Sony’s New 24mm G Master Lens’ Pricing Weirdness

So there’s something weird about Sony’s new 24mm lens that I’m not sure anybody noticed…


There’s no Sony price premium on this lens! 

It’s actually priced competitively and comes in at less than both the Nikon and Canon versions!

The Sony 24mm lens is priced at $1400, the Canon 24mm lens is priced at $1550, and the Nikon is priced at $2000…


This is strange for Sony because they take a multilayered profit approach that leads to their camera bodies being priced cheaply while their lenses command exorbitant prices (generally 20-25% more than competitors)… it’s all about getting you into the Sony E mount system.

It’s very much like printer and ink sales… Printers are often heavily discounted, to the point they lose money for the manufacturer, because they know that they’ll more than make up for that initial loss on the printer by locking you into their insanely high priced ink systems.

It doesn’t matter that you lost $15 on a printer when it only takes a single purchase of ink to not only make that $15 back but make another $10 in pure profit.


Which leads me to speculate that Sony may have changed pricing on all of their upcoming products to push back at Canon and Nikon’s new mirrorless systems. They may be reducing the price premium so as to maintain market share.

Regardless of why, for the Sony E mount ecosystem the new 24mm f/1.4 G Master lens offers a lot more value than other G Master lenses.

I can’t help but that extra value alone will make this lens a big hit.

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