Nikon seem to be in "photographer-friendly" mode at the moment and its nice to see that some half-hearted attempt at mirrorless, which is how the first incarnation of this system looked to me has been re-thought. There's a nice video on it here at Engadget. A few "gimmicky" bits but I must admit I thought they looked quite useful.
I'm more inclined to take this a bit more seriously now after using the RX100 for a while. I really did like the huge DOF I got with that camera, but ultimately it was way too small for me and handled like the point and shoot compact it was, so I sold it. This V2 looks like it would offer much the same advantages but with a much better layout for photographers, with of course the bonus (not really a bonus, more a neccessity as far as I'm concerned) of a decent viewfinder. Less pixels than the RX100, which is no bad thing quality wise, and a decent grip. Kirk Tuck has described the process of holding out cameras without viewfinders in front of you as akin to how you would handle a "dirty diaper". Not a particularly attractive thought but it does sum it up quite nicely.
There are people saying already that this V2 is ugly, but it doesn't strike me that way. Plus thats not what counts anyway. My Nikon DSLR's are no beauty queens, but they sure handle well.
So, in line with my policy of keeping an open mind, I'm maybe reassessing my views on the Nikon 1 system and may be inclined to give this a try. I'm still trying to find the best option to take out with my DP2 Merrill, and this may well work.
You'd think a new Apple Mac Laptop with a fast processor and a retina display would be useful for photographers, but with their insistance on flash storage and the removal of the DVD / CD drive then its certainly not useful to me. I have no wish to go on one of my shooting trips and have to take a DVD writer and external hard disk with me. Kind of makes a nonsense of a small light computer.
Since I store an awful lot of pictures on my current laptop while I edit them, plus all my software etc. 256GB just isn't big enough, and I'm not inclined to pay an extra £800 to get the flash storage up to what I have now. I also send a lot of images to libraries on DVD. They can then download them and throw the disks away. Its simple and its easy.
The cloud is obviously useless to me as its too slow and I don't like the idea of storing my images god knows where.
So are Apple "leaving me behind" with these new machines? To a certain extent they may be. I've always thought that advances in technology should add in new possibilities but not throw away old ones to let that happen.
They probably want to me use an iPad as well, but I still can't think of a single reason to buy one. Maybe they are too much into style over content to be of any relevance to me in the future. Of course Apple are well known for listening to their customers (NOT!) so I don't anticipate any backtracking. A shame since I've used Macs for many years. Just have to hope my current Macbook Pro keeps going I guess, and maybe explore some alternatives if it doesn't.
So thats one company that thinks about what photographers might need and another that seems to be moving in an opposite direction. The way of the world I guess.
N.B. to see more on the cameras and lenses featured in this post click on the relevant labels (tags and keywords) below.
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