Japanese media: Nikon to abandon reflex camera production

reaction since 1959

Nikon has been active in the production of optical instruments since 1917, although the current name dates back to 1946. The Nikon F, the first reversible model in 35mm film format, dates back to 1959. Since the late 1990s, production has shifted to digital models. The latest new model with inversion technology, the D6, was launched in June 2020.

After abandoning the production of compact cameras, a market that has been completely wiped out by photography smartphones, it is now time to focus everything on the mirrorless systems, already widely available in the Nikon catalog, and abandon the feedback segment. . The decision comes when sales are still too big: the world’s second-largest manufacturer of SLR cameras after Canon, Nikon is still selling about 400,000 cameras with this technology in 2021.

Fierce competition from smart phones

But the market numbers are unforgiving: sales of mirrorless cameras globally surpassed sales of SLRs early in 2020, with 2.93 million models sold for 2.37. All in a market that, due to strong competition from smartphones, is still experiencing a sharp decline: in 2017, between mirrorless and reflex cameras, 11.67 million cameras were sold, a number that fell to 5.34 million in 2021.

Techniques comparison

The reflex and the reflector differ mainly in the optical system that allows the photographer to see and frame the subject. In single-lens reflex (SLR) cameras, the mirror directs the image collected by the lens toward the viewfinder. The mirror is then raised when photographing, so that the image reaches the sensor or film. In mirrorless systems, on the other hand, the image coming from the lens is collected by the sensor itself, and then transmitted to one or more display screens, through which the photographer sees the subject and frame.

Mirrorless systems have many advantages: first of all, there is no longer a mirror that has to move when the picture is actually taken, with subsequent vibrations, problems with mechanism wear, the necessary additional dimensions of the camera body and so on. Thus, on top of that, the number of shots per second that can be achieved by a mirror when shooting an “explosion” is much greater, unless you keep the mirror raised between shots, which nevertheless does not allow you to see anything in the viewfinder.