Nikon is dying?

[AQS]

Not sure if this wasn't mentioned before, but it seems back in November, Nikon has started to repurchase its own shares:

https://www.nikon.com/news/2019/20191202_e.pdf

 

[manaheim]

Hate to say it but Canon will likely be the last one standing because they have a significantly more diversified portfolio.

That said, I suspect even they will have some challenges.

 

[AQS]

Who knows? Nikon is not 100% wedded to photography as we know it.

From what I can see on Youtube, there are a lot of mid-20s people taking up photography, giving tutorials. So there is hope yet, but maybe not among the masses. But again, who knows? That all could change. I frankly hate taking photos on my phone, such a lack of control...

 

[TWX]

Hate to say it but Canon will likely be the last one standing because they have a significantly more diversified portfolio.

That said, I suspect even they will have some challenges.

So are talking a Jet-Li scenario, or a Christopher Lambert scenario? *grin*

Who knows? Nikon is not 100% wedded to photography as we know it.

My guess is that the companies that remain will do so in part based on their ability to survive contracting into smaller companies, and in part due to their ability to get their products integrated into other companies' products like phones, computers, tablets, even automobiles, dashcams, etc.

Nikon appears to have a strong foothold in commercial imaging (think manufacturing, the camera as part of the machine doing manufacturing or quality assurance as an automated process) to the point tht Canon put a Nikon mount on their own commercial camera offering.

Possibly one of the bigger hurdles are how parent-companies will treat the shrinking division/company. Nikon is part of Mitsubishi, which could matter a great deal depending on who's in charge at Mitsubishi. Canon is its own entity, and additionally it has more products than just cameras, in having copiers, printers, scanners, projectors, etc. We have hundreds, possibly upwards of a thousand new Canon copiers at work and the previous copiers were also Canon, so if my anecdote is anythning to go by, someone is buying their business products and driving profits. Canon is unlikely to throw in the towel on cameras if they consider that a core part of their business, that is less sure for Nikon.

We'll just have to see.

 

[AQS]

Coming back to this discussion, I watched a very interesting video by Matt Irwin this morning, not talking about if Nikon is dying or not, but rather showing why he is switching back to Nikon, while also taking a poke at other Youtube photo personalities who tout brands B, C or D as being better for X, Y or Z reason (this usually only lasts until the next, newest shiniest thing comes out), whereas Nikon take a long term approach.

Frankly, I think he makes some good points, and shows where the Nikon Z mount is a better solution and where Nikon is being more intelligent / using a long-term strategy.




After watching that, and discounting all the hype the other camera channels make about Sony (Fro et al), and taking a view of what I would use my next camera for, odds are I will be buying another Nikon in a few years, and most likely a Z.

 

[Soocom1]

Read the list of current and out of buisness camera companies.

Your worried about Nikon?
List of photographic equipment makers - Wikipedia

 

[Peeb]

I love my nikon z6 paired with an s-mount 24-70 f/4 more than baby puppies and rainbows. Could it be that I just didn't know what good cameras work like? I don't think so.

I've shot:
FILM
Canon Canonet QL-17 G-III;
Yashica FR
Nikon FG-20
Fujifilm point-&-shoot (forget model)
Nikon N70
Nikon FE
Nikon F100

DIGITAL
Olympus Camedia C-200
Nikon Coolpix
Nikon D40
Canon Digital Rebel
Nikon D5500
Nikon D600
Nikon D610
Fujifilm X-T20

 

[shadowlands]

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.

Exactly!!! Sony Playstation? Nah... XBOX all day!!! And of course... NIKON all day!!! Held a few Sony A7's. YUCK!

 

[BrightSight]

interesting historical perspective & prediction that nikon will return strongly with mirror-less:

 

[Sharpshooterr]

The last few respondeds were just Fan Boy stuff. Nobody is saying that Nikon is not great stuff. You’re entitled to love your Nikon and proclaim your next camera will be another Nikon! Who cares what air-headed guys like big hair Fro say or think, that’s all clickbait.
The discussion is that a few(many?) guys/opinion pieces have raised a red flag that according to nikons financial reports, by some that supposedly know about theses things that Nikon could possibly be in financial trouble? It’s possible to make great products and be in financial trouble.
Maybe it’s something as simple as paying a premium to Sony for using the Sony sensor. Maybe in the long run that was a bad move. Or it could be that nikon missed the boat in making printers. Probably half of Nikon users that print are probably helping kill Nikon by buying Canon printers when they would likely have bought Nikon printers had they made one.
If it was a merely conspiracy theory, I think Nikon would have come out and publicly put it to bed. I have not seen that Nikon has in any way attempted that.
For us to sit here and say that Nikon is primarily an industrial optics company or needs more diversification is pointless. Nikon could release a mirrorless camera better than Sony or canon or Panasonic or whatever and it may not be enough. It needs volume, not one great $3000 camera.
We can cheer at Matt Irwin but if Nikon is in trouble, cheering might not be what saves it.
Probably only Nikon can save Nikon if indeed it’s in some kind of trouble. It would likely need some debt dumping and restructuring and getting lean and mean.
I hope Nikon comes out of its corner punching hard but that’s up to Nikon, these problems don’t happen over night, and neither do the solutions!!!
SS

 

[malling]

Nikon is not going bankrupt not even if their camera division dies, the camera market is only a very small fraction of their entire corporation.

Nikon also manufacture healthcare product, industrial methodology product, FPD, Semiconductor Lithography systems, survey instruments, optical equipmeant and so on.

If Nikon is having financial problems, it’s not only due to how their camera business is doing, but their entire corporation. But to my knowledge that is not really the case. It is only their camera division who are at risk, Nikon as a company will survive with or without the camera division.

However they have allot of pride in that, so they are not letting it die without a fight. But I could imagine that they at some point will discontinue a huge part of their DSLR catalog, and their single lens cameras is probably also been put to death soon if the negative trend continues.

 

[shadowlands]

Not dead yet...

 

[malling]

The financial report from Nikons camera division is anything but healthy, an is a good example of why market share is not a very good indicator on its own.

So Nikon camera division is still on the line. Whether or not it survive really depends on if they manage to turn the ship around, for that to happen, Nikon need to get rid of the unhealthy part of the camera business, and most importantly they need to reduce costs, this can be done by reducing the size of the catalog eg getting rid of all the products that dos not make a profit, discontinued all mounts except the Z mount and use that mount on all new cameras and line up.

 

[TWX]

Coming back to this discussion, I watched a very interesting video by Matt Irwin this morning, not talking about if Nikon is dying or not, but rather showing why he is switching back to Nikon, while also taking a poke at other Youtube photo personalities who tout brands B, C or D as being better for X, Y or Z reason (this usually only lasts until the next, newest shiniest thing comes out), whereas Nikon take a long term approach.

Frankly, I think he makes some good points, and shows where the Nikon Z mount is a better solution and where Nikon is being more intelligent / using a long-term strategy.




After watching that, and discounting all the hype the other camera channels make about Sony (Fro et al), and taking a view of what I would use my next camera for, odds are I will be buying another Nikon in a few years, and most likely a Z.

So here's a dumb question.

Could either Canon or Nikon, with their larger diameter mirroless mounts, be considering sensor formats larger than traditional full-frame? 54mm/55mm are both larger than than necessary for a 36mm by 24mm sensor. 36mm by 24mm only requires an inner throat diameter of around 44mm, which explains the 44mm of the Nikon F-mount and the 48mm Canon FD-mount. Canon's EF-mount is 54mm, and likewise Canon's RF-mount and Nikon's Z-mount are 54mm and 55mm respectively. Could either of these companies be thinking about medium-format mirrorless? They could possibly get upwards of 45mm by 30mm assuming a 3:2 aspect ratio. Obviously this would require the lens to present an image circle large enough to fill such an oversized sensor, but given that the RF and Z systems respectively are no longer especially tightly coupled to legacy film formats, might this be the future?

It seems like if the goal were just to be full-frame, they wouldn't have to go much larger than the diameters of their DSLR mounts, much as Sony has with E-mount at 46.1mm.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

discontinued all mounts except the Z mount and use that mount on all new cameras and line up.

WHAT?!?!?! No Bro, say it ain’t so!!!
Not the mount that all the legacy people are gaga about?! That’s the only reason the loyal tribe is still there!!! LoL
SS