Andrew Davies Photography said:
Ok some interesting comments on the thread and people saying that the chinese work force is just as good as the japanese. In which case why would you pay for a Canon flashgun when you can get an identical spec Yongnuo ( made in china too ) for a quarter of the price ? and that goes for lenses now too as YN are into the lens game aswell.
In a word - reliability.
When you set out to manufacture a product you include in the design the materials, the manufacturing tolerances and the QC specification.
Canon, as a premium manufacturer, will likely use a higher spec for raw materials because it is what the customer expects, whereas a third party would be more free to use lower quality materials. The lower quality materials may be enough for 99% of the people in 99% of situations, but Canon may decide they want it to be suitable for 99.999% of situations and you pay more for that higher specification. Then comes the killer - higher QC standards. Every item that is rejected has to be covered in the pricing of the ones that sell, so the higher your QC, the more rejects, and the higher the price of the ones on the market.
Go onto Amazon and see how many complaints you have about build quality on Youngnuo flashes vs Canon flashes. That is what you pay for.
Even with lower QC standards, every now and again the third party will put out an absolutely excellent unit and that is when you see comments like 'Superb, as good as any Canon I have had in the past...don't know why people pay for Canon'. But it is in some respects a lottery.
Canon could lower their price if the slackened their QC and had a lower reject rate. But I question how long their reputation would last if they did.
Sigma lenses have this issue - get a good 'un and it is superb, but a lot of people talk about having to try several units to find that good 'un.
