Digital FM2 anyone?

[robbins.photo]

Nikon's not a bunch of idiots, there's gotta be some sort of a plan. I think the reto-loving hipster is pretty conscious of image quality, and might dig the "sensor from the D4" aspect of things, might even get on board the huffy "it's not just about megapixels" train. Maybe. I guess it's a good sensor?

The styling sucks, which might torpedo the whole thing.

I agree the ergonomics are awful - but my guess is that there may be a method in that madness as well. For someone who does things in manual mode the odds of hitting a button or switch or dial that might mess with your settings is probably fairly high - but I wonder if your using the automated modes where a lot of those buttons or dials will do much of anything unless your in the right menu screen if that might not make a huge difference.

 

[robbins.photo]

Cheap and retro-styled isn't a thing anyone else has tried, as far as I know. For excellent reasons.

Why on earth would Nikon want to attack a low volume, low margin market? If they wanted to try a sub $1000 DX retro body, they could just has easily have hired a Hercules and started shoving bales of money out over Iowa, for crying out loud. Those sub-$1000 cameras require a ton of volume to be viable at all, and there's nothing high volume about retro styling.

And even more importantly, it will be hitting the stores in time for the holiday shoppers. Wife wants to get hubby camera for christmas (or vice versa), not an expert on cameras -that's the spouses deal, here's one with all bells and whistles, bam, sold.

 

[brian_f2.8]

Not me the Nikon will no doubt have much better high ISO image quality. Probably better than the D4. It also will have affordable lenses and not cost an arm and a leg to get serviced if it needs it.

I agree, but if you want to be different Leica is the way to go. The M9 is so much fun to play with.

 

[Derrel]

The button/dial layout looks pretty much like the D4, which is itself a buttonfest, but then they threw 3-4 "retro style" dials on top.

I just counted: my D3x has 19 separate external buttons and or controls on the back of the camera, and 13 buttons or control on the front and top side. 19 + 13 is 32 external buttons and controls.

I just counted: my D2x has 19 separate external buttons or controls on the back of the camera, and 15 buttons or controls on the front and top side. 19 +15 is 34 external buttons and controls.

The new camera looks pretty simplified to me, but then I'm used to a D1,D1h,D2x,or D3x and have 13 years' experience with Nikon's pro d-slr bodies, and 31 years shooting Nikon...to me this new layout looks VERY much like the Nikon bodies I was shooting 30 years ago as a college photojournalist...it looks pretty simple, really.

Moving the ISO setting and the exposure compensation to external, top-deck dials is basically a simple reversion to the manual,mechanical input that Sony and Olympus are now using on some of their newest higher-end and "enthusiast" models. Using external, ALWAYS-visible control dials as opposed to nested, multi-level menus makes a camera simpler and more logical to adjust. One of the bigger issues on the pro Nikons has been too much menu-based hiding of important stuff. The newer cameras are almost infinitely customizable, and that's been done through menus. A separate, EXTERNAL, dedicated ISO button is something the pro Nikon bodies have always had (plus, ISO adjustment from within in the LCD menus is also an option on the flagships); the consumer Nikon bodies have used a menu-only system for ISO adjustment.

The idea that using a 5-page, 2- or 3-level menu system to make adjustments is somehow "easier" or "better" is a common mistake many newbs make. Beginners often see a P&S or entry-level d-slr and think that the lower the button count, the "easier" the camera will be to use for serious picture-taking. Unfortunately, that's not really true. Now, if you're coming from a Nikon D3200 like amolitor happens to be, the set of dedicated external buttons Nikon has decided to put on a pro-level type of camera might seem frightening. But really, the camera's main external buttons and controls all seem like single-purpose, dedicated controls. That makes the controls both easy to find, and predictable. At the opposite was one of Sony's first mirrorless cameras: it had no external ISO adjustment, and Michael Reichmann ridiculed Sony's design because the camera required 16 separate button presses to get to the ISO adjustment "screen" in the menu-based system.

I bet that before too long, this thing will be offered in a DX-sensor version for half price.

 

[Derrel]

Think about a 24-70 or a 70-200 on the black n silver body. It's fugly. To use this body you need an older looking lens.
I don't see the point.

Right Brian, and make sure the Nikon body you buy goes well with your favorite purse.

 

[Patrice]

After seeing the photos in an earlier post I like the concept. I used an FM2 and a F4 for years and this new camera looks like something I'd like to use. I like external controls in the form of wheels and knobs that you can identify by touch and turn to set and look at to see what the setting is. Direct control of ISO with a knob on the surface of the body I think is brilliant. Shutter, aperture, ISO and exposure comp all immediately accessible, what's not to like?

 

[amolitor]

It muck around with electronical things for a living, so it's not that buttons scare me.

It's just that the videos suggested something simple, "Pure Photography", retro, simple, basic. Just Pictures. I was envisioning something a lot more like my FE2, which actually has 100% of the controls you need to make pictures:

- Shutter speed/Mode dial
- ISO dial
- Exposure Comp dial
- Aperture dial (on lens, to be fair)

A minimalist menu system to control your AF and metering system modes, 3-4 buttons and that round navigation button thing (left, right, up, down, OK) whatever the call it.

Done.

This is a full-on semi-pro DSLR with a couple styling notes, not a Minimalist FE-style reversion to simplicity and Pure Photography.

The marketing and the camera are not well aligned, I think. The styling isn't aligned with the marketing or the camera, the camera isn't aligned with either the styling or the marketing. It all feels half-baked from my seat.

 

[sashbar]

Amazon.com: Nikon Df 16.2 MP CMOS FX-Format Digital SLR Camera Body (Silver): Electronics

Getcha one while they're hot

Looks like they have removed it.

 

[cgw]

It's possible that this is a test.

Nikon, as cgw keeps pointing out to us, has a problem. The DSLR market is starting to shrink. More precisely, certain segments are clearly going to evaporate, and certain others are clearly not going to evaporate. Nikon's long term strategy has to be entirely driven by:

- correctly segmenting their market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation
- estimating the long term revenue potential in each of those segments
- capturing as much of those with long term revenue potential segments as possible

If you're not in a segment that's going to matter in 10 years, Nikon doesn't really care about you, or at any rate they shouldn't. I'm not in marketing with Nikon, but we can rough out the major segments here:

- casual consumer, soccer mom, etc etc, wants "good pictures": GONE. IRRELEVANT. Milk it for now.
- professionals, with their laundry list of needs: HMM. PROBLEMS HERE. THEY'RE UNDER ATTACK TOO. STILL, 10 YEAR OUTLOOK SHOWS REVENUE POTENTIAL.
- enthusiasts, people who just love the gear, they love the process, they love making their art. THIS IS WHERE THE MONEY ALWAYS WAS, AND WHERE IT WILL BE IN FUTURE.

Enthusiasts come in a couple flavors, at least. Biggest, best, metrics-driven geeks. Retro-loving hipsters. Probably 10 other flavors.

This could easily be a quickly pulled together design based on off the shelf parts and a quick cosmetic body kit to test the size of that retro-loving hipster enthusiast market. Are those guys gonna go for Nikon, or is it all about the Leicas and the second-tier "I knew they were cool before you did" Olympus/Pentax/Whatever lineups? This is an interesting question, and one worth knowing the answer to.

Still think there's a case to be made for "commitment escalation" ensnaring Nikon, much as it did Blackberry/RIM whose narrow focus on product--not market--proved their undoing. Fuji's X-Pro 1 and X-E1/2 lured away not a few Nikon DX shooters. Friends who sell Nikon are sweating the holiday season. Online low-balling aside, they're also worried about scripting pitches for the D600/610, D7000/D7100, the Nikon 1 brood, and now this pricey new FX whose likely market can't afford it. That short-lived Amazon listing today with the Df's price killed the mood. It needs some stellar reviews which should be out quickly, assuming it's been in NDA signatories' hands for awhile.

 

[Mach0]

It looks cool but I'm all set.

 

[robbins.photo]

It's possible that this is a test.

Nikon, as cgw keeps pointing out to us, has a problem. The DSLR market is starting to shrink. More precisely, certain segments are clearly going to evaporate, and certain others are clearly not going to evaporate. Nikon's long term strategy has to be entirely driven by:

- correctly segmenting their market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation
- estimating the long term revenue potential in each of those segments
- capturing as much of those with long term revenue potential segments as possible

If you're not in a segment that's going to matter in 10 years, Nikon doesn't really care about you, or at any rate they shouldn't. I'm not in marketing with Nikon, but we can rough out the major segments here:

- casual consumer, soccer mom, etc etc, wants "good pictures": GONE. IRRELEVANT. Milk it for now.
- professionals, with their laundry list of needs: HMM. PROBLEMS HERE. THEY'RE UNDER ATTACK TOO. STILL, 10 YEAR OUTLOOK SHOWS REVENUE POTENTIAL.
- enthusiasts, people who just love the gear, they love the process, they love making their art. THIS IS WHERE THE MONEY ALWAYS WAS, AND WHERE IT WILL BE IN FUTURE.

Enthusiasts come in a couple flavors, at least. Biggest, best, metrics-driven geeks. Retro-loving hipsters. Probably 10 other flavors.

This could easily be a quickly pulled together design based on off the shelf parts and a quick cosmetic body kit to test the size of that retro-loving hipster enthusiast market. Are those guys gonna go for Nikon, or is it all about the Leicas and the second-tier "I knew they were cool before you did" Olympus/Pentax/Whatever lineups? This is an interesting question, and one worth knowing the answer to.

Still think there's a case to be made for "commitment escalation" ensnaring Nikon, much as it did Blackberry/RIM whose narrow focus on product--not market--proved their undoing. Fuji's X-Pro 1 and X-E1/2 lured away not a few Nikon DX shooters. Friends who sell Nikon are sweating the holiday season. Online low-balling aside, they're also worried about scripting pitches for the D600/610, D7000/D7100, the Nikon 1 brood, and now this pricey new FX whose likely market can't afford it. That short-lived Amazon listing today with the Df's price killed the mood. It needs some stellar reviews which should be out quickly, assuming it's been in NDA signatories' hands for awhile.

Well really this makes sense to me personally, though it's not a camera I would really want. They have a fancy, full frame offering to put in stores for Christmas. It has that "retro" look for the fashion conscious - it uses mostly off the shelf parts and tech that is tried and true and they have lying around so R&D wise pretty low cost for them, as a result and the price tag your looking at a fairly high profit margin. Result, they don't have to fly off the shelves to make money, the per unit profit on these is going to be pretty significant for Nikon. Then they also have their new D5300 to cover the entry level/prosumer market. Again it uses mostly off the shelf, tried and true with very little to no R&D. Not quite the price point as the full frame so not quite the unit per profit, but still respectable enough that it will be competitive with the other offers in it's class from other camera manufactures and again release just in time for the holiday shopping season.

Face it guys, they know us camera geeks will buy a new pro model full frame replacement for the D800 or a new replacement for the D7100 any time of the year - they don't really need to focus on getting those on the shelves. This is a total "What's new for Christmas" thing for the masses.

 

[brian_f2.8]

Think about a 24-70 or a 70-200 on the black n silver body. It's fugly. To use this body you need an older looking lens.
I don't see the point.

Right Brian, and make sure the Nikon body you buy goes well with your favorite purse.

I have to enjoy what Im shooting with. What lenses does Nikon expect people to use with this? The whole idea doesnt make sense.

 

[robbins.photo]

Think about a 24-70 or a 70-200 on the black n silver body. It's fugly. To use this body you need an older looking lens.
I don't see the point.

Right Brian, and make sure the Nikon body you buy goes well with your favorite purse.

I have to enjoy what Im shooting with. What lenses does Nikon expect people to use with this? The whole idea doesnt make sense.

Well, again, don't think they are really marketing this toward the dedicated camera geek crowd, given the way the camera is designed. This is more for the folks that will walk in to Best Buy or some camera store somewhere and buy it with the kit lens that comes with it, and will probably not buy more lenses for it after the fact - at least not in large quantity. In fact the vast majority of these will get used maybe once or twice and then get shoved in a bag in the closet somewhere.

 

[PhotoWrangler]

I think it's gorgeous! But then again my 1977 FM is one of my prized possessions too.

I'm not rushing to dump my D700 or anything, but if I ever run across an extra $2500, watch out!

 

[robbins.photo]

Think about a 24-70 or a 70-200 on the black n silver body. It's fugly. To use this body you need an older looking lens.
I don't see the point.

Right Brian, and make sure the Nikon body you buy goes well with your favorite purse.

I have to enjoy what Im shooting with. What lenses does Nikon expect people to use with this? The whole idea doesnt make sense.

Well I like my D5100, most likely I'll look at getting myself a d7000 or d7100 as my Christmas present to myself - just have to see where the budget is at that point. Only problem is they really don't match my purse. Sigh.