Would Nikon make this announcement soon?

For those of us who don't like electronic viewfinders and prefer an optical finder, it sounds like the attitude of the manufacturers is: "Too bad, either deal with it and buy our new ML products, or keep using your old equipment, or buy Pentax". I won't be buying a ML camera, and I have too many F mount lenses to switch systems.

What is the alternative? Would you expect Nikon to keep on introducing money-losing products? DSLRs have hit a plateau and it is difficult to make meaningful improvements. Two years ago, Nikon introduced the D6 a full 4 years after the D5, and I wasn't impressed at all by the improvements. A few years ago Nikon had to pull the plug on Nikon 1. Kodak kept trying to maintain the film business and ended up from being a Dow 30 stock to bankruptcy.

Personally, I don't think Pentax is the answer, as they also won't be able to sustain constant losses either. With Canon EF and Nikon F, at least there is a huge used market to keep most people going for years to come.

If that's a grammatically correct translation, that means ALL DSLRs.

No doubt this is the correct statement from the CEO according that article from the link I cited. However, now it seems the conclusion seems dubious as there are other articles mentioning the flagship dslr. We do not know which statement supersedes/post-dates which. Anyhow, I think the "flagship" interpretation sounds less shocking. I have looked up a Japanese version and it refers to the flagship as well.

What is the alternative? Would you expect Nikon to keep on introducing money-losing products? DSLRs have hit a plateau and it is difficult to make meaningful improvements. Two years ago, Nikon introduced the D6 a full 4 years after the D5, and I wasn't impressed at all by the improvements. A few years ago Nikon had to pull the plug on Nikon 1. Kodak kept trying to maintain the film business and ended up from being a Dow 30 stock to bankruptcy.

 

Personally, I don't think Pentax is the answer, as they also won't be able to sustain constant losses either. With Canon EF and Nikon F, at least there is a huge used market to keep most people going for years to come.

If it's not superseded soon, I can see the D850 being produced for another 4 to 5 years, perhaps the same for the D6.

Perhaps both might get incremental updates, who knows?

The future is obviously mirrorless and commercially that's where the money lies for the manufacturers.

Progress is progress, even if we don't always agree with it.

My understanding is in line with BeBu's and Ilkka's - that the statement is referring to the flagship DSLR line. I used google translate to look at the original article linked in the article you linked to and the statements as translated aren't clear. Unfortunately, I cannot read Japanese and hence can't verify directly from the source; but many articles that refer to the same source give the "flagship DSLR" interpretation.

 

To me it is very clear that there is at most a very limited effort being made to create and release further DSLRs by any manufacturer (Pentax?) and along with that, it is also highly likely that no more lenses for DSLRs will be forthcoming. So in essence it is of no consequence whether the Canon CEO was talking about the end of the flagship DSLR line or the end of the DSLR era in general; fact is that DSLRs days are numbered.

 

 

 

True for both. I think the DSLR era will end a bit sooner than that of the gasoline-powered automobile though.

I think the DSLR era would end even sooner than the film era.

The idea that Canon would abandon the DSLR market and all the existing owners of their DSLRs doesn't surprise me at all. Canon has a long history of moving on to new hardware ideas and turning their backs on the hardware owned by their customers. There have been several changes in camera body/lens mount/focus systems since the 1960s in which Canon's new design would be completely incompatible with legacy lenses.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Nikon has gone to great lengths and undoubtedly considerable cost to make sure that their product line contains bodies that can use legacy lenses. I don't know of any other manufacturer that has been so adamant about making sure a 50 year old lens of their making will work on a body manufactured today without modifying the lens or using an adapter..

For Nikon to now abandon the F-mount and the large population of Nikon users with legacy lenses would require a rather dramatic change of personality. That, of course, doesn't mean they plan to introduce new DSLRs - they can maintain their tradition simply by continuing to manufacture at least one body that uses the F-mount. But I also see a relatively easy pathway for Nikon to take new features (hardware and software) that have been developed for the mirrorless systems AND that can be easily adapted to work in a DSLR as a way to introduce new DSLR models while putting all their research and development money into the mirrorless hardware.

The difference (to me, at least) is that Canon has shown no loyalty to their existing customer base while Nikon has been diligent about keeping their customers' lenses useful decade after decade.

The idea that Canon would abandon the DSLR market and all the existing owners of their DSLRs doesn't surprise me at all. Canon has a long history of moving on to new hardware ideas and turning their backs on the hardware owned by their customers. There have been several changes in camera body/lens mount/focus systems since the 1960s in which Canon's new design would be completely incompatible with legacy lenses.

 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Nikon has gone to great lengths and undoubtedly considerable cost to make sure that their product line contains bodies that can use legacy lenses. I don't know of any other manufacturer that has been so adamant about making sure a 50 year old lens of their making will work on a body manufactured today without modifying the lens or using an adapter..

 

For Nikon to now abandon the F-mount and the large population of Nikon users with legacy lenses would require a rather dramatic change of personality. That, of course, doesn't mean they plan to introduce new DSLRs - they can maintain their tradition simply by continuing to manufacture at least one body that uses the F-mount. But I also see a relatively easy pathway for Nikon to take new features (hardware and software) that have been developed for the mirrorless systems AND that can be easily adapted to work in a DSLR as a way to introduce new DSLR models while putting all their research and development money into the mirrorless hardware.

 

The difference (to me, at least) is that Canon has shown no loyalty to their existing customer base while Nikon has been diligent about keeping their customers' lenses useful decade after decade.

Yep, just ask any Canon FD mount owner how they felt when that went the way of the dinosaur.

For Nikon to now abandon the F-mount and the large population of Nikon users with legacy lenses would require a rather dramatic change of personality

Apart from no AF support for screwdrive lenses (!), using the FTZ isn't really abandoning F mount....:)

Canon FD to Canon mirrorless, in anything short of full manual, is real abandoning....:eek:

Dieter, I assume you are referring to this page 2 of the Japanese article:

Yes. Mary Doo provided the translation of the relevant part above - though the "few years later" and "one for the mirrorless camera. it will become" don't make sense to me.

Yes. Mary Doo provided the translation of the relevant part above - though the "few years later" and "one for the mirrorless camera. it will become" don't make sense to me.

Straight from Google Translate verbatim. Basically one needs to extract only the relevant part, which you did. ;)

Yep, just ask any Canon FD mount owner how they felt when that went the way of the dinosaur.

And they found their Canon AE-1 body is worth more than the EOS-650 that replaced it.

Yep, just ask any Canon FD mount owner how they felt when that went the way of the dinosaur.

I am sure that back in the late 1980's when Canon switched to the EOS/EF mount for their AF SLRs, Canon FD owners felt abandoned. However, in the mid 1990's, I read an article by columnist Herb Keppler in the US Popular Photography magazine. He pointed out that Nikon had to maintain the F-mount because of the huge number of existing F-mount lenses around, but Canon had to abandon the FD mount because it was poorly designed. Hence the two companies took very different approaches when they moved into the AF era in the late 1980's.

Perhaps hindsight is 20/20, but those Canon FD owners should have blamed themselves for buying into a poorly designed mount to begin with. Kept on maintaining a poor design wasn't the answer for Canon. After they switched to the all-electronic EF mount, Canon flourished in the 1990's.

Looking back, I wished Nikon had immediately switched to E lenses, while maintaining the basic F-mount in 1987 when they introduced AF. But perhaps the inertia was too strong to maintain the aperture ring. It took Nikon another ~15 years to introduce G lenses (and back then there was a very long, anti-G-lens petition on this very forum) and then another 10 years to introduce E lenses. The end result is that we now have a rather complex FTZ adapter that has a built-in motor to drive the mechanical aperture control, and some are demanding to add another AF motor into the FTZ to drive old AF lenses without an AF-S motor. I know, again, hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to see what Nikon should have done 30+ years ago.

I am sure that back in the late 1980's when Canon switched to the EOS/EF mount for their AF SLRs, Canon FD owners felt abandoned. However, in the mid 1990's, I read an article by columnist Herb Keppler in the US Popular Photography magazine. He pointed out that Nikon had to maintain the F-mount because of the huge number of existing F-mount lenses around, but Canon had to abandon the FD mount because it was poorly designed. Hence the two companies took very different approaches when they moved into the AF era in the late 1980's.

 

Perhaps hindsight is 20/20, but those Canon FD owners should have blamed themselves for buying into a poorly designed mount to begin with. Kept on maintaining a poor design wasn't the answer for Canon. After they switched to the all-electronic EF mount, Canon flourished in the 1990's.

 

Looking back, I wished Nikon had immediately switched to E lenses, while maintaining the basic F-mount in 1987 when they introduced AF. But perhaps the inertia was too strong to maintain the aperture ring. It took Nikon another ~15 years to introduce G lenses (and back then there was a very long, anti-G-lens petition on this very forum) and then another 10 years to introduce E lenses. The end result is that we now have a rather complex FTZ adapter that has a built-in motor to drive the mechanical aperture control, and some are demanding to add another AF motor into the FTZ to drive old AF lenses without an AF-S motor. I know, again, hindsight is 20/20. It is easy to see what Nikon should have done 30+ years ago.

Yes I think so too. The Nikon F mount before the introduction of the AF was near perfect while the FD mount was very bad. So Canon had to abandon the FD mount and it is the EF mount that helped them the surpass Nikon. But if Nikon abandoned the F mount when they went AF they may not be in better shape than now. Nikon at the time with F4 wasn't really sure the user interface in the future would be.

For those of us who don't like electronic viewfinders and prefer an optical finder, it sounds like the attitude of the manufacturers is: "Too bad, either deal with it and buy our new ML products, or keep using your old equipment, or buy Pentax". I won't be buying a ML camera, and I have too many F mount lenses to switch systems.

I don't like the electronic viewfinder but I am one who feels there is no need for new DSLR. I think I need film more than new DSLR.

For those who don't like the EVF, one alternative that has been tried a few times but failed is the pellicle mirror, so that you kind of have on foot in each camp. You continue to get your optical viewfinder but a bit dimmer. The sensor can do all the modern AF stuffs with AI eye, animal, vehicle detection .... But some kind of mirror is still there so that the rear elements of lenses cannot get much closer to the sensor. I, for one, would not buy a camera whose sensor/film is always behind some pellicle mirror at the time of image capture.

I mentioned earlier that I kind of wish Nikon would switch to the modern E lenses when they moved to AF. The technology was mostly available by the late 1980's as that was essentially what Canon did. The AF SLR bodies could continue to be fully compatible with existing manual-focus lenses, but new AF E lenses would be unusable on previous manual-focus bodies, as there would be no way to control the aperture, as current E lenses do on manual bodies. I suppose that would have been a no no for Nikon in the late 1980's and 1990's.

For those who don't like the EVF, one alternative that has been tried a few times but failed is the pellicle mirror, so that you kind of have on foot in each camp. You continue to get your optical viewfinder but a bit dimmer. The sensor can do all the modern AF stuffs with AI eye, animal, vehicle detection .... But some kind of mirror is still there so that the rear elements of lenses cannot get much closer to the sensor. I, for one, would not buy a camera whose sensor/film is always behind some pellicle mirror at the time of image capture.

 

I mentioned earlier that I kind of wish Nikon would switch to the modern E lenses when they moved to AF. The technology was mostly available by the late 1980's as that was essentially what Canon did. The AF SLR bodies could continue to be fully compatible with existing manual-focus lenses, but new AF E lenses would be unusable on previous manual-focus bodies, as there would be no way to control the aperture, as current E lenses do on manual bodies. I suppose that would have been a no no for Nikon in the late 1980's and 1990's.

Please NO NO NO. The pellicle mirror is the worst thing. It divides the light so neither the film/sensor or the viewfinder gets the full brightness. And light is so precious that a lens 1/3 stop faster cost more than twice as much. Nop no pellicle. I have zero problem using the reflex finder as it is with the sound of the flipping mirror that makes me happy.