Nikon Z fc hands on in Taipei

 

I just had the pleasure to get my hands on the Nikon Z fc, Nikon's recent mega hit that is also sold out here in Taiwan, and share some of my impressions. First of all, the camera is tiny. It's much smaller than I thought which is a good thing. Secondly, it looks so realistically like a film camera from certain angle, you'd never think it's a digital camera. And that small screen that displays the f-stop is really small, but I like it a lot. The camera is really solidly built, much better than a Fuji in that same segment.

 

Living in Taiwan during the first Coronavirus outbreak

 

It wasn't a long time ago when I wrote about coronavirus and how I felt being stuck here in Taiwan. The island nation was one of the few countries in the world that has dodged the virus completely. We did have cases nearly every day, but these came in from the outside and were put into quarantine. For over a year the system worked flawlessly, until last month when a foreign pilot spread the UK variant inside the airport hotel and the staff spread it to family members and friends, and some of them spread it to random strangers, especially in Taipei. And so Taiwan has its first large local outbreak since the start of the pandemic. We had some 5-10 cases per day already last week, but two days ago we got a much bigger daily number for the first time: 180 cases. A day later, which happens to be today, it's already 202. I'm already nervous when I think about what the numbers will be tomorrow or a week from today. I'm afraid they'll be in the thousands, and higher. 

Nikon executive Keiji Oishi confirms a new mirrorless flagship camera

DP Review just published an interview with Keiji Oishi, the Department Manager of Nikon's Imaging Business Unit of the UX Planning Department. In the interview Oishi revealed that Nikon is planning to release a new flagship mirrorless camera that will be available within 2021.

Thoughts about being COVID-free in Taiwan, but feeling stuck

 

The Year of the Ox is here in Taiwan, and it feels like everybody is finally letting out a big sigh of release. We just had the first domestic COVID cluster in a hospital here after many months of no local infections. The government put several thousand people in quarantine and the strategy seemed to have paid off. Only 20 people were infected so far, and it seems we avoided a bigger outbreak. Of course a big test will be the current Lunar New Year holidays. We need to see if two weeks from now there's a new outbreak, but I hope not. It's been a very weird year for us here, being stuck on this island but basically COVID free for a year now.

Why has Nikon stopped making rifle scopes?

Suburban Rifleman, a smaller Youtube channel that talks about rifles and guns, is speculating why Nikon exited the rifle scope business over one year ago. He was very surprised to see that Nikon's website is completely clear of any mention of rifle scopes, and he believes they exited the business for political reasons. He said, if that was the case, he doesn't want to buy any Nikon product again.

Influencers push back against Nikon negativity

 

In the video above Australian photographer Matt Irwin, who is in the business for over 30 years, made an excellent video in response to yet another negative article on Nikon by the photography news website Petapixel and to negative bias by some larger Youtube channels. In the video Matt mentions how these articles keep pushing negativity about Nikon without actually providing anything new, and without mentioning Nikon's plan to profitability in the upcoming 2 years (see my video on that in detail). Despite recent losses, Nikon is still a financially sound company, they are not leveraged, have enough cash flow and have good credit. When it comes to their immediate future, they will be fine, and 2021 is expected to be a much better year than 2020, especially if a Covid vaccine will be available and the Olympics take place. I don't think it can get much worse than 2020, also due to the fact that Nikon are working on professional bodies and lenses scheduled for release next year.

Visiting the Taipei International Photography & Media Equipment Exhibition 2020

The Taipei International Photography & Media Equipment Exhibition 2020 is taking place these days in Taipei. I visited on the 2nd day in the morning, so that I could avoid crowds, but that wasn't a too successful effort. I reached there around 11 and it was already quite busy, since it was a Saturday morning. I stayed until after lunch and it got really crowded, and the vendors had more activities at their booths, such as models posing with gear and hosts interviewing photographers. While Taiwan just celebrated 200 days without a local coronavirus infection, I still did not want to take any chances, so I left early. Let me share my impressions of particular brands and how the show looked like in general.

DP Review top comments about Nikon Z two years later

DP Review is one of the largest English speaking photography websites and forums in the world. Before Youtube became so important for camera discussions, it was DP Review that was the place to be to talk about it. And it's still is a vibrant and influential forum today. The site usually has access to preproduction cameras of all major brands and they usually publish their initial impressions and mini reviews right on the launch day, and the real review several days later. I wanted to see how much has changed between 2018 and early 2019, when Nikon launched their first generation Z6 and Z7 and 2020, when they released the second generation with the Z5, Z6 II and Z7 II. I went to the official review, and selected the Top Comment, that is the comment with most upvotes by the forum members. This should give us a little indication about the sentiments back then and how they have changed, if any, in 2020.

Olympus may sell camera business, but the Olympus brand won't die

Olympus, a famous yet in recent years declining camera brand, has announced today that the camera division may be sold to Japan Industrial Partners, Inc (JIP) by the end of the year. JIP is a Japanese investment firm that is most known for buying the Sony Vaio brand in 2014. Olympus as a company is doing fine, because its core business is in other fields like medicine, but their camera division, once their main division, is making loses for several consequtive quarters. This is what Olympus posted on their website: 

Life in Taipei 3 months after the coronavirus outbreak

An ambulance worker in Taipei (May 5, 2020)

Taiwan recorded the first official coronavirus case on January 21, 2020. That's about three and a half months ago from today. At that time the outbreak was already very strong in the city of Wuhan and spreading to other parts of China as well as countries across the world. It was said that Taiwan will be the most affected country after China, but luckily the opposite proved to be true and today I want to talk about my journey during this pandemic, how I coped with it and how life was in Taiwan during this time.

The Apple store in Taipei 101 is empty

I don't go much out lately, I mainly stay at home in my suburban apartment, however a few days ago I had some errands to do, and so I went to Taipei 101 area. I had a little time to visit the Apple store, and to nobody's surprise, the store was almost empty. There was about 2 times more staff than visitors (picture was taken around noon).

Taiwan coronavirus lockdown might happen very soon

Over 2 months in into the global coronavirus crisis, Taiwan has always been a step ahead of the issue. Until this very moment as I am writing this, there has not been a nation wide or even a city level lockdown like it's common in most other countries. Life here is relatively normal: Schools and offices are open, so are restaurants and shops, as well as public transportation. Here in Taipei specifically I'd say 80% of the people wear masks in public, inside the Taipei Metro it's above 95%, on the streets it's less because there's also easier to keep a certain distance to others. How it's in other cities around the country I don't know, but friends tell me people in Tainan are much less conscious about wearing a mask and taking precaution. Northern Taiwanese are generally known as being more serious and uptight as compared to Southerners.

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.

New CASIO G-Shock 2020 Spring & Summer Collection launched

Casio just launched 4 amazing new G-Shock models from various series as part of their 2020 Spring & Summer Collection (G-Steel, MR-G, MT-G and classic square). They made some amazing videos to introduce these watches, and in this post I will list them out for you, and share some basic information about them, as well as my personal opinion.

Taiwan is facing the 2nd coronavirus wave

In my post merely 3 days ago I wrote about how Taiwan is slowly losing grip on coronavirus containment due to human selfishness, and unfortunately I was right. In less than a week the number of infected doubled and we now have 100 confirmed cases. 21 of the newest 23 that were added today were imported by Taiwanese who came back after traveling around Turkey. This was the biggest single day increase in the country since the first case was reported on January 21, almost 2 months ago. As a consequence, the government barred all foreign travelers from entering the country (with few exceptions), while Taiwanese nationals who return have to go into 14 days home quarantine (source).

Taiwan is slowly losing grip on coronavirus containment due to human selfishness

Barely a week passed since I wrote my last post about the coronavirus situation in Taipei, and I was confident that my next post will be a month later. Boy was I wrong. So here we are just 8 days later, and Taiwan's number of infected people jumped from 49 to 67. I actually knew this will happen. So what is the reason for the spike, you might ask?

Living in Taipei during the novel coronavirus scare - a month later

A month ago I wrote a post called Living in Taiwan during the novel coronavirus scare. That was at a time when the virus just made news all over the world, and the first cases started to appear outside China: Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan were among those countries that had reported single digit cases at that time, while the majority of cases were still reported out of Wuhan. It was a very scary time, a time of great anxiety for me personally, as well as for Taiwanese people in general. We were not sure what was happening, and what will happen. A month later things look so much different from this side of the world, so let me share my perspective.

G-Shock G-LIDE GBX-100 announcement

CASIO G-Shock just announced their latest series called GBX-100 Japanese website 価格.com reports. This is a new line which is part of the G-LIDE sub-series, a collection of classic square watches that are meant for surfers. While the watch looks a bit like the classic square (see my full list of classic squares here), it has a resin enclosure and band, but the core of the watch is in a stainless steel case. The weight and size are a bit in between the classic square model like the G-5600E which I own, and the huge GX-56/GXW-56, or the so called "King of G-Shocks".

The Fuji X-Pro3 is a huge disaster!

The Fuji X-Pro3 is a crop-sensor camera Fujifilm launched 3 months ago (in December 2019) and ever since one issue after another has been reported with this camera. Here I want to break down all the problems this camera has had so far in order to warn you from potential waste of money.

Living in Taipei during the novel coronavirus scare

I was never big on new year celebrations, so when the year 2019 finally turned to 2020, I was actually sleeping. As usual, the main fire works in Taiwan at Taipei 101 were splendid. I watched them on Youtube the next day. Unlike in other countries, Taiwan was looking into the future with a lot of concern and anxiety. The presidential elections were merely 11 days away, and once again people were torn between supporting the current ruling party which is pro-Taiwan, or give the pro-China opposition a chance to retake the power. Typically a change of party would be the norm at this point, as Taiwanese usually grow tired of the existing government very fast, but because of what was happening in Hong Kong for so many months prior to the election, Taiwanese grew suspicious and vary of opening up to China again, so they chose to support the current president, and keep the distance to China. Little did they know that this will pay off immensely so soon.