It's a hard ol' digital world out there

Holy Cow! Konica Minolta are withdrawing from the photographic business. Some of the digital SLR assets will be transferring to Sony, but that's it for the rest: compact cameras, films and paper, minilabs. It does appear that Konica Minolta will continue to work in partnership to develop the Sony badged DSLR but it looks like the production assets will move to Sony. The Minolta lens mount will also become an asset of Sony, so at least any new lenses developed will be compatible with current Konica Minolta DSLRs. I've never been a fan of Minolta's SLR cameras (there has been some ingenious design in their recent digital compacts) but their lenses have always been highly rated, especially for portraiture. I'm sure they will be sorely missed by many professional and amateur photographers alike. So how long will it be before the Sony badged DSLRs will have MemoryStick storage and a Walkman badge on the front, oh, and the most incomprehensible nomenclature possible? So two more famous photographic names bite the dust, sure the company will (or might) survive, but not in the camera bag or the photo album. 2006 will be the year we can finally put a wreath on the grave of silver-halide film.

If I was a Conspiracy Theorist

I'd be suspicious about the timing of the press release from Carl Zeiss AG regarding their introduction of a range of manual focus lenses for Nikon's F-mount, but as Nikon will continue to manufacture (probably in miniscule quantities) manual lenses of the same focal lengths as those announced today by Zeiss it's hardly something to open an X-File about.

Still it is interesting that Zeiss claims that the new lenses will work with both digital and film based SLRs. From the product shots it is clear that the lenses are backwardly compatible to the non-AI Nikkormats, but it is not clear if there are the electronic communications that will allow these lenses to function on bodies such as the D70, D70s and D50 which have no mechanical coupling to the lens' aperture ring (also non-AI?). Although Zeiss has only announced two lenses (50mm f/1.4 & 85mm f/1.4) so far, it is possible to make out from the product shots that they will be introducing a Makro-Planar (f/2.0) and a wide-angle Distagon (f/2.0).

Technorati Tags: digital photography, Nikon, photography, Zeiss

Nikon to drop film and focus on digital

Well it was bound to happen, even to the big boys, but so soon! According to a press release from Nikon UK (why just here?) Nikon will stop the production of all film based cameras and accessories, except for the F6 and the FM10 (only available outside Europe) and all large format lenses and enlarging lenses. There are also reports that all manual 35mm lens production will stop, but it does appear that some manual lenses will still be made namely: 20mm f/2.8, 24mm f/2.8, 28mm f/2.8, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.2, 50mm f/1.4, 55mm (Micro-Nikkor) f/2.8, 105mm (Micro-Nikkor) f/2.8, and the 85mm Perspective Control Micro-Nikkor.

Importantly "after-sales service will continue to be provided", so hopefully that means that they will repair film-based equipment.

So does that mean that the value of my film equipment will go up or down?

Technorati Tags: digital photography, Nikon, photography

Happy New Year