Nikon Photo Contest 2012-2013--No Film Allowed!?

[CGW]

Thom Hogan pointed this one out yesterday. Seems Nikon, despite still selling film cameras, won't accept any scanned film images for their contest. Great news for all those F6 owners. Odd? Ironic? Fill in the blank...

Nikon Photo Contest

Just scroll down to Submission Guideline.

 

[pschwart]

Nikon is clueless. Why should anyone care whether an image originated on film or as a digital image? This pretty much eliminates medium and large format participation. I also own an FM, N80, N90s, F3, F4, F100 and a Coolscan 9000, but Nikon would rather I used my Canon DSLR. Nikon should be supporting film, or at least not penalizing film users. Shame on them; I won't be participating.

Silver lining: Maybe this will encourage folks to dump their film cameras and lenses so I can pick them up cheap.

 

[CGW]

Nikon really hasn't had any dogs in the fight for years. The F6 in 2004 was too much too late; scanners dropped 2-3 years ago; patchy support/service for late model film gear; almost-extinct MF glass; G/DX lenses with no retrofit ability to manual bodies. Despite the hollering about Nikon's "betrayal" of film on APUG, the company's last hurrahs for film cameras that sold well were the F5(1996) and the F100(1999). The pricey FM3A was a minor fiasco in 2001. Helps to have some perspective on just how long ago Nikon stepped away from film cameras.

 

[pschwart]

How does this justify Nikon's choice to actively penalize film users, even those who have invested in Nikon products?

 

[CGW]

In most cases, camera gear isn't much of an investment, return-wise. My only point above is that Nikon hasn't had much obvious interest in film photography for years. There's more irony than insult in the contest guidelines.

 

[CGW]

The usual fun and games with this over at APUG:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[desertfotog]

Personally, I am as busy as ever with film photography and am making up large prints for a gallery display from 40 and 50 year old negatives. I recently bought two film enlargers and several lenses for analog camera bodies.
But I remember what they said to people who bemoaned the passing of the Silent Film -- "Pal, the parade's gone by...."

 

[I.G.I.]

How does this justify Nikon's choice to actively penalize film users, even those who have invested in Nikon products?

We can only guesstimate what's going on inside corporate minds... my take is that at present Nikon profits are derived entirely from digital capture (apparently DSLRs/mirrorless are so profitable that the big brands churn out disproportionately more bodies than lenses); evidently Nikon's commercial propaganda is determined not to allow present and prospective customers get distracted/ask questions themselves when confronted with perfectly adequate alternative modes of capture, that on top of that are often decades old while digital become "obsolete" in just a few years.

 

[OzJohn]

The usual fun and games with this over at APUG:

/QUOTE]

And is not APUG the better forum to discuss/rant about stuff like this? To me this topic has only an oblique relationship to hybrid/digital practice. I'm not suggesting that DPUG proactively discourage certain discussions in the manner that APUG does; rather that some threads started here have virtually nothing to with digital photography and would generate far more interest and traffic on APUG. OzJohn

 

[pschwart]

The usual fun and games with this over at APUG:

/QUOTE]

And is not APUG the better forum to discuss/rant about stuff like this? To me this topic has only an oblique relationship to hybrid/digital practice. I'm not suggesting that DPUG proactively discourage certain discussions in the manner that APUG does; rather that some threads started here have virtually nothing to with digital photography and would generate far more interest and traffic on APUG. OzJohn

I think not. DPUG doesn't mean *pure* digital. DPUG started out as hybridphoto, and film is a critical component of many hybrid workflows. I'll agree that hybrid has gotten lost in DPUG; too bad, because that's what made the old site distinctive.

 

[Pioneer]

I am a bit curious about one thing. If I used an old bellows and slide copier to capture an image of a slide or negative with a D3 or D600, then manipulated that digitally, how would they know whether or not it was originally captured digitally or not?

 

[Felinik]

They prolly want to use the contest material for marketing, and why would they care to market anything else than their digital gear these days....

 

[OzJohn]

I think not. DPUG doesn't mean *pure* digital. DPUG started out as hybridphoto, and film is a critical component of many hybrid workflows. I'll agree that hybrid has gotten lost in DPUG; too bad, because that's what made the old site distinctive.

I think the decision to shift hybrid from APUG to a new forum, DPUG, was to appease diehards at APUG and does a disservice to those who do practice hybrid techniques because of the comparative lack of traffic here. Last time I alluded to this in another thread someone quoted to me how many threads and posts there are here relating to hybrid that I should read. I'm not going to search out or read them because I don't have any real interest in hybrid techniques.

It matters not that the genesis of DPUG was hybrid photography. The name at the top of my screen says Digital Photography Users Group and from my point of view the hybrid stuff is welcome here but it is disappointing that there are not more threads that deal with photography originated in a digital camera.

Most threads that are started relate in some way to scanning and if that is to be the permanent thrust of this forum then it holds little interest for digital photographers who make up most of the photo community. If DPUG continues to attract mainly hybrid/scanning traffic then it proves the point that it should be part of APUG and that digital photographers are shunning DPUG in preference to other forums.

While I own scanners I rarely use them for the simple reason that I scanned nearly everything that needed scanning years ago and have no ongoing commitment to film based photography. I therefore will not be generating too much more scanner fodder. OzJohn