Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Discussing Thom Hogan's "State of DX" article

So I regularly follow Thom Hogan's excellent site (www.bythom.com).

He has an interesting article he posted yesterday called the "State of DX" (scroll down a bit on the page).

To summarize, he talks about the current situation for Nikon DX users (like myself). What is happening in the future, what should be happening in the future, and what is not so great right now.

In a nutshell, the DX format will not see too much going on this year, we are most likely getting a D400, and a D5000 update. But it's the lenses that are really a big issue to me at least. I never really thought about it before, but there is a lack of DX lenses that should be a no-brainer for Nikon. For the range I would be interested in (wide angle), there is not much to choose from. We do not have any wide-angle primes, or a DX PC-E lens. Nikon is focusing on it's DX lineup but are shorting us on proper DX lenses for serious shooters. We have tonnes of zooms and kit lenses and the like. We have a 35mm 1.8 prime, but nothing below that. For wide angle, we have the 10-24 or 12-24. But any primes are FX only and really expensive! I for one would love to see a DX PC-E lens, the widest is the 24mm PC-E, but that is not really that wide for DX users.

So, I don't feel too confident moving forward and actually seeing any of these lenses. It seems that they are just focusing on the consumer zoom set of lenses. Moving to FX is not fiscally suitable for everyone, me included. I know there are alot of serious DX shooters who like the smaller size of the DX cameras for travelling light, the extra reach of the 1.5 crop or whatever other reasons. People that use DX aren't just mom and pop wanting to shoot the kids soccer game and whatnot. There are people that make their bread and butter with DX cameras that shouldn't be ignored!

Here is the end of his blurb:
Prognosis: Poor. Nikon will introduce one mediocre body update and maybe one decent one, and have little or nothing to say about significant new DX lenses and the future of DX lenses. Considering that DX is the core of Nikon Imaging's profit engine, this is disappointing and bodes ill for the long-term health of the company.

Well, I hope someone at Nikon reads Thom's article! What are your thoughts??

C



No comments: