dat2ra Loc: Sacramento

I am always impressed, although not positively so, by the amount of poor-quality photography that people consider to be worthy of hanging in galleries and posting on line. At a recent show, the photographer was explaining to me how he has "natural ability" a "great eye" and has "never needed to take a photography class". I thought none of his work to be inspired or worthy, but because his prints were large, they nevertheles attracted positive attention.

Lin41 Loc: Maine, now North port, FL

Hello, I'm new to the UH, I just got back into photography after years of simple Point and shoot cameras and my Samsung smart phone for basic family pix, Many years ago I used an old Pentax K1000 "Spotmatic" which I still have in an old camera bag. With a limited budget, "old and retrired" I just purchased a new Nikon B700 because I wanted a good built in tele lens and an EVF. LCD screens are too hard to see on bright days.. Havn't used it much yet still learning the capabilities beyond the fully auto function.. I'll be reading all UH daily posts to learn what ever I can..

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Merging or buyout is a form of survival of sorts. Minolta was bought by Sony so Sony would not come into the market totally "cold turkey". It was also that they would have certain patent rights to certain technologies. And that is not the only company Sony has bought for their photographic venture. There are some smaller technology companies that have been bought also.

The fact that Pentax is being bought and sold means that it is capable of making some profit but requires investing and backing from a more financially secure company to proper survive in this changing photographic environment. Any port in the storm!

And you are dead on as far as sensors are concerned. The only real reason Sony doesn't really enter the 4/3rds market is because they are already there in the background. Why spend R&D and marketing money getting an actual Sony 4/3rds camera in the 4/3rds market when they can let Olympus and Panasonic develop the market and make profit from selling them the sensors. That way they can concentrate on the full frame and APS-C markets to be the actual number one in those markets. That was their stated goal when they ventured into the photographic market. And they will have achieved that goal if they become number one in FF and APS-C and sell all the sensors for the whole 4/3rds market.

Bill_de Loc: US

Luckily Steve Jobs had a good friend in Bill Gates who invested a lot in Apple until Steve got things going again. If you read Bill Gates' first book he pretty much described what would eventually become the iPhone. If he had been in the hardware business at the time the iPhone could have had the MS logo on it.

I think Nikon will be around for a long time as long as the management stays in touch with the overall market. Years back Nikon announced there was no need for full frame sensors, then had to pay catch up. Nikon had image stabilization in a point and shoot. It was innovative, but they said it had no place in professional cameras. Canon then came out with their version and Nikon had to plat catch up again. The never came to market "DL" series was too little too late. I still shoot Nikon with not too many regrets, but I wish their management would wake up and smell the coffee. If that means having to partner with an established technology company, so be it.

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blackest Loc: Ireland

I don't know if Microsoft could have pulled off the iPhone. When Apple made the iPod microsoft made the Zune. The iPhone wasn't the first smartphone there was a number of Pocket PC's and PDA's which came before it running Microsoft software and operating systems. Also palm OS and Symbian. Apple didn't always get it right, remember the Newton...

To be honest Microsoft seems to put the operating system ahead of the people using it, anyone who has ever finished working on a laptop at 5 o'clock and gone to shut it down only to be told "windows is installing updates" and had to wait for it to finish can relate to that or the AV scan first thing in the morning when you switch on and the computer runs like it's in Molasses.

Unfortunately even Apple is losing sight of what makes Macs great to use. Trying to drag users into the direction they want to go in, (and maximise profit). It's probably unfair to attribute this to the death of Steve Jobs since in the last few years of his life I think he wasn't as focused on the user as he had been before. To be fair being terminally ill will change your priorities.

Recent announcements like the development of a new Mac Pro are encouraging, Tim Cook may have realised that there a lot of people preferring to run an older mac rather than the current mac line up and seems to be making some moves to address that.

Bill_de Loc: US

I agree. In spite of some feeble attempts at the time, MS was not in the hardware business.

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rbfanman

Back in the late 1970s-I think it was...perhaps the early 1980s-Canon changed it's mount, and pizzed off many old timers, who swore off Canon for life, as they were unable to use their large collection of older lenses on the newer Canon cameras. They figured that since they had to buy all new lenses for the new cameras, they may as well buy a new brand, and so went to Pentax, Nikon, etc. Newbies without such large lens collections loved the changes, and bought plenty of Canons, so Canon survived. Nikon makes more than just cameras, and lenses, and so can remain in business even if it totally stops making lenses / cameras. Kodak's demise was rumored for more than a decade before it happened. What finally killed Kodak was not the decline in it's camera / film sales. It was a law suit Polaroid brought, and won, because Kodak violated Polaroid's patents on it's instant print film system. Kodak's instant print system was heavily invested in by Kodak...and then killed off by court order. Kodak could not survive that in addition to the decline in film / film camera sales. Nikon could make a Kodak like blunder, and be out of business in a week...or it could limp along for decades, rising, and falling, and rising again-ala Apple-and anyone who thinks they know for certain which it will do is fooling him / her self.

rbfanman

Nikon plays the Japanese game of "slow, slow, fast, fast." They go slow in making changes, finally make them, and them quickly implement the changes they have made. They may not be the first to do something, but they get there in the end, and do so in a way which keeps them in business and making a profit.

BebuLamar

Bill Gates invested 100 Millions at $5 a share. How much his investment is worth now? The ability of Bill Gates that when he sees an opportunity he knows it and doesn't let it gets away. So if Bill Gates would invest 100 millions in Nikon it would prosper.

JPL

The future looks dim if we expect that Nikon will not do anything to grow into the future. But if any company knows how to figure out what to do it is Nikon. They already are well prepared to invade the mirrorless market, just need to go ahead and do it. The mirrorless market is the growing section of camera market while dslr is slowing down. And they are still in many ways leading in the dslr market so nothing to worry about there.

We should keep in mind that only 2-3 years ago there were strong rumors about Sony giving up on cameras and that they would just keep the sensor production and supply sensors to other camera manufacturers. Now Sony is the unrivaled leader of the mirrorless camera market that neither Nikon or Canon have taken seriously so far. Sony must have a strong competitor in that market. The logical future is that Nikon or Canon will enter that market with 1-2 proper Aps-c and full frame cameras each this year. The company that will enter first will be the future leader in the camera market along with Sony. The one that waits longer to enter this market will in 2-3 years be number 3. As Nikon is suffering a bit now it is more likely that they will jump on the mirrorless market and Canon will fall behind if they stick to the dslr market and offer nothing serious for the mirrorless market. Canon is just doing to well at the moment with good income from the dslr sales making them careless about the future. Just like Kodak and Nokia and many other companies have experienced before.

JPL

I know what you mean. Size matters, if it is big and hangs naturally it will get lot of attention even if there is nothing else inspiring about it