I don't think many people have a death wish for Nikon, some use Nikon gear others used to use Nikon gear and feel nostalgic. I find it quite natural to be worried about the future of a company.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Nikon Anticipates Huge Losses, Refocusing On Mirrorless Only
- Thread starter Clix Pix
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I never get the feeling that people are actually worried about Nikon, other than those of us who actually shoot it still. Across the internet. Most people seem rather gleeful that Sony is taking over.
Yes. Innovation (whatever that really means) can certainly play a role in attracting a body of some new customers and get them into a given company’s ecosystem. Reputation for quality is another. Knowing your market segments and how to reach them yesterday another. There are many paths, which is good because it’s almost impossible to put your finger on a “generic customer”.
I don’t usually like car analogies, but replace “camera” with ”car” and basics of a camera with basics of a car (square-ish body, engine, tires, etc) and the same can be said. The innards change, you get electric as stand-in for mirrorless, speed is better, it has more convenience features, but you get in, shut the door, start some variant of engine and go from point A to B. Maybe a car will self-drive you with AI/ML. But it’s a box with wheels doing what it has done for 100+ years. Same with a camera: More convenience features, faster, etc but you’re still letting light hit a sensor through an optical pathway. Maybe it focuses for you. Maybe, like the late Lytro, it will let you focus after the fact. Or do things to get better dynamic range. Whatever. Still a box with an imaging sensor and an optical pathway to capture an image you see in front of you.
Your point of needing innovation (again, whatever that really means) is a good one. What’s the most important place to see the “innovation”? I would think the greatest body of professional photographers are event/wedding folks. They need assurances that they will “get the image”. Most modern cameras are up to that. The Alpha/A1 is chock full of convenience features to help them out. But really most mid-level and above boxes with imaging sensors today can do the job admirably. Landscape/cityscape/other scape photographers are another segment. They need dynamic range at low ISO. Again, most modern mid-level and above - and let’s be honest, most phones - can do the job admirably for most ways of consuming images.
Serious question. We always talk of innovation but where would everyone most like to see it and why? Maybe worth a separate thread, I don’t know.
I’d like lighter weight, high quality, fast long lenses. And more dynamic range though I still enjoy “playing with highlights and shadows”.
Last edited:
I think it's more of a feeling that Nikon brought this on themselves. Sony saw an opening and went for it. Canon jumped on board in time. Nikon watched the boat sail away.
Yes, it’s definitely natural but while I have a nagging worry from the pandemic financial losses, I’m not finding a huge real reason to worry about Nikon just yet.
Not getting your timeline here with Canon. Of the two, with FF mirrorless, Nikon was (just) first, with arguably a better camera. No one has watched any boats sail away here that I can see. And yes, it’s true that Sony manufactured FF mirrorless cameras earlier than the other two but they didn’t really have a big DSLR business to begin with so it made sense - they wouldn‘t have been able to compete with Canon and Nikon in that space - particularly the scale of Canon. Mirrorless is cheaper to manufacture so a win-win from Sony’s perspective. They also didn’t have a massive legacy lens base to deal with like Canon and Nikon. It is less that Sony “saw an opening and went for it” or whatever sports metaphor we want to use, and more doing the thing that made good conservative business sense given where they were in the market at the time. It happened to work out nicely.
It took Sony arguably to the iii series of cameras to knock it out of the park, to continue with the sports metaphors. The Zs and the R5/6s are easily on par with the iii or iv series in many capabilities, certainly including capture capabilities as well as image and glass quality. Yes, yes, native lenses, etc.
Mirrorless cameras are an evolution, not a revolution. They were inevitable, really, and most manufacturers have been in the space, in one form or another, for a decade+, including Nikon and Canon. If there’s a revolution, it’s in what the engineers can now deliver without the shackles of the pesky mirror box getting in the way. I am genuinely impressed with the A1 on a lot of levels and kudos to Sony!
If Nikon watched any boat sail away, it would be in video, where Sony and Canon, along with Panasonic, excel.
And some, those who might be considered the at-all-costs blindly loyal "Nikon faithful," seem to in the face of what's actually happening in the world of cameras and photography, steadfastly ignore the reality that is smack in front of them and try to interpret things the way they want while sticking their heads deeper and deeper into the sand.......
Speaking as a reasonably vocal Nikon user, I take umbrage at these comments
. I don't think anyone is trying to ignore anything and I don't know anyone here who is blindly loyal or "Nikon faithful". Would you describe yourself as blindly loyal "Sony faithful"? I didn't think so .Nikon makes great, highly capable products that are enjoyable to use and of extremely high quality. Like Canon. Like Sony. Or Fuji. Or Panasonic. Many of us are trying to remain level-headed in the face of the many arguably click-bait articles that have been posted (speaking of interpreting).
Nikon isn't close to shutting down. They remain quite liquid, in fact. They are responding to market forces in an expected way during an unprecedented time. They are going to post losses. They have products in the pipeline that will help mitigate those losses. They forecast a return to profit and they are seeing brisk sales. Does that actually count for anything? Their own guidance? This is simply a business responding to tough times. They aren't Canon or Sony with larger/massive scale, so they are doing the right thing to focus on the higher end where the money is still there to be made. Yes, they need to shift to mirrorless production and away from DSLRs. They are doing so.
No one will argue that Nikon hasn't made missteps - they certainly have. They can be quite exasperating, in fact. There may come a time when we lose the Nikon brand and Nikon quality. There's no indication or evidence anywhere that this is going to happen any time soon. If you interpret this as hiding in the sand, that's certainly your prerogative.
Cheers,
Ray
I realize that you and I are never going to agree on this. I have switched brands over the years. It's a pain and exepensive and not something I wish to do again. I would in fact, avoid it at all costs. But I have zero desire to see my old brand (Canon) go under because the more competition the better we all are. I'm not even cheering for Sony to have a huge catastrophe.
What I would like is for the awful clickbait to stop and for people to look at Nikon for what they are doing now. Did they have some missteps along the way? Were they late to the party? Yes and yes. But they do make good products and I read so many things on so many sites from people who have never even held a Z camera make judgments against them. That is what I don't understand. It is not blind loyalty if the gear you have and can buy actually works for you.
There's the one part of art that says gear doesn't matter, it's all the artist and the vision. And that is like 87% true. But in that other 13% the real truth lies, in that some gear does matter, and if the gear you have is holding you back, and there is "other" gear out there that would advance your art, then go get and use that gear (money nothwithstanding). Am I a better photographer because I now use a Z6 instead of a D800? Maybe not, but I am absolutely a different photographer now because my Z allows me to capture certain images more easily than a dSLR. And that's a mirrorless/dslr debate and not the topic of this thread. Would a switch to have Sony accomplished the same thing? Sure, probably, but it would have cost me a lot more money.
The fact is, Nikon has realized their errors. They are restructuring, cutting costs, investing in R&D, and by all reliable accounts, they are turning themselves around. I don't care what kind of little black box you carry around your neck. I care how you use it and what you can make with it. Too many people on the internet DO get carried away with blind loyalty (and not just about cameras, I mean really ever heard of Coke vs Pepsi?). But let's not start a death watch for companies before they are actually dying.
I went from DSLR to mirrorless in 2020 although not for any 'mirrorless benefit' The new camera had a better sensor. I've never owned a Nikon but the D850 and D750 seem to stand out as the pinnacle of 35mm DSLRs. They have really evolved to a point where the next generation would have only tiny improvements while mirrorless systems are still developing fast and making headlines. Nikon is caught up between this need to develop new cameras and lenses for the new system while being squeezed from a contracting market. Something has to give. Id say their best bet would be to downsize a specialise in a specific area. Trying to make another sports camera for example would be a huge waste of resources.
I'd say the A1 has taken a good step for an all electronic shutter. The Sony stacked sensor design allows for reading out very, very quickly so the rolling shutter effect is slowly getting better and makes the need of the harder to implement global shutter much less. And their strobe sync speeds, though caveated in various ways on the A1, are an indicator that they're solving some of those problems too. Time will tell. On one of my cameras I use lenses with leaf shutters which have very fast sync speeds - 1/1600 - so when they get there, I'd be ready to say "go!".
It's going to be really interesting to see thoughtful text-based reviews online as well as eventually comments and reviews from actual purchasers/users of the A1. I haven't bothered with video reviews, but I get the sense that so far most of the legitimate reviewers (actual photographers, not click-bait Youtubers) who have been posting them are very impressed so far with the camera and its features.
For the price, I’d expect the A1 to lay golden eggs for me.
Absolutely. For that price point the camera should be exceptional. Whatever the brand name it has.
That's interesting...... Isn't the body about the same size, weight and dimensions as the A7R IV? Maybe a little larger, given that there are more dials and buttons on it? That's the impression I've gotten, anyway.....
It is the same size, the thought being if this is going after the high end market it could have been bigger.
Good points.
Sensor technology has progressed to the point where soon enough image quality will overlap film. I wonder if some future cameras can be produced to be upgradable like computers? For example, one where the circuit board and sensor can be upgraded.
Sounds like a classic ebay move, sell the camera, keep the golden egg.
LOL!!!!
Actually I suddenly remembered I had this golden (brass) egg sitting around here, found it, tried polishing it up a bit, and realized that no matter what I did the years have taken their toll...... Happens with brass, of course. Ah, well. That highly reflective surface made for tricky photographing, too, and after shooting with both the RX10 and the A7R IV and not getting quite what I had in mind, I sat down at the computer to mull over another strategic approach, looked at the egg sitting where I'd plopped it down on my glass computer workstation, and picked up my iPhone.....
Actually I suddenly remembered I had this golden (brass) egg sitting around here, found it, tried polishing it up a bit, and realized that no matter what I did the years have taken their toll...... Happens with brass, of course. Ah, well. That highly reflective surface made for tricky photographing, too, and after shooting with both the RX10 and the A7R IV and not getting quite what I had in mind, I sat down at the computer to mull over another strategic approach, looked at the egg sitting where I'd plopped it down on my glass computer workstation, and picked up my iPhone.....
And there we have it. The camera brand that is really hurting Nikon (and Canon and Sony). The Apple iPhone!
Yeah, ironic, isn't it? I use my A7R IV with a couple of different lenses, I use my RX10 IV, I try putting the thing into the light tent that I haven't used for years in hopes of reducing the reflectivity.....all to no avail! Nothing was giving me the image I kinda/sorta had in mind. So here I am sitting at the computer and the humble iPhone 11 Pro that I reached over and picked up on impulse and did two or three shots with does the job, brings home something closer to what I'd envisioned..... Who'da thunk it?!
Sometimes it IS the simplest tool that is the most effective after all.....
Sometimes it IS the simplest tool that is the most effective after all.....