Between Nikon and Leica you can't hardly wade through the thick soup of BS that surrounds these two brands. The main claim to fame that the Nikon F had was its modularity. That and Nikon Professional Services, or what ever it was called back then. No matter how many times you repeat the myth there was nothing particularly special about their lenses, bellows, blah, blah, blah. Minolta had all the same things only they were better.
Don't misunderstand me, the Nikon F really was a good camera. But it was just a big Legos kit and guys love Legos. "Oh look what I can do...I take this off and put this other thingy in its place and now it is different. How cool! And so did their companies. Something breaks, take it off, toss it out and replace it with another. It was the same concept that Cadillac brought to the table for automobile repair. Easily replaceable parts. Even the guy in the field could replace the parts. You did not have to send it back to the factory to be hand fitted and adjusted so it would work.
No one here really cares about digital cameras but that modularity could not be repeated by Nikon when digital came on the scene. By that time Canon really had developed some excellent cameras and lenses and their products made the transfer to digital just fine. Nikon had to rely on the old traditions and myths that started with the original Nikon F but it is getting pretty obvious from their recent sales data that the legend isn't holding up very well. Now you can't fix it in the field, you have to send it in to Nikon USA. And they are just not very fast at fixing their products.
Don't misunderstand me, the Nikon F really was a good camera. But it was just a big Legos kit and guys love Legos. "Oh look what I can do...I take this off and put this other thingy in its place and now it is different. How cool! And so did their companies. Something breaks, take it off, toss it out and replace it with another. It was the same concept that Cadillac brought to the table for automobile repair. Easily replaceable parts. Even the guy in the field could replace the parts. You did not have to send it back to the factory to be hand fitted and adjusted so it would work.
No one here really cares about digital cameras but that modularity could not be repeated by Nikon when digital came on the scene. By that time Canon really had developed some excellent cameras and lenses and their products made the transfer to digital just fine. Nikon had to rely on the old traditions and myths that started with the original Nikon F but it is getting pretty obvious from their recent sales data that the legend isn't holding up very well. Now you can't fix it in the field, you have to send it in to Nikon USA. And they are just not very fast at fixing their products.