You would think buying one lens is expensive!

[Conk]

Try having to buy L for these babys. :shock:

[12345Michael54321]

Top quality photographic equipment has always been expensive.

Go back 50 years, and look at prices. Then consider what the typical purchaser earned per hour. You'll probably find that to have afforded a top notch outfit back then cost nearly as many hours of labor as one does today.

Well, maybe not quite as much. It seems to me that high end equipment has gone up in price somewhat faster than has earning power. But balancing this, I suspect that in terms of how many hours a customer must labor to afford a good quality entry level system, today's cameras and lenses may actually cost a little less than they used to. (The miracle of automated production.)

And, of course, many of the features, capabilities, functions, etc., which can today be purchased for $200, in the form of a computerized SLR body, or a digital p&s, or a wide angle to telephoto zoom, simply weren't available at any price in days gone by.