Nikon is dying?

[cgw]

Prayers answered:

ILFORD Harman Reusable Camera with Kentmere Film

It's reusable!

Unlike so many of those Nixon-era eBay classic SLRs that reek of damp basements and Lucky Strikes...

 

[Peeb]

I have read several articles in financial news pieces that Nikon is dying. How can this possibly be true. Nikon has been around a long time and is recognized as a leader in photography. The quality is excellent and the camera and lens choices are amazing. The articles seem to be based on the mirrorless cameras not selling as predicted and the quality of lens in cell phones. [...]

Nikon has done a lot of poor decisions lately.

They have put their name on a lot of poor recent products. The Nikon One system, the new Z system are NOT amazing. The Z system lenses are expensive and poorly built; while their cameras aint too great either (not in regards to build quality), at least those can be fixed in the second generation. Their planned 1 inch sensor compacts never actually got offered, despite production being ready; that cant have been cheap for Nikon, neither can the now failed One system.

They have ignored price competition from third party lens manufacturers for a long time, until those companies dominated the market, taking away large parts of Nikons profits. Why cant Nikon offer a 35mm f1.4 at an affordable price point when so many people want such a piece of glas ? And I dont like how Nikon is now effectively offering Sigma glas, like the AF-S 105mm f1.4, a lens optimized for fast autofocus and sharpness, but not for good bokeh or strong color saturation, like a good portrait lens should do.

They have ignored many other things other companies did. For example, they left IBIS with DSLR completely to Pentax, including pixel shift technology. And when they tried it, like with the Df, their attempt was halfhearted and halfassed and they never tried to fix it later either.

Yes, they also did some great things. The D500, the D850, the AF-S 24mm f1.8, the AF-S 200-500mm f5.6 VR are all recent and amazing pieces of gear. The AF-S 70-200mm f2.8 e fl vr, too, though that got almost immediately voided by the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 vc g2.

So yeah, its sad but not too surprising Nikon is in trouble.

It doesnt help that Nikon depends a lot on the photography market alone and that market is shrinking.

I traded the D610 for a Z6 with 24-70 f/4 zoom and it was a BIG step up in image quality and ease of use. I really love it. I’ll agree that it was costly, but what is the source of your opinion that the lenses are “poorly built”? Saying it was a mistake to wait so long to go all-in with mirrorless is a fair criticism of Nikon, but hardly anyone is suggesting that the z-lenses disappoint. Simply not rooted in reality.

Respectfully disagree.

 

[Solarflare]

The 105 mm F / 1.4 has bad bokeh and poor color saturation? Is this on planet Earth?

Um, why, yes ? I wasnt joking.

Aside from being very sharp and highly corrected, this is an optically absolutely horrible lens, and I hate it with a passion.

I dont even know any zooms with such an ugly Bokeh. In fact its the only lens I know that actually can make me seasick, because it has a slight Petzval kind of swirl but to an amount that looks as if my vision would be impaired. A real Petzval lens doesnt do that because its a clear effect, not an ugly muted one.

Obviously its bad build quality has also been documented, too.

Taking Apart the New Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED AF-S

Doubly disappointing considering the price point and manufacturer.

And yes people praise this lens all over the net. Then they provide images that either have been massively edited, or images which look like absolute garbage. I'm sorry but if I have to massively edit an image to make it look decent, sure I can use any lens I want. But I might just as well do paintings instead of photographs.

I'm convinced the only reason people love this lens is because its 105mm f1.4. That clearly shuts off many peoples brain.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

I dont even know any zooms with such an ugly Bokeh. In fact its the only lens I know that actually can make me seasick, because it has a slight Petzval kind of swirl but to an amount that looks as if my vision would be impaired. A real Petzval lens doesnt do that because its a clear effect, not an ugly muted one.

Err... *Swirly bokeh* is an optical property of ALL fast SLR lenses (mount restrictions). It happens because it's f1.4 and there's no way of getting around this. It also is only at the faster apertures and so preferring a zoom that only goes to f2.8 because it has less swirly bokeh than a prime at f1.4 is, well flawed. Especially when that prime at f2.8... The OOF at maximum aperture does not define the lens and is rarely the subject of the image. With all faster primes, watch your backgrounds.

It seems the forum populous clamors for a fast, sharp portrait lens with real character and when they have it they slam it because it doesn't fit their current understanding, (it's not the same as everything else). Or apply so much processing that the character and pretty much the level of sharpness of the lens is completely obliterated.

I've seen some very impressive images on the net, though not seen anything in print. Perhaps look again without the bias?

P.S. It's interesting to note that the Z series actually addresses this problem by relaxing the mount restrictions, and yet is still a failure in your view, along with the 105/1.4. Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

 

[Derrel]

Aside from being very sharp and highly corrected, this is an optically absolutely horrible lens, and I hate it with a passion.

I dont even know any zooms with such an ugly Bokeh. In fact its

I really don't know what you're talkin about, Solarflare.I have seen quite a few images from the 105/1.4 lens and I think it looks very nice. As far as low color saturation, I think that is silly to conclude low color saturation is a property of the lens. I think the images that the lens produces look distinctly different from many other lenses, and yes the word I would use is better. I think it looks a lot like the 200 F2 VR but in a much smaller and more affordable package, and it is capable of giving really defocused backgrounds in regular situations. Apparently you seem to think that Nikon should be ashamed for having made a lens that is too sharp and too well-corrected, and I understand that. The old 85 mm f / 1.4 AF-D was not that sharp especially at the corners and had terrible light fall-off in the first stop and 1/2 from wide open, and it yet it was widely regarded as the best portrait lens that Nikon made for many years. I had one and it was decidedly less well corrected and more flawed than the newer 85 G Series lenses. The 85 mm f 1.8 G was incredibly Sharp! It was as I have often pointed out listed as one of the sharpest lenses under $4,000 by dxomark in their testing of hundreds of lenses.

I think today people want to see a lens with less character, or put another way, most people today want a lens with fewer flaws.

 

[Derrel]

But just read Roger's teardown report from 2016... here are a couple of screencaps from that report

 

[Derrel]

Note that this Guru of dust removal calls the lens a "great lens", and in the report he notes that he himself would have left this lens alone, but because it is a rental people would scream if they saw even a fleck of dust in the rental lens. I have a Nikon 105 mm f/ 2.5 from 1982, which I used to carry with me in a wheat harvesting combine one summer in 1984, and the lens is filled with dust, yet in a blind test with another example from the late 2000s, I was unable to find any real impact from this super-dusty lens condition.

 

[webestang64]

The Nikon rep was at the camera store I work at last week and I asked him if Nikon is dying and if he needs to look for another job.

His reply......."Stop believing everything you read on the internet"......................

 

[shadowlands]

I have read several articles in financial news pieces that Nikon is dying. How can this possibly be true. Nikon has been around a long time and is recognized as a leader in photography. The quality is excellent and the camera and lens choices are amazing. The articles seem to be based on the mirrorless cameras not selling as predicted and the quality of lens in cell phones. [...]

Nikon has done a lot of poor decisions lately.

They have put their name on a lot of poor recent products. The Nikon One system, the new Z system are NOT amazing. The Z system lenses are expensive and poorly built; while their cameras aint too great either (not in regards to build quality), at least those can be fixed in the second generation. Their planned 1 inch sensor compacts never actually got offered, despite production being ready; that cant have been cheap for Nikon, neither can the now failed One system.

They have ignored price competition from third party lens manufacturers for a long time, until those companies dominated the market, taking away large parts of Nikons profits. Why cant Nikon offer a 35mm f1.4 at an affordable price point when so many people want such a piece of glas ? And I dont like how Nikon is now effectively offering Sigma glas, like the AF-S 105mm f1.4, a lens optimized for fast autofocus and sharpness, but not for good bokeh or strong color saturation, like a good portrait lens should do.

They have ignored many other things other companies did. For example, they left IBIS with DSLR completely to Pentax, including pixel shift technology. And when they tried it, like with the Df, their attempt was halfhearted and halfassed and they never tried to fix it later either.

Yes, they also did some great things. The D500, the D850, the AF-S 24mm f1.8, the AF-S 200-500mm f5.6 VR are all recent and amazing pieces of gear. The AF-S 70-200mm f2.8 e fl vr, too, though that got almost immediately voided by the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 vc g2.

So yeah, its sad but not too surprising Nikon is in trouble.

It doesnt help that Nikon depends a lot on the photography market alone and that market is shrinking.

I traded the D610 for a Z6 with 24-70 f/4 zoom and it was a BIG step up in image quality and ease of use. I really love it. I’ll agree that it was costly, but what is the source of your opinion that the lenses are “poorly built”? Saying it was a mistake to wait so long to go all-in with mirrorless is a fair criticism of Nikon, but hardly anyone is suggesting that the z-lenses disappoint. Simply not rooted in reality.

Respectfully disagree.

Indeed! The Z6 is built like a tank and feels 100% better in hand than the Sony's. Ergonomics. My Z 85mm F1.8 S and Z 50mm F1.8 S are built very well and the image quality is highly praised for them both. Don't listen to the BS.
The Z50 is selling very well. Smart move by Nikon to introduce a DX Z mount camera.

 

[daveo228i]

My 2cents. Back in the early 80’s I bought my first 35 m camera. A Nikon EM with a 50 1.8 E. It was though a coupon offering by one of the gasoline companies. I had little technical knowledge at the time. Several years later and having acquired some technical knowledge, it was time to upgrade. At a large camera store, a sales clerk showed me a Canon A1-E program. I wasn’t impressed with any Nikon in that range. I purchased my first Canon and a couple of lenses. From that time forward, in 35mm, it was Canon that I purchased. Just recently I bought a Nikon FM2N because I wanted a mechanical. I have loved and enjoyed shooting professionally with my Canon’s and their lenses. Nikon has presented some fine cameras and glass for film. In digital they were slow starting, behind Canon which grabbed the digital lead. To me Nikon at the present is still struggling in the face of intense completion from Sony, Panasonic and all the others in the electronic field.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Derrel]

Apparently you have not heard of the Nikon d850 which quite a few people describe as the best digital SLR ever made. Of course Sony and Panasonic make some wonderful clock radios, and Sony has a great Motion Picture division,music Division, and makes the wonderful Sony PlayStation. Sony also makes a very fine line of television sets. The fact that they once went 7 years in a row without turning a corporate profit shows how fantastic they must be!

It's kind of amusing that you thought Nikon was slow starting in digital, since they introduced the first affordable professional level DSLR camera, to which Canon lamely responded with the amateur market-oriented 3-megapixel D30, which was fairly quickly followed up by the Canon D60, which was in turn followed by the 10D. By 2004 after about five years of the DSLR Market,I would give the edge to Canon, but beginning in 2009 and continuing to this day, Canon has been badly eclipsed by sensors made by Sony. For basically seven years Canon used the same tired old 18-megapixel sensor in all of its consumer cameras, and has greatly lost market share as other manufacturers worked diligently to provide world-class sensors in the cameras that they offered to users.

 

[compur]

I think it's ironic that phones are now doing to digital cameras what digital cameras did to film cameras.

 

[Derrel]

About a week ago somehow YouTube offered up a Tony Northrup video that had the same title as this thread. In an uncharacteristic display of behavior for me, I actually watched it. Tony and his wife Chelsea demonstrated through graphs and charts the declining sales and declining profits of the Nikon camera division, and like the camera industry armchair experts that they see themselves as, they offered a number of potential courses of action for Nikon to return to its former profitability, and one course of action was for Nikon to offer a monthly cloud storage plan for its users.

Another option was to make a camera that works a lot like a cell phone with built-in file sharing and internet uploading capability, as they put it,because the younger generation does not understand the direct "download to computer" model, and have always depended upon internet sharing and upon uploading to someplace other than one's own personal computer hard drive.

 

[TWX]

Heh. When Dad's 16 megapixel Coolpix S7000 broke, what failed was something in the alignment of the lens as it opened. The sensor showed strange optical abberation, one side of the image was out of focus in front of the plane, the middle-ish was focused in a sort of column up and down, and the other side was out of focus behind the plane. He'd only had the camera a couple of years and was disappointed enough in how it broke that he wasn't intrested in another Nikon at all. Strangely the lens still extends and retracts.

For me, while the F-mount has a very long history, far longer than Canon's EOS/EF-mount, it suffers from having confusing technological changes during its run, especially as far as autofocus control is concerned. With EOS, I know that basically all full-frame and APS-H cameras will use all EF lenses, and all APS-C cameras will work with all EF and all EF-S lenses. For the Canon universe it only starts getting confusing when looking at third-party lenses that are for APS-C sensors but feature the EF mount, but no Canon-sourced EF-S lenses will even mount on a full-frame or APS-H EOS camera. As far as I'm aware, every Canon-produced lens for the EOS system also has autofocus capability except for early tilt-shift models.

I wasn't in a position to notice it, but I gather that Canon's complete end of the FD line in favor of the EOS/EF line really ruffled some feathers, but now more than thirty years later we're seeing the benefit of that, in that compatibility is excellent. Nikon's continuing to use a mount for sixty years ultimately means potentially incompatible generations of lenses will still mount-up even if they don't work for whatever reason. They tried to make a clean break of it with their early CX mirrorless cameras, but their discontinuation doesn't inspire confidence.

It wouldn't surprise me if it's primarily existing Nikon owners that would continue to purchase new Nikon cameras, since they're already accustomed to the nature of the lenses over the years. Since cameras are reasonably durable, long-lasting purchases though, potentially lacking new first-time buyers could be problematic for their bottom line.

 

[AQS]

About a week ago somehow YouTube offered up a Tony Northrup video that had the same title as this thread. In an uncharacteristic display of behavior for me, I actually watched it.

I watched it the other day too, it was all gloom and doom, but keep in mind that "click bait" is what leads to viewership and more money for him to be able to put petrol in his BMW 840i (minute 3:04):