The oldest surviving Nikon camera is now also the most expensive. We reported back in October that the third Nikon 1 rangefinder ever made would be hitting the auction block at Westlicht with an estimated max value of $200,000. Well, that camera just sold for roughly $406,000, more than double the original estimate.
This Nikon 1 rangefinder from 1948 is the earliest known surviving production Nikon camera in the world. It's up for sale at the Westlicht camera auctions, where it's expected to fetch up to $200,000.
With Photokina coming up later this month, we’ll soon have a good chance to see whether Nikon is playing to their competencies or incompetencies with their next round of announcements. Every company has some core competencies that can’t be denied. What are Nikon’s?
Nikon made a splash back in September 2011 when it decided to jump into the mirrorless camera industry with its J1 and V1 cameras. Since then, Nikon has expanded and updated the line to consist of the AW1, V3, J5, and S2. But now there are murmurings that Nikon has ended the development of its 1 Series line of mirrorless cameras.
If you've been trying to get your hands on a Nikon 1 V3 camera, you've been, as the acronym goes, S O L. The camera has been sold out at all major retailers since before the first round of pre-orders went out. In fact, so bad is the shortage that Nikon Japan just issued an official apology.
Just when we started to think the big two had given up on making mirrorless cameras for the US market, Nikon goes and changes our mind. After announcing the Nikon 1 J4 for Asia and Europe in early April, the Japanese company has announced that the mirrorless shooter will come to the US after all, and it will be joined by a new entry-level Nikon 1 S2.
DxOMark is certainly not the be-all-end-all of camera sensor testing outfits, but what it has going for it is consistency and a whole lot of experience. So while you might not put much stock in their sensor scores, DxO is a great resource for comparing sensor performance between models.
We say all this because there are some Nikon fanboys who will immediately be upset by the news that DxOMark claims the new Nikon 1 V3 might not live up to its price tag.
If you go by first impressions and reader comments, the Nikon 1 V3 has about one-third of people excited, one-third skeptical, and one-third annoyed and wondering why anyone is excited at all. If you happen to fall into the first two of these categories, the video above from Nikon Europe might interest you.
Nikon has unveiled the newest camera in the Nikon 1 line, an ultra-fast mirrorless shooter that brings the company closer to the competition and lends credence to Nikon's recent promise that it is still committed to the compact system camera (CSC) market.
What's churning away in the rumor mills regarding Nikon? According to Nikon Rumors, it's the impending announcement of the Nikon 1 V3, the 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 PD VR lens, the 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR zoom, and a new Nikon 1-series light that may very well be one of the prototype LED lights Nikon revealed at PhotoPlus.
It's not uncommon for cameras to look similar in this day and age. Even the Sony A7 and A7r, which haven't even been released yet, are being described as "OM-D-like" by rumor sites. But at what point does "similarity" cross the line to "infringement."
Well, if you need an example, just take a look at Polaroid's iM1836, because Nikon is filing a lawsuit against the company and camera manufacturer Sakar International over just that.
Each year, the WestLicht Photographica auction house puts some incredible historic cameras on the block and lets us mere mortals "oh" and "ah" at them before some collector with deep pockets plunks down hundreds of thousands of dollars to take them home (where they will, of course, be used daily right?...).
We told you yesterday to watch out for a "rugged" Nikon 1 announcement in the next 24-hours, and lo and behold, it happened. Introducing the Nikon 1 AW1, a camera Nikon is calling "the world's first waterproof and shockproof interchangeable lens camera," with a convenient asterisk added in for those of us who remember the Nikonos system.
Nikon 1 photographers have a decent selection of eight lenses for their mirrorless camera, and now we can add one more choice to that list: the super-fast medium-telephoto 32mm f/1.2. The lens was announced earlier today, and promises "Superior Resolution and Incredible Depth of Field" for Nikon 1 shooters.
The mirrorless camera market has been bustling with activity as of late. Rumors have already begun circulating that Canon will be releasing a viewfinder-equipped EOS-M sometime in 2013, Polaroid is working on a Nikon J2 lookalike, and CES is just around the corner, which means many camera makers will be taking the wraps off upgrades to their mirrorless lines.
The latest word from the world of Nikon is still a bit surprising, though: Nikon Rumors is reporting that the camera giant is going to add not one, but two new mirrorless cameras to its Nikon 1 line at CES 2013.
Here's a strange leak that has people scratching their heads: photos and specs have emerged that show a soon-to-be-announced interchangeable-lens mirrorless camera by Polaroid. Called the IM1836, the camera will be a Polaroid-branded camera manufactured by Sakar International and will be powered by Android OS.
Digiscoping is when a photographer attaches an optical telescope to a digital camera and uses it as a super-telephoto lens. Although the image quality isn't as good as an actual camera lens with the same focal length, it's a much cheaper option for people who already own high-powered telescopes -- bird photographers, for example. Nikon is no stranger to the digiscoping game, having released adapters for its DSLRs and compact cameras, but today it announced new accessories that bring digiscoping to the 1 Series mirrorless lineup.
Just as the rumors predicted, Nikon announced the new V2 mirrorless camera today. Succeeding the Nikon 1 V1, the V2 is a slightly-more-serious mirrorless camera than the recently-launched J2 (think V for "varsity" and J for "junior varsity"). Unlike the J2, the V2 offers more differences from its predecessor than a few minor tweaks.
Is "camera toss" photography ready to go from fad to feature? Apparently Nikon thinks so. A recently published patent (No. 2012-189859) shows that the company has been thinking about building specific features into its compact and mirrorless cameras that would assist in using the technique.
Well, that was fast. Just a couple days after photos of the duo leaked onto the web, the Nikon 1 J2 mirrorless camera and Nikkor 11-27.5mm lens are now official.
Nikon is reportedly preparing to launch a followup camera to its Nikon 1 J1 mirrorless camera, to be called -- you guessed it -- the J2. Digicam info published the above leaked photograph of the camera ahead of its rumored mid-August announcement. Aside from the new J2 branding, the camera looks like it'll be virtually identical to its predecessor.
Here's a cool idea for those of you who feel that the colors you have to choose from when buying a Nikon 1 mirrorless camera are a teensy bit lacking. A new German website called Pimp Your Cam (Note: some images on the site are NSFW) will soon start selling unique, airbrushed Nikon 1 cameras and customization options through the site and at select retailers.
The site and idea is the brain child of photographer Jens Brüggemann and Berlin airbrush artist Torsten Rachu, and each design they come up with is 100% unique. In fact, if you order a design -- which, according to their press release, you'll soon be able to do from their website -- that design will be removed from the site as soon as the order goes through. Check out some of their impressive work after the break.
Nikonian DSLR shooters will soon be able to use their existing F-mount lenses with Nikon’s 1 System …
Nikon's long-awaited mirrorless camera system has arrived. Today Nikon announced the new J1 and V1 mirrorless cameras and four new Nikon "1 System" lenses. The two cameras have nearly identical specs: a 10.1 megapixel CX-format (13.2mmx8.8mm) CMOS sensor with 2.7x crop factor, a 3-inch LCD screen, 10fps shooting, 1080/30p HD video recording, 1200fps slow-motion recording at 320x120, simultaneous video/still capture, 73-point hybrid autofocus, and 12-bit RAW files.
While Nikon Corporation was established in 1917 (as Nippon Kōgaku Tōkyō K.K.), the company was a lens manufacturing company …