What should Nikon DO to become no 1 camera Manufacturer

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What should Nikon DO to become no 1 camera Manufacturer

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qwerty

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Firstly, I think the question should be. How do I become a better photographer? A camera in the end is a tool and tool alone.

However we all owe our loyalties to our cameras and lenses because of ownership and generally stick to them because of the investment involved. But for some thats not the case anymore.

I for one have a small investment with Nikon so I'm always hoping that they out do themselves rather than compete with canon.

Nikon has great glass, few perhaps but sturdy lenses, great sensor and a user friendly ergonomics.
the few cons like video @ 1080p, 24 frames and compressed footage is yet to be tried and tested. The scarlet is clearly going to miles ahead when the race begins.

So for Nikon to be able to compete is too bring out great glass to match canons. Having greater video capabilities is also going to be a true test for them.
Not to mention better audio, perhaps XLR inputs.

Better frame burst for HDR photography.

Open firmware and most important International warranty as todays free market means that they have to be able to compete on the world stage rather than playing within fenced geographical boundaries.
I do not believe because some countries have a smaller population or a better buying power. They should have to pay premium for the same lens/camera that I can get from the US or other asian countries.

I called in to find out how much 200mm F4 micro cost here in australia and its a shocking $400-500 more than in the US.

The more cameras are in circulation, the more the reputation it carries and more democratized it gets. Its not about having the D4X being able to sit in a elite Pro's hand. Its about being able to take a good picture or being able to see the world through a child eye and being having that child in India or Australia be able to produce images that stop the world, to make people think.

Only then can Nikon say, its a job well done. Rather than competing with only technology as a weapon. It should be invisible and let the eye see things as it just is.
I hope I do not offend anyone for their pride in ownership but compared to the results of a smile seen in a picture its too small a price.

Marketing is not required because everyone knows Brand Nikon.

Posted 3 years ago #
Gentoo

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All I think Nikon would have to do is lower their prices on the SLR's and lenses. This is what keeps a lot of prospective buyers away.

Posted 3 years ago #
NSXType-R

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mb said:
If Nikon wants to be № 1 they need to be able to produce own uniquely designed DSLR sensors (like Canon does) not just to tweak Sony units. Right now they are forced to follow the others and to depend on Sony as far sensor technology is in question.
And I would ditch current low cost P&S line and focus resources on DSLR-s and some new and higher (bigger sensor) P&S class. Volumes would be lower but it will allow them to give better service and will improve Nikon reputation as a serous camera maker.
They should work on other aspects of the company image like making better and more serous advertisement, and dumping A.K. along the way will also help. Anyway they should distinguish they self from the rest of companies.

I actually don't mind that they use Sony sensors. There's nothing wrong with the Sony sensors- Nikon would be using Nikon sensors if there were a better alternative. Sony uses Sony sensors and they still can't come out with better results than Nikon. Isn't that something? I say don't fix it if it isn't broken.

Posted 3 years ago #
Gentoo

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NSXType-R said:
I actually don't mind that they use Sony sensors. There's nothing wrong with the Sony sensors- Nikon would be using Nikon sensors if there were a better alternative. Sony uses Sony sensors and they still can't come out with better results than Nikon. Isn't that something? I say don't fix it if it isn't broken.

That makes sense actually. Nikon is an optical company so they concentrate on that. Sony is more of an electronics company so let them do their thing. Nikon gets the best of both.

Posted 3 years ago #
Willis

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I'm with you NSX... Nobody ever says Apple or Dell should be developing their own chips (although I suppose you could argue that Apple will be doing that with PA Semi...), but somehow Nikon will fall behind if they don't design their own sensors?

Doesn't make sense to me. The money they aren't spending on sensor design allows them to invest in making the results from a sensor better, improving the ergonomics of their cameras, and most importantly, mastering design of their glass.

Besides... if you want to get technical, half of these sensors are manufactured using equipment from Nikon's precision optics division. There are no fully vertical companies left in Japan today that I'm aware of.

All of this is to say that a company should play to their strengths, which in Nikon's case are design & optics. If Nikon wants to get good at something they are bad at, I'd say to target user interface.

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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I'm with Willis. The top selling Nikon cameras are point & shoot models followed by the D3000 and D5000. The best selling "advanced" amateur model is the D300S. The D700/D3(s)/D3X are all way at the bottom of the list.

Having awesome flag ship models sells more point & shoots because people can't afford what's at the top but they can still associate the name to their $100 dollar p&s.

Getting rid of the low-end division would be a financial disaster.

Everyone wants an awesome sports/race car parked outside their house, but what you end up buying is the bargain model with the leather seats and "sports" package instead

Posted 3 years ago #
NSXType-R

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Gentoo said:
That makes sense actually. Nikon is an optical company so they concentrate on that. Sony is more of an electronics company so let them do their thing. Nikon gets the best of both.

Willis said:
I'm with you NSX... Nobody ever says Apple or Dell should be developing their own chips (although I suppose you could argue that Apple will be doing that with PA Semi...), but somehow Nikon will fall behind if they don't design their own sensors?

Doesn't make sense to me. The money they aren't spending on sensor design allows them to invest in making the results from a sensor better, improving the ergonomics of their cameras, and most importantly, mastering design of their glass.

Besides... if you want to get technical, half of these sensors are manufactured using equipment from Nikon's precision optics division. There are no fully vertical companies left in Japan today that I'm aware of.

All of this is to say that a company should play to their strengths, which in Nikon's case are design & optics. If Nikon wants to get good at something they are bad at, I'd say to target user interface.

With a caveat though- Nikon shouldn't be stagnant. If they know there's a better alternative, please, bring the damn thing to market and surprise us with something that'll blow all the other companies out of the water- or at least keep them in line. :D

Don't say, eh, that's good enough.

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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soap said:
"What should Nikon DO to become [sic] no 1 camera Manufacturer?"

For you Soap I will rephrase it:

"What should Nikon DO to stay no 2 camera Manufacturer"

Yes Soap I love my Nikon Gear, and overall think they are a great Company, but there are certainly a few areas that they could improve on. OK

Pete

Posted 3 years ago #
pabnj

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Firstly, FIRST ASHTON KUTCHER.

Nikon needs to completely revamp their marketing campaign, Ashton Kutcher does nothing for them except make them look like the most inept camera maker on the planet. A campaign to better educate consumers would be far superior to Ashton "The Idiot" Kutcher. Most customers just look at the mega pixels, and Nikon is not the market leader in that area.

Do away with CaptureNX, take a page out of Leica's playbook, and include a "limited", or Nikon tweaked version of Capture One, or Lightroom. NX is not a workflow solution, nor is it very intuitive for beginners.

Revamp the P&S line. US manufactures go after consumers when they are young trying to attract them to their brand, and make them brand aware at a young age. What better method than to have a camera number one with teenages.

I am not necessarily in favor of reducing prices. Marketing research shows more often than not that it makes your brand look cheap, and can have the opposite effect on sales believe it or not. However offering your user base special discounts on accessories a few of times a year would go along way. Skip the rebates, they are a pain, offer aggressive e-mailed coupons to your registered base for their loyalty.

I do not have a problem with Sony sensors either. I put Sony in the same boat as Kodak. They make really good sensors, but they just can't put them in anything photographers want. Continuing to push the ISO limits on FX and DX models would be a big boost to sales.

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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adamz said:
pete - sure the service should be the same in every country, unfortunately it sucks over here - read some stories over here: http://www.polishnikonservice.com/

Wow Adamz that is crazy, I read a few of them. I sure will consider myself lucky with our service here in Canada. After dropping my 70-200 VR the zoom was stuck, they had back to me in less than 3 weeks after getting parts from Japan to fix it at a fair cost. Like Nikon should have the same Service anywhere in the world, hope that something gets done with your Nikon Service in Poland, how is Canon Service in Poland

Pete

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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pabnj said:
Firstly, FIRST ASHTON KUTCHER.

Nikon needs to completely revamp their marketing campaign, Ashton Kutcher does nothing for them except make them look like the most inept camera maker on the planet. A campaign to better educate consumers would be far superior to Ashton "The Idiot" Kutcher. Most customers just look at the mega pixels, and Nikon is not the market leader in that area.

Do away with CaptureNX, take a page out of Leica's playbook, and include a "limited", or Nikon tweaked version of Capture One, or Lightroom. NX is not a workflow solution, nor is it very intuitive for beginners.

Revamp the P&S line. US manufactures go after consumers when they are young trying to attract them to their brand, and make them brand aware at a young age. What better method than to have a camera number one with teenages.

I am not necessarily in favor of reducing prices. Marketing research shows more often than not that it makes your brand look cheap, and can have the opposite effect on sales believe it or not. However offering your user base special discounts on accessories a few of times a year would go along way. Skip the rebates, they are a pain, offer aggressive e-mailed coupons to your registered base for their loyalty.

I do not have a problem with Sony sensors either. I put Sony in the same boat as Kodak. They make really good sensors, but they just can't put them in anything photographers want. Continuing to push the ISO limits on FX and DX models would be a big boost to sales.

You know Nikon could make a deal with Adobe and incl Lightroom with every DSLR,

Pete

Posted 3 years ago #
valonqe

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What I would like form Nikon is to be more informative in their upcoming updates. They need to advertise on their websites the new cameras that are in progress and in future development. Also have an extra section where we can post our wishes for the new cameras.

I don't mind them using other camera sensors, but what will happen when that marriage falls apart. What will happen to Nikon, have they got their back up plan? It is a tricky marriage between Sony and Nikon because one would thing that Sony would use Nikon lenses for their Sony DSLR since they work together but they use Carl Zeiss instead.

I never hade the need to use Nikon costumer Services because Nikon builds their cameras to last so no need for the service I am sure that every now and then their product develops a fault and needs to be sent back to the service.

I live in e country where we don't have Nikon dealer so all my lenses where fixed by a guy who happen to fix digital video cameras. But I ma sure that Nikon lives up to its name when it comes to fixing their products.

The only complain that I have with Nikon in the last months was the development of the Firmware for D300s. I was expecting to fix the manual control over video and probably add more features on that department but that didn’t happen.

What made me angrier was that every time I contacted them they wrote me back with the same copy-pace answer for every question.

One I contacted Nikon again on the 27th of DEC when the firmware wasn’t available as the rumors predicted they wrote back to me with the same answer as they did on the last mail.

A week later the new firmware’s where uploaded on the Nikon website. I know that it is hard for them to answer every question if it isn’t fault related but at least post on the website that we are working on the matter and give a time frame on the updates.

Canon is more user friendly in the new firmware division; they are working hard to keep the costumers requests in terms of the D-MOVE mode which is selling like hot cakes.

They have posted on their website 2 moths ago that they are working on a new firmware for 5Dm2 to be able to shoot at 24fps and it will come out first quarter of this year.

All Nikon have to do is build the cameras that we the users design especial now that a lot of filmmakers are spending their money on DSLR for the ability to shoot video.

Regards

Posted 3 years ago #
[NR] admin

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I think they should buy Leica or come up with a digital FF rangefinder - I still cannot believe that Leica don't have any competition for their M9. I think there is a potential there. M4/3 is already crowded.

Posted 3 years ago #
bmxdad

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admin said:
I think they should buy Leica or come up with a digital FF rangefinder - I still cannot believe that Leica don't have any competition for their M9. I think there is a potential there. M4/3 is already crowded.

Yes you are so right, and that area will become even more crowded. Like this other thread "A Blogger's Review Of The D3S" he sure liked his M9 and that was compared to a D3X. The fact is that you can get away with better street pictures with a smaller M9 sized camera that a huge D3s. So Nikon get your ass in gear, but a D3s sensor into Nikon SF styled camera, make a few decent primes for it and kill Leica and maybe then buy the leftovers to be used for the future MX format, OK I am done

Pete

Posted 3 years ago #
shivaswrath

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soap said:
"What should Nikon DO to become [sic] no 1 camera Manufacturer?"

Nothing. Being #1 means you've watered down your product to make it palatable for as many people as possible, while likely completely satisfying none.

Few consider Budweiser the best beer in the world, yet it's #1.
Few would consider Taylor Swift's "Fearless" the best album in the world, yet it was the best selling one of 2009.
I could go on and on, but I'll leave it at that.

Outside Toyota - how many industry leaders are there because of their quality and service, not despite?
Check out almost any survey in Consumer Reports, nine time out of ten the products with the best quality ratings and repair history are not the market leaders.

I think Soap nailed it on the head, and I echo his sentiments verbatim. . .keep cranking Nikon, enough people own lenses that we'll continue to follow your loopey lead!

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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Going to be honest, I don't get the obsession here with range-finder cameras, I guess they are nice if you like shooting with primes and are worried about people seeing you as you shoot them on the street. Range-finders are a niche, and would not sell very well. If Leica didn't have such high prices, and rich followers, they would likely have been out of business a long time ago.

Now, give me digital FM/FE FX camera with AF and I'd be all over it, if it was $1800-2000.

Posted 3 years ago #
Willis

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PB - SLR's require some design compromises to be made in order to accomodate the reflex mirror. Not making those compromises allows for smaller lighter lenses that can also be sharper.

Personally, I'll take precise composition over size & sharpness advantages but if I could have both I'd be down with that.

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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There are always compromises, no matter what the design is, so that is a given.

If size and weight are an issue, I pull out my E-410, for anything else, D300 comes out of the bag.

Posted 3 years ago #
NikoDoby

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I don't think I'd pay $7000USD for a camera that doesn't auto focus :^(
I think Nikon would make a killing if they offer a "pro" version of an E-P or GF series camera. It won't actually be a true rangefinder. However if they get the AF figured out, a small rangefinder like package with D3S ISO performance and D3X megapix would sell like crazy.

Posted 3 years ago #
pabnj

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bmxdad said:
You know Nikon could make a deal with Adobe and incl Lightroom with every DSLR,

Pete

I know, and wish they would strike a deal with Phase, or Adobe. Leica did not even try to deveope their own software because they know they could not cost effectivly deliver a quality product. Now if Nikon with their clout and volume could strike one hell of a great deal.

Who developes Capture NX, does Nikon, or Nik software? I was under the impression Nikon just licensed the U-Point technology.

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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Capture NX is made by Nik software for Nikon.

Posted 3 years ago #
ChrisLange

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Admin was on the right track with the Leica idea, but I think all we really just need Scarlett Johansson to start shooting Nikon...

I think if she were to pull a Nikon SP out of her bag that would be just fantastic.

Posted 3 years ago #
pabnj

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PB PM said:
There are always compromises, no matter what the design is, so that is a given.

If size and weight are an issue, I pull out my E-410, for anything else, D300 comes out of the bag.

Thank you, I went over to Niks website and saw the video. You learn something new everyday. :-)

Posted 3 years ago #
mb

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bmxdad said:
You know Nikon could make a deal with Adobe and incl Lightroom with every DSLR,

Pete

Nikon spent too much on development of Capture and (free) View NX to pay for something else now (like Adobe Lightroom).
As for firmware Nikon will probably never go open (and no other company will) but they acquired Fujitsu software division that was developing firmware for Nikon cameras so they will have more control over this. http://www.nikon.com/about/news/2009/0630_01.htm

Posted 3 years ago #
PB PM

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I cannot see Nikon fully opening access to the NEF file structure, which would make it hard to just hand out Lightroom with their cameras the way Leica does.

Posted 3 years ago #