places. Americans also tend to get the same electronics cheaper than other countries too. So, the U.S. enjoyed longer access to cheaper electronics while Europe, Latin America, and other regions saw the shortages and rising prices.
Unfortunately, the price increases have been seen across the board as cameras like the 5D Mark II, 1D Mark IV, D700, and D3S jumping $100.00 on average. I believe that this increase in price is mostly demand-driven but will continue as demand is maintained and supply continues to fall short. Gonzalez says that price increases are very likely, “We’ve put in our orders, but we don’t get invoiced until the order is filled. They might come back to us and say ‘Oh, it’s $200 more per unit.’ And you know how that goes.”
The price increases spell a problem to both stores and photographers. Stores will have to increase prices to maintain their margins as well as lose money on inventory they’ve already quoted to customers at a lower price. Photographers run into the problem of a piece of already very expensive equipment being just that much more. And with global economics as poor and unstable as they are, the extra $100 or $200 for a lens, camera, flash, etc. could be outside the budget. Passing on those expenses to the client isn’t very fun to do either because the price increase could cause a photographer not to be awarded the job.
As a photographer myself, I’m constantly trying to provide the best images possible to my clients. Good equipment helps me do that and the professional grade stuff has the capability, consistency, and durability to deliver. The equipment shortages and price increases make upgrades and expansion to meet new needs difficult if not impossible. You can’t give what you don’t have.
Rental studios are going to see an increase in demand, but since they themselves can’t buy additional stock, most of it will be reserved for weeks or months. This is good and bad for rental studios. Good in the sense that they’ll see an increase of steady, repeat business but bad in the sense that they cannot improve their inventory once they reach their peak. Slap on the more expensive new product they’ll be sure to order and their improved profits will be mitigated.
Each brick-and-mortar camera shop I called has waiting lists for their professional equipment and no definite answers as to when they’ll have enough to go around. They’d love to help, but with the largest camera manufacturer, Canon, saying that things should be fine “sometime in autumn” the summer isn’t looking too sunny.
I’m personally on a waiting list for a Canon 1D Mark IV at Allen’s Camera Shop and got lucky with one of six Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lenses they have. Such low inventory isn’t the norm.
“I’m fine with my Nikon stuff, but the Canon is hard to come by now. Things will get better, but I couldn’t tell you when I’ll get anything new,” Allen said.
For now, it looks like I and other photographers will need to be very patient and understanding over the next few months. Japan just got hit with it’s most devastating disaster to date. The people who help us make our art have taken a hard blow, but they’re still working hard to help us. As far as the business end goes for photographers, we should expect things to get a little more expensive and should be prudent with our upgrading plans. Expected roll-outs of newly announced gear may be delayed due to the realities of the situation.
“There not going to be shipping any of the new stuff because they can’t even get the old stuff out,” Gonzalez said.
With everyone kinda holding their breaths on Japanese electronics, I’m going to take a serious look as to what is priority when investing in my photography.
The silver lining to this is that it will keep me close to my core and help prevent me from shifting from photographer to a guy with too much photography gear. With so much stuff coming out so often it is easy to get caught up.
Last time I checked, I still have what I got.