Don't fall for the Sony A7 IV Youtube hype!

Sony just released its latest mid-range camera, the A7 IV, and of course seeded the camera to over a dozen of popular Youtubers, most of which are not photographers, but just paid shills. You can skip most of them, because they will not tell you that this update is bogus. Yes, they bumped the resolution up from 24 mpxls to 33 mpxls, but they also raised the price from 2000 USD to 2500 USD. This is a camera in a completely different segment than its predecessor, it's a marketing trick. It also only shoots 5 fps, if you want to shoot RAW (lossless compression), previously it was 10. They added some new video features, but the camera has terrible rolling shutter, and they're fixing it with a silly software tweak, that actually crops in your lens and degrades your quality. On the other hand you have Nikon's Z lenses that virtually have no focus breathing by design. It seems that Sony has hit an innovation wall when it comes to cameras that are not flagships. Unfortunately this camera will sell, because some people are sheep. For an honest review I only recommend DP Review's video, spare yourself everybody else:

 

Nikon Z fc is putting the company ahead again

Nikon is not only profitable again, but they have shown, that they are having a fantastic future ahead of them. Do you remember the doom and gloom by Youtubers like Tony Trump? Pushing the agenda of an impending bankruptcy, and how Nikon is behind everybody. Lo and behold, it's 2021, and suddenly Nikon is the company that is creating the most excitement in the camera world. Earlier this year they have announced the development of the flagship Z9, a short ime later they have launched 2 amazing macro lenses (a 50mm and 105mm), as well as the development of 2 compact lenses (28mm and 40mm), as well as an 18-140mm DX lens (see my whole list). When we thought this was everything, they shocked the industry with a retro inspired Nikon Z fc! 

The 'Nikon is doomed' narrative is getting old

It's pretty sad what kind of a garbage dumpster photography Youtube has become. 

Despite losses Nikon is a financially sound company

I made a short video about Nikon's financial situation after the recent quarterly results for the quarter of July, August and September (Q2 for Nikon's current financial year). Bottom line: Just like every company this year, Nikon's sales dropped significantly due to the impact of coronavirus, but there are also many positives. Nikon's cashflow is fine, their credit rating is fine (equity ratio still over 50%), and their P/L increased by 8.2 billion Yen in real terms, however Nikon used these profits to write-off losses incured by the closing of one of their Thailand factories earlier this year. Listen to my commentary of Nikon's quarterly summary:

 

Matt Granger is becoming irrelevant

Just like his American Youtube colleague Ken Wheeler got called out on his Nikon Z5 lies a short while ago, Matt Granger, a large Australian photography Youtuber, got called out by his own followers on his Nikon Z6 II and Z7 II nonsense in his recent video. There's a trend I observed a short while ago where large photography Youtubers go distinctly negative on Nikon, while less so with other brands. Regardless of what camera Nikon launches, they will focus on one supposed downside and proclaim Nikon as a failure. The reason for that, I presume, is that unlike Sony, Canon and Fuji, Nikon does not entertain and engage these pseudo-photographers despite their huge subscription numbers, but instead chooses to focus their marketing efforts mainly towards real working photographers and Nikon ambassadors like Joe McNally or Ricci Chera, serious websites like DP Review, as well as their commercial e-commerce partners like Adorama in the US and Calumet in Germany. Nikon also works with selected Youtubers, but those that have a good track record of being fair and balanced, such as Kai Wong in the UK and Stephan Wiesner in Germany. Some say Nikon is doing a bad marketing job, but I increasingly disagree, and I will explain further down below.

Nikon Z6 II and Z7 II and other October 2020 announcements - my reaction

Nikon just announced the highly anticipated successors of the popular Z6 and Z7 cameras, and named them Z6 II and Z7 II. The first one will be available in November, and the second in December. They have improved the cameras across the board while basically keeping them in the same housing. They look identical to their predecessors on the outside, but the weight did increase 30g (Z6/Z7 weigh 585g, the Z6/Z7 II weigh 615g). Most of the improvements are internal and via software. Here are the key points:

Fred Miranda forum shares Angry Photographer's garbage, questions me

I don't do it often, but I occasionally check some of the traffic that comes to my blog. So today I noticed that I'm getting some traffic from a Fred Miranda forum post, where someone linked to my popular post The Downfall Of The Angry Photographer. My blog post was linked as a response to a video by the Angry Photographer that was shared there by a forum member. The video of course is bashing Nikon, and talking doom and gloom, his usual shtick. He did the same thing on the Nikon Z5 camera where he lied about some specs, said the Z glass was "junky" and got called out by his own followers. I mean, unless you are brain dead, it should not take you more than watching one or two of his videos to realize the he has severe issues and should not be taken seriously. Apparently some people on Fred Miranda think he's some kind of expert and connected to Nikon (he is not!). One guy named Takira71A even started to question me. This is one of the most ridiculous things I've read about me in a while.

Nikon's growing mirrorless share is a success

Nikkei published an article about the 2019 ILC market share yesterday that was also reposted by other Japanese websites and blogs like デジカメinfo. The article was then scooped up by several English speaking photography blogs, who then used Google Translate and posted their articles on the topic, mainly bashing Nikon of course. That's a standard practice on most of these garbage sites. Since I have a background in trade and business, let me and my team of geeks crunch the numbers for you and explain why Nikon's numbers are a success. 

Youtuber explains why you should not worry about Nikon's doom

Youtuber behind the channel Straight Out Of Camera shares his ultimate video on the topic "Nikon is doomed" and why people should not worry about a camera brand's death. He shares some excellent points and explains why Fuji shooters should worry more than Nikon shooters, if any. Brilliantly done, and well worth 15 minutes of your time. This is one of the best photography channels on Youtube right now.

Nikon Z5 shows Nikon cares about its users

Nikon just launched the Z5, a full frame camera that shares a lot of features with the Z6, but is sold at a much lower price point, moving the entry point to Nikon full frame mirrorless further down to 1399 USD. Not only is the price fantastic, Nikon is admitting that they've listened to their users and opted for dual SD card slots instead of a single XQD or CFexpress card slot that they offered in their first generation Z cameras. This is a great sign for the upcoming Z6 and Z7 successors, that should be just a few months away at this point. I personally don't care about two card slots, but I do prefer SD over anything else, because the XQD and CFexpress cards are expensive and you need to buy a new reader as well. That's a substantial extra cost, which I don't really need, since I mainly shoot stills. I really hope this move shows Nikon will continue to add SD card slots to their upcoming cameras, at least one slot out of two would be nice, I don't need more.

Tony Northrup is biased against Nikon

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.

Losing my mind in Taipei right now

As Taiwan keeps adding coronavirus cases every day now at a higher rate than any time before, I'm sitting at home in my suburban Taipei apartment and just can't stop thinking about all this. I try to distract myself with blogging, photography, watching Youtube videos, checking Twitter and Facebook, but this thing is everywhere. You can't escape it. And we all know it will get much much worse before it gets better.

My thoughts on the Fuji X-T4

Fujifilm just announced the X-T4, the successor to the X-T3, which was arguably one of their most popular crop sensor cameras. The X-T4 looks like a great camera, since it's the 4th iteration of basically the same camera. Judging by the DP Review Gallery, the camera takes fine pictures, but I can't really see much difference from the pictures taken with the X-T3. That's because it's exactly the same 26.1 mpxl sensor. Fuji doesn't innovate in sensor technology, they basically just buy 1 sensor from Sony and put it into nearly every X camera out there. Fuji customers don't seem to mind, but for me it's a big issue, because there's really not much innovation in terms of image quality when it comes to Fuji X cameras.

Why the Nikon D6 is better for stills than the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III

The online photography community has thrown another massive tantrum after the Nikon D6 turned out to be more of an iterative update instead of a major jump. Lead by airheads running Youtube clickbait farms like Fro Knowns Photo, Tony Northrup as well as self-proclaimed Fuji Ambassador and donations beggar Ken Wheeler, the camera was proclaimed an utter failure and the competing Canon EOS-1D X Mark III the clear winner. We live in a bipolar world where it's all about winning and losing based on arbitrary spec jumps. These channels are making their advertisement and sponsorship money by dividing photography hobbyists into tribes, and then stirring up controversy whenever there's a new major camera release by a large and important brand.

I exposed Ted Forbes from 'The Art of Photography'

Ted Forbes is an American photography Youtuber, who used to become famous talking about the art and the history of photography and amassed quite a following among enthusiasts and hobbyists. The art and craft were the main topic of his channel, but in recent years he adopted the same model as most photography Youtubers, that is doing gear reviews and joining press events by brands. In one of his latest videos he reviewed the latest Canon RF 50mm f/1.2 L lens. It's of course a great lens, and a plenty of lens for most people. Ted did not respond to a lot of comments under the video, but he did to this guy who listed a number of complaints about Canon. While Ted agreed, I countered.

Fujifilm's disastrous year feat. Tatsuo Suzuki

Fujifilm has not had a great year last year, and their mishap-streak is continuing well into 2020s. The latest scandal surrounding the controversy-ridden brand is connected to Tatsuo Suzuki, an award-winning street photographer from Tokyo, who they hired to star in one of their promotional videos for their latest compact camera, the Fujifilm X100V. In the video (see below) Fujifilm introduces Tatsuo and follows him on the streets of Tokyo to show how he creates his art. His style of spray and pray directly into pedestrians' faces turned out to be very controversial in Japan, and a growing number of netizens started to complain about it. It reached a level where it was just bad press, so Fujifilm decided to pull the video. Here's a copy of the video which was uploaded by a Japanese netizen for posterity:

Response to Thom Hogan's article about Nikon's and Canon's DSLR strategy

Thom Hogan is a Nikon user manual writer, who is also known as a blogger that writes about cameras and the photography industry. He's often engaged in various photography forums, writing endlessly long comments and opinions. In one of his latest blog posts titled The DSLR Cash Cow is Alive For How Long? he laments the iterative updates by Canon and Nikon in the shape of their recent D780 and 1DX Mark III releases. In one of his initial paragraphs he says following:

What I'm seeing is the traditional Milk the Cow approach to the DSLR to mirrorless transition, and not an overly well done version of that, too. All the accountants in charge at Canon and Nikon appear to think that there's still "some money" left in the DSLR till they can extract, but they don't want to spend too much in money or effort to get it out.

The Mirrorless Dilemma

I'm recently very into video and I spent a lot of time around Taipei shooting various videos and clips this month. That's one of the reasons why I neglected this blog, I was out shooting. But now the weather in Taipei is a bit cold and gloomy and I have more time to blog again. For a while now I'm interested in getting a mirrorless camera for video and stills. I love my D810 and would not want to let go of it unless it breaks down, but it would be nice to have a less bulky video camera that does 4K. We have a mall in Taipei where you can get a hands-on experience with various latest cameras, and I went to check out the Canon EOS RP, the Nikon Z6 and the Nikon Z50, three cameras that I find very interesting candidates for my needs.

Will the Fuji X-Pro 3 be the most gimmicky camera of the year?

To answer the question in the title: Yes, I believe so. Of course the Sony A6600 will offer some strong competition for the title as well, but I still think the Fuji X-Pro 3 will prevail in the end. As many of you know, I'm not too fond of the Fuji X-System. First I had a lot of issues with my X100T that failed me at the end I had high repair costs. Secondly, I believe Fuji fans are some of the most obnoxious and delusional camera brand fans on the internet, led by their basement guru Ken Wheeler, who keeps preaching about how great and infallible Fuji is regardless of the truth, but is not able to produce any meaningful photography besides snapshots of horses. Congratulations, Fuji fans. You managed to make Pentax fans look sane and reasonable.

Manny Ortiz, 'The biggest Sony shill on Youtube' decides to become 'honest'

"Hi, My name is Manny Ortiz, and I am the biggest Sony shill on Youtube" is the beginning of the latest video by photography Youtuber and now former Sony Ambassador Manny Ortiz. In a very frank video he explains why he's leaft the Sony Ambassador program, that uses popular photography Youtubers and other influencers to market their cameras and/or try to taint the reputation of other brands. Sony was pioneer in this regard. When they launched their A7 and A7R series of full frame mirrorless cameras in October 2013, they went aggressively into the (at that time) very nascent community of online influencers. In 2013 Youtube was far from being as big as it is today. The biggest channel on the platform at that time had something over 10 million subscribers. In 2019 there are over 400 channels with over 10 million subscribers. Instagram had 150 million active monthly users in 2013. In 2018 they surpassed a billion. The times have changed a lot, also in the photography gear influencer community.