[Leica] OT - Nikon D3X

[drodgers at casefarms.com (David Rodgers)]

"A. Lal" wrote:

>>I don't think it is a matter of price alone; know-how may well play a 
>>role.<<

Well, know-how...cost...price....they're all related. 

Cameras today are about software and electronics. That's what surprises me 
about Nikon. I always think of Nikon as an optics company. But they've 
adapted well. You probably can't separate hardware from software in the 
total imaging workflow today. 

I remember talking to a Nikon rep years ago. Film was still predominant and 
few photographers were thinking too much about software, other than PS to 
work on scanned images. The rep emphasized that Nikon was making a huge 
commitment to the software side of things. I thought she meant Capture. She 
corrected me. The way she phrased it sounded like the post-camera processing 
software was one small link in a much bigger chain that Nikon was committed 
to mastering. 

For an optics company to go out and hire a bunch of software techies is 
probably a big paradigm shift. Not that Nikon did that...or didn't. I don't 
know how they went about things. Yet it seems to me they developed a lot 
firmware internally, versus contracting the firmware part of things out. 
Again, just my impression for reading a lot.

So Nikon has been committed to the electronics and data processing side of 
maximizing image quality for a while. Maybe they are just now getting ahead 
of everyone. Canon, until recently, seemed to have the upper hand. Maybe 
even Leica for a time. 

Obviously the sensor is important. The thing I'm curious about is whether or 
not Leica can get by without an AA filter in their bodies because their 
lenses are so good. Is the real reason other companies have AA filters 
because of moir?? Or is that just an excuse to dumb down the sensor because 
their lenses aren't as good as Leica lenses? I'll probably never know, but I 
still wonder. 

DaveR