What would demonstrate a genuine commitment to long-term users is long-term spare parts availability.

There is a story that is probably true. This came from an independent camera repairman and long time friend. One day at Nikon USA repair technicians were instructed to take out a hammer and destroy all their spare Nikon F2 parts. The apparent purpose was to push sales of new Nikon F3.

Dave

Ahhhh....

Great find 

Ahhhh....

Nice chorus you found 

I would certainly applaud Nikon for making an engineering marvel regardless of its sales potential - not being either a stockholder or employee of Nikon it does not bother me if they lose a million or two.

However, if demonstrating support for long-term users is what is needed for Nikon's brand, an AF-D capable FTZ won't do it. The reason is that there are two issues for the usability of products more than a few years old: one, less important, is backward compatibility, and the other, more important, is spare parts availability. An AF-D capable FTZ won't help when the lens you bought to use it with develops a fault and can't be repaired. What would demonstrate a genuine commitment to long-term users is long-term spare parts availability.

One does not exclude the other but I second that Nikon could and should improve the servicability of their products and should have a look on Leica in this aspect. What I find especially annoying is that expthe ensive lenses like the 200-400/4 VR have some design flaws causing higher probability to fail and are on the same hand unservicable.

Impressions b&w

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