Watch Nikon Pursue the "Apple" Strategy of Letting Other Companies Work Out the Kinks and then Releasing a Great Product.

Remember in 1959 when all the rangefinder users laughed about SLR cameras?

They'd never equal the appeal of rangefinders, right?

So, who came through with proof of concept?

Hint: It was not "first to market" Exacta....

Many pundits on the web think that somehow Sony got all the knowledge about how to build advanced cameras and poor Nikon (and Canon) are just standing at the backdoor of the Sony camera factory begging for table scrapes. But I'm thinking that nothing could be further from the truth. I think Nikon has been riding a long tail of profitable film and then digital cameras and they've been standing back watching and learning from both the pitfalls and the successes of the companies who have been making and marketing mirrorless cameras for the past eight years.

Don't forget that Nikon launched the One Series of mirrorless cameras well over six years ago and they were able to get a lot of stuff right without having a Sony mirrorless one inch sensor ILC camera around to copy from.

We are hearing that Nikon will launch their first "professional," full frame mirrorless camera in the next few months. While it's true that Nikon stumbles from time to time they also have been making very successful and popular cameras since at least the early 1950's.

Here is why I think Nikon will come into the market and do well:

Love what you photograph. Photograph what you love.

Too often we are so enamored of our cameras as intricate little (metaphorical) puzzles that we come to subconsciously believe their purpose is provide the entertainment of puzzle solving, not image making. When we make images we seem to forget that our highest and best use of our cameras is as tools to interpret and share not only what we see but how we see it. Our initial impetus to buy and learn how to use a camera is usually the result of something new and special in our lives. That could be new insight or knowledge about a subject (the idea driving photojournalism) which we feel needs to be shared, or the arrival of new life or new love. The original embrace of the camera comes from the desire to show and share, and to prove that we were here with our own, unique sense of what is beautiful; what should be visually interpreted and preserved.

Try as we might to destroy the world by wringing from it every ounce of profit and plunder we can't stop beauty from continually swirling around us in our everyday lives. We can notice it, appreciate it, gain refuge from the knowledge of its existence, and try to share it with other people thru our cameras.

Sometimes we have to quiet our thoughts in order to see beauty more clearly. Sometimes we have to subdue our need to master a craft in order to understand more completely its real magic and its real reason to exist.

Just a few thoughts on a hot but happy day.