28 replies to this topic

[davephdv]

In DPreview, in the Nikon DSLR forum there is a link to a picture of a alleged new Digtial Nikonos. It might be a great idea if well but it looks designed like a photoshop hoax to me. See my comments there.

[Cybergoldfish]

If it's true a good many peoples dreams would have come true and the lobbying will have paid off.
However, I might question the suitabilty of the lenses and the weird and wonderful effects a small chip would have upon them.

The picture looks like a 4a with an RS grip!

[davephdv]

I agree, but look at the nice touches. There is an autofocus button on the front and the 28 mm lens is not the standard one. It only has the aperture dial and says autofocus nikkor on it. The serial # looks suspiciously high though.

[Craig Ruaux]

Why does it have an aperture control on the top right side of the camera body, and an aperture control on the lens itself ??? If you're going to reengineer a lens for autofocus, why leave an aperture control when the lens is destined to be used only on a body with electronic aperture control :ph34r:.

There are several places where this photoshop mock up fails. The textured area on the left of the camera body is inconsistently lit, the viewfinder front element and surrounding bezel are obviously old and show wear. You can see a Gaussian noise addition around the word "Digital", attempting to mimic the texture of the remainder of the body. There's an alpha channel artifact around the F P dial on the viewfinder...

A reasonably well carried off photoshop hoax, but boy, what a concept. I know I'd buy it...

[jimbo1946]

HOAX! HOAX! HOAX!

I would be a bit more believable if I didn't already know that Nikon is retreating rapidly from underwater photography. The beginning was in the early 1990s when the RS flopped so badly.

We can dream, but for the foreseeable future, housed DSLRs are the way to go for serious U/W photography.

[jimbo1946]

If you check this out a little further, the photo is posted in some fellow's online gallery:

Bobby Handal | profile | all galleries >> digital dream


It would have been a great April Fool's Day post!

[Rob Esaw]

Nikon, are you listening?????

Hurry up.

[Cybergoldfish]

The only real system of digital Amphibious jobbies would I think have to be based around the RS, but would have to be significantly cheaper too, to augment sales. Maybe around $3000 for the body & 28mm lens.

Who knows, they really might do it!

[craig]

I think a digital RS could be very exciting. Hope they would fix the bouyancy though. I know a hardcore RS fan and he looks a little like Popeye.

[Cybergoldfish]

Without all the mechanical stuff it would be significantly lighter. It would also be less prone to flooding with only 2 access's for batteries and cards/MD's. The view finder of the RS knocks the crap out of any housed camera! :freak:

[Cybergoldfish]

We can dream, but for the foreseeable future, housed DSLRs are the way to go for serious U/W photography.

Unless you're a photographer and don't require all that help of course!

[ChristianG]

As a former RS owner and nowadays (and resultantly) VERY anti-Nikon photographer, let me add my 2 cents worth.

Until such time as Nikon actually acknowledges that there are customers out there, until they actually take heed of those customers (none of which took place during the development of the RS - it is seriously technically flawed quite apart from the weight) I, for one, will no longer entertain a Nikon/os product.

Yes, I know, I'm well aware that I'm possibly cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I bought mine immediately after the euphoria that was engendered by its appearance, probably at the instigation of the quite brilliant German magazine UWF (UnterWasser Foto - Film und Video) who first declared it to the world in a supplement to their standard publication - I still have every UWF, unfortunately no more.

Sadly although truly excellent in some respects, especially as to the lenses and that viewfinder, underneath it all the RS was a truly compromised system (I've seen it stripped bare and some of the engineering is quite shocking, O Ring issues, FLAT RUBBER SEALS fer gorsakes - I hasten to add from a water integrity point of view). The list BTW goes on.

I will not make that mistake again - it was supposed to see out my diving days. I hope that is also a salutory lesson to those that lust after a digital equivalent.

Don't, DO NOT, just jump in as I did.

The RS was a camera in a housing, just like the previous Nikonos cameras starting with the Calypso. The difference was that with the Nikonos non-SLRs Nikon had an excellent basis from which to engineer their products. Yet they even got those wrong with the IVA.

Cheers,

Christian

[Kelpfish]

Dave,

I must have missed it. Can't seem to locate the link anymore. Wonder if someone got wise and removed it?

Joe

[Giles]

another faker me thinks too

click here for the dpreview link

photo is linked from here

[Kelpfish]

Thanks, Giles.

Looks too phoney for me. I would like to see the back. It really does look like a IVA with some good Photoshop work.

Joe

[ehanauer]

Somebody has way too much time on his hands, and needs to get a life beyond Photoshop. If Nikon ever gets back into underwater photography, it will go the Olympus or Canon route, making dedicated, cheap plastic housings for their point and shoot cameras. The potential market for a digi Nikonos is too miniscule for them to bother with.

[PirateProShana]

I know it's been a while since anyone replied to this, but eahauer is pretty much right on. I'm not sure the market exists for someone like Nikon to get back into the dedicated underwater camera market. I've done quite a bit of work trying to size this market because I work for a company called PiratePro, that has been exploring how to create a housing that allows Nikonos V lenses to be used with a contemporary commercially available digital camera. We found that building the digital camera into the Nikonos housing natively was way way too expensive to even contemplate. If we were a company the size of Nikon and we had committed bulk orders from someone like the military, maybe. Otherwise, it[s basically a non-starter. Plus, housings setups are pretty much the way everyone's going these days. We've come up with a design that we'll be bringing to market in early winter of 2009 that pairs any of the Nikonos V-compatible lenses with a brand new Olympus E-P1. Even that, I think, will be a niche product.

Shana Lyons
www.piratepro.com

[Phil Rudin]

Hi Shana,

Lenses for the 4:3 and M 4:3 cameras are designed to mate with the 4:3 sensor, so they have no crop factor. The Nikonos lenses are designed for the 35 mm format which is a 3:2 format. In your Q&A section no reference is made to the "crop factor" which will apply using Nikonos lenses on the M 4:3 sensor. If it is X2 the Nikonos 15 mm lens would have the effective AOV of a 30 mm lens is this correct?

Phil Rudin

http://www.sfups.org...udin/index.html

[davephdv]

Interesting.

I started this thread as merely a "pipe dream" Not expecting that anyone would ever make a housing that could use Nikonos lenses.

I should be noted that Nikonos lenses do not have the usual 35 mm degree of coverage.

For instance the legendary Nikonos 15 mm has the same angle of coverage as a 20 mm lens on a 35 mm SLR. 94 degrees if I remember.

The 20 mm Nikonos had the same coverage as a 24 mm lens on a SLR.

[james]

That is correct - since the Nikonos lenses are water contact they don't have the same AOV as a land lens behind a dome port.

Cheers
James