> with increasingly capable smartphones chewing through the dedicated photography segment. Still, it seems Nikon has suffered it worse than most.
The damage from smartphones was done a while back. The truth now is that Nikon (and Canon to some extent) failed to be at the forefront of: (a) action/drone cameras, (b) 4K video recording, and (c) mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras. Sony and Fujifilm have seen a real renaissance in their mirrorless camera lines (I switched from Canon to Fuji and haven't looked back). Sony has small mirrorless cameras that shoot 4K on par or better than Nikon. GoPro created a billion dollar public company yet Nikon only just recently announced their own action cameras.
I worked in the photo industry for several years and Nikon was once the gold standard. IMO they have no one to blame for their current state than themselves.
I mean, I suppose on the consumer or prosumer level, but if you go to any sporting event, you will see a sea of Canon L series glass and not much else...
Not sure the quality of the source but this suggests that 75% of the pro cameras at last weeks Super Bowl were Canon, and all of the television broadcast lenses were HD Canon lenses.
I just don't see GoPro or Fuji competing at that level, so perhaps their issue was expanding past the point that their core business could support once those periphery product lines fell out of trend.
I think that Canon and Nikon have been resting on their laurels, in large part because they have the photojournalism market sewn up. They're the undisputed champions of a small and highly visible market, but they have been overtaken in almost every other respect. They don't make the best sensors, they don't make the best lenses, they don't make a compelling mirrorless camera.
Canon and Nikon don't have the aspirational appeal that they used to. Their prestige has been badly undermined by the Sony/Zeiss partnership - the best sensors paired with the finest glass. Sigma used to be the cheap option, but they're now producing some of the best primes in the world. It used to be that serious photographers were either Canon or Nikon people, but now they have a lot more choice.
Nikon just doesn't have the money to compete, I'm friends with one of the Nikon glass people, as in the people who make the glass, he's just depressed each time I come over with some great Canon lens (I showed up with the 400mm f4 DO which is identical in size to the 200mm f2, he was stunned they could make a 400mm that small with optics that good).
I whole heartedly disagree that Canon is coasting. Years ago they knew that they would make a 50Megapixel camera and they started redoing their lenses to resolve details at that pixel size. Go look at the mark II lenses, the 70-200, the 300/400/600. Go look at the bodies that do 50MP, the landscape people love them.
Canon is investing heavily into bodies and glass.
That said, I've got the Sigma 85mm ART and have looked at other Sigma glass. Couldn't be happier with the optics, they are still behind in the auto focus speed. If that's not an issue then Sigma is killing it and that's a good thing.
How many professional sports photographers are there? I guess all those wedding photographers need to look the part with Canon's and Nikon's too. Is that enough to keep Canon and Nikon afloat?
My wife's a professional wedding photographer, so she's got the glass as you say in the game... I'm a dunce photographer, but I've been taking photos using my phone (like everyone) and I enjoyed it, so one day I picked up one of the DSLR's with a "decent" 85mm lens on it and took a photo.
The difference is astonishing - it's night and day. The world is filled with light and depth, colours are like bonfires shadows are like the pits of the deepest mine.
But then again I guess that's one data point! It may be that in fact phone cameras are great and I'm just deluded.
No, it's not a delusion, it comes down to a few simple things like sensor size.
I have an entry level Canon DSLR from 2007, 7MP, which takes far better photos than any smartphone I've ever used.
The reason is pretty simple, it has a 1 inch square area for its sensor, while the smartphone sensor is about the size of a small pinky nail (1cm squared or less?)
For any given period of time, the larger sensor can capture more light at once, either taking better exposed or faster shots, and having far more data in which to encode a digital images pixels.
It's certainly insanely impressive what modern hardware and software get out tiny sensors, but bigger sensors are still incomparably better -- AND can benefit from many of the same advances small sensors use.
It's kind of like car engines. It's always impressive when someone gets insane performance out of a tiny engine, but no one disputes that a big engine is going to be more powerful than a small one, especially when displacement is the only difference.
As noted elsewhere, that's the beauty of mirrorless system cameras (Fuji X, Olympus and Panasonic μ4/3, etc).
I had a Canon Rebel XT for years, but rarely used it because it was bulky. Great photos, but like you said, if you don't have it with you that doesn't do much good.
I picked up an Olympus PEN E-PL6 two years ago and with a standard prime, it fits in a jacket pocket or small bag. Doesn't fit in trouser pockets, but it's small enough to carry around on vacation without being a nuisance. And can still take an assortment of lenses (I regularly use a 9-18mm wide angle and a 17mm prime).
My wife uses a Canon S100, which is truly pocketable. And still produces a way better photo than a smartphone (although that gap is getting narrower by the year, especially in good conditions).
But, all that said, 80% of our photos are with the smartphones, because they're always with us.
You're completely correct about the difference. You can't take a photo like that with a phone, and you never will be able to. Because physics and economics.
But... that kind of quality costs many thousands of dollars, and it's heavy enough to be a problem. You have to decide the weight is worth it before you head out the door for a day of lens aerobics.
The market for people who need/want to do that is tiny.
This makes me sad, because I love that look, and I hope it never disappears.
And there are assorted "retro" cameras on the market. If the Olympus PEN-F were weather-sealed, I'd own one already (instead of my much less expensive PL-6).
I think that there might be a new wave of camera companies that might substantially disrupt the high-end Nikon/Canon market. Light is a good example. [1]
Really? Their MFT camera is about the same price as a low-end MFT from olympus or panasonic. The go pro had a lot of obvious margin to eat up. I wonder how much a sony action cam would cost if they didn't have to provide a warranty like yi doesn't have to provide much of a warranty?
DJI is pretty expensive and chinese too. In the end it's about the tech to price ratio.
Yi's mirrorless MFT, according to reviews as I don't own one, are half the price of competing models. I have a panasonic G10, but I'am watching Yi...
Have you watched the people that use Action cams? Drones, Dirtbikes, Mountain Bikes, Kayaking and more... A warranty doesn't generally cover "Smashed into building buttress at high rate of speed whilst attached my 250mm racing drone, will you please replace under warranty?"
It seems that most people have settled for smartphones for the bulk of their photographic needs. When you can get a similarly spec'd action cam or MFT cam for 1/2 or even 1/3 the price, a LOT of people will jump on that. Especially people that have broken a GoPro... Ask me how I know that :)
DJI has a lot of competition just getting started... The quadcopter world is absolutely on fire and moving amazingly fast.
The DPR review of the Yi MFT camera is not pretty: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/yi-m1/7 The main complaint is that it has very poor autofocus ("unusable" in continuous and video modes). Good autofocus is important, especially for entry-level cameras, so I don't think Olympus and Panasonic are too concerned about Yi stealing market share from their entry-level models.
> in low-light or when it came to low contrast subjects, which made shooting in dim or challenging light difficult at times.
This probably affects less than 10% of action camera users (who uses action cameras in low light?!). I've only used a gopro either outside (hiking, skiing) or underwater snorkeling. If I can get a similar one for half the price I will on my next purchase.
I think you're right on with B. As a photo professional I'd say 4K 60fps video is the number one feature a camera can have these days. Enabling every photographer to also be a cinematographer. Canon and Nikon just aren't keeping up, mostly due to their crushingly expensive pro lines.
> ...Nikon (and Canon to some extent) failed to be at the forefront of...(b) 4K video recording...
I'm in the market for a "casual" 4K video recorder. It would only be used to create archival footage of interviews; no need for ultra-fast action-capture, color can be family-photo-good-enough. From what you asserted above, I get the impression that Nikon and Canon have ceded the consumer-grade 4K camcorder market to other competitors, is that the case?
Nikon has never been a contender in video. Canon has but it's ceding a lot of ground to Panasonic (GH4/GH5) and Sony (A7S) in 4K video as it doesn't want to cannibalize sales of its much more expensive video cameras.
Smartphones are, in fact, a replacement for point & shoot.
It's true that they have a smaller sensor ( ~2 times smaller than that you would find in your average P&S ).
However
* You already have one...
* In fact it's probably either in your pocket or your hand right now.
* Your smartphone has a far superior UX and the photo can be uploaded anywhere in seconds.
* Smartphone sensors - being mass produced at a very large scale in a market which is quite under pressure to constantly improve with short release cycles - actually perform very well for their size.
So, cameras market mostly make
* Very high quality P&S such as the sony RX100
* DSLR & Reflex for enthusiasts
* Professional cameras
However, why they don't try to improve the workflow & the UX of these cameras is a mystery to me.
Proper software ( android based maybe ? - sony already run some kind of android ), touch-enabled UI, gps, accelerator wifi & articulated screen should be standard.
I love my sony a6300 but the UI drives me crazy. You have to go through a crappy UI, pay several dollars, to download an intervalometer - aka an app that will take photos at a specified interval of time.
And sending a photo to another device seems such a pita I didn't even bother to try.
> You already have one...In fact it's probably either in your pocket or your hand right now.
"f/8 and be there." That's the other reason I'm returning the A900 - it's a solid camera, but so is the one in my pocket, and by the time I've dug the A900 out of its case, powered it on, and framed the shot, there's most likely no longer a shot to get. My phone's a lot faster, and if I'm going to be digging in a case and screwing around setting up a shot, I may as well be doing it with a DSLR that does more than any point-and-shoot ever made.
Awesome as smartphone cameras are, they're also slooooow compared with a P&S, and doing everything through a touchscreen is never as good as dedicated buttons. More features don't automatically make something better.
Really? I've found it to be the opposite - my iPhone SE beats a Coolpix A900 every time. I don't have wide experience with P&Ses, though, so maybe that's just a slow camera? But it'd have to be a very fast camera for the overhead of a case vs. a pocket to cease to make a difference.
(And I carried the case slung on the outside of my satchel, partially under the flap but otherwise exposed. All it took was a tug, a flip, and a yank - but my phone was still faster, every time.)
It's faster than turning your P+S on. Not for taking pictures once it's already on (assuming a reasonably up-to-date camera). For casual/consumer use, a phone is better. but if you're serious about photography, the convenience issues aren't the same.
It's like how there are all kinds of amazing music apps available on smartphone or tablet - it's beyond question that they are valuable creative tools. But if you can play guitar, you'll probably always prefer doing so to using your phone despite the inconveniences of owning and carrying a primitive wood and metal wire contraption.
> For casual/consumer use, a phone is better. but if you're serious about photography, the convenience issues aren't the same.
That seems reasonable. I'm kind of in the middle, I suppose; in daily use I want minimal friction and inconvenience, which makes the phone camera a win, and on the other end I want to mount a telescope and fill the frame with a sharp-shinned hawk at rest or the moon in full phase, and that seems to pretty much require a DSLR.
(I also learned the basics on my grandfather's Nikkormat FTn, which I now have and regularly wish I could go back to film and use. That's a tough standard for any P&S to live up to, and silly as it is, I can't help but make the comparison.)
Why not both? I like a DSLR best but a good P&S is a lot more usable than a phone. For one thing you can operate it without having to look at it because it's got physical controls.
Sticking with my parallel guitar argument, that's like saying that you should use an app to make guitar tines unless you're willing to invest in a Martin or Les Paul guitar. In reality someone's favorite guitar might be a $10 thrift store purchase that delivers far more satisfaction than (insert your favorite guitar app here).
You're using the wrong smartphone then - I can be taking a picture with my iPhone before most P&S cameras finish powering on, let alone are ready to take photos.
Also most P&S cameras have horrible battery life combined with proprietary batteries and chargers to ensure that your camera is never charged when you need it.
> To claim that smartphones are a replacement for P&S cameras is I think misguided.
There's a joke that asks, "what is the best camera?" The punchline is, "whichever camera you have with you when you need to take a picture." To me, this captures why smartphones beat P&S, even for vacation photos. The difference in quality just isn't that large. I just spent six months traveling and almost never used my P&S. Even when I had both on me, my phone was just more accessible. And P&S can't match the sharing functionality of a smartphone. Even on vacation, when I take a photo I liked, I want to put it on Instagram without having to use a computer.
I see a market that has no middle. You're either a professional who needs the absolute best quality or you're not and want something that takes acceptable photos as quickly as possible. Other than that, there's only the specialty market (action, drone, underwater, etc), which is small by comparison. But smartphones are now good enough that the market for P&S is vanishingly small.
The problem with point and shoot cameras is their lack of interaction with phones.
This may not be an issue today, but for the last few years people ask me what cool camera to get that's under £250. I ask them what they want to do -- mostly portrait shots and kids action shots indoors (play areas for toddlers), and most importantly just click a button to transfer the photos onto the phone for facebook. There isn't a camera that will do all that any better than an iPhone camera. Sure a DSLR will take a nicer photo, but dragging that massive £2K weight around for a 10% better photo. Or for most people they can't even see the difference. I love me a bit of bokeh, but for 99% of people, they simply don't care.
I'm actually about to return a Coolpix A900 that handled the phone integration issue very well via the SnapBridge app - that's not what I would call the best UI in the world, and it's annoying to have to switch Wi-Fi networks to the phone's AP in order to use the transfer and remote control features, but I also don't see how it could be done any better; leaving aside that minor annoyance, it's a very nice way of interacting with the camera, and one-touch picture transfer is a lot nicer than having to pop the SD card out of the camera and into an adapter for the phone.
(In case of interest: I'm returning the camera because it isn't enough of a value add over my smartphone's built-in one to justify the price, and for another $100-$150 I can get a DSLR body that'll take the same F-mount lenses my grandfather used and give me the capabilities I actually want out of a discrete camera because my smartphone can't provide them. The Coolpix A900 is a fine camera for what it is - but what it is isn't what I require.)
ETA: Not complaining about downvotes, but I am curious why they're happening. The negative judgment of the community is more useful when combined with information on why it's merited, so as to make it less likely I'll screw up the same way again. Obliged in advance -
The P&S market has been squeezed from both sides. Smartphones have taken away a lot of market share, but so have mirrorless cameras. The entry-level enthusiasts who might have once bought a $400 P&S are now overwhelmingly opting for a mirrorless ILC instead. For a slight increase in size, you get better handling, a vastly better sensor and the flexibility of interchangeable lenses.
Plenty of us have need for cameras mounted to ourselves so our hands can remain free for work, such as sitting inside of a highly dangerous mine while trying to extract 20+ pound chunks of fluorite and capture the awesomeness of pulling the mineral right out of the ground after millions of years of formation.
"Tangential aside - is this a thing? A hobby? Research? Paid employment?"
All of the above and more. I'm invested in it enough that I'm going to become Vice President for California's oldest mineralogical society next year, most likely.
"I've not heard about digging up minerals for fun."
You've never gone rockhounding or had some sort of rock collection when you were a child?
I vaguely remember having a rock with some sort of purple crystal formation, probably bought from the gift shop of a show cave, but I've never come across that as a hobby before. I guess I never really thought it through - they have to come from somewhere, after all!
I've already got a lot of outdoor hobbies - underwater archaeology, caving, and recently took up cave-diving - so it's interesting to hear about something related. Thanks!
Right, but there are literally ZERO reasons that camera needs to say GoPro, Nikon, Garmin, or Sony when the Chinese version will do the same for a fraction of the cost.
I think of someplace like REI with inventory for a wide range of outdoor-ruggedized premium products - many of which are just slightly better fabric/plastic/metal devices, I think there's a good argument that you do want to own various niche needs and have your brand name and reputation prominent.
But relying on a mass market outlook when the product is becoming a niche (or maybe a set of niches), that is going to lead to trouble.
The Chinese don't even have an actual clue about what constitutes HD. To them, it's any wide-screen format (as evidenced by my "HD Camera Glasses" which only records at 720x480.)
there is literally ZERO reasons that camera needs to say GoPro, Nikon, Garmin,
or Sony when the Chinese version will do the same for a fraction of the cost.
Brand and trust still have a big factor in consumer sales. Price is also often used as a cue to quality, so in some cases, being more expensive can induce sales.
> but there are literally ZERO reasons that camera needs to say GoPro, Nikon, Garmin, or Sony when the Chinese version will do the same for a fraction of the cost
That doesn't make it less of a reason for it to be a popular category.
> To claim that smartphones are a replacement for P&S cameras is I think misguided
The problem is that the majority of consumers have already decided the opposite. P&S sales are in decline, which means our options will diminish and those options will get more expensive.
It's a bummer, since my P&S from 2013 still blows away my iPhone 7 when indoors or other low-light situations.
But I like to think whatever iPhone model is out in the next 4 or 5 years will finally match my $200 P&S.
If quality were an issue they would use real cameras. But in an age where photos are viewed on screens or in dimensions smaller than even a 4*6 print nobody notices the difference . Nevermind the resolution is worse too.
People have shown they are more than willing to accept inferior quality in exchange for convenience.
Even before smartphone cameras, people who cared about quality weren't using P&S cameras. P&S was always for cheap and convenient, not quality.
When everyone already has a smartphone they take everywhere, there's not a lot of market for cheap and convenient standalone cameras; no matter how cheap they are, they aren't cheaper than "I already have it", and matter how convenient they aren't more convenient than not having to carry another device.
Smartphones have replaced the postcards sent to family and friends during vacations. Something that the point and shoot alone hasn't been able to do as there are too many steps involved (Take picture, take out SD card, out in laptop, copy pictures, go to Facebook etc, upload). On a smartphone it's tap, take picture, tap, upload. Boom. Shared. Done. Most people don't care if it's a 1/3" (many smartphones) or 1/2.3" (most point and shoots) or even a 1/1.7"(higher end) sensor. Lacking of zoom is a bit of an issue, but that alone isn't enough for people to "carry yet another" device in their purses.
1" sensor enthusiasts cams are selling quite well (Sony RX series)
Mirrorless and DSLR are selling well with tourists.
"In accordance with this restructuring, the Group recorded extraordinary loss of 29,790 million yen, mainly incurred from inventory write-downs/write-off in Semiconductor Lithography Business, as restructuring expenses for the nine months ended December 31, 2016."
Also, Canon has been kicking Nikon's butt at form, function, and price in the camera market. This is strictly my opinion and the same of some of my friends.
That's somewhat true, but the biggest reason to buy a camera these days (over just using a phone camera) is for better image quality, and IMO the mid and high end Nikons give better results than Canon. Obviously subjective, but it's why I bought a Nikon last year.
Thats what I was saying. The Nikon D600 vs the Canon 6D had a better sensor. The canon 6D had built in wifi & GPS. Nikon could of put that in for $5 although, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to why they would not do that. The add on modules are a pain in the ass to use.
Even with Nikon struggling, I would (and have) choose them over Sony. There are a lot of people frustrated with how they've treated the whole A-mount lens system.
One of the things I love about Nikon is that the lens my dad shot with in 1993 works perfectly well on my camera from 2016. People spend a lot of money on glass (with good reason), and to have the camera manufacturer get wishy-washy on whether or not the line will be supported in the future must be concerning.
E-mount is significantly superior to A-mount for MILC cameras. The extremely short flange length means that it's compatible with pretty much any lens with a suitable adapter.
Your dad's old lens F-mount lens will work perfectly on an E-mount camera, with full AF and aperture control. So will any A-mount or EF-mount lens.
If you're using a Metabones or LA-EA4 adapter on a camera with phase detect AF, there's no practical difference. AF will be slower on a camera that only has contrast-detect AF.
The LA-EA4 doesn't count since it doesn't cover your statement "Your dad's old lens F-mount lens will work perfectly".
Every Metabones review I've seen had slightly slower AF. "Perfectly" still does not apply. Also, not all lenses work with Metabones, i.e., the lenses that don't work with teleconverters because their backs stick out too much.
While I appreciate the benefits you're selling, those adapters aren't perfect.
>> Neither company can keep pace with Sony and Zeiss.
I'm a fan of Sony cameras, but I would only go so far as to say that Sony's sensors are great.
I find some of Sony's handling and physical camera design choices to be a little questionable, especially when compared to Olympus, Panasonic and Fuji.
Not just their sensors but also their lenses. Their Zeiss collaborations are some of the best lenses around and their new G-Master lenses are fantastic.
Agree that their ergonomics and UI are pretty bad though.
I'm sure their lenses are just great (I was plenty happy when I was an Alpha DSLR user). I have no illusions about being a pro or serious amateur, so having the best optics isn't even remotely enough to sway me over to Sony, especially if I don't like the handling or UI of the body itself.
The DxOMark rankings are distinctly unflattering for Canon and Nikon. The Canon and Nikon zooms measure up fairly well, but Zeiss primes are utterly dominant. Sigma are highly competitive at much lower cost.
That's not good news for prestige brands that have long been "industry standard".
>> That's not good news for prestige brands that have long been "industry standard".
Well, that's possibly exaggerating the situation. The only people it truly matters to are people are specs people and pixel peepers. There may be a significant number of them, but most people will stick with the established brands, including pros. Canon and Nikon have well established support infrastructures for their working pros. Sony... not so much.
I loved the Alpha DSLR line, the mirrorless line, not so much. The cameras are technically fantastic and excel statistically, but they seemed to be designed by people who don't spend a lot of time taking photos.
>Canon and Nikon have well established support infrastructures for their working pros. Sony... not so much.
That infrastructure is, to a great extent, a marketing expense. It's not very profitable to sell cameras to professionals, but you make your money back from the trickle-down to amateurs. The R&D expense of designing flagship cameras and lenses for a tiny group of professionals is amortized over a vastly greater number of amateurs. If a rift opens up between those user groups, Canon and Nikon's camera businesses are in real trouble.
>> Canon and Nikon's camera businesses are in real trouble.
So are everyone else's including Sony's.
Their biggest threat is Apple. Who needs a fast, large aperture lens when you've got Portrait mode? The dual lens on the iPhone obviates the need for many people to step up to a camera with a zoom. If Apple can find a way to fake it through low light photography with software tricks, everyone's in deep trouble.
Let's not forget that the best camera is the one you have with you, not the one with the best technology or optics.
Sony have a sensor business; their own branded cameras are a useful spin-off. They're essentially agnostic as to the future of photography, because they hold such a dominant position in the sensor market.
iPhones use Sony sensors, as do the majority of high-end Android handsets. Nikon use Sony sensors across most of their camera range, as do Pentax and Fujifilm. GoPro have used Sony sensors from the outset, as do most of their competitors. Sony sensors dominate the scientific, industrial and security markets.
If you need a CMOS imaging sensor, you have two choices - Sony Exmor, or something worse.
We were talking about cameras, not sensors. Those are two separate but related businesses. Talking about Sony's sensor business dominance is not a counterpoint to the decline of the still camera industry in general.
Everyone uses Sony sensors for their still cameras to some degree, including Canon (sensors smaller than APS). If all still camera companies decline it hurts Sony big time. Sensors one of their few genuinely successful and profitable businesses that pump up their quarterly corprate numbers.
I'm pretty sure that Sony doesn't want to be left making only smartphone camera sensors in large volumes.
Damnation, I was hankering for the DL 18–50. I'm an ultra-wide-angle addict, and that would have been an amazing "I'm packing really light for this trip" camera.
Thom Hogan, a longtime Nikon pundit, has good thoughts on how badly Nikon is handling this disruption. (I think smartphones are one of the best examples of Christensen disruption; they started out awful, are still relatively awful, but they are cheap, ubiquitous, and get the job done of getting photos of your cats and kids to Facebook instantly.)
To be fair, I've been using a Panasonic DMC-GM1 with a 14mm pancake for a few years and I don't really see how the DL would have improved on that... A bit more speed, but then again the GM1 is not even on sale anymore and Nikon failed entirely to release their take on the ultralight 4/3 equivalent...
The camera business had a new small interchangeable lens almost pocketable camera "standard". The micro 4/3 used sadly by only olympus and panasonic. When I travel to take pictures I take a canon 5D SLR and a much smaller olympus micro 4/3 with a wide angle zoom.
Why Canon/Nikon/Sony go their own way with incompatible small mirrorless cameras I have no idea. I would love more lens options for micro 4/3 and those big camera makers make great glass...
Its a very tough business to be in. A number of camera makers relied heavily on the higher volume point and shoot markets to fund their higher end cameras. And these days it is unusual to see someone using an inexpensive point and shoot camera rather than their phone.
It's a tough business if you just sit back selling mediocre cameras and don't innovate. Numerous companies from Leica, to Sony, to Fujifilm have thrived in recent years even with all the improvements in smartphone cameras. It seemed to have taken Nikon and Canon much longer to adapt to the changing market.
The ruggedized point-and-shoot(p&s) cameras saw greater focus in the last couple years due to the eroding of the regular p&s market by smartphones. With intrusion protection being the new bullet point on high end phones' feature lists, this niche market is going to be impacted as well.
Despite all that there still seems to be a significant market for p&s cameras, Sony has no less than 20 different p&s cameras. Most of those cameras seem to be variations of the same base model. That sort of variation seems to imply there's a significant demand.
It implies that it's easy to create such cameras. Which is true -- I work for a consumer electronics company and it's pretty amazing how good Chinese manufacturing has gotten.
This is no guarantee people are actually buying these things -- i.e. that there is demand. Hyper segmentation is often a signal of the exact opposite -- micro demand, but not macro.
Long term, I think this is a good move for Nikon. Phones have eaten the DL's intended market, and at the DL's price there are already better options available in the same form factor.
Mirrorless is the future; if there was a mirrorless Nikon camera that could take advantage of decades of F-Mount lenses, surely they'd be on to a winner
My kid said that too. I bought him a mirrorless camera, pretty decent one, about $2K with a 18-55 (18-50?) and an 18-200.
He used it for a while and then then stopped, he uses a full frame Canon body (5DIII) instead.
I really really don't get the appeal of mirrorless. Yeah, it's smaller if you are out in bright daylight and you have an f5.6 lens. Not so much if you have a f1.4, 1.8, 2 lens, those have to be big to let in the light. So you have a big fat lens on a slightly smaller body and you give up an optical viewfinder.
I shoot sports. Mirrorless is a joke in bad taste for sports. You are forced to do burst because you can't time your shots and now your workflow sucks because you are deleting 98% of your shots. My keeper rate with a 5DIII or a 1DX is 60-80% if I do my part, which I usually do.
The Nikon 1 uses a small sensor - the crop factor would be somewhere close to three if you were to use F glass on it. Good for telephoto. Wide angle? Not as much.
I would be surprised if the Nikon 1 tempted many who have invested in lots of F glass. Now, if Nikon were to release a mirrorless full-format camera with excellent AF and low-light performance, I believe you'd find a lot of people asking them to shut up and take their money.
>> I would be surprised if the Nikon 1 tempted many who have invested in lots of F glass.
It attracted a lot of birders. The 2.7 crop factor went a long way for them. To get equivalently fast glass with long focal lengths on the larger sensor cameras would have cost tens of thousands of dollars and translated into several pounds of added gear weight.
It may be all but dead and a mockery to some purists, but the platform is still a pretty good one.
Even now, it's still the mirrorless system that has AF tracking that comes closest to an SLR in terms of performance (if you take Thom Hogan at his word).
They got a lot of stuff wrong in the early iterations (price, UI, handling), but the last iteration, the J5 was pretty darned good (basically an RX100MK3 with interchangeable lenses).
I switched to the 1 series a few years ago from an APS dslr because I just wanted smaller gear, and I've been totally happy with absolutely no regrets. When I go on vacation, I bring two bodies and three lenses and they take up about as much room as one APS-C DSLR with a superzoom. Why two bodies? So I don't have to bother switching lenses like I had to when I had an SLR.
I get that the platform isn't for everyone and I wouldn't recommend it to many people, but it's far from being the bad system that a lot of people make it out to be.
Ah, the only Nikon 1 series I've tried was the S1, I was quite impressed. Tiny, light, great pictures in good light. I can totally see why people like them; precisely the reason that people are now flocking to Fuji and Sony's systems.
I have many Nikon lenses, if I could use them with a mirrorless body (Dx or Fx), I'd buy it in an instant. I'd probably take it and my 35mm f1.8 with me everywhere.
Now that the J5 is basically using the Sony RX100MK3 sensor (not exactly but very close), you can add "bad light" to the equation.
>> I have many Nikon lenses, if I could use them with a mirrorless body (Dx or Fx), I'd buy it in an instant.
You can use them adapted on a Sony A7. I am pretty sure you can get AF with Canon lenses (not the fastest, but not horrible), but I'm not 100% sure if they've done the F-mount yet.
Yeah, it's too bad. I wish the Nikon 1 was a better camera (I have a couple of nice lenses for my Nikon DSLR).
I ended up getting a Fuji X-T1 a couple months ago (discounted since the X-T2 is out). I need to get new glass but the lenses I've gotten are fantastic and it's fun as hell to shoot with.
I'd still consider buying a mirrorless Nikon at some point, but they need to step up their game a bit.
No but that shot on the DL has to be AMAZING compared to the phone. Otherwise people will just use their phones... another bit of equipment to worry about, to figure out how to crop a photo and upload it to facebook. It's too much effort for most people.
Right, however.. Most of those high-end cameras have Wifi on the device that can transfer to the phone. I would still argue that they're for different use cases.
Most people who care about taking really good photos are probably looking at DSLR or mirrorless. The DL line seems to occupy a middle ground that's neither convenient nor significantly better than a phone.
I doubt that camera was $20 when it was new. Not ripping on old equipment (I am a vintage lens enthusiast) but it's I don't agree with your comparison.
I agree. But that doesn't mean that modern phones aren't eating into the DL's market; a camera that takes decent enough pictures for Facebook and fits in your pocket.
>> But that doesn't mean that modern phones aren't eating into the DL's market;
No more than any other camera. Most of the target buyers for the DL tend to be more serious photographers.
The DL is on the high end of the point and shoot market, up there with Sony's RX100 series. The core market for the DL are SLR shooters who need a small camera that's better than a phone. Phones are fine for most stuff, but they're not particularly good with fast moving action or low light.
It's sad to read about the downward trajectory of Nikon's future. I loved their interchangeable lenses. In my opinion they were better than Canon's (not enough space here to go into details). I had an 80-200 f2.8 telephoto that, between multiple owners, probably saw 15+ years of service and still going strong.
Even if they go bust, there is a hope they will get back to their roots and end up remaking their classic lenses like Voigtlander or Meyer Optik Goerlitz.
Nikon (and Canon I think) problem these days is a body is a body. Their bodies aren't dramatically different to those of other manufacturers, yet they still demand a premium price. Fujifilm and Pentax for example offer good enough or better alternatives at reasonable price points and are doing just fine.
I want Nikon to do well but they need to try harder.
> According to Nikon, “with the identification of issues with the integrated circuit for image processing, release of the three cameras was delayed indeterminately.” The company had a team working on addressing those problems, but “it has been decided that sales of the DL series will be canceled due to concerns regarding their profitability considering the increase in development costs, and the drop in the number of expected sales due to the slow-down of the market.”
I'm curious which of these was the larger cause of the shut-down. Did an insurmountable technical issue cause them to cancel the program? Or did they want to cancel the program because they didn't forecast profitability?
Depends on the camera, but for the 1" sensors in the DL mentioned in the article, they have been using Sony chips since the Nikon 1 J5. Before that, the 1" sensors used by Nikon were made by Aptina.
I'm a Canon guy (1DX II, 5D III, 7D II and lots of Canon glass, a couple of Sigmas, a Rokinon) and I try and convert my buds to Canon from Nikon all the time. Here is why.
For decades the leader in [D]SLRs was either Canon or Nikon. Yeah, yeah, there are others, I started out on Pentax as did many people back in the film days, but it was clear 35-40 years ago that it was either Canon or Nikon if you were serious (and more yeah, yeah, Hasselblad was a thing back then but they priced themselves out of the market as did Leica and Zeiss etc. Awesome stuff but $$$$).
Who was "best" bounced back and forth and it really didn't matter if you picked Canon or Nikon, if Canon was best now, wait a few years and it would be Nikon.
It's important to realize that the consumer equipment, including all those plastic crappy kit lenses, generated a lot of revenue and that money funded a lot of high end equipment. I tend to doubt that Canon sells enough of their $12,000 600mm lenses to cover the costs of development. Maybe, but I doubt it.
Nikon stumbled at the wrong time. They stopped being best (for the most part, the D800/810 were and are amazing bodies) quite a while ago and they haven't recovered.
This is just my opinion (all of this is just my opinion for that matter) but I think the reason they haven't recovered is that they dug themselves into a hole right as point and shoots, and then cell phone cameras, got "good enough" for the masses. Definitely not good enough for anyone serious, compare any portrait taken with a phone to something taken with Canon's 200mm f2 (by far my favorite lens) or even Sigma's 85mm f1.4 Art. You can't get that dreamy smooth background with that razor thin depth of focus that makes the person pop, it just can't be done. But I digress.
Nikon is in trouble because of the loss of revenue from the low end P&S and consumer DSLRs. For the low end, phones are good enough and they are always with you.
Canon doesn't have that problem, they've got 75-80% of the high end market, look at any sporting event and you'll see a sea of big white lenses, those are all Canon.
Canon also has a dramatically better line up of lenses and for anyone serious, it's the glass that costs the money, I've got far more money tied up in glass than I do in bodies. Nikon used to have one lens that Canon had no answer for, the 14-24mm f2.8, I lusted after that lens. But Canon came out with the 16-35mm f2.8, which is sharper than a 15mm Ziess prime and that's it in my book, game over. There is nothing that Nikon has that Canon doesn't have as good (and mostly better). And Canon has a ton of glass that Nikon doesn't have.
Canon is also better positioned, they make a lot more stuff than Nikon does, they are serious players in anything with a lens, their movie stuff generates money, their printers generate money, their security stuff generates money, they can weather pretty much anything.
I shoot semi pro sports and all my pro friends are dumping Nikon (while they can get anything for their glass) and moving to Canon.
Tl;DR: Nikon is in trouble, Canon is fine, the DSLR market is strong at the mid to high end. Low end is dead.
The damage from smartphones was done a while back. The truth now is that Nikon (and Canon to some extent) failed to be at the forefront of: (a) action/drone cameras, (b) 4K video recording, and (c) mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras. Sony and Fujifilm have seen a real renaissance in their mirrorless camera lines (I switched from Canon to Fuji and haven't looked back). Sony has small mirrorless cameras that shoot 4K on par or better than Nikon. GoPro created a billion dollar public company yet Nikon only just recently announced their own action cameras.
I worked in the photo industry for several years and Nikon was once the gold standard. IMO they have no one to blame for their current state than themselves.