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Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

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131–140 of 371 posts

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#131

I've been around photography for a while. This is sad news but not surprising. Mobile phones have gotten good enough that you don't need a DSLR anymore to take "nice pictures." All the computational photography to create fake bokeh, good low-light photos, etc. pretty much ate up all the demand for DSLR. If you look at the photos on a big monitor, you can spot the difference between a DSLR and smartphone. But on a sma…

It is pretty wild to think that, like, 20 years ago digital camera had relatively nice little screens on them and relatively good processing, while phones had those silly little green-and-black LCDs. I wonder if there's an alternate universe where people are saying "Nokia seems to be really doomed. This is sad but not surprising -- smartcamera antennas have gotten good enough that you can get reception almost anywher…

The camera manufacturers seem to be set in their ways. Wouldn't it be cool if you could load a sim card into your smart-camera & use android apps for cool features, like proper HDR (not the manual bracketing stuff), maybe apply some casual third-party filters, or instant streaming and sharing on social platforms. But maybe the target market, the professional photographers, are also the older generation that care more about a tiny amount of lens diffraction than the possibilities of new tech. There could also be the aspect of job security, since new tech could lower the barrier for newcomers.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#133
post #24

Huh, that doesn't sound like news. I'm pretty sure that my D70s, over 15 years old by now, was produced in Thailand too. Maybe they always built the cheaper models over there?

Yes. Only the upper-end cameras were produced in Japan, as well as the top-tier lenses.

Yep, I have a Nikon D300 from 2008ish, that was Nikon's pro-sumer model at the time. It's very well made and still works well but made in Thailand rather than Japan.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm thinking of selling my Fuji X100V Didn't those just come out? Oddly enough, I just picked up an X100T from eBay and I haven't been using my phone nearly as much. I don't know if the novelty will wear off or not, but I've been really enjoying it

The X100 series is a cool camera. I had one since the first version of X100. But I found it more convenient to pull my phone out instead of carrying that camera. I do have a X-T2 if I want to take more "serious" photos.

I have an x-t30 and my phone can't even compare. It's an entry level Samsung and those have really bad and slow cameras, esp in low light. A flagship might be a different story. Tbh, I wasn't that impressed with the fuji camera with the included 15-45 kit lens, which is rather mediocre. But after getting the 35mm f2 I can really appreciate the difference in the quality of photos. The other part is doing a course on photography and learning the manual settings. Without that, there is really no reason to use anything but a smartphone.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#135
post #42

Nikon hasn’t really made an amazing camera since the days of the F5 (the weapon of choice for greats such as Peter Lindbergh). I really feel that Japan Inc. needs a version of that Stephen Elop “burning platform” rant.

Bah. The F3 was their last great camera. After that it's been nothing but pointless 'hi tech' bells and whistles /s

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#136
post #123

I fear for Nikon, even though I suspect they have lifelines, given Bank of Japan’s quantitative easing. They’re the least diversified of the big camera companies. Sony has…a lot, from semiconductors to financial instruments. Canon has high-end video, scanners, and enterprise printing and copying. Nikon has photography-oriented cameras, some medical optics, and semiconductor equipment, and that’s about it. They’re jus…

Do more boutique camera companies like Leica just survive on their (what I assume to be) large margins?

I imagine so.

At the risk of angering Leica fans: they’re shipping not exactly state of the art technology at very high prices, with a lot of the R&D actually being done by Panasonic. (Or, in the case of their Lux compact cameras, they’re literally shipping Panasonic cameras with a different sticker on them.)

Look at the Leica Q2: it costs $5000. The Fuji X100V costs $1300. I know there’s a bigger sensor in the Q2, but, c’mon, there’s not $2000 worth of magic hiding in there.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#137
post #39

Heartbreaking, but they are a "survivor" company. They have lasted over 100 years, through a world war (including firestorm bombing), earthquakes, fires and tsunamis. They had never been particularly big, until the 1990s, with the advent of point-and-shoot digital cameras. That gravy train ended when the iPhone came out. They are probably contracting to their more traditional role, of Big Black Cameras, as well as so…

> They have some of the finest scientists and engineers in the world, as well as a gigantic portfolio of patents. They aren't going away. Kodak would like to have a word.

Nikon sells much more than just cameras. I only know their excellent microscope product line (https://www.nikon.com/products/business/biomedical/), but it looks like they are also in the lithography business https://www.nikon.com/products/#ps-biz Kodak had what, printers?

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#138
I think cameras are done. And not because of cellphones. I think Lytro did them in.

First a cop out to what I'm about to say. My arguments are specifically for geometric optics as used in photography. Also, my argument is in the limit that (non-optical) technology gets better. Also, while I took (and loved) many optics classes at university a lifetime ago, I ultimately did not become an optical engineer. I'm sure there are many nuances in my arguments bellow.

But largely they should be correct.

The Lytro camera is a camera that records the angle of incidence of light rays. If you have the angle of incidence of rays then the entire problem of (geometric) lens design is finished. Everything a lens can do can be done in software. Think of Lytro as software defined radio.

With a light field camera you can design the physical lens with a single objective: f-stop. Gather as much light as possible. You can adjust everything else in software. This is like SDR where (I guess) you optimize the antenna for bandwidth and noise.

By adjust I don't mean "adjust" as in apply AI or heuristic to make it appear as if you've achieved a goal. This is what your cellphone does. I actually change the lens. Since you have the ray's angle of incidence you can roll the rays back to before they reached the camera lens, and then put your own, software defined, lenses. This is probably not how you would implement the algorithm, but it illustrates the point.

Therefore you can change focal length, aperture, break physical limits (ridiculous index of refractions with no dispersion. infinitely thin lens).

Back to reality, what does it take to achieve all of this? Optically the Lytro all ready did all of this. It failed, but for the reasons that an Apple product would hit it out of the ballpark - implementation. With better software/computer power the product would be easier more convenient to use. With bigger, better sensors (to better capture the ray's angle) the camera would be able to emulate more lenses.

Therefore, 20th century type photography is dead. A modern photographer could just take a camera out, really take a shot without minding much about aiming it [1], completely ignore light and focus, and everything else could be done in software.

Frankly I think this will kill photography - but honestly, I think cell phones have killed most non-art, non-professional photography already. Amateurs are far worse (i.e. boring) photographers today then 30 years ago. That's a judgement call, sure, but that's what I enjoy.

[1] As long as the subject is captured, it won't really matter. You can pan in post processing. You can even adjust for perspective [2]! Just roll the rays outside the physical lens, and move your software lens to where you want it.

[2] Perspective - the size of elements of the scene wrt to each other - is strictly about where the camera is wrt to the subject. It has nothing to do with the lens. Lazy photographers make the mistake of "zooming" into the subject to get close - but the subject is as flat. In software, you can move the lens, and therefore even change perspective.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#140
post #22

Oof, that's not a good sign. For me, Japan is the place for the best camera and lens manufacturing. Most of the makers seem to split their manufacturing between Japan for their quality models/lenses and cheaper countries for the consumer stuff, which I think is a valid compromise. But this feels short-sighted on Nikon's part and rather like they have already failed. Perhaps instead of relocating their production they…

Traditional lens manufacturing is likely in its last days (which can easily take a decade or two, but ... the end is visible). Modern lens are made with techniques perfected in semiconductor manufacturing, and use advances in material science (meta materials in particular). I don't know how close this is to mass market, but I've seen superthin flat lens, with a marginal cost of production around ~$2 in a university f…

Does that mean we might be nearing the end of camera bumps on phones?
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