The coming death of Nikon 8(updated)
The temporal D800 success in the camera forums made Nikon this stupid!
Nikon seems to be the biggest loser in this market-too much pride destroying them completely, they never learn to ignore all the annoying self-proclaimed experts such as Tony Northrup, Kevin Raber, and the guy runs Photography Life.
I think Mr.Hogan is an exception because he is more realistic and understanding the industry more broadly and therefore he sees it clearly that the so-called Mirrorless won't be the long term future that will ultimately save Nikon.
So-called mirrorless is also important for the short term future......but it is not the long term solution....
Nikon should listen to the young smartphone generation photographers instead of the annoyingly condescending self-proclaimed experts online.
I went to Tsukuba area of Ibaraki prefecture for work and academic conference held in there.
I attended a social study conference for a couple of days there and I traveled there after that for 4 days. I visited Tsukuba, Mito, which is the capital city of Ibaraki pref, Tokyo and Chiba.
After this short academic trip to North East Kanto I realized the death of consumer camera market issue is more serious than I once thought; it is not the time to discuss mirrorless vs DSLR or iPhone, but it is really the time to discuss how to save this industry at any cost...........anyway to my surprise, I did not see or meet any one with a Sony A7X camera, which is supposed to be the most popular game-changing camera currently available according to many silly online self-proclaimed camera experts. I honestly almost never met any one shooting a Sony A7X or A6XXX other than my co-worker who bought his first ILC camera from me.
I met a couple of American researchers from UC something(probably UCSD), and one of them climbed a middle sized mountain together with me and he had 2 m43( G85 and EM5MK2) and Fuji X-Pro2.
I think the dinky fragile Sony cameras I have are not very well suited for both urban documentary of my academic travels and mountain hiking........Most of photographers I met in mountain area of Tsukuba had a Canon 5D something or a m43 or a Fuji. My coworker said ," it was really surprising but no one other than us had a Sony, how come?"
Well it is nothing surprising since I know Sony Alpha 7 series cameras are not selling well in real world outside of camera forums. They are only popular among those camera fanatic forum denizens like us...........
But the maybe more shocking reality to those of us long time Nikon users is that no one seems to be shooting Nikon any more and even in a big anti Nuclear demo I encountered near JR Chiba station station no one using Nikon due to the poor LV and video performance of all Nikon FX bodies. Also many guys told me the excessively loud shutter sound of Nikon DSLRs would make the cops really irritated or angry.
I guess Nikon is rapidly becoming kind of an irrelevant player , no longer a rival of Canon but seems really like a rival of Ricoh Pentax.......Nikon really needs serious Fullframe or APS-C mirrorless system with silent shutter very soon, or Nikon may really become an irrelevant player to all.
Now the D500 and D5600 got a several FW updates already and I have tested it at our shop here, and I confirmed its LV AF speed is a tiny bit faster than before it was first launched, but still no where near the level of Canon dual Pixel AF or Fuji X-T2 or Panasonic GX8 or G85, let alone the GH5 or the current fastest LV AF champion the Olympus EM1 MK2.
I think this slow LV focus and operation speed issue is the real big reason why Nikon is quickly becoming an irrelevant player to many young people.
I think this really slow Live View AF issue is a serious issue and becoming a serious sales hindrance against Nikon.
All young boys trying out a camera at our shop use it in LV mode and see how fast it focuses, and they all say why this Nikon thing is so slow, dammit, crap!
Nikon should have learned something from the big fail of the D800. Just a few years back the Nikon D800 and E were the greatest cameras among those self-proclaimed experts online and those avid Nikon lovers(Canon/Sony haters) all predicted the death of Canon and trashed all Canon cameras for Canon's infamous "2 stops less DR at base ISO" issue ..........but did the D800E actually become a big hit for Nikon ? at least commercially a successful model?
All those Nikon lovers made the sensor DR at very base ISO a huge deal and trashed all those cameras having lesser DR at base ISO than their beloved Nikon as though they were all useless junks for any application without realizing their beloved Nikons all had lesser DR and resolution than the rival Canon and Sony before the advent of the D800E.
Many Nikon avid fans make the D800 series a huge deal, but besides the sensor what has been so appealing to non-Nikon users or even Nikon users who are not interested in landscape or budget studio work?
Many avid Nikon fans still saying something like below.
"Nikon 85, 105, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 800 primes all superior to Canon. Vast superior to Sony, except new 85 only exception for Sony, and by little bit.
Nikon D5, D500, D810 all superior to Canon. Sony a7r2 does a little bit better than D810, only after iso 800. But the Sony is still not as good all around.......
As for zoom, Nikon 200-400 VR II is as good as Canon, just no extendor but 1/2 the price. Sony has nothing to compare to it. Old Nikon 14-24 still edges out the Canon 11-24/4. Canon has a few good zooms, but most else behind. Most Sony lenses old Minolta, way behind. No sense argue further, you Sony fanboys have to agree."
But if Nikon is still that great, why Nikon is the only one company really doomed and expected to go bankrupt by 2020 Tokyo Olympics by many many industry journalists here?
And even Leica's Andreas Kaufmann already thinks Nikon has one foot in the grave, but in Nikon avid fans minds, Nikon still has better products than Canon and Sony at least in APS-C and FF DSLRs category.......They claim the D810 is still the reference model and the camera to beat.....If Nikon is so great then why has it been in the constant finanical crisis since about 2012?
A long time Nikon shooter at our shop said below.
"Most of Nikon's recent lenses are superior, Nikon has better high end bodies in APS and action class, the D810 remains the best all round body 2 years after its release,...
Yet, few people seem to consider that Canon is in trouble. If Nikon is in difficulty, Canon is IMHO in even more difficulty. The truth being that they both are but not quite as much as those "rumors" are telling us. So go figure!"
Well, the real problem of Nikon is its avid fans all think like what those small number of online forum denizens and those crazy base ISO DR freaks represent the main stream of camera buyers or the industry trend, and they tend to confuse their wishful thinking, or view of the current camera world really with the representation of what is actually selling. In fact, if Nikon is listening to those or even to Tony Northrup, actually Nikon will suffer even more.
All what Tony and his internet followers saying sounds to me like the head-in-the-sand thinking of a small business owner who sees only one solution to a problem (in their case build better cameras) because he only knows how to do one thing (build cameras), rather than the dispassionate thinking of an investor or corporate strategist with a clear goal (maximizing company profit).
Their(Canon hating Nikon fans) argument essentially consists of, 'They make good gear for some specific type of internet photographers(DR freaks), so they'll be fine', without any rational justification as to why this would be the case, or whether the company would be more profitable taking a different direction altogether.
And I think Tony Northrup and the guy writing so-called reviews at " photographylife" the biggest fans of Nikon that consistantly trash Sony, Canon, Fuji, Olympus,etc, albeit in a very very discreet mannar, actually disguisingly so. And listening to them really hurts Nikon. I even think Nikon should shun all DR fanatics since they have no clue why Nikon is suffering this much and why the better DR alone does not sell the system better.
Also, we should realize actually many successful companies change direction all the time. IBM used to make commercial scales and consumer class PCs. Sony's biggest money-spinners are films/music and financial products. Ten years ago, Sony barely made a serious camera system. And companies divest themselves of unprofitable divisions all the time, or even profitable arms which aren't as profitable as they could be - it frees up capital which can then be invested elsewhere with greater return.
Don't believe me? Look at the share price history of Nikon vs Canon and Sony over the last five years. It's not a pretty picture - evidently, other investors are thinking along the same lines. I see Nikon is clearly going on the way of bankrupt, I bet Nikon won't be around in this business by 2020-if not completely go bankrupt by then.
Seriously look at Nikon financials and its in-house capabilities. Product lineup doesn't matter - look at Sony's lineup just five years ago.
Canon produces a lot more than just cameras. Canon can also design and manufacture its own electronics, including sensors. So can Sony - and they also happen to uplead the field in sensor technology.
Nikon is largely reliant on camera sales for its income. Not only that, but it can't even manfacture its own sensors. It can design some of them, but its best ones are all designed and made by either Sony or Toshiba or Aptina, which is now a part of Onsemi. Yes, Nikon makes good products. But it has no other significant source of revenue, and its ability to continue developing and making good products is largely at the mercy of other companies.
What would happen if Nikon suddenly lost supply of Exmor and Toshiba sensors? Nikon-designed sensors (produced by someone else) might hold up at the high-ISO, low-resolution end, but they'd lose the D7200 and D810 sensors that have worked so well for them, with no indication that anything Nikon can design can match their performance.
Their product line might be getting better with the new D5600 and the D500, but their very narrow focus and reliance on direct competitors for supply of critical parts puts them in a very weak position competition-wise. Basically, they live or die at Sony or Canon's behest. And most of online camera experts do not realize this but Nikon buys the glass off from OHARA corporation, which is the biggest high-end glass manufacture and subsidiary of Canon. So basically Nikon has ben buying most of major sensors from Sony and lens glass from Canon subsidiary. So how can they win over Canon and Sony?
Cutting off supply of Exmor sensors might hurt Sony a bit (although most of their income isn't from camera sensors anyway) but it would deal a major, possibly lethal blow to Nikon - perhaps making their lens and non-sensor electronics manufacturing capabilities, and its library of patents, onto the market, for acquisition by Fuji or Sony. There has been a long lasting rumor here in Japan that Fuji is interested and negotiating the price of Nikon with Mitsubishi UFJ, which is the bank controls and actually owns Nikon ownership.
So it's the slowly boiling frog analogy. It's not there yet. But you can see it coming. The dedicated stills camera market isn't getting any bigger - it's shrinking every year and the market is becoming more high-end, as those who may previously have bought low-end cameras gravitate towards phone cameras, One compacts and the older slighly lesser but still very capable used ILC cameras. Nikon is bottom of the pack in mirrorless, bottom of the pack in video - both vital technologies for future, increasingly multipurpose and interconnected devices - and can't actually make a sensor in-house.. If Nikon wants the best sensor on the market for their camera, Nikon 'll have to pay whatever the seller wants, or go with a lesser option, to the detriment of their product. Nikon's also too small to easily catch up to Sony, Canon and Fuji in either manufacturing capability or technology - Nikon just doesn't have the capital or the cashflow of the larger corporations. If Canon lacks something in house, Canon just simply buys it just like Canon did buy the sweedish internet seculty company or Toshiba medical in 2015. Nikon has no option of doing this.......
Sure, Nikon could pour all its money into trying to turn the ship around. But the market is shrinking and Nikon is outgunned both financially - it would be able to keep it up for a while (an Exmor equivalent made by a non-Sony-owned company would help Nikon a lot, until the next big leap came along and that is why Nikon must have bought Aptina when it was for sale), but, eventually, must fall behind technologically, because Nikon simply can't spend as much on R&D as the big companies. Nikon has been barely making a profit as it is - pretty soon,Nikon'd start posting losses and have to find more and more sources of capital to make up for it. Nikon fanboys usually mock Olympus for losing money on its camera business, but even Olympus and its partner Panasonic are not as vulnerable as Nikon is, because Olympus is a far bigger company than Nikon is, and you do not compare Panasonic to Nikon to know its size.......relative to Nikon.
Nikon actually could sell out of the camera business (its plants, infrastructure and human capital would be worth a huge amount to anyone able to make its own sensors), take the billions of dollars from the asset sale and invest it in something much more likely to generate profit and growth in the medium to long term. Maybe optics, maybe something else entirely (e.g. property, finance, or realestate).
Certainly, as a photographer, it would be nice for Nikon to stay in the game and continue to come up with good products. But, as an investor interested in profit, there are far better things Nikon could do with its very limited resources than continue to compete in the camera game. And, ultimately, Nikon's purpose as a company is to make money, not cameras - making cameras is just one of the many ways to make money, and, given their current strategic position, not a very good one in the long term.
Nikon should try to be a new Asian Zeiss or a Sigma.....make the best possible lenses for electronics giants or medical industry, or maybe for industrial use.
Their expertise is optics. Not digital imaging or the electronics that go with it.
But most of internet camera loving experts cannot get this point and they all just think making innovative(to them) cameras solve all Nikon issues, and even suggest go modular, go programmable camera, or better workflow is the key to re-ignite the rapidly dying stills camera market, oh well, it is not that easy.
If Nikon sold its camera (not optics) division now, Nikon would gain a large chunk of cash. Probably considerably smaller if Nikon sold it in 10 years' time instead. But, either way, still a chunk of cash. Nikon could dispose of that cash in several ways. Firstly, Nikon could wind up most of the company and return a huge chunk of cash to their shareholders. That's actually not a bad option - instead of Nikon investing the money as a company, individual shareholders would take their one-off dividend and invest it themselves. Secondly, Nikon could take the money and invest it in other assets - bonds, shares, property and the like - in a similar manner to a trust fund, with shareholders as beneficiaries. No, Nikon's not expert in it now, but Nikon can easily afford to hire the actual experts needed for the genre Nikon wants to enter into.. A company, even a bank, has no inherent expertise in investments - it's the people they hire who have the expertise. On average, a large company doing that as an institutional investor on behalf of shareholders is going to get a better return than people investing as individuals, due to the centralization and greater availability of resources, reduced transaction costs, better access to international exchanges and better access to loans. Thirdly, Nikon could focus on the optics side of its business, which is potentially far more profitable than its dying camera business, given Nikon's ability to do things in-house and the expanding nature of that sector. Finally,Nikon may do a bit of each - return some cash to shareholders, invest some and expand its optics business.
Optics go in everything, not just interchangeable-lens cameras. Look at what Zeiss, Olympus, Fuji, etc do with it. Their lenses go in everything from Bluray, TV broadcasting business, to microscopes, to satellites. That's what Nikon needs to concentrate on if Nikon is to survive as a company that actually makes something. Forget about proprietary ancient F mount and its own camera system and start making optics for everyone and anyone out there, compatible with all sorts of different imaging systems. That's a far larger market than Nikon-branded stills cameras, is an expanding rather than a shrinking market, and utilises what Nikon is best at (optics) and much less of what it's not so good at (electronics).
All that said though, I actually doubt Nikons ability to compete in broad casting lens market, or interchangeable lens market as a thirdparty lens maker. Nikon has tried this in the 90s and Nikon has miserably rejected and failed at it. TV industry has chosen Canon and Fuji and cinema industry has chosen Canon and Zeiss...........so I am not very sure if Nikon has the ability to make a great lens for TV industry........also, Nikon has competed in medical lens market and failed at it miserably. In 2014 Nikon sued Sigma for unfounded patent infringement and Nikon has lost the patent war in the end. I think if Nikon was still a great optical manufacture as it once was, able to compete with Sigma, then Nikon would not have sued Sigma since after that Sigma decided not design some specific lenses for Nikon mount or deliberately delaying actual release of some very popular lenses for the Nikon fit, and this is affecting a lot on Nikon system sales negatively.
Nikon has lost much more than it could gain anything from the lawsuit.
So I think Nikon has no way to survive, let alone thrive after its camera division fails in very near future.
UPDATE: Nikon Df2 is coming soon and it will house a 24mp sensor but a newer generation chip that Nikon designed or developed and produced by Renasus electronics.
It basically has the feature set of the D750 but in smaller more compact body with the classic camera style controls, which I hate. I am not sure about video feature of it yet but it sounds like getting FHD video at 25, 30, 60 p and i , nothing special.
It will also have the best OVF in any digital era camera with new focus screen.....but it is really too anachronistic now and I think Nikon needs to put a decent EVF, rather than an amazing OVF from film era. The price will be a bit more expensive than the current Df was when it was announced in 2014, and I heard that it will be about 25 percent more expensive than the D810 was at its launch price.
So I think it will be over 3k. So it looks like Nikon still does not get it right; they should understand a camera like the Df 2 really needs a decent EVF and fast LV AF to entice the target market for this type of retro minded compact FF camera.
The potential buyers of this type of cameras are often old with bad eye sight, this means they need pixel peaking to nail the focus really right...so they need a good EVF not the best film era OVF.
UPDATE2: I interviewed many NORMAL camera buyers in my area at our camera shop and asked them to tell us about what was the main reason they did not buy so-called mirrorless any more, and why they think the market share of these mirrorless decreasing at least in the Western world and the already developed part of Asia such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea , Singapore and HK.
They answered to these questions carefully as we paid some $$ and I think we found out a few interesting things about the NORMAL camera buyers' perception/opinion about ILC cameras and the culture surrounding the camera business:
1 to them, if it requires a bag even a tiny one, it's really not important what kind of camera system it is; a mirrorless or a D-SLR, a m43 or a FF, it is just too big and simply too annoying to carry around. So they use their cellphone more even though many of them already have some sort of One cameras or cheap ILCs.
2 To most of NORMAL camera buying people here it really does not matter FF or m43 or APS-C or MF because they are all too difficult to operate and actually really not much different to each other in real life use(at least to them).
This means maybe the small sensor camera systems like the m43 and the Nikon One will all fail since there is no market for them. Not many average camera buyers are interested in ILC systems but fixed lens all around cameras with good one button wireless connection to their phones. And not many the fanatics get interested in these cause most of them are obsessed with the best IQ possible they can get out of a camera system. Thus Olympus, Nikon and Panasonic will definitely need a bigger sensor system to entice them.
3 they do not want a lens like Zeiss Otus or Sigma Art even if it is selling for $50 or less. In fact, any kind of lens interchangeability is not important to them, in fact it is really annoying, and if it is an all around just fixed lens camera like the Sony RX10MK3 , it is actually a better camera system than any type of ILC with a set of primes that most of camera forum denizens want. They should realize they are not the majority of camera buyers and making and selling exactly what they want does not actually help any of these camera makers........
To them a set of great dedicated APS-C primes may be an important part of a good camera system, but to most of NORMAL people it is just not an important or an alluring feature at all.
So as opposed to what Tony , Thom, and many other self-proclaimed experts in many camera forums think, a great set of APS-C dedicated primes will NOT help Nikon or Sony. In fact, outside of the forums most of people actually prefer ZOOMS.
4 To NORMAL people all interchangeable lens cameras are big and quite intimidating.
This means that the very common camera forum trend to get mirrorless for being less conspicuous in the public reason is a silly idea , no one actually cares about if it is a mirroless or a D-SLR, to them all interchangeable lens cameras are annoying and intimidating to most of non-photographers.......so if they really want to be less conspicuous they should try one of the One inch sensor fixed lens cameras.
So as I already pointed out, the camera makers should focus on developing fixed multi lenses multi sensored computational cameras with easy one-button wireless connectivity to the phones. The software must be intuitive and 21st century design rather than the current 1980 design, I think it should be user programmable and as Thom points out open the source code to the smart kids and then some of them will develop some good apps for them for free.
Remember why the 5DMK2 and the Panasonic GH2 became such huge hits? Because of the hacked firmwares, I think it is the key.
UPDATE4: Sony will announce a new FE camera in next month , probably a few days before the NBA show in Las Vegas. I think it will be the A7MK3 with a new sensor, but it may be the always rumored the A9.
Sony will also announce a new E mount camcorder which will replace the FS5. Also Sony and Zeiss will announce a few new Cinema line lenses and they will be very expensive.
I also hear that Canon will announce the 6D mk2 in June or July with a tilty touch screen.
UPDATE5: Now Nikon rumors and the others are getting really paranoid about the new Sony sensor marketing strategy that Nikon rumors and IR widely reported as a kind of fact a few days back.
I know and I have read the original Japanese text and I know their translation is totally wrong. Sony has never said they won't sell the best sensors they have to Nikon or hold back every latest techs they have in house. But they said they will not sell the best FF sensor for hybrid use and the A7R2 sensor is one of that kind....This means if it is not hybrid or video (high speed read-out) sensors Sony will more than willing to sell it to Nikon, so the stills focused 36, 46, and 54 mp sensors are all available to Nikon and the APS-C or so-called MF sensors are also widely available to whoever want to buy one of these.
Remember Sony Semi is not a part of Sony corporation but an independent company and so is the imaging group of Sony...........this means Sony imaging is just one of many many customers of the Semiconductor company of Sony, and the 42.4mp chip was designed for the standards of Sony imaging corp.
Therefore, they will sell any ordinary sensors to Nikon , especially the stills focused ones and smaller than 35mm FF sensors.
However in the long run, it is a big problem for Nikon since Sony Semi's main business is selling automobile sensors, cellphone sensor units and industrial sensors, so Nikon may become a very unimportant customer to their future business plan....
I have heard that the A9 sensors are kept for in-house use only and Nikon will have no access to it.
For now it is not a very serious issue, but Nikon will have to find the real long term solution for their long term sensor plan.
I think they will have to start sensor fabricating themselves with help from Ricoh, Fuji, TowerJazz , and I know many actually think it has already started working in this direction.
