Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down...

Dr_Fishy
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p.2 #1 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

nhmorgan wrote:
I do feel like Nikon is largely a stagnant company without a clear path forward right now. They had a short burst of focusing on birding lenses a few years ago; and the Z8 and Z9 were genuinely breaking new ground at a price point below competitive offerings from other companies. While on the one hand ditching the shutter is a very forward thinking move, at times they seem very conservative as a company--pumping out slightly revised versions of 2.8 zooms isn't the way forward IMO.

I think the Red acquisition won't be remembered fondly years from now. A company with limited R&D resources started chasing a new market by buying a declining cinema camera company and further got away from their stills heritage. I think Nikon is uniquely positioned to do something radical, but video isn't it. Their biggest asset is their photography heritage, but they only sporadically pay lip service to it. The DF and ZF are fine, I guess, but also strike me as missed opportunities. The ZF doesn't even work with AF-D lenses and the FTZ with vintage glass on a ZF looks like a Frankenstein.

Do something wild like make an F7 with modern AF and metering. Make an FM4. Maybe I'm just vibes-ing the market and the reality is it wouldn't make any money, but I bet they would sell out of them. Look at what's happening right now with F6 and FM3A prices. They've gone nuts. Make some reissue AI-S lenses with modern aspherical manufacturing technology and make a special "retro" FTZ to pair with it. Make a small EDC camera like the Rx1Riii or x100VI but do it better; leave the screen off or make it manual focus only. Make it with metal and painted engravings and allow people to put it on a strap and carry it on walks like you can an old FM and take a few knocks.

My point is that I don't think Nikon is going to catch Canon or Sony by trying to out-canon or out-sony them. I actually appreciate that some of the S primes have prioritized character over test charts (35mm 1.2s and 85mm 1.2s being the most notable examples). I can live with big lenses that do cool things, but also make some small exceptional character lenses. Lots of Chinese companies are taking old designs and tweaking them and applying modern manufacturing to them. What used to require a lifetime of training to hand grind can be done better and with more precision by machine now. Tap into that and make a new manual noct.

Nikon's strengths are it's image quality and understanding of color science (I will take the file out of a nikon digital camera any day over another brand), it's understanding of the role of optical engineering to make interesting glass (not just optical formulas that market to test charts), and it's history and heritage. ...Show more →

Like you said they sometimes seem like they like to lean into their photography heritage but I want to see some more fun stuff from them. I don't know if they are waiting for z9ii/expeed 8 to then trickle down into smaller/less pro bodies or what. A smaller Zf, like the FM size or so, would do so well I think...or revive the Coolpix! I keep waiting to just hear anything they are working on that interests me and its just not there right now.

I agree with you on Nikon colors. I rarely feel like I need to "fix" anything in post like I do with other cameras.

Sep 02, 2026 at 03:55 PM

old-gregg
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p.2 #2 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

@nhmorgan I clicked on the "like" button under your post because I am 100% with you spiritually

But I disagree with most of it, lets see...

nhmorgan wrote:
I think Nikon is uniquely positioned to do something radical, but video isn't it.

Video is their only hope. Remember, the stills market has evaporated. Billions of users stopped buying cameras and switched to phones. The small group that's left, about 10%, is also divided into relatiely small niche sub-markets: weddings, commercial real estate, sports, advanced amateurs, and every group wants a camera designed for them!

Meanwhile, billions of lemmings waste their lives away staring at videos every day. You see them everywhere: on public transit, in a gym, at family dinners not paying attention to each other, even while driving! Short-form video is by far the best monetizable content on the internet. It drives engagement and half of world's GDP is driven by advertizing delivered on the back of these short-term videos. Saying that video is a bigger market is an understatement. We're talking about orders of magnitude difference in potential.

Fun reading on this topic:
https://nicholasachow.substack.com/p/everyone-becomes-crabs

nhmorgan wrote:
Look at what's happening right now with F6 and FM3A prices. They've gone nuts.

Nope. They are dirt cheap. Sure, they've gone nuts compared to 10 years ago when they were nearly free, but a nice FM3a is still just $1k. I bought and sold them on eBay and also here on FM. There's no room for healthy margins in $1k cameras, sorry.

nhmorgan wrote:
Nikon's strengths are it's image quality and understanding of color science

I like their profiles too, especialy Rich Tone Portrait. But a LUT is not "color science", or a business strength. It's just a file with a table mapping ADC output to pleasant wavelengths, which you can't get a patent for. Lots of photographers sell their presets online for $20-50. I am using Nikon's Rich Tone Portrait on Sony cameras with identical results. Colors have absolutely nothing to do with your camera. Color is 100% software concept.

But I appreciate you being creative here. Being a doomer would be the cheapest position to take, so I'm not willing to

I'm gonna follow your lead and contribute. If I was in charge of their product strategy, I would focus on large markets (sadly, it means de-prioritizing us, hobbysts, because there aren't enough of us). Two big markets to go after are smartphone users and video.

They already have something in mind regarding video (Red). To lure smartphone users, they need to get creative and release products similar to Fuji X100 series, or Leica Q in spirit. One area where all traditional camera makers are awul at is OOC JPEGs. Objectively, they are like 25 years behind computational photography teams at Apple and Google. Another opportunity is in styling, something Leica and Hasselblad understand very well. A camera can be more than a camera, it's an accessory and a look-at-me eye grabber. Ever noticed how much Leica people love posting iPhone images of their cameras neatly arranged on a desk with a coffe, Moleskine, pen, and mechanical watch? To them, a camera is not a tool to make images, it is an accessory to wear and signal with.

Ok, having dreamed for little, let's get our feet back on the ground. The situation isn't pretty: Nikon has about $1B in cash and $1.3B in debt (and growing). Their revenue is $4.5B but imaging is only half of that. At their scale, companies typically allocate around 15% of their revenue to R&D (Nikon does even less at 11%, let's say about $250M per year for imaging). Meanwhile, the design and manufacturing of a single chip, like EXPEED, if you want industry-best power efficiency on a 7nm node, will cost $150M+ [1] I am not even adding optics, software development, mechanical parts, to this depressing math. TBH I just don't see where they're going to find money to develop any breakthroughs... I am worried.

[1] Because of these high fixed costs, Nikon is not really independent in their product designs. EXPEED is a product of a joint venture between Nikon, Fuji and Panasonic. The second important chip, the sensor, comes from Sony. I am greatly simplifying for brevity, but the point stands: how can you differentiate if your product is assembled from the parts jointly developed with your own competitors?

Sep 02, 2026 at 07:23 PM

Keith B.
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p.2 #3 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

old-gregg, your commentary sounds reasonable to me. However...old-gregg wrote:
[1] Because of these high fixed costs, Nikon is not really independent in their product designs. EXPEED is a product of a joint venture between Nikon, Fuji and Panasonic. The second important chip, the sensor, comes from Sony. I am greatly simplifying for brevity, but the point stands: how can you differentiate if your product is assembled from the parts jointly developed with your own competitors?

According various Wikis, Nikon developed Expeed with Socionext, a company that had been started by Fujitsu and Panasonic.

Sep 02, 2026 at 09:56 PM

old-gregg
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p.2 #4 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

Keith B. wrote:
According various Wikis, Nikon developed Expeed with Socionext, a company that had been started by Fujitsu and Panasonic.

Good catch! Fujitsu, not Fujifilm. I shouldn't have relied on my memory above. But this doesn't invalidate my point: unlike bigger and better vertically integrated competitors, Nikon's over-reliance on OEM partners leaves them with fewer options to innovate and differentiate.

Sep 02, 2026 at 10:04 PM

RexGig0
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p.2 #5 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

Well, we just did our small part, min July and August. Money talks. Wish I had more money, with which to “talk.” A pair of the Z30, to dabble with video, then, a ZR, which I l have, thus far, only used for still images*. All new, from Nikon dealers. This is my start with Z, and my wife’s second Z. She was an early adopter of the Z6, actually buying it at a launch event. I have been using D5 and D850 cameras, since 2018, with no urge to “upgrade.” My wife has been using her D850 and her Z6, both, since 2018.

Her use of Nikon DSLRs dates back to the D200/D300 time frame, with employer-issued cameras, then a pair of D7000 cameras, that I bought for her, as gifts. Water damage ruined the D7000 pair, so, we replaced them with a pair of the D500. I started accumulating Nikon SLRs, then bought us a pair of pre-owned D700 cameras. So, we are not quitting Nikon. (I also use Canon EF, for macro, with no plans to upgrade, and Leica M, which I will probably not upgrade, going forward.) So, obviously, we wish for Nikon to remain viable.

Perhaps it is because I am now largely resistant to G.A.S., but there seems to be a very nice selection of Z lenses, available from Nikon. I can see why people are complaining about the size and heft of many Nikon Z lenses. It may be well into 2027, or even 2028, before I start adding new Nikkor Z lenses. My wife sees her Nikkor 24-70mm f/4 S lens as the only lens she needs, for her Z6. I bought a pair of pre-owned 26mm “pancake” Nikkors, locally, when I bought the Z30 cameras, and may add a pre-owned 40mm Nikkor. (CFExpress cards consumed much of my late 2026 budget!)

*Maybe I am a bit addled, but for some reason, the ZR seems, to me, to be the perfect still image compact Z camera. When I saw how well the huge 4” LCD behaved in bright August sunshine, in SE Texas, all anxiety disappeared.

Sep 02, 2026 at 11:01 PM

ilkka_nissila
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p.2 #6 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

RexGig0 wrote:
Well, we just did our small part, min July and August. Money talks. Wish I had more money, with which to “talk.” A pair of the Z30, to dabble with video, then, a ZR, which I l have, thus far, only used for still images*. All new, from Nikon dealers. This is my start with Z, and my wife’s second Z. She was an early adopter of the Z6, actually buying it at a launch event. I have been using D5 and D850 cameras, since 2018, with no urge to “upgrade.” My wife has been using her D850 and her...Show more →

Nothing wrong with using a ZR for stills, if that's what you prefer. The main issue would be that if you have fast-moving subjects or flickering lights, there might problems with rolling shutter distortion or banding, and the flash sync speed is slow. I can see how the large LCD and the relatively light body would be appealing.

Z lenses include lightweight ones, and many of the comparable F-mount Nikkors were heavier. For example,

Z 24-70/2.8 S II 675 grams vs. AF-S VR 24-70/2.8E 1070 g
Z 14-24/2.8 S 650 g vs. AF-S 14-24/2.8 969 g

Some Z lenses are a bit heavier (such as the f/1.8 S-line lenses) but in return have characteristics of the premium S-line including better optical quality, better manual focus control and quieter autofocus.

Sep 03, 2026 at 03:24 AM

shinyobject
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p.2 #7 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

It’s good to hear that Nikon’s business is not as badly-off as it seemed, even if it is not exactly booming. I’m no photography business analyst but here’s my two cents:

It seems as if Fuji has a healthy niche: retro style cameras, fun instax, stylish compacts, and the GFX market. I suspect it has managed to have substantial appeal to enthusiasts — hell, I’ve purchased two in my time. Nikon has had some success in emulating the retro style with the ZF and ZFC, and I hope those models are successful.

I’m sure that Nikon could produce a compact if they wished to further chase Fuji in, say, the X100 niche, and I’ve written about that before. Although much has been written about Fuji’s colours (a triumph of marketing) it is true that Nikon has brilliant colour science in its own way. Their in-camera JPEG engine is good, but has too many outlandish filter options and not enough of the popular filmic looks. What Nikon really needs is to sponsor some hip YouTubers to get the word out.

On the other hand I think Sony has done a great job building up market share over the last decade and they were at the leading edge of the mirrorless revolution that caught Nikon and Canon out a bit. I always thought I’d buy an A7 except that each new model seemed to be more pricy than I wanted to pay, and Nikon’s Z5II suited my budget. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it (as a formerly loyal Fuji shooter.)

I don’t understand Canon’s market share. They have done well to maintain their market position even while changing mounts, and they remain popular. I don’t understand how they can charge what they do and maintain the market position that they do while locking down their system as they do, but perhaps I lack the proper mindset to be a Canon shooter.

On photo vs video: although I like photos and buy cameras for that purpose, I have dabbled in YouTube in my time, with some very minor success (enough to meet the requirements at that time for monetisation). One of the attractions is that YouTube pays money to popular creators — as do other social media platforms. This means that there is a large market of eager side-hustlers and hobby business-people that are interested in videos but not photography. There is a wide range of needs and workflows depending on the expertise and needs involved in each channel, and this means that there’s a wide range of video cameras and gear that can be marketed. Nikon is right to see this as a growing market that can be tapped and hopefully their purchase of RED will assist them in that. I hope that they remember that many of the creators out there are small-scale and low budget and don’t simply shoot for the professional cinema market.

All that said, the biggest pain point for video creators is the editing, which takes hours and hours. Whoever can reduce that pain would rake in money.

Sep 03, 2026 at 04:54 AM

nhmorgan
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p.2 #8 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

old-gregg wrote:
@nhmorgan@ I clicked on the "like" button under your post because I am 100% with you spiritually

But I disagree with most of it, lets see...

First off, I really appreciate the tone of this response! And you're probably right, which is why I don't run a camera business. Nikon obviously has access to way more data than I do. Also, I think maybe my perspective has an unintentional bias to it. When I'm working events with a camera, people come up and talk to me about cameras all day long. I get the sense that the desire to have something other than a phone for stills is there. I also get the sense that the desire for stills is still there. Video is seen as more fleeting by most people. Even though the reality now is that volume has overtaken permanence, I think people still think of still images as memories.

The weirder the camera I have with me, the more people want to talk about it, but also often tell me about their weird camera. The film revival is not letting up from what I can tell. Nor is the desire for portable rugged compact cameras that have a tactile experience. I really appreciate that Nikon made the ZF, but for me, the second you pick one up, any desire to use it disappears. It's overbuilt and tried to do too much. Pick up an FM series camera though and you want to take pictures with it. I think pretty clearly economies of scale almost certainly don't support an FM4 (which is why the FM3A is kinda special--it didn't then either. I'd like to think it was Nikon's passion project, but perhaps they were just being flat footed). But I do want to believe that it would support a compact camera that prioritizes the user experience. Metal, aperture dial, compact, etc. Leica seems to have this concept pretty well figured out. Fuji does too.

Sep 03, 2026 at 06:48 AM

RexGig0
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p.2 #9 · Nikon imaging (cameras, lenses, and related products including red) down 22% year over year

ilkka_nissila wrote:
Nothing wrong with using a ZR for stills, if that's what you prefer. The main issue would be that if you have fast-moving subjects or flickering lights, there might problems with rolling shutter distortion or banding, and the flash sync speed is slow. I can see how the large LCD and the relatively light body would be appealing.

Z lenses include lightweight ones, and many of the comparable F-mount Nikkors were heavier. For example,

Z 24-70/2.8 S II 675 grams vs. AF-S VR 24-70/2.8E 1070 g
Z 14-24/2.8 S 650 g vs. AF-S 14-24/2.8 969 g

Some Z lenses are a bit heavier...Show more →

Thanks! I did do a deep dive on the ZR’s limitations, and was aware of the limitations with active subjects, and the obvious, and puzzling flash sync speed specification. Rather than try to buy a Z camera which would replace/displace my D5 and/or D850 DSLRs, I bought the ZR for what it could do, while complementing my D5 and D850 cameras.

The Z 24-70/2.8 S II is, indeed, HIGH on my Z lens wish list!

Its availability is a reason I decided to finally buy into the Z system, even if I probably will not buy the Z lens very soon. Until then, I will keep using the somewhat lighter-in-weight AF-S 24-70/2.8G ED, as I never did buy its E VR successor.

My AF-S 24-70/2.8G is, indeed, a chunky, hefty one, but, its rivals, among my lenses, are much, much smaller 21mm and 24mm M-mount lenses, with one of those 21mm lenses being the amazingly good Voigtlander Nokton f/1.4 ZM Asherical. I may not feel a need to replace my F-mount 14-24.2.8G with a lighter ultra-wide zoom, because it is already a niche lens. When I have used my 14-24/2.8G, it has generally been as the only lens, on a hefty D700/D3s/D5, at which times its mass/weight has not been a problem.

On a practical level, the camera that the ZR “displaces,” in my use case(s), is/are any future Leica M or SL digital camera body purchases, not that I can justify or afford Leica M cameras, anymore, anyway. In 2018, I made a side-step into Leica, largely because of one specific lens. My “high water mark” with Leica digital M will probably remain the M10 Monochrom. If attrition manages to claim my Leica M camera bodies, or economic realities compel their divestment, well, my most-favored Leica M lenses are adaptable to Nikon Z cameras.

Sep 03, 2026 at 09:43 AM

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