Re: The Nikon D3 makes everyone's life better, even mine!!!

TH O <tho@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>And best of all, Nikon has introduced planned obsolescence into its 
>line. We used to be able to use manual focus lenses on all cameras but 
>now you need an $1800 camera or better (D300) since Nikon has removed 
>metering and aperture coupling ability from lower end bodies. Which 
>means that now the customers are more likely to buy new lenses. With the 
>D40/D40x/D60, half of the autofocus lenses won't AF on the bodies, so it 
>further limits the available used lenses, makes many AF lenses obsolete, 
>and leads customers towards new lenses.


Nikon has been doing this for years.  I was very disappointed indeed
when the Nikon N80/F80 did not offer metering with AIS lenses.  Within
a short time, the only Nikon SLR body options for a photographer
expecting to meter with AIS lenses started with the F100, at a price
not unadjacent to the equivalent value of today's $1800.

So this is nothing new.  What Nikon did was to improve their lenses
incrementally.  First AI, then AIS, then AF (in two attempts), then
AF-D, then AI-P, then AF-S, and now VR.  Somewhere in there was AF-P
also.  So Nikon offered some backward compatibility, but not the sort
of near-total compatibility that the Canon EF mount has offered.

However, let us not forget that Canon abandoned its loyal FL and FD
customer base (and largely alienated it) with the introduction of the
EF mount.  At least Nikon has avoided that, going for step by step
changes that keep most Nikon users on board rather than Canon's one
step change that turned off a whole community of loyal fans.