[Link] Sony to buy Nikon soon?

[Frank Fremerey]

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/former-nikon-ambassador-sporsheim-says-sony-circling-around-nikons-camera-division-like-shark-water-smelling-blood/

Sony is lacking two things currently:

1. A professional worldwide support network. Sony support really sucks, Nikon support is one of the best in the industry

2. A user interface that does not suck big time like Sony's interface does.

What Sony has is:

1. Industry leading still photo recording chips in several formats from Smartphones to 44x33 qmm

2. Some of the best video recording chips

3. A mouth watering line up of lenses from Minolta and Zeiss

To make a long story short.

YES!!!

These companies should team up in some way and do so very soon. This will be great news for both companies and their customers!

[Hugh_3170]

Well it would spell the death knell for Nikon, as Sony so far have not convinced me that they can run a camera company such as the likes of Canon or Nikon. 

On the other hand if they can get the company cheap enough, they could do what many US software companies do - buy a competitor and slowly shut it down, thereby removing said competitor.

We live in interesting times.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Sony would quickly destroy Nikon's service network as unnecessary  and also get rid of any products with optical viewfinders as they did with the A mount. F mount would no doubt become SLT'd and then they'd wonder where the customers went as they did before.

Canon would basically then take over much of Nikon's market share.

I would either quit photography (since I cannot work with EVFs), or sell everything at a huge loss (because the Nikon system would be seen as a dead end, the resale prices of cameras and lenses would plummet) and buy Canon equipment and keep working with that.  That may not be so bad - one can almost buy two TS-E lenses (17 and 24) for the price of one Nikon 19mm PC ... 

"Haven’t updated me for a while either"

So, if I read this statement correctly, this "information" behind the "rumor" is not based on current knowedge of Sony's intentions.

[Thomas Stellwag]

I ´ve already heared there will be no D5s, but a D5 Alpha 

[Peter]

I don't like this!!

[bjornthun]

Sony already have stills cameras and pro video cameras for their E mount. I judge Sony's current engagement in their DSLR A mount to be a service to existing A mount users, rather than a strategy for the future.

Sony has begun reworking the UI, with a new menu system in the A6500 camera. A touch interface has started evolving as well.

Nikon service and support in Norway has been staffed down from 13 to 3 persons in Norway, according to Frank's link. Where is this excellent service and support organization that Sony would get by buying Nikon?

Nikon is weak on video, no really good video AF (no LV PDAF nor dual pixel like Canon), no EVF option, no focus peaking. Nothing for Sony in the video department

Nikon has fast AF for sports and action with long lenses with the D5 and D500, particularly tracking is excellent. This is the only thing where Sony is behind with the E mount. The A mount A99 mkII is much closer to Nikon in performance here, but there is a much smaller selection of long lenses than for Nikon.

Lens design, Nikon, Sony and Zeiss are all capable of making great lenses and they do so. Canon, Leica, Fujifilm, Olympus, Cosina (Voigtländer), Panasonic can all be added to that list. So no gain is to be had here by a merger of Sony and Nikon. Sony is already outputting as many or more new lens models per year for the E mount than Nikon does for the F mount.

Lastly, Nikon management appear to me to be bad, and I wouldn't want any Nikon management people to work with the Sony E mount system. Period. Just see how they have botched the Nikon 1 system, the DL launch, Snapbridge, Keymisdion. This is to be blamed on management rather than the engineers. Nikon engineers just made the 105/1.4 and the 19/4 PC-E.

The parts of Nikon worth having for Sony is the Nikon lens designers and the Precision equipment division. The rest not, I think. Sony does lens design well and Zeiss is on board, so that leaves Precision Equipment.

I don't think Sony should buy Nikon. Rather I hope that Nikon will find a partner that is strong on video, but currently isn't strong on stills cameras or lens development. Preferrably the Precision equipment division of Nikon should fit into such a partnership as well. Someone should evaluate Nikon management and take action on their findings.

Edit: Typos

[Erik Lund]

Time will tell - So far this is one guys that has heard about a shark in Norway,,,

[bjornthun]

Time will tell - So far this is one guys that has heard about a shark in Norway,,,

We have long coast line, and sometimes sharks make detours to our waters. 

[Erik Lund]

He he,,, indeed!

[simato73]

Seems unlikely to me.
This kind of aggressive acquisition of rivals may happen in the US, but is very rare in Japan.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Seems unlikely to me.
This kind of aggressive acquisition of rivals may happen in the US, but is very rare in Japan.

We have seen this on the software side of digital photography, unfortunately. Corel is infamous for getting rid of competition that way and so is Adobe.

[Tristin]

That would be a tragedy.  Nikon is not just a company that makes cameras and lenses, it is a company that honors it's heritage and is dedicated to the art and soul of it's endeavours.  A rare and valuable thing nowdays.  Sony doesn't care about any of that, they just make profit.  While they could improve areas of Nikon's tech, they would bury the heart in a shallow grave to save money on the gravediggers.  All future "Nikon" gear would be based solely off flavor of the week and all of it would be fair game for the chopping block when it isn't.  You could kiss legacy support good bye.  No thank you. 

[Erik Lund]

I also think that this is very unlikely to happen in Japan

[bjornthun]

That would be a tragedy.  Nikon is not just a company that makes cameras and lenses, it is a company that honors it's heritage and is dedicated to the art and soul of it's endeavours.  A rare and valuable thing nowdays.  Sony doesn't care about any of that, they just make profit.  While they could improve areas of Nikon's tech, they would bury the heart in a shallow grave to save money on the gravediggers.  All future "Nikon" gear would be based solely off flavor of the week and all of it would be fair game for the chopping block when it isn't.  You could kiss legacy support good bye.  No thank you.

How can you say that Sony doesn't care about their heritage? Sony and Nikon have different heritages that they care about. And make no mistake, both companies are run for profit in a most "capitalist" interpretation of the word.

Lest we not forget, almost a year ago the rumour was, that Samsung would acquire Nikon... Let's wait and see.

[stenrasmussen]

If there is any truth in this and Sony does swallow parts of Nikon, I think the only part of Nikon to survive will be the single digit D, the sports/action lenses and perhaps the CLS flash system. Later the F-mount will be changed to the A- or E-mount. Yup, I like a Nikon future like that