November 4, 2024

Tomorrow is a rather special day for all the Nikon shooters out there. You have been reading all sorts of conflicting and vague rumors for a number of months now about an upcoming Nikon release of some type of “new equipment.” Now they say – tomorrow is the day when all will be revealed.

Now maybe tomorrow is the THE day. But at this point I have to say that I’ll believe it when I see it. There has been far too much stealth and goofiness about this stuff lately. Where are they getting this marketing approach? Nikon must be dialed in too closely with Apple which goes way over the top doing things in this same weird way.

But “word on the street” (and just what street is that I often wonder) has it that the new secret announcement is about a new “mirrorless” line of Nikon cameras. And not just one but two! And they will have an interchangeable lens system. Neat-O!

Now let me digress a moment. My guess is that there is a high probability that this new system will NOT work with any of the lenses you currently own? Am I getting a tad too cynical here? Must be the voice of experience. You do recall, of course, how Nikon used to say they loved the DX system and format for their SLRs and they would never need to go to a full frame digital system? So everyone bought into the Nikon DX lenses – right? How did that work out for you? We all bought those lovely DX lenses and then what happens? Bingo! Nikon goes full frame and none of those DX lenses work! Great marketing if you want to sell lenses. I don’t know about you but I felt a bit used by Nikon. Hence my skepticism.

Anyway – the “street” says “mirrorless” is the new item in the Nikon bag of tricks. So here I am, scratching my head, saying, “ OK – but do I need “mirrorless?” What’s the big deal? On the surface I can see some advantages but they seem to be slight. Perhaps quieter? Maybe faster? Size? But has noise been a big problem? And I think high end semi-pro and pro-level cameras shoot pretty darn fast already. Heck – there are a lot of point and shoots out there that are pretty darn speedy. A smaller size might be nice but again – if you want small there are a lot of small cameras already on the market. I’m sure there are some specialized situations, which will benefit from these types of advances. And I’m sure there are many other advantages, which I have yet to realize. I admit, some things dawn on me rather slowly. In the spirit of full disclosure I must share that I initially never understood the need for or use of this “World Wide Web” thing when I first read about it. Guess I missed that one. Maybe I’m missing on this one also.

So tomorrow is the day – at least so they say. We’ll see what happens soon enough. Love to hear your thoughts on all of this.

P.S.   You can watch the “official” countdown on http://iamcomings.com  which is truly another wierd aspect to this entire Nikon product launch.

Dr. B, The Photo Trekker