> > ARE Pentax dropping the MZ-S? > > They are. I've been told that in practice you can no longer sell anything > costing more than 100 $ and using film, including MF. Only sub-100 $ > compacts resist, because you still cannot get a decent digicam in that price > range. > > Dario
And yet Nikon is dropping their film compacts... Realistically a good digital P&S is still more expensive than the $225 entry-level film SLRs. Presumably this accounts for the number of new cameras introduced in the last couple of years in this price range. > From: Kenneth Waller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > I have been told, by a Nikon sponsored pro, that there will be no new Nikon > SLR film camera. Now I guess the question is what does new mean? Would a >slightly modified F5 count as new or not? Given Nikon's past history, I wouldn't trust the statement of a "Nikon sponsored pro" to be all that well-informed. There are persistent rumors of a new film camera, presumed to be an "F6", in the Nikon community. I'm not sure I believe them, because the F-series sold primarily to pros and rich snooty amateurs, almost all of whom now shoot DSLRs. Who would buy an F6? Apparently, nobody is buying F5s. The price of a used F5 has dropped $400 or so in a year. What "slight modifications" could be put into an F5 anyway? Perhaps the AF system of the D2H, to appeal to the 3 pros still using Nikon film cameras? This might account for the apparent impending demise of the MZ-S. People who are going to spend that kind of money on a top-of-the-line camera are buying the *istD, or Canon. The pool of serious, film-using amateurs who will spend almost a grand on a camera must be very small. If the MZ-S DOES disappear, either something has to replace it or I would expect the "pro" lenses to start to disappear as well. Do they really think you're going to put a 300/2.8 FA* on a film *ist? Apparently people do occasionally buy them, since the A*s are still somewhat availible, and the FA*s are apparently still in production. If Nikon put out a new film camera, I would expect it to be lower down the market than the F-series so as to be an advanced amateur camera that could be used as a basis for a D100 successor, say an "N95". It would presumably fit in the line between the $1000 F100 (upon which the D1 series was based) and the $400 N80 (upon which the D100 was based). Problem is, can you sell a $600-750 film SLR anymore? Pentax doesn't seem to think so. It may also be the case that you don't need to or can't have a volume-sales film camera to base a DSLR on any more. Consider that the D2H is the first DSLR from Nikon (or Canon, I think) that is NOT based on a film SLR and has technologies that are NOT availible in any of the company's film cameras. I'm not going to believe that digital has killed film until we start seeing a lot more DSLRs that are not based on film SLRs. I'm very curious why the *istD is not in fact a digitized version of the *ist. DJE
