Pre-Update Capture 23 - who can afford it?
WOW! 209,- EUR (169,- with 20% pre-update bonus)! Sorry, but right now in times of high inflation, war and highest energy/gas prices we've seen for decades your prices seem inadequate. I just took a look what I paid for pre-update to CO22: 126,30 €
I hate to say it but I can't afford your prices any longer. Maybe On1 2023 will be a good alternative or back to LRc :-(
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Yes, you're totally right, it's very, very expensive, I don't understand it either, that's bad politics for customers!
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Yes, I agree, from my standpoint as a consumer, this is overpriced. I suppose there are customers who are dying for the incremental features in C/One 23 but I'm not one of them. There's nothing in the new features that I need or frankly even care about. I'll wait until there's a v24 and see what they come up with then.
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A few comments...
(1) In times of high inflation may mean that prices are higher. Not welcome, of course. But I imagine that inflation, war, and pandemics add to the costs incurred by companies like Capture One too - they have to fund the development of the software somehow, and the prices paid by the users is the only way.
(2) Don't forget that typically there are new features in point releases during the year. To get a fair comparison of how much there is by way of new features, you'd have to compare 23.0 with 22.0, not with 22.4.
(3) Whether the new features so far announced are important to you, only you can say. But some of them are things that some users in this forum have been requesting for some time - for instance being able to put variants in different albums. That may be insignificant to some users and crucial to the workflow of others.
(4) When I tried On1 I didn't like it, and it was far more sluggish on my computer than Capture One. You may or may not prefer it.
Ian
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I can afford it. Do I want to afford it - that's another question. I do feel they've really gone too far this time though. Maybe working pros do not mind, and they do seem to be pivoting back towards that market.
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Where can I find the list of C1 23 new features?
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There's a brief intro to new features that will be in it here
No great detail, but there are brief animations showing you what they involve.
Ian
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You can’t, yet. But if you sign up for the Beta, you can test drive the full (potential) release.
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If you skip a version, the price is OK. I used to update every year, now I don't. Skipped 22, but just bought into the 'buy 22, get 23' deal for 167 euro. That's an average yearly upgrade cost of 83,50 euro. Not ideal and I regret that it is necessary, but it is what it is. I still prefer C1 over the competition.
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I purchased a perpetual license for 22 in Sept. Anyone know what the price would be to pre-upgrade/preorder to 23? Seems it should be discounted???
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I think it would be worth it if it had some features that users have been asking for years.
Like Focus-Stacking, an improved Keystone-Tool,...
Even though I agree with Ian that you can't truly compare the new features from v22 15.4 with v23, it's still a lack of proper communication. People simply want to know what they're getting for their money.
So even though I could afford it, I'm still not sure whether it's worth it.
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I purchased a perpetual license for 22 in Sept. Anyone know what the price would be to pre-upgrade/preorder to 23? Seems it should be discounted???
Unfortunately not. I trapped into the same situation last year. Bought C1 21 in August, had to pay the full price for the update to 22 a few months later...
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Honestly 209,- EUR for a frickin update with nothing important in it, c'mon Phase One WTF? They have gone too far now.
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If you think there is nothing important in it, you don't have to update, do you?
Ian
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If you skip one version you pay full price again isn't it so?
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I don't think so - I believe that this update is on offer at reduced price to users of the current version and one previous version. But even so, if you skip a year, and pay full price again, is that not still cheaper than paying the update two years running? (Not sure - just wondering.)
Ian
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Well, with the exponential rising curve that C1 pricing is following, probably not! :-)
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who can afford it?
Me. Thanks for asking.
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If you think there is nothing important in it, you don't have to update, do you?
Indeed. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head...
I honestly believe that some people only buy a licence so that they can then whine about it - the reek of entitlement in some of these comments is overwhelming.
that users have been asking for years.
Let me fix that for you:
That not enough users have been asking for, or you'd already have them.
It's really simple: what's important to you is very likely not important enough to other people, which is the main basis for Capture One's feature request decisions - it's a popularity contest, and niche feature requests are pretty much doomed to failure.
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Actually based on the overview / interpretation here by Alex / Alex On Raw (email newsletter only so far), the changes look to be far from superficial. What is encouraging to me is that at least there is some significant improvement in the DAM/Catalog area. And this is probably NOT high up in the popularity list - as far as I can tell the majority of users do little more than skim the surface of C1Pro's DAM features, just like in the day very few realised the so-far-never-repeated power of Aperture's corresponding features.
The price increases remain on the brink of excessive to me, but then again we are not only paying for the software, but also the support, which frankly is pretty good compared to the competition (no, really). In competing companies, in my experience (data point of 1), only Exposure Software (ex AlienSkin) is better in terms of customer support (and they are really, really good).
And C1Pro is to date the only general purpose Raw converter which offers a Luma curve tool, which is fundamental to the way I personally approach editing, and also to the looks I want to achieve. It also (very subjective) has by far the nicest UI in the field.
So yeah, although I didn't get my personal requests (stacking in catalog, Hasselblad Raw support) in this release, I guess I'll probably end up coughing up....
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> Ian Wilson: ...offer at reduced price to users of the current version and one previous version
I just checked my account and it appears I -- a v20 user -- can upgrade to v23 at a discounted price.
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All these moans about pricing for upgrades, simple subscribe and you don't have to worry about it. C1 offers plenty of choice for ownership. You can't complain if you buy a perpetual license and want to upgrade, the easiest solution is to subscribe.
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> All these moans about pricing for upgrades, simple subscribe and you don't have to worry about it. C1 offers plenty of choice for ownership. You can't complain if you buy a perpetual license and want to upgrade, the easiest solution is to subscribe.
Two points:
1. Buying it outright on these pre-upgrade prices is cheaper than subscribing ($159 vs $179/yr), so not sure why this is offered up as a viable solution.
2. It doesn't address the yearly cost vs value provided, which is what most people are complaining about here (and largely rightly so).
I'm still at a loss for why they don't flesh out their lens profiles. The thread on Capture One's forums asking for support for various lenses is pages long and doesn't seem to matter to them. It'd be one thing if I could get a proper lens profile for something like the Tamrom 35-150mm which has become a wildly popular lens choice among Sony shooters, but Capture one seems to limit their lens profile support mostly to first-party lenses, and they don't even cover all of those.
I've been trialing DXO Photolab and they have nearly even lens you can imagine (seriously, just look https://www.dxo.com/supported-cameras/). DXO Photolab is comparably priced ($20 more at $219 for a perpetual license) but also includes arguably the best noise reduction capabilities of any tool and some AI-driven features around selection and retouching/editing.
When looking at the relatively paltry list of upgrades in v23 compared to what other similar tools offer, many (including myself) are left wondering if it's worth the upgrade cost at all. . They're not even putting in the work to massively build out their supported lens profiles, so where is all that money going? v22 added HDR merging and panorama stitching (finally) and felt largely like a release that was playing catch up to other tools in this area, but we still coughed up and paid for the upgrade then. Where's the better noise cancellation, the AI-driven selection/retouching tools, the lens profiles?
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As I use it for my business, it is affordable but that's not really the right question.
For me it comes down to whether its worth the upgrade cost? Does it represent a good value for money? do the new features that are being offered make a big enough difference? (compared to C1 Pro 22). Sadly I have to say no to each of those. It feels like they've ran out of ideas which is odd because as others have mentioned, there are some key features that have been requested for some time that are still missing.
For me, I'd like to see...
1. Better diffraction correction for Leica M bodies & Lenses. It doesn't seem to do anything at the moment with the M11 and summilux lenses I have.
2. Improved noise control and keystone tools.
3. New tools like Focus Stacking, AI retouching and fill if you crop outside the image.
I do like C1 Pro a lot and like the tools and the way they're presented etc but that doesn't mean I'll throw my money at them for each upgrade if they don't add something that I feel makes a difference to me in my day to day work.
So far C1 has been part of my workflow for nearly 10 years but that is no guarantee that will remain the case. When they cheap out (upgrade features), I not only don't upgrade but I normally take a look at the competition to see how they're progressing. One day that might mean I never upgrade again. That's not a stroppy, "I'm leaving". No fan fare etc just a cold calculated decision as to whether there is a better tool for what I do and if there is, I'll move on.
For me, this year is a non-upgrade year.
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I probably could afford it, but gonna sit it out this year. 22 does everything I need it to and it has support for any camera I plan on getting anytime soon. 23 has nice new features I suppose for some users but by reading this thread, not any of you care enough to justify it either.
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Nice to see some offer a 219e/yr subscription as a better alternative to 209e upgrade. And yes, they're both now much more expensive than the prices listed earlier in the thread. If only I could get $179/yr. :/
Now, of course, they released the new plan so there won't be a C1 24. The subscription is way too expensive for me, and even the upgrade would cost over twice of what I paid the last time. The previous pricing was expensive, but the new one means I won't be able to upgrade at all. I can live without the new features, but I can't trust the app to work indefinitely and I need to upgrade my OS soon again. Do I rely on it to work forever, or shall I start looking for an alternative? I could get LR+PS for 148e/yr, over 50e/yr cheaper than just the LR. I moved from there just because I didn't want to live in SaaS hell, but I also can't afford to pay these current license prices considering I'm just a hobbyist that makes 0e from photography. It was fun for as long as it lasted.0
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