Tony Northrup is biased against Nikon

May 30, 2020

The year is 2020, the world has changed, but Tony Northrup has not. One of the most popular Youtubers related to photography gear has once again attacked Nikon, and nobody is seemingly surprised. It's very obvious: He is biased against Nikon. I have no idea why, I can only speculate, but I believe unlike Sony and Fuji, Nikon traditionally works with real professional photographers when they promote their latest cameras. That's apparent every time new cameras are launched, you'll get a quick Joe McNally review (who is also Nikon ambassador), but you won't see a Tony Northrup review, instead you'll get his spec sheet commentary, which he will label as "review" and put a negative spin on it. Let's dive deeper into the issue.

The anti-Nikon bias is obvious to many

You typically won't see Nikon inviting Tony and other influences to a big Las Vegas event with sand buggies and other paid entertainment like Sony did in 2018. As a result Sony gets a lot of favorable reviews and positive coverage by influencers, while Nikon typically doesn't. Influencers need free content, and they also want benefits in exchange of promotion. Nikon isn't playing this game, at least not in the US. As a contrast, they're doing a great job in Germany, where they invite popular photography Youtubers to create content on the Nikon Germany channel (and of course they pay them). The US influencers don't play that game: They want free events and entertainment, they want free and exclusive gear for reviews, and they want gear for giveaways. Perhaps there more behind the scenes, but that I don't know. I only know what I see, and there's a plenty of evidence all over Youtube that confirms this notion.

I'm writing this post, because Tony Northrup recently replied to an anonymous comment under a post on Nikon Rumors titled Nikon's new medium-term management plan. The commentator rightfully predicted that Tony and other influencers will jump on the recent news about Nikon's declining camera sales in the past quarter. Every half educated camera enthusiast knows that the overall camera market is down for every brand - all brands are suffering, none is thriving, and the coronavirus has given the market an additional hit. Yet, for some reason Nikon is always the main or only brand that is picked out of the bunch and proclaimed dying or nearly dead. The anti-Nikon bias is obvious. Here's the comment (direct link to it on Disqus) followed by Tony's response (which I have highlighted with grey background here):

Tony Northrup Hates Nikon 1

The last comment by John Smith made me check Tony Northrup's latest Nikon related videos and this is what I found in the past half a year:

Tony Northrup Hates Nikon 2

There's not a single positive video, and if you go back to the Z6 and Z7 launches from 2018, you will find even more negativity. For every brand he will have a mix of positive and negative videos, but with Nikon it's so obviously one-sided and click-baity that a semi-blind person could see it. The thumbnails are ridiculously terrible. Can you imagine a grown man is doing these? I can only shake my head. Truth is, most Nikon Z shooters (or D6 shooters) will tell you that these cameras are amazing and in no way inferior to anything else in the market, in fact they are better than most other cameras in the segment, but I digress. It doesn't take much to realize that Tony isn't a good photographer, so nobody should take him seriously.

Before I end this, let us not forget his attack on Steve McCurry from early 2019. McCurry is a renowned and legendary Nikon photographer, where Tony retrospectively implied child abuse in relation to the famous Afghan Girl photo. As a result most of the online community flooded his channel with critical comments, and instead of deleting the video and apologizing to McCurry, he deleted thousands of critical comments instead, and kept the video up. This showed us his true face.

Tony also says THEY HATE doing negative reviews about Nikon, but they HAVE TO. Or do they choose to? I think it's rather the latter (link to Twitter).

Tony Northrup Hates Nikon 3
Do you see the "Win a Sony a6400" promotion in the description?

14 comments:

  1. I think we can all agree that Tony is the biggest piece of shit on the photography community. I don't really care if he's biased against Nikon, the man actively tires to destroy camera companies he doesn't personally like by spreading false information and promoting rumours. I absolutely can't stand this man boy and his husband.

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    1. Wrong! that accolade goes to the Angry Photographer, a man that own so many cameras and lenses yet makes no income form doing so recommending things based on.... what? spec sheets? taking photos of f**king leaves and sh!t monuments wandering around kentucky. The man is a vile wretch!

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    2. I think I agree with the first comment. Tony has a more wide appeal with 1 million subscribers, while Ken Wheeler is more of a basement nut who's audience are people who play with magnets and believe Bill Gates is trying to control the world with 5G towers.

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    3. What really pisses me off about Ken is that he ISN'T a photographer, not even close! he doesn't not get paid for photography jobs, yet he owns about 40 modern, recent digital cameras, inclusive of all GFX cameras. INSANE MAN!

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    4. Funny thing about Ken is he embraced metoo movement to kill Lanier (more shit). Now in his instagram account doesn't stop to promote hate against wearing a mask, Doctors like Fauci and whovever things mask are a good thing. I wonder what happened with Lanier and all the fuzz and why Ken never ever talked about him again. The guy is completely sick full of hate, I wonder what he does for living.

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  2. Win a Sony, buy our photography book, purchase gear over these Amazon hotlinks... I wonder how long will Youtube allow this kind of business model where they dupe their followers with some BS and make money outside of Youtube with sponsors and other nonsense...

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  3. But I just don't understand why people make videos about the financials of camera companies, WHO CARES they have accountants and advertisers who worry about this stuff. Nikon is a big company they've been doing this a long time and suddenly all these YouTubers start bullshitting about stock plummets and financial crisis like as if Nikon was born yesterday like wtf. YouTube is just overrun with complete bs save your sanity, money and time, just go out and take pictures ffs believe it or not there's an actual real world out there...

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    1. I tell you why, to push a narrative and to help boost sales of competition like Sony, who are working with him. Tony's been talking about the impending demise of Nikon, yet Nikon still exists and will exist for years and decades. Nikon is an old Japanese company with a very solid reputation, and even if they pull out of certain global markets, they will still continue to exist in Japan, which is one of the largest camera markets in the world. It's much more likely that Sony pulls out of the camera business, if the division's profit becomes very small as compared to other divisions in the corporation. We saw it with Samsung, I believe Sony is next on the list, and not Nikon. Tony is not very bright.

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  4. 何とも残念な人。

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  5. あなたの投稿を見て連絡しました、いろいろ話を聞かせていただければ。

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  6. Your post was translated to Japanese and is discussed on forum. It is a photography forum of Nikon in Japan. We do not understand why this person hates Nikon. Nikon is a very good brand, traditional quality and good service. It has produced legendary camera and lenses. Nikon is also part of 三菱集团, which offers credit and export advantages to Nikon as the parent company. Therefore it is very unusual to believe Nikon is dying. We Japanese photographers see the decline of market, and change in market, but the market will remain in a smaller size and Nikon will also remain in a smaller size. This will be also true for other camera company like Canon, Fujifilm or Olympus. It is a difficult year for every company, and this year will be year of loss, but we believe long term all main camera company will remain. There is no reason to make Nikon dying video. Thank you!

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  7. トニー ノースルップは愚かな男です。

    John

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  8. Nikon seems well positioned for market contraction, and their latest numbers suggest they've stopped losing market share. I'm sure they'll be fine. Tony is an idiot and a grifter.

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