• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Nikon rumors/announcements for July pretty depressing (1 Viewer)

M

marcsantacurz

Well-known member
If you look at Nikon rumors website and filter out all the junk about lens caps, tripods, photo editing software and such, here is the list of things specifically from Nikon. It is pretty depressing, it is all about discounts, refurbished, and price drops. The one exciting one about the Z8 is because of something Sony did. Maybe Nikon has a strategy to let Sony have its month or two in the sun? compared to Sony this month, it's really dismal.

Another thing to look at, which I didn't make a list for, is looking at 3rd party announcements around systems. They are much more exciting for Sony, with bigger players.

marc

  • July 24: Nikon S 85mm rumor release immanent
  • July 21: Nikon lens rebates
  • July 18: Refurbished nikons
  • July 16: Z8 60MP makes more sense (see A7RIV)
  • July 15: Nikon museum hot shoe cover and strap
  • July 13: A recap of previous rumors
  • July 10: Price drop on d750
  • July 10: Nikon to end d600 sensor repairs
  • July 9: Nikon USA NPS consolidation
  • July 7: Price drop d5, d810, and d850 $300 discount
  • July 3: d6 spec rumors
  • July 2: d850, d810, d750, d7200 refurbished
  • July 2: List of cameras not getting replaced
 
marcsantacurz said:
If you look at Nikon rumors website and filter out all the junk about lens caps, tripods, photo editing software and such, here is the list of things specifically from Nikon. It is pretty depressing, it is all about discounts, refurbished, and price drops. The one exciting one about the Z8 is because of something Sony did. Maybe Nikon has a strategy to let Sony have its month or two in the sun? compared to Sony this month, it's really dismal.

Another thing to look at, which I didn't make a list for, is looking at 3rd party announcements around systems. They are much more exciting for Sony, with bigger players.

marc

  • July 24: Nikon S 85mm rumor release immanent
  • July 21: Nikon lens rebates
  • July 18: Refurbished nikons
  • July 16: Z8 60MP makes more sense (see A7RIV)
  • July 15: Nikon museum hot shoe cover and strap
  • July 13: A recap of previous rumors
  • July 10: Price drop on d750
  • July 10: Nikon to end d600 sensor repairs
  • July 9: Nikon USA NPS consolidation
  • July 7: Price drop d5, d810, and d850 $300 discount
  • July 3: d6 spec rumors
  • July 2: d850, d810, d750, d7200 refurbished
  • July 2: List of cameras not getting replaced
Click to expand...

The business is declining, so all the players are offering deals and discounts to move the merchandise. Sadly, that does not produce a lot of cash to pay for new engineering, so innovation lags.
Samsung was smart to throw in the towel early. Now I think Nikon is in real danger, as are Olympus, Ricoh and Fuji.
 
On the other hand, you are here detailing all of three weeks. No company can come with real news every time three weeks have passed. Usually, major announcements would happen what, three times or four times a year?

Niels
 
Not so depressed

I don't see what is so depressing about the news (or lack of same within a brief time interval) from Nikon. The company has come out with some really excellent new products within the last couple of years, including the new line of Z mount cameras and the incredibly portable and sharp 500mm f5.6 PF lens, which is so popular that Nikon has doubled its production capacity for the item. The crazy-big Nikon Coolpix P1000 has also been very successful, and it remains unique in the superdupertelephoto point and shoot market.

Nikon has actually never been very successful in the smaller point and shoot market, and probably jettisoning these products would help the company's bottom line.

The photographic business is definitely changing; for better or worse, most people who used to carry a simple point and shoot camera now use just their phones. I would not be surprised that as the capability of phone cameras evolves, we will see the big phone companies coming out with models featuring "camera by Nikon" (or Sony, or Canon), just as autos now feature sound systems by Bose or Band & Olufson.

Serious photographic gear is and will continue to be a niche market, but it is a large and growing niche market. Think of how fast the popularity of nature/bird photography has grown as the technology has become better and cheaper. People are complaining openly about how the famous game parks in Kenya and Tanzania are "overrun with tourists" taking photos of wild animals. Ecotourism is growing rapidly, and ecotourists love to take fancy cameras with them to their destinations.

Yes, Sony is a bigger and bigger player with incredible market muscle. But from all appearances the nature of the Japanese electronics and camera market is such that Sony will refrain from actually trying to drive Nikon and Canon out of business. In the meantime, much (certainly not all) of the new gear from Sony is actually playing catch-up to what Nikon and Canon already offer, e.g., big 600mm lens, 200-600mm lens (Nikon has the very successful 200-500mm).

I am not a Pollyanna here; the world is in big trouble ecologically and politically, and it all could come crashing down with a global depression, world war, and of course, the ravages of climate change. In the meantime, there is so much to enjoy in this world, including the beauty of the landscapes, animals, birds, and plants we can photograph with the wonderful gear these Japanese companies keep devising.
 
GrandNagus50 said:
I don't see what is so depressing about the news (or lack of same within a brief time interval) from Nikon. The company has come out with some really excellent new products within the last couple of years, including the new line of Z mount cameras and the incredibly portable and sharp 500mm f5.6 PF lens, which is so popular that Nikon has doubled its production capacity for the item. The crazy-big Nikon Coolpix P1000 has also been very successful, and it remains unique in the superdupertelephoto point and shoot market.

Nikon has actually never been very successful in the smaller point and shoot market, and probably jettisoning these products would help the company's bottom line.

The photographic business is definitely changing; for better or worse, most people who used to carry a simple point and shoot camera now use just their phones. I would not be surprised that as the capability of phone cameras evolves, we will see the big phone companies coming out with models featuring "camera by Nikon" (or Sony, or Canon), just as autos now feature sound systems by Bose or Band & Olufson.

Serious photographic gear is and will continue to be a niche market, but it is a large and growing niche market. Think of how fast the popularity of nature/bird photography has grown as the technology has become better and cheaper. People are complaining openly about how the famous game parks in Kenya and Tanzania are "overrun with tourists" taking photos of wild animals. Ecotourism is growing rapidly, and ecotourists love to take fancy cameras with them to their destinations.

Yes, Sony is a bigger and bigger player with incredible market muscle. But from all appearances the nature of the Japanese electronics and camera market is such that Sony will refrain from actually trying to drive Nikon and Canon out of business. In the meantime, much (certainly not all) of the new gear from Sony is actually playing catch-up to what Nikon and Canon already offer, e.g., big 600mm lens, 200-600mm lens (Nikon has the very successful 200-500mm).

I am not a Pollyanna here; the world is in big trouble ecologically and politically, and it all could come crashing down with a global depression, world war, and of course, the ravages of climate change. In the meantime, there is so much to enjoy in this world, including the beauty of the landscapes, animals, birds, and plants we can photograph with the wonderful gear these Japanese companies keep devising.
Click to expand...

Nikon was a big player in semiconductor production optics, but that went away with the shift to extreme UV lenses, so they suffered a serious hit.
Consequently the Sony attack on their core camera franchise catches them at a disadvantage, especially as they have to rely on Sony for the sensors which are the critical technology today, more than the optics.
Logically, Nikon would team with Samsung, which has the needed sensor know how to create a world beater optics enterprise. Sadly Japan Inc is too blinkered to do this, they would rather put embargoes on Korea for fine semiconductor chemicals. Imho, they consequently will be displaced by the more pragmatic Chinese competitors. Stay short the whole bunch would be my $0.02.
 
GrandNagus50 said:
I don't see what is so depressing about the news (or lack of same within a brief time interval) from Nikon. The company has come out with some really excellent new products within the last couple of years, including the new line of Z mount cameras and the incredibly portable and sharp 500mm f5.6 PF lens, which is so popular that Nikon has doubled its production capacity for the item. The crazy-big Nikon Coolpix P1000 has also been very successful, and it remains unique in the superdupertelephoto point and shoot market.

Nikon has actually never been very successful in the smaller point and shoot market, and probably jettisoning these products would help the company's bottom line.

The photographic business is definitely changing; for better or worse, most people who used to carry a simple point and shoot camera now use just their phones. I would not be surprised that as the capability of phone cameras evolves, we will see the big phone companies coming out with models featuring "camera by Nikon" (or Sony, or Canon), just as autos now feature sound systems by Bose or Band & Olufson.

Serious photographic gear is and will continue to be a niche market, but it is a large and growing niche market. Think of how fast the popularity of nature/bird photography has grown as the technology has become better and cheaper. People are complaining openly about how the famous game parks in Kenya and Tanzania are "overrun with tourists" taking photos of wild animals. Ecotourism is growing rapidly, and ecotourists love to take fancy cameras with them to their destinations.

Yes, Sony is a bigger and bigger player with incredible market muscle. But from all appearances the nature of the Japanese electronics and camera market is such that Sony will refrain from actually trying to drive Nikon and Canon out of business. In the meantime, much (certainly not all) of the new gear from Sony is actually playing catch-up to what Nikon and Canon already offer, e.g., big 600mm lens, 200-600mm lens (Nikon has the very successful 200-500mm).

I am not a Pollyanna here; the world is in big trouble ecologically and politically, and it all could come crashing down with a global depression, world war, and of course, the ravages of climate change. In the meantime, there is so much to enjoy in this world, including the beauty of the landscapes, animals, birds, and plants we can photograph with the wonderful gear these Japanese companies keep devising.
Click to expand...

I would not say that Sony caught up to Nikon in the big lenses. I think it lept over them. Nikon is consistently 1kg or more over Sony in the 400/2.8 and 600/4.

Sony is putting 20fps a9-level AF in a point and shoot while Nikon releases 5.5 FPS mirrorless (Z6 with full exposure & focus adjustments, though with the v2 firmware it does get AE tracking at 12fps). And sony can even do 90 FPS in a short burst!

I hope that in the fall, or whenever Nikon gets its act going, Nikon has some impressive new tech to get their mirrorless Z line beyond their DSLR line. Right now, I don't think it's there, unless maybe you do the 10-bit N-log video to an external recorder. They got that right.

To me, it looks like Nikon is consolidating and discounting to sell of current stock. Hopefully that means they will soon announce stuff they think will obsolete the current gear. I hope that's the case.

I really like my d850 + 500mm f/5.6e, though it is a little heavy with the d5 battery grip to get the fps. I guess that I'm just still pissed that the subject tracking on the z7 is so difficult to use for action. Whoever thought that needing to press 3 different buttons was a good idea should be transferred to counting people walking through the lobby.

Marc
 
Nikon's business has to be declining. Their compacts sales must be almost nothing now, as I predicted many years ago, due to quality mobile phone cameras. They try to keep 'face' but the number of people willing and able to purchase 800mm (£18,000) lenses has to be almost nil. Dead tree media, newspapers and magazines have dropped so the demand for photos has gone down.

Nikon prices in the UK have skyrocketed, blaming the falling value of GBP against the Euro, which Nikon UK said equipment had to be bought in. Now GBP is at an all time low against the Euro, some prices have dropped, so who is telling the truth?

UK camera shops have all but disappeared, and even the big ones have had mergers, suggested low demand. I personally have no interest in mirrorless and can't be the only one.

Nikon have missed a trick by not having binoculars with a modern mobile phone camera chip in them.

On the upside, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics may bring some new gear though. :)
 
Warning! This thread is more than 5 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top