Posted on 06/10/2021 6:14:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Don’t fret, my brother and sister Nikon shooters — our favorite brand isn’t going anywhere.
Not yet, anyway.
But the writing is on the wall, and this 40-year Nikon shooter just put all his gear on eBay to finance the move to former nemesis, Canon.
This was a sad decision to make, but ultimately an easy one.
Let’s look at the former first.
Dad was the kind of man who thought what every 12-year-old boy (or at least his 12-year-old boy) needed for Christmas was a Nikon.
That was 1981. Just a few months shy of 40 years ago.
I was nearly floored when I took the wrap off of Nikon FE, one of their first (and in my sentimental mind, best) consumer-grade cameras. The next box was Nikon’s famously sharp E-Series 50mm f/1.8 lens, and the box after that was a daylight filter and a single roll of Kodachrome 400 color film.
36 exposures, of course. Dad showed me how to load it just right so that I could get 37 or sometimes even 38 shots out of a single roll.
I had no idea what was coming next, but the gold boxes quickly became familiar. On my birthday a few months later, a Vivitar flash. The next Christmas, an E-Series zoom lens. The Christmas after that, a 28mm wide-angle.
When Dad died just two months later, I inherited his impressive collection of Nikon gear — including a pro-level F2 that’s almost as old as I am, and Nikon’s sweet Nikon 80-200mm f/4.5.
No, I’m not selling Dad’s old gear. That holds a special place.
I got to be pretty good, too. Photo editor of the high school paper and the yearbook, occasional portrait photographer, and of course I’ve served full-time as the Official Green Family Photographer since 2005. I shot my way through endless vacations, school projects,
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
It’s been a long, slow decline from the world’s top cameramaker in the ’70s and ’80s, to third place behind Canon and upstart rival Sony today.
But Canon knocked Nikon out of the top spot more than 20 years ago, with faster autofocus craved by sports photogs. Sony bumped them into third with innovations like 20 frames-per-second shooting.
Sadly, Nikon just can’t match the other two company’s deep pockets, and third place in a rapidly shrinking market is a bad place to be.
So here we are.
Nikon also dumped their rifle scopes.
And their lab glass is slipping.
damn shame as they made good scopes
35..........................
Anyone else having problems getting to the article as it is behind a paywall?
PJ Media puts some of their content behind a “VIP” paywall and a lot in the free side. This one is “VIP.”
RE: I moved from Nikon to Fuji a few months ago
Nikon, Sony, Canon, Fuji... gosh, don’t we make things in America anymore. What’s Kodak doing nowadays?
Originally a Minolta X-700 film guy. Went digital with a Canon T5i. No need to look any further. Awesome camera.
Opps speed reading at its worst - I thought it said Nixon ... Love my Nikon. Hard to find a battery for the light meter these days.
Members only can read the story ...
That's not true.
For example we are now the world's largest exporter of Critical Race Theory !
That was my one beef with the excerpt. I too got my first SLR in the early 80s, graduating up from a Kodak Hawkeye, but I liked to feed it Fujicolor, which I liked better than Kodacolor.
It was a hard sell for a Japanese company to make sporting scopes.
My last prostaff failed on me, and I am worried about sending it back.
Anybody remember Petri? They used the Nikon specs to try to compete. You could interchange their filters and lenses for a lot less money than the Nikon brand commanded back in the 1970s. My eldest daughter showed the most interest in photography, so gave her all my gear.
Yup.
Leupold is American made.
They still make photographic film for printing from your digitals. CVS is their biggest customer. Walgreens uses DNP brand.
Kodak is still better in this one small niche.
I moved to a sony dslr when minolta tanked as it used their lenses.
had a mimiya sekor that had wonderful lenses
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.