Where have all the cheapies gone?

I just finished upgrading the lens table sticky (you should visit it). In the course of doing this the last three times, I have noticed a trend.

The El Cheapo lenses (Quantaray, Phoenix, Promaster, Pro-Optic, and Vivitar) are disappearing. Manufacturers/supplier​s are cutting down drastically on the available lenses.

Even the Big Three 3rd-party lens manufacturers (Sigma, Tamron, Tokina) are reducing their lines (especially Tokina).

Does anyone have any idea why this may be so? Are Canon, Nikon, et al. providing lenses at sufficiently cheap prices to drive the El Cheapos out?

I know Canon has three distinct lines (some say four), with "red-ring" (L-series) and "green-ring" (DO-series) lenses being the top line, and "silver-ring" lenses being the bottom line. All others, usually "gold-ring" or "no-ring" lenses, make up the middle line. The silver-ring lenses are pretty cheap, and possibly (even probably) a reason for the loss of the El Cheapos.

Is Nikon doing the same? How about Pentax? Sony-Minolta?

Just a curious fact I have run across. I'm interested in your opinions.

The way I see it is that people can purchase the Canon 75-300 for a little over $200 or they can buy some "third party" lens in the same focal range for $179. That's how it was when I worked in a shop, people wanted to buy brand name.

People also love the IS, thanks to marketing hype. For the beginner photographer, I think the IS is more attractive than the cheap price of the third party lens. Just my .02.

The problem is that (I believe) the difference in cost is now only a small percentage of the total cost. When it's like that, why buy trash when you can buy a known brand?

In the era when the El-cheapos came about a really cheap film body would take exactly the same picture as a really expensive one. Also, really cheap 35mm SLR cameras were quite cheap. It made sense for a certain (large) set of the population to buy cheap SLR bodies and cheap lenses. These people today are all owners of digital P&S cameras.

The relatively high price of even the cheapest dSLR bodies steers the most casual shooters away and towards P&S (this is changing though....dSLRs like the Nikon D40 are breaking the barrier). So there are too few people out there willing to buy a $700 dSLR and then some really cheap lenses to go with it.

The lens market lost the bottom end because the body market did. It may come back as the cheapest dSLRs keep going down in price.

The reason lenses like Quantaray, Phoenix, Promaster, Pro-Optic, and Vivitar are disappearing is that you can't continue in business when you sell junk. I once made the mistake of cutting corners and bought a Samyang (Phoenix) lens. It was the worst piece of crap I ever owned.

I think alot of it is because of the web. Before i would by anything i would search the web for reviews about the product and look for forums like POTN and such. Some will buy the cheapie and don't care about IQ. Me, i buy the best i can afford and if i can't afford it at the time i will save. This free forum has cost me alot of money. LOL.
pos

I see Simga floureshing. They make the lenses that Canon won't. e.g 12-24, 18-200 OS, 50-500, 18-125, 50-150 for prices cheaper than what Canon would charge. Granted when you pay for Canon, you typically get a lighter and smaller lens than if Sigma made it. So you pay less to Sigma and have to deal with bigger and heavier lenses instead.

RedHot wrote in post #3845107
I see Simga floureshing. They make the lenses that Canon won't. e.g 12-24, 18-200 OS, 50-500, 18-125, 50-150 for prices cheaper than what Canon would charge. Granted when you pay for Canon, you typically get a lighter and smaller lens than if Sigma made it. So you pay less to Sigma and have to deal with bigger and heavier lenses instead.

Sigma and Tamron appear to be doing quite well. As you say, they produce lenses that Canon does not. However, except for macros and special focal lengths, they have gutted their primes.

Tokina seems to be dropping their lenses right and left. Yes, they have introduced a few new ones, but overall their line is shrinking rapidly.

Quantaray, a Ritz/Wolf private label, are also dropping lenses like crazy. Ritz/Wolf used to offer Quantaray kits with certain cameras. They no longer do so, and have dropped most lenses that were in competion to Canon's ever-expanding silver-ring series. I suspect that Canon's introduction of IS into silver-ring lenses will do in the remainder.

Vivitar has effectively ceased producing/distributing lenses, though you can find left-over stock in many stores and sites. Why you would want to is a separate issue. The best Vivitar was the 100mm 1:2 macro. Pretty good optics for a cheap lens.

Phoenix (Samyang) have stopped producing many of their traditional lenses, which also killed those same lenses with other badges. The old 500mm four-element "stovepipe" seems to be history, for example, even though it had pretty good optics for such a limited lens. The 500mm mirror is still produced, and will probably stick around for a while, as nobody else makes one except the Eastern Europeans.

Pro-Optic still produces a very few oddbals, most notably a big 1000mm mirror and a 420-800mm MF zoom, essentially a zooming "stovepipe."

Promaster's has dropped its primes, including the 100mm 1:2 macro and the 500mm mirror (both re-badged Vivitars), the only semi-decent lenses of the bunch. None of their zoom lenses are, frankly, worth a damn. All are famous for bad abberations.

There was a market for these lenses, but it seems to have dried up. I only find this strange because there are no counterparts for certain ones of these El Cheapos. The 500mm "stovepipe" and mirror lenses used to fill a specific niche, that of cheap long focal lengths, that is now virtually unaddressed.

Canon, for example, has no 500mm silver-ring lenses of any sort.

I just find the whole thing curious, that's all.