Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

Re:Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan by mmaunder on Monday December 21, 2020 @10:27AM (#25495762)

The cine lens and professional photographer lens market is big and irreplaceable until they figure out how, for example, to make an f4 600mm prime without a 150mm front element. Many problems to solve until we see the last days of optical professional lenses. Price points for these start at $2000, the cine lenses are around $4500 for primes and that 600mm I mentioned is a Canon lens, has a front element grown from fluorite crystal and runs about $12,000 and is currently on version 4.

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Re:Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan by ksk on Monday December 21, 2020 @02:16PM (#25498306)

A 600mm F/4 lens gathers a lot of light per-unit sensor-area, and there are many reasons why professional nature photographers have historically needed such a large lens

(1) Older digital sensors weren't good at all with high-iso (high read-noise, low photon-electron conversion efficiency, etc)

(2) An off-sensor DSLR AutoFocus array has a very small effective-aperture, making the lens aperture very important in low-light situations for autofocus (which a lot of nature photography is)

(3) Bokeh - Ofcource nothing beats large aperture bokeh, but this can be tackled perhaps through computation?

For (1) and (2) Modern imaging sensors perform beautifully in high-iso scenarios. Also, with mirrorless, there are cameras that can AF down to F/22 - something unimaginable (and impossible) with DSLRs.

While the demand for 600mm F/4 is there from a professional standpoint, there is an even larger demand for cheaper options - and.. this point is important, you can produce award-worthy images using those cheaper potions. In fact if you look at any nature competition a lot of the awards go to images made with cheap/budget gear.

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Re:Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan by Wistar on Monday December 21, 2020 @03:41PM (#25499313)

Pick up an $11k Canon 200-400 L lens and it is this super solid, beautifully made thing.

Pick up a Canon CN-E 30-300 cinema lens and it is this exquisite, jewel-like thing that seems as though it is made by NASA. And it's $45K.

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Re:Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan by medion on Monday December 21, 2020 @03:25PM (#25499154)

Or Cooke cine lens primes start at about 20,000eur, a zoom lens up to 60,000eur - just to comprehend where the lens top end is.

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