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> with increasingly capable smartphones chewing through the dedicated photography segment. Still, it seems Nikon has suffered it worse than most. The damage fr

> with increasingly capable smartphones chewing through the dedicated photography segment. Still, it seems Nikon has suffered it worse than most. The damage from smartphones was done a while back. The truth now is that Nikon (and Canon to some extent) failed to be at the forefront of: (a) action/drone cameras, (b) 4K video recording, and (c) mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras. Sony and Fujifilm have seen a real renaissance in their mirrorless camera lines (I switched from Canon to Fuji and haven't looked back). Sony has small mirrorless cameras that shoot 4K on par or better than Nikon. GoPro created a billion dollar public company yet Nikon only just recently announced their own action cameras. I worked in the photo industry for several years and Nikon was once the gold standard. IMO they have no one to blame for their current state than themselves.

criley2 10y ago
I mean, I suppose on the consumer or prosumer level, but if you go to any sporting event, you will see a sea of Canon L series glass and not much else... Not sure the quality of the source but this suggests that 75% of the pro cameras at last weeks Super Bowl were Canon, and all of the television broadcast lenses were HD Canon lenses. I just don't see GoPro or Fuji competing at that level, so perhaps their issue was expanding past the point that their core business could support once those periphery product lines fell out of trend. [1] http://www.canonrumors.com/canon-eos-dslr-cameras-and-ef-lenses-touch-down-on-the-sidelines-of-the-big-game-in-houston/ http://www.canonrumors.com/canon-eos-dslr-cameras-and-ef-len...
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  How many professional sports photographers are there? I guess all those wedding photographers need to look the part with Canon's and Nikon's too. Is that enough to keep Canon and Nikon afloat?
  - sgt101 10y ago
    My wife's a professional wedding photographer, so she's got the glass as you say in the game... I'm a dunce photographer, but I've been taking photos using my phone (like everyone) and I enjoyed it, so one day I picked up one of the DSLR's with a "decent" 85mm lens on it and took a photo. The difference is astonishing - it's night and day. The world is filled with light and depth, colours are like bonfires shadows are like the pits of the deepest mine. But then again I guess that's one data point! It may be that in fact phone cameras are great and I'm just deluded.
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      You're completely correct about the difference. You can't take a photo like that with a phone, and you never will be able to. Because physics and economics. But... that kind of quality costs many thousands of dollars, and it's heavy enough to be a problem. You have to decide the weight is worth it before you head out the door for a day of lens aerobics. The market for people who need/want to do that is tiny. This makes me sad, because I love that look, and I hope it never disappears.
      - iamatworknow 10y ago
        >This makes me sad, because I love that look, and I hope it never disappears. I don't think it will for a long time. There's still a market for film photography, if that's any indication.
        alistairSH 10y ago
        And there are assorted "retro" cameras on the market. If the Olympus PEN-F were weather-sealed, I'd own one already (instead of my much less expensive PL-6).
    - criley2 10y ago
      No, it's not a delusion, it comes down to a few simple things like sensor size. I have an entry level Canon DSLR from 2007, 7MP, which takes far better photos than any smartphone I've ever used. The reason is pretty simple, it has a 1 inch square area for its sensor, while the smartphone sensor is about the size of a small pinky nail (1cm squared or less?) For any given period of time, the larger sensor can capture more light at once, either taking better exposed or faster shots, and having far more data in which to encode a digital images pixels. It's certainly insanely impressive what modern hardware and software get out tiny sensors, but bigger sensors are still incomparably better -- AND can benefit from many of the same advances small sensors use. It's kind of like car engines. It's always impressive when someone gets insane performance out of a tiny engine, but no one disputes that a big engine is going to be more powerful than a small one, especially when displacement is the only difference.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  I think that Canon and Nikon have been resting on their laurels, in large part because they have the photojournalism market sewn up. They're the undisputed champions of a small and highly visible market, but they have been overtaken in almost every other respect. They don't make the best sensors, they don't make the best lenses, they don't make a compelling mirrorless camera. Canon and Nikon don't have the aspirational appeal that they used to. Their prestige has been badly undermined by the Sony/Zeiss partnership - the best sensors paired with the finest glass. Sigma used to be the cheap option, but they're now producing some of the best primes in the world. It used to be that serious photographers were either Canon or Nikon people, but now they have a lot more choice.
  - luckydude 10y ago
    Nikon just doesn't have the money to compete, I'm friends with one of the Nikon glass people, as in the people who make the glass, he's just depressed each time I come over with some great Canon lens (I showed up with the 400mm f4 DO which is identical in size to the 200mm f2, he was stunned they could make a 400mm that small with optics that good). I whole heartedly disagree that Canon is coasting. Years ago they knew that they would make a 50Megapixel camera and they started redoing their lenses to resolve details at that pixel size. Go look at the mark II lenses, the 70-200, the 300/400/600. Go look at the bodies that do 50MP, the landscape people love them. Canon is investing heavily into bodies and glass. That said, I've got the Sigma 85mm ART and have looked at other Sigma glass. Couldn't be happier with the optics, they are still behind in the auto focus speed. If that's not an issue then Sigma is killing it and that's a good thing.
- javiramos 10y ago
  I think that there might be a new wave of camera companies that might substantially disrupt the high-end Nikon/Canon market. Light is a good example. [1] [1] https://light.co/technology https://light.co/technology
monksy 10y ago
I agree with most of what you've said. However, To claim that smartphones are a replacement for P&S cameras is I think misguided. P&Ss perform a lot better on vacation. They don't perform as good on brief everyday interactions. A. Action cameras- Not sure why this is a category, but people do consume GoPros like crazy [despite quality issues] B. 4k video recording, you do have a good point there.. that's mostly for the vloging community. C. I think this is the category that isn't well published. I just recently bought an Lumix LX10. It was expensive but the results are great. I loved my Nikon CoolPix S6800, but Nikon decided to drop the ball and that's why I moved over. (Cannon's had a nasty red bias I couldn't tolerate)
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  The problem with point and shoot cameras is their lack of interaction with phones. This may not be an issue today, but for the last few years people ask me what cool camera to get that's under £250. I ask them what they want to do -- mostly portrait shots and kids action shots indoors (play areas for toddlers), and most importantly just click a button to transfer the photos onto the phone for facebook. There isn't a camera that will do all that any better than an iPhone camera. Sure a DSLR will take a nicer photo, but dragging that massive £2K weight around for a 10% better photo. Or for most people they can't even see the difference. I love me a bit of bokeh, but for 99% of people, they simply don't care.
  - lightedman 10y ago
    "There isn't a camera that will do all that any better than an iPhone camera." Kodak had EasyShare which did exactly as you described if you had the Wi-Fi SD adapter.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    I'm actually about to return a Coolpix A900 that handled the phone integration issue very well via the SnapBridge app - that's not what I would call the best UI in the world, and it's annoying to have to switch Wi-Fi networks to the phone's AP in order to use the transfer and remote control features, but I also don't see how it could be done any better; leaving aside that minor annoyance, it's a very nice way of interacting with the camera, and one-touch picture transfer is a lot nicer than having to pop the SD card out of the camera and into an adapter for the phone. (In case of interest: I'm returning the camera because it isn't enough of a value add over my smartphone's built-in one to justify the price, and for another $100-$150 I can get a DSLR body that'll take the same F-mount lenses my grandfather used and give me the capabilities I actually want out of a discrete camera because my smartphone can't provide them. The Coolpix A900 is a fine camera for what it is - but what it is isn't what I require.) ETA: Not complaining about downvotes, but I am curious why they're happening. The negative judgment of the community is more useful when combined with information on why it's merited, so as to make it less likely I'll screw up the same way again. Obliged in advance -
monkmartinez 10y ago
GoPro is not in much better shape than Nikon. [1] Nikon shouldn't even bother with the action cam market. Yi Technologies [2] and companies like Yi are going to DOMINATE the non-smartphone camera market in short order. Just wait for MWC this year... [1]https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/03/gopro-incs-earnings-go-from-bad-to-worse.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/03/gopro-incs... [2] https://www.yitechnology.com/ https://www.yitechnology.com/
- mahyarm 10y ago
  Really? Their MFT camera is about the same price as a low-end MFT from olympus or panasonic. The go pro had a lot of obvious margin to eat up. I wonder how much a sony action cam would cost if they didn't have to provide a warranty like yi doesn't have to provide much of a warranty? DJI is pretty expensive and chinese too. In the end it's about the tech to price ratio.
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    Yi's mirrorless MFT, according to reviews as I don't own one, are half the price of competing models. I have a panasonic G10, but I'am watching Yi... Have you watched the people that use Action cams? Drones, Dirtbikes, Mountain Bikes, Kayaking and more... A warranty doesn't generally cover "Smashed into building buttress at high rate of speed whilst attached my 250mm racing drone, will you please replace under warranty?" It seems that most people have settled for smartphones for the bulk of their photographic needs. When you can get a similarly spec'd action cam or MFT cam for 1/2 or even 1/3 the price, a LOT of people will jump on that. Especially people that have broken a GoPro... Ask me how I know that :) DJI has a lot of competition just getting started... The quadcopter world is absolutely on fire and moving amazingly fast.
    - jbarham 10y ago
      The DPR review of the Yi MFT camera is not pretty: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/yi-m1/7 https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/yi-m1/7 The main complaint is that it has very poor autofocus ("unusable" in continuous and video modes). Good autofocus is important, especially for entry-level cameras, so I don't think Olympus and Panasonic are too concerned about Yi stealing market share from their entry-level models.
yourapostasy 10y ago
> ...Nikon (and Canon to some extent) failed to be at the forefront of...(b) 4K video recording... I'm in the market for a "casual" 4K video recorder. It would only be used to create archival footage of interviews; no need for ultra-fast action-capture, color can be family-photo-good-enough. From what you asserted above, I get the impression that Nikon and Canon have ceded the consumer-grade 4K camcorder market to other competitors, is that the case?
- callmeed 10y ago
  Yeah, definitely. You can find tons of reviews on various sites (DP Review is great) and plenty of sample footage on YouTube. I'd definitely suggest getting something with an external mic jack–getting good audio makes a big difference.
- _Codemonkeyism 10y ago
  The Panasonic G80/G85 is a nice 4k cam. I use the predecessor (G7) for webinars. https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-g85-g80/8 https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-g85-g80...
- jbarham 10y ago
  Nikon has never been a contender in video. Canon has but it's ceding a lot of ground to Panasonic (GH4/GH5) and Sony (A7S) in 4K video as it doesn't want to cannibalize sales of its much more expensive video cameras.
matthewvincent 10y ago
I think you're right on with B. As a photo professional I'd say 4K 60fps video is the number one feature a camera can have these days. Enabling every photographer to also be a cinematographer. Canon and Nikon just aren't keeping up, mostly due to their crushingly expensive pro lines.

criley2 10y ago

I mean, I suppose on the consumer or prosumer level, but if you go to any sporting event, you will see a sea of Canon L series glass and not much else... Not sure the quality of the source but this suggests that 75% of the pro cameras at last weeks Super Bowl were Canon, and all of the television broadcast lenses were HD Canon lenses. I just don't see GoPro or Fuji competing at that level, so perhaps their issue was expanding past the point that their core business could support once those periphery product lines fell out of trend. [1] http://www.canonrumors.com/canon-eos-dslr-cameras-and-ef-lenses-touch-down-on-the-sidelines-of-the-big-game-in-houston/ http://www.canonrumors.com/canon-eos-dslr-cameras-and-ef-len...

monkmartinez 10y ago
How many professional sports photographers are there? I guess all those wedding photographers need to look the part with Canon's and Nikon's too. Is that enough to keep Canon and Nikon afloat?
- sgt101 10y ago
  My wife's a professional wedding photographer, so she's got the glass as you say in the game... I'm a dunce photographer, but I've been taking photos using my phone (like everyone) and I enjoyed it, so one day I picked up one of the DSLR's with a "decent" 85mm lens on it and took a photo. The difference is astonishing - it's night and day. The world is filled with light and depth, colours are like bonfires shadows are like the pits of the deepest mine. But then again I guess that's one data point! It may be that in fact phone cameras are great and I'm just deluded.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    You're completely correct about the difference. You can't take a photo like that with a phone, and you never will be able to. Because physics and economics. But... that kind of quality costs many thousands of dollars, and it's heavy enough to be a problem. You have to decide the weight is worth it before you head out the door for a day of lens aerobics. The market for people who need/want to do that is tiny. This makes me sad, because I love that look, and I hope it never disappears.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      >This makes me sad, because I love that look, and I hope it never disappears. I don't think it will for a long time. There's still a market for film photography, if that's any indication.
      - alistairSH 10y ago
        And there are assorted "retro" cameras on the market. If the Olympus PEN-F were weather-sealed, I'd own one already (instead of my much less expensive PL-6).
  - criley2 10y ago
    No, it's not a delusion, it comes down to a few simple things like sensor size. I have an entry level Canon DSLR from 2007, 7MP, which takes far better photos than any smartphone I've ever used. The reason is pretty simple, it has a 1 inch square area for its sensor, while the smartphone sensor is about the size of a small pinky nail (1cm squared or less?) For any given period of time, the larger sensor can capture more light at once, either taking better exposed or faster shots, and having far more data in which to encode a digital images pixels. It's certainly insanely impressive what modern hardware and software get out tiny sensors, but bigger sensors are still incomparably better -- AND can benefit from many of the same advances small sensors use. It's kind of like car engines. It's always impressive when someone gets insane performance out of a tiny engine, but no one disputes that a big engine is going to be more powerful than a small one, especially when displacement is the only difference.
jdietrich 10y ago
I think that Canon and Nikon have been resting on their laurels, in large part because they have the photojournalism market sewn up. They're the undisputed champions of a small and highly visible market, but they have been overtaken in almost every other respect. They don't make the best sensors, they don't make the best lenses, they don't make a compelling mirrorless camera. Canon and Nikon don't have the aspirational appeal that they used to. Their prestige has been badly undermined by the Sony/Zeiss partnership - the best sensors paired with the finest glass. Sigma used to be the cheap option, but they're now producing some of the best primes in the world. It used to be that serious photographers were either Canon or Nikon people, but now they have a lot more choice.
- luckydude 10y ago
  Nikon just doesn't have the money to compete, I'm friends with one of the Nikon glass people, as in the people who make the glass, he's just depressed each time I come over with some great Canon lens (I showed up with the 400mm f4 DO which is identical in size to the 200mm f2, he was stunned they could make a 400mm that small with optics that good). I whole heartedly disagree that Canon is coasting. Years ago they knew that they would make a 50Megapixel camera and they started redoing their lenses to resolve details at that pixel size. Go look at the mark II lenses, the 70-200, the 300/400/600. Go look at the bodies that do 50MP, the landscape people love them. Canon is investing heavily into bodies and glass. That said, I've got the Sigma 85mm ART and have looked at other Sigma glass. Couldn't be happier with the optics, they are still behind in the auto focus speed. If that's not an issue then Sigma is killing it and that's a good thing.
javiramos 10y ago
I think that there might be a new wave of camera companies that might substantially disrupt the high-end Nikon/Canon market. Light is a good example. [1] [1] https://light.co/technology https://light.co/technology

monksy 10y ago

I agree with most of what you've said. However, To claim that smartphones are a replacement for P&S cameras is I think misguided. P&Ss perform a lot better on vacation. They don't perform as good on brief everyday interactions. A. Action cameras- Not sure why this is a category, but people do consume GoPros like crazy [despite quality issues] B. 4k video recording, you do have a good point there.. that's mostly for the vloging community. C. I think this is the category that isn't well published. I just recently bought an Lumix LX10. It was expensive but the results are great. I loved my Nikon CoolPix S6800, but Nikon decided to drop the ball and that's why I moved over. (Cannon's had a nasty red bias I couldn't tolerate)

monk_e_boy 10y ago
The problem with point and shoot cameras is their lack of interaction with phones. This may not be an issue today, but for the last few years people ask me what cool camera to get that's under £250. I ask them what they want to do -- mostly portrait shots and kids action shots indoors (play areas for toddlers), and most importantly just click a button to transfer the photos onto the phone for facebook. There isn't a camera that will do all that any better than an iPhone camera. Sure a DSLR will take a nicer photo, but dragging that massive £2K weight around for a 10% better photo. Or for most people they can't even see the difference. I love me a bit of bokeh, but for 99% of people, they simply don't care.
- lightedman 10y ago
  "There isn't a camera that will do all that any better than an iPhone camera." Kodak had EasyShare which did exactly as you described if you had the Wi-Fi SD adapter.
- throwanem 10y ago
  I'm actually about to return a Coolpix A900 that handled the phone integration issue very well via the SnapBridge app - that's not what I would call the best UI in the world, and it's annoying to have to switch Wi-Fi networks to the phone's AP in order to use the transfer and remote control features, but I also don't see how it could be done any better; leaving aside that minor annoyance, it's a very nice way of interacting with the camera, and one-touch picture transfer is a lot nicer than having to pop the SD card out of the camera and into an adapter for the phone. (In case of interest: I'm returning the camera because it isn't enough of a value add over my smartphone's built-in one to justify the price, and for another $100-$150 I can get a DSLR body that'll take the same F-mount lenses my grandfather used and give me the capabilities I actually want out of a discrete camera because my smartphone can't provide them. The Coolpix A900 is a fine camera for what it is - but what it is isn't what I require.) ETA: Not complaining about downvotes, but I am curious why they're happening. The negative judgment of the community is more useful when combined with information on why it's merited, so as to make it less likely I'll screw up the same way again. Obliged in advance -

monkmartinez 10y ago

GoPro is not in much better shape than Nikon. [1] Nikon shouldn't even bother with the action cam market. Yi Technologies [2] and companies like Yi are going to DOMINATE the non-smartphone camera market in short order. Just wait for MWC this year... [1]https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/03/gopro-incs-earnings-go-from-bad-to-worse.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/02/03/gopro-incs... [2] https://www.yitechnology.com/ https://www.yitechnology.com/

mahyarm 10y ago
Really? Their MFT camera is about the same price as a low-end MFT from olympus or panasonic. The go pro had a lot of obvious margin to eat up. I wonder how much a sony action cam would cost if they didn't have to provide a warranty like yi doesn't have to provide much of a warranty? DJI is pretty expensive and chinese too. In the end it's about the tech to price ratio.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  Yi's mirrorless MFT, according to reviews as I don't own one, are half the price of competing models. I have a panasonic G10, but I'am watching Yi... Have you watched the people that use Action cams? Drones, Dirtbikes, Mountain Bikes, Kayaking and more... A warranty doesn't generally cover "Smashed into building buttress at high rate of speed whilst attached my 250mm racing drone, will you please replace under warranty?" It seems that most people have settled for smartphones for the bulk of their photographic needs. When you can get a similarly spec'd action cam or MFT cam for 1/2 or even 1/3 the price, a LOT of people will jump on that. Especially people that have broken a GoPro... Ask me how I know that :) DJI has a lot of competition just getting started... The quadcopter world is absolutely on fire and moving amazingly fast.
  - jbarham 10y ago
    The DPR review of the Yi MFT camera is not pretty: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/yi-m1/7 https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/yi-m1/7 The main complaint is that it has very poor autofocus ("unusable" in continuous and video modes). Good autofocus is important, especially for entry-level cameras, so I don't think Olympus and Panasonic are too concerned about Yi stealing market share from their entry-level models.

yourapostasy 10y ago

> ...Nikon (and Canon to some extent) failed to be at the forefront of...(b) 4K video recording... I'm in the market for a "casual" 4K video recorder. It would only be used to create archival footage of interviews; no need for ultra-fast action-capture, color can be family-photo-good-enough. From what you asserted above, I get the impression that Nikon and Canon have ceded the consumer-grade 4K camcorder market to other competitors, is that the case?

callmeed 10y ago
Yeah, definitely. You can find tons of reviews on various sites (DP Review is great) and plenty of sample footage on YouTube. I'd definitely suggest getting something with an external mic jack–getting good audio makes a big difference.
_Codemonkeyism 10y ago
The Panasonic G80/G85 is a nice 4k cam. I use the predecessor (G7) for webinars. https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-g85-g80/8 https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonic-lumix-dmc-g85-g80...
jbarham 10y ago
Nikon has never been a contender in video. Canon has but it's ceding a lot of ground to Panasonic (GH4/GH5) and Sony (A7S) in 4K video as it doesn't want to cannibalize sales of its much more expensive video cameras.

matthewvincent 10y ago

I think you're right on with B. As a photo professional I'd say 4K 60fps video is the number one feature a camera can have these days. Enabling every photographer to also be a cinematographer. Canon and Nikon just aren't keeping up, mostly due to their crushingly expensive pro lines.