Cameras and Photography Explained

LEDE ON

With NAB behind us, we move into the Father’s Day/Graduation buying period still with virtually nothing new to add to the gift list. We’re definitely in a drought state when it comes to anything other than Chinese lenses. 

Here’s another of my economic-side warnings: the supply chain just took another hit with the Iran conflict. That might not be evident to you yet, but it is to all my buddies still building things. That's because they know the sequence that starts tripping the dominoes, and they’ve seen some dominoes already falling. You need helium for semiconductor creation, you need oil for plastics creation. Both are starting to be hoarded and rationed in SE Asia in anticipation of not being able to replenish the existing supplies soon. I’m starting to hear backchatter that even Apple is now considering postponing product launches. The worst thing in the tech world is to announce a Great New Widget and not be able to deliver it to demand. Doing that gives competitors time to respond, and, of course, you’re not getting gonzo dollars from the buzz you create. 

The traditional camera makers, with their 8m unit volume overall a year, are going to have a difficult time getting the volume of parts, particularly new parts, in order to keep up any semblance of pace in product launches. Even a company such as GoPro sells more cameras these days than do Nikon, OMDS, Panasonic, and maybe even Sony. Volume gives you purchasing power in tight situations as we’re about to encounter. 

My advice continues to be about the same as it has been for quite some time now: if you’re waiting for something, I hope you like waiting. If you see something at a reasonable price that you want, best pick it up while it’s available. We’ve gone from GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) to BRAKE (Be Reasonable About Keeping Extending). 

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News

DxO Nik Collection 9

DxO continues to work on expanding and extending the Nik Collection. Version 9 now adds AI masking (both depth and general/object), a new color grading tool with a unique single wheel controller, blending modes, and three new specific tools: chromatic shift, glass effect, and halation. Other new features include hover preview for presets, an update to the local adjustments palette, the ability to copy and paste location adjustments, the ability to move masks between the plug-ins, color masks, simplified export and return to Photoshop options.

But wait, there’s more. Photoshop masks can be pulled into the plug-in, effect layers are already live in Photoshop while Nik is still running, the U-point interface has been expanded to include elliptical and polygonal control points, and much more.

Nik is now claiming that plug-ins open 30% faster and that all code in the Nik Collection is now authored by DxO (e.g. no legacy Nik or Google code). 

The above is all what we were all hoping would happen with DxO’s ownership of the long-lived and well-liked Nik Effects. Some product acquisitions die on the vine, as did Nik when Google bought the company. Others eventually spread new, better wings, and that seems to be what’s happening with Nik Collection. Nik has remained one of the few tools I leave installed in my photo processing suite, mostly because there are things you can do with it that are very tough to do without the plug-in.

Nik Collection 9 is available now and is US$180 for new users, as little as US$100 for those upgrading (depends upon which version you’re upgrading from). 

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Commentary

Seven Types of Lenses?

I mentioned it in passing in the NAB Show recap, but it requires more comment: Viltrox now claims seven lines of lenses (Air, EPIC, EVO, LAB, Pro, Raze, and unnamed). Now, not all of those types are always available at every focal length, but enough are that we’re starting to see at least three variants in a mount (typically some combination of Air, EVO, LAB, and Pro). 

One wonders whether extending this strategy any further has a real payoff. While Canon and Nikon traditionally have had a small range of choices at each focal length, that’s typically topped out at three. For example, for a prime, f/1.4, f/1.8 or f/2, f/2.8, or some variation on that. With zooms the overlap tends to be fast aperture, mid-aperture, variable aperture. And even then, the “multiple choice” is limited to mostly the 24-200mm range, where you have buyers at low consumer, mid-consumer, and prosumer/pro levels. 

Both Canon and Nikon are highly analytical when it comes to their sales data. They have a strong tendency towards “what sells.” 

So I guess my first question for Viltrox is “are all these named variants really selling in enough quantity to justify?” My followup question is “why this naming scheme? Are you sure that customers understand it well enough to hone in on the right lens for them?” 

The Product Line Marketing Manager in me keeps trying to build out a simple, understandable matrix, but Viltrox’s matrix just looks messy and sprawling. For lenses, I think the definitions typically should fit a three by three grid:

Anything beyond this starts to become a complex marketing problem. Too complex to maximize revenue with lower cost goods (Viltrox’s lenses tend to be affordable). 

As I’ve been handling and using various Viltrox lenses at the same focal length, I’ve found that there often is very little optical nuance to pull out for my eventual review. Viltrox seems to be keeping sharpness up across all the lines, with whatever differences that do show up via the optical design appearing in vignetting, distortion, focus breathing, and other parameters that don’t tend to be on most people’s decisionmaking tree. 

I get Viltrox’s rapid and constant product launches. Sometimes you need to appear active to customers and you learn things by doing a steady stream of products. But I’m not sure what Viltrox is learning. They appear to be treating lens production as more a commodity business, but it is not. Too low volume to utlimately be commodity driven. The Japanese are very good at realizing when they have to move up value to protect the business long-term. Somehow, the CIPA companies are selling far fewer products these days, but ultimately taking in about the same number of dollars, for instance. There’s a strong ceiling in what you can accomplish in the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market, and no one has found a way to dramatically raise that ceiling.

The question I have about Viltrox is this: once they've established their ultimate market penetration with lenses, then what? I have to think that they’d expand to building a camera, but that’s not the only possibility. Moreover, a huge, full line of lenses with only one camera would be weird, so what, would we get a messy line of cameras, too? 

In tech, you’re always running. You’re either running to catch up, you’re running with the pack, or you’re running ahead to the new goal you’ve found that the others haven’t yet. It feels to me like Viltrox ran to catch up, found themselves in the pack, and then just started dancing while they ran with the pack in order to call attention to themselves. 

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Wrapping Up

And in other news

▶︎ Another One Bites the Dust? The Coolpix P950 has apparently been discontinued in Japan. It’s difficult to interpret that, as it’s still available in other markets. It’s possible this is just a prelude to a minor change (ala the P1000 to P1100) due to parts changes, which trigger recertification across markets. 

▶︎ The Last Roadmap. Panasonic now seems to be the last camera maker providing a lens road map, and lo and behold, it has been updated to include a wide prime in the same line as the just-announced 40mm f/2, and a large-aperture telephoto zoom. That will make 22 lenses in the L-mount from Panasonic. My question to Panasonic remains: where’s the L-mount professional video cameras?