The D300 made sense when D300 and D3 were both 12MP. The D500 made less sense when the D500 was 20MP and the D850 45MP. There's minimal difference in size/weight, Nikon has never made a DX body with flagship performance that was significantly smaller than the FX equivalent, and perhaps can't. Would a DX Z camera with flagship performance be smaller than a Z8? Maybe not. The DX advantage, other than a savings in body cost due to the cheaper sensor, is mainly in the size and weight of the lenses. Are the Z DX lenses sufficiently compelling? Many sports/wildlife users (perhaps not all) will be as well off with Z8/telephoto as Z DX/telephoto. This has all been discussed many times. There is still something to be said for a Z50 with the collapsible kit lens, or perhaps one or two other DX lenses, as compact yet capable systems. It is, however, not as cheap as the Canon Rx100, and not as small either (not pocketable, which is an important threshold). So, Nikon and Canon are clearly making different bets. I would not say they are competing, in fact Nikon does not seem to be competing for the same consumers. The question does arise whether, once the population of existing Nikon ILC users ages out, there will be replacements ready to jump directly to the higher-level equipment that Nikon sells. I guess we'll see.
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Competition making it tougher on Nikon all the time.
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chambeshi
Veteran Member
The much more affordable RRP of a D500 was the primary reason to buy a D500 instead of a D850 let alone D5.
If Nikon engineers prioritize a lighter Baby Z8, it will be feasible with modern polymers for the camera chassis.
The only DX lenses most enthusiasts need is an UWide, or the travel friendly DX zooms. However, a FX non S Line zoom such as a 70-180 Z is a better investment with a 16-50 DX on a Z50 or Zfc as the Z System currently stands.
Buy a Z90 with FTZ II and Nikon has another New Z owner who is probably buy into Z Nikkors when their budget permits.
Today's Used market in G and even E type F mount lenses opens up unprecedented opportunities for enthusiasts to upgrade into high end photographic performance with a Z Mirrorless
Improving the FTZ Adapters available is however a weakness in Nikon's strategy to maintain customer loyalty as well as attracting new Z owners
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Especially why UWide DX lenses are all that's really needed for the Greater Nikon Ecosystem
Exactly Nikon Z system already covers these levels of the ILC market
In its Annual Reports since announcing its Restructuring in 2015, Nikon Imaging Division reiterates its market focus on Hobbyists and Pros, plus younger photographers.
Z30/Zfc/Z50 > Z5 > Z6/Zf/Z7 lineages for Younger/Emerging> Enthusiasts market sector
Zf/Z90 > Z8/Z9 for high-end Hobbyists market sector
RaindropDroptop
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chambeshi
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This alone is likely informing Nikon's next cameras.
Not long ago, the tendency in forums was to dismiss the idea Nikon's Z System camera engineers revisiting the Df Concept in mirrorless. Nikon knew better.
The EXPEED7 seems to be the not so secret sauce in the Zf
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Fabian Joya
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Doubt there is much money in the low-end. A high-end enthusiast can easily drop $10,000 on camera gear. How many $397 kits do you have to sell to make up that?
Nikon is a brand for enthusiasts and professionals. The Nikon Z8 and Z9 are pretty much unbeatable right now, same with the Z lenses. As long as Nikon leads at the high end, Nikon will do great.
Even if you start out with a $397 Canon kit, if you decide to get serious, the switching costs down the line are negligible.
I recently switched to mirrorless (I used Nikon DSLRs). Nikon was late to mirrorless, so I had plenty of opportunity to switch brands. And I looked very carefully at both Canon and Sony. I patiently waited for Nikon because of the superior ergonomics and better image rendering. Plus I wanted a camera without a mechanical shutter. Nikon delivered beyond all expectations, although it was a painful wait.
Anyway, my point is, the switching costs Nikon->Nikon were the same as if I switched to any other brand. Nothing kept me using Nikon except they simply are better than the competition. If I thought Canon or Sony made better gear, I would have switched, no problem. My existing investment in Nikon was never a consideration. I switched out all my AF-S lenses, because the new Z lenses are so superior.
That's how you win - by making greater and better products. Ultimately Nikon's greatest competitor may be itself. Nikon needs to innovate to get its own users to upgrade.
IMO, Nikon today is a better camera company than it has ever been, and as far ahead of the competition as it was in the D700/D800 days.
Maybe so, but not around where I live. The Zf and a couple of Z lenses are way beyond consideration budget wise for the average working person. I only know one person that would not consider me crazy for spending $700 on a new camera body. That's just something that is best avoided in conversations. And none of my friends are considered poor, typically working family folks that own their home and drive a nice automobile.
I understand your concern, and I would like to see Nikon try a little harder for the beginner market (the Z30, Z50, and Zfc are good starter ILCs, but I don't know whether non-photographers are aware of them).
That said, the R100 is just bad, Any young person who tries it is more likely to buy outside of Canon than within, IMO. The lack of a touch screen is a killer omission. It makes using the camera hard (and worse for a beginner who isn't used to the dials and control rings) compared to every other modern camera and is frankly inexcusable in 2024 when touch screens are everywhere.
A kit lens is no great reason to stay in an ecosystem, so I'm not worried about the R100. In fact, I think it's better for Nikon to be up against that than the M200 and M50II, which were better cameras (same sensor, same AF, but with touch screens).
That said, the R100 is just bad, Any young person who tries it is more likely to buy outside of Canon than within, IMO. The lack of a touch screen is a killer omission. It makes using the camera hard (and worse for a beginner who isn't used to the dials and control rings) compared to every other modern camera and is frankly inexcusable in 2024 when touch screens are everywhere.
A kit lens is no great reason to stay in an ecosystem, so I'm not worried about the R100. In fact, I think it's better for Nikon to be up against that than the M200 and M50II, which were better cameras (same sensor, same AF, but with touch screens).
Just one of the many things that show just how different we all are, and there are so many more. The comment about a touch screen. If there were no way to turn off the touch screen, personally, no matter what other features a camera had it would be of no interest to me. Preferably my rear screens are fully articulated so they can always be folded in towards the body, so if they are touch type, then they can at least be kept hidden. But in essence, I personally hate touch screens, but really have little use for screens in any form, but especially if they can upset my camera settings by being touched by something. That is not to say that everybody should feel this way, just to say we all are really different in our wants and needs in camera gear.
shuncheung
Veteran Member
What you are pointing out is that 2024 is a very different camera market from, e.g., 2007, when Nikon introduced the D3 and D300 on 23 August that year. In the US, of course the $5000 was out of reach for by far the majority of the people, regardless of whether you factor in inflation in the last 17 years, but the $1800 D300 sold very well, over one million units sold world wide in less than a year. (Nikon stated that their initial production rate for the D300 was 80K a month and then went up to 90K. DSLRs were mostly made manually back then so that they ran three shifts a day, around the clock at their Thailand factory to build the D300. I am not sure how long that pace sustained, probably for a few months.) The product cycle for the D300 was finally cut short by the introduction of the very similar D300s in less than two years, but the D300s was mostly the same camera with an additional SD card slot and some basic video capabilities. Back then, I decided to keep using my D300 and not upgrade to/add a D300s.
Today, plenty of people spend close to or even more than $1000 for a phone, but expensive cameras are no longer necessary unless you are really into photography, such as most of us who read this Z forum. I think it is wise for Nikon not to spend a lot of resources on those sub-$1000 cameras. There is not a whole lot of money to be made and the majority of those are not long-term, returning customers.
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Everyone is entitled to their own preferences, but you should realize that in this case your preference makes you an outlier.
Any beginner today is coming from a smartphone as their first camera, so they are very comfortable with touch screen camera controls. They also are used to using screens for menu navigation and the clunky buttons and wheels of R100 feel impossibly slow. Several clicks of a button to get to the desired sub-menu versus a single tap...
Even for an experienced photographer who wouldn't use a touch screen often, the R100, which cheaped out on the other control points, too. Few function buttons and only one control wheel means more menu diving. Ugh.
Wezre
Veteran Member
That may have been true back in the early 2000s through 2012 or so. Today's market is a completely different story. People aren't walking into their nearest Walmart or Best Buy and making a decision to buy a camera. Many more people walk into those stores and want the newest smartphone with the best/"coolest" camera features. People buying cameras are probably either 1) already into photography, or 2) researching and purchasing cameras online. People buying <$700 cameras are usually buying them with a single lens, and then never purchase another lens. When I travel and see people using those types of cameras, a large majority of them still have the 18-55 (or similar) kit lens on them. Nikon has made it clear that their targeted customers are mid-level to high-end users because 1) those bodies have higher profit margins, and 2) users of those cameras buy multiple lenses, which also have higher profit margins. Canon might be chasing volume with their R100, but that approach seems to have diminishing returns and that camera has been widely panned by the photography community.
sirhawkeye64
Veteran Member
If an updated Z50 comes out, Nikon will likely take a page from Sony's book and just keep the original Z50 around but drop the price to say $600, thus it becoming the new entry level camera. And it's not a bad camera, so for $600 it would still be a good buy that someone could "grow into" as they learned photography.
Where a lot of the competition really is is in the mid-to-high range cameras like the A7 series, Canon's FF R series and Nikon Z6/7/8 lines. That's where most of the real competition is happening.
Even Sony seems to have sort of scaled back some of their a6000 line in some respects (the budget friendly ones... and by that I mean the sub $1000 variants). Canon's the only one that has cameras for every price point from $500 to $1000 in APSC, but that's Canon. They're a little crazy apparently. Or maybe smart, I don't know.
But I think that much of the competition is on the higher-end. The former (past) $500 camrea buyers left the dedicated camera market long ago when phones like the iPhone 8/9 and later came out (when they had good cameras in them) as most people always carry a phone, and a camera was probably an extra expense and a nusiance in some cases to carry around. So They still have options, and I think aside from the cheapest Canon option, the days of a $500 camera (entry level) are done. Any $500 cameras that exist today are basically old technology rehoused in a modern body (like Canon's R100).
And to be honest, any loss of marketshare on Nikon's part is their own fault for not releasing newer updated bodies faster. We can't blame Sony and Canon for that aside from the fact they saw the opportunity and went for it and it probably paid off. And to an extent, at least up until the Z8 was released, Nikon was like the turtle in the race, slow and steady, although slow and steady doesn't always win the race in that market. But if the Z6 III does pan out, and Nikon does in fact release something like an APSC version of the Z8 (like a "Z80") then I think they are fine, but as far as competing in the low-end that's sort of done. Most of the people who bought into those markets in the past are long gone and not coming back. This is also why I don't think we will see another Sony RX100 or Canon G7 body either. In fact I'm surprised Canon is still selling the T7 for $400+ when they have the R100 for a bit more (like $200 more).
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I would respectfully disagree with the statement that people are not buying cameras from the likes of Walmart. They certainly are in the area I live in, but that's the only place that you can see a camera on a store shelf to get in your hands. The choice used to include Best Buy, but they have closed all their stores in the smaller towns in this area years ago.
Wezre
Veteran Member
I don't dispute that they're buying, I'm disputing that they're buying in meaningful volumes and that those people are then upgrading or buying additional lenses that contribute in a meaningful way to the manufacturers' bottom line. The problem with people buying at that level is that there's a good chance that they either 1) only take the camera out for "special occasions" (holidays, family events, travel, etc.) in which case they don't use it often enough to need to upgrade/buy lenses, or 2) get frustrated with the interface and/or poor workflow of getting photos to social media, in which case they put the camera in their closet and go back to using their smartphone. The entry level market has been dying for a long time and is not where profitability is going to be found going forward.
peripheralfocus
Veteran Member
It is true that there is a significant tendency for photographers to stick with the brand that they begin with. But it's not written in stone -- millions upon millions of photographers switch brands, or add a second brand, once or even multiple times in their lives. I myself own 4 digital camera brands, and 2 film camera brands.
In the 1950s and 1960s, and even much of the 1970s, Nikon either did not make entry-level cameras at all, or made a negligible effort in that market segment, even as competitors like Pentax, Miranda, Minolta, Ricoh, Petri et. al. sold tons of cheaper cameras to beginners.
Instead, Nikon's strategy was to capture a significant number of the photographers who became serious enthusiasts, and get them to switch as they advanced in their photography. The number who transition from entry-level to enthusiast is, of course, low in percentage terms, but they spend way, way more on camera gear than entry-level buyers do, so they are much more valuable customers.
This strategy worked fine; Nikon was never the unit sales leader in those decades but had a quite respectable value share (i.e. share of dollars spent) and was very profitable. They got a lot of switchers. Many other companies have pursued a similar capture-switchers-as-they-advance strategy and succeeded with it (Hasselblad, in the medium format tier, is a prime example). The key to this strategy is your brand reputation -- you have to be seen as a higher quality choice. That's Nikon's biggest challenge now; it was easy for them in the 50s and 60s because they started out way ahead in prestige and technological capability (primarily optically).
Now, you can also be quite successful selling tons of entry-level cameras and, for that small percentage of people who become enthusiasts, giving them reasons to stay with your brand. Canon, starting in the 1970s, is the prime example of that.
So both strategies have their merits, and companies can be highly successful either way (or somewhere in between). But not competing much or at all in the entry-level and then targeting switchers as they grow into enthusiasts (from entry-level ILC cameras or from smartphones) can work fine. Nikon has reverted to a strategy that worked quite well for them for decades.
shuncheung
Veteran Member
Let's take a look at a couple of review/comments on the Canon R100:
Thom Hogan: After praising higher-end models such as the R7, he wrote, "I'd tend to avoid the R50 and R100, as they are stripped of features."
And in DPReview's review on the R100: "Overall, though, there are too many compromises negatively affecting the shooting experience for us to be able to recommend it."
In other words, neither DPReview nor Thom Hogan recommends the R100. Hogan goes further and also not recommend the next model up, the R50, but DPReview suggests the R50 instead of the R100.
A year ago, Canon introduced the R100 with kit lens for $600. This looks like a fire sale that Canon is dumping a bad product that probably shouldn't have been introduced to begin with. Back then, Hogan speculated that Canon might have too many of such part left that they needed to get rid of.
If anything, I sure am glad that Nikon does not make any equivalent camera. It can easily be a money loser.
Thom Hogan: After praising higher-end models such as the R7, he wrote, "I'd tend to avoid the R50 and R100, as they are stripped of features."
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And in DPReview's review on the R100: "Overall, though, there are too many compromises negatively affecting the shooting experience for us to be able to recommend it."
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www.dpreview.com
In other words, neither DPReview nor Thom Hogan recommends the R100. Hogan goes further and also not recommend the next model up, the R50, but DPReview suggests the R50 instead of the R100.
A year ago, Canon introduced the R100 with kit lens for $600. This looks like a fire sale that Canon is dumping a bad product that probably shouldn't have been introduced to begin with. Back then, Hogan speculated that Canon might have too many of such part left that they needed to get rid of.
If anything, I sure am glad that Nikon does not make any equivalent camera. It can easily be a money loser.
Let's all jump on Canon for making an inexpensive camera that suits the need for an entry point into the Canon system. What exactly does one expect @$377 for the kit?
Sorry, I don't agree about the R50. I had one (and then upgraded to the R8 for FF). It's a very capable APS-C body, if held back by limited Canon RF-S glass. The main thing for someone who likes in-focus shots is the R50's top-tier Canon AF (less one minor feature intentionally left out), which I'd take any day versus that of the Z's.
JasonMulvern
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Today we have Panasonic announcing the S9, a new low-cost full frame camera. Last week Fuji released the XT50 (and a new medium format camera). Before that, Canon's R1 announcement.
Meanwhile in Nikon land, for people with normal budgets who can't afford a Z8 or want the hipster brick that's the Zf (said with a smile on my face)... nothing. Nothing whatsoever, still, nothing, it's now nearly June 2024 and still nothing about the Z6iii or any news on if/when the DX line up will get some love either.
As for Canon's lineup, I have an EOS350D, a 500D and a 550D... their basic APSC cameras are actually very good, if my old fleet of DSLRs is anything to go by, I only went to Nikon a few years ago as Canon did not have a £1k-ish budget offering which could do 4k video with a wide enough kit lens for vlogging at that time. They do now obviously.
Canon have an upgrade path within APSC, the R10 or lesser, to R7, there's then the R8 which has decent AF when you want to move to full frame (unlike the Z5, if you're into anything that moves). The R6ii is now down to around £2k.
All Nikon need to do is make a press release telling customers, stick with us, we have this and that coming. The continued silence is really frustrating. It's so bad I'm even considering an OM1 and I'm enjoying birding at present and my Z50 can't focus on an eagle from 2ft away LOL.
Meanwhile in Nikon land, for people with normal budgets who can't afford a Z8 or want the hipster brick that's the Zf (said with a smile on my face)... nothing. Nothing whatsoever, still, nothing, it's now nearly June 2024 and still nothing about the Z6iii or any news on if/when the DX line up will get some love either.
As for Canon's lineup, I have an EOS350D, a 500D and a 550D... their basic APSC cameras are actually very good, if my old fleet of DSLRs is anything to go by, I only went to Nikon a few years ago as Canon did not have a £1k-ish budget offering which could do 4k video with a wide enough kit lens for vlogging at that time. They do now obviously.
Canon have an upgrade path within APSC, the R10 or lesser, to R7, there's then the R8 which has decent AF when you want to move to full frame (unlike the Z5, if you're into anything that moves). The R6ii is now down to around £2k.
All Nikon need to do is make a press release telling customers, stick with us, we have this and that coming. The continued silence is really frustrating. It's so bad I'm even considering an OM1 and I'm enjoying birding at present and my Z50 can't focus on an eagle from 2ft away LOL.
Plankowner110
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Cadillac tried the entry level market in 1982 with the compact Cadillac Cimarron, which was basically nothing more than a luxury Chevrolet Cavalier. Cimarron sales were miserable according to my friend that was a very successful Cadillac salesman. I switched from Minolta to a Nikon F SLR in 1969 because Nikon was the "Cadillac" of system SLRs.
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