General question regarding Nikon marketing schemes

[Seb]

Howdy ho all!

Earlier today I was walking on the street and I passed by a small photo shop I am not familiar with so I entered and asked a sales rep if he knew when the Nikon D70 would be available.

He basicaly told me that he didn't knew and that chances were that the camera would hit the market later than sooner. According to him, Nikon (contrary to pretty much every other companies) has a long history for announcing new products without any specefic release date long before they truly become available and they even happen to delay the release from times to times. This would be their way to artificially create infatuation. People get to talk about that new camera that take a long long while to come out, they get hasty and when it finally comes out they jump on it (we somehow fit into this pattern lol).

Now, I don't know that sales rep I have talked to nor that store and I have only been into the photography loop for a year and an half so I just don't have the experience to judge about this.

How do you guy feel about it?

Regards

Seb

[JeffHall]

I don't know if I go along with that. Phil at Dpreview has already had his hands on a preproduction D70, and I wouldn't think the delay from that would be more than a few months (I could be wrong.) Canon has announced the IDII and it definitely won't be available until April-May, so I don't think there's a big difference between the announcement/release period for both companies. When was the D2H announced versus when it was released? I didn't think that was more than a few months.

[Sebastian]

Nikon is notorious for making "In Development" announcements. They announced the development of the 70-200 VR almost a year before it became available, and had non-working prototypes circulating some shows. A lot of people tend to confuse these with availability announcements and tend to get pissed when it's not in their hands withing a few days.

The D2H was available a few months after it was announced.

Canon does not make such development aqnnouncements, and is better at keeping things wuiet until shipping is eminent. Realistically though, it can be three to six months after these things ship before they become available to us common folk. Almost all the first shipments are already bought, newspapers, high-ranking pros, they all have better standing with shops and Nikon then we do, and they get theirs first. I'm still waiting for B&H to have that damn 10.5 mm fisheye in stock for more than a day so I could actually get the chance to ORDER one.

[Kokopeli]

It's my understanding that the D70 will be available sometime this Spring, but who knows how accurate that is.

[Photo-John]

The D2H was delayed at least twice after the official announcement. However, it was allegedly in use in Iraq by photojournalists before it was even announced. I guess Iraq was Nikon's QA.

[another view]

I have to disagree with your post - Fuji is pretty bad here too, at least with the S2! I think it was about six months from release until the time mere mortals could get their hands on one.

The D2H was pretty quick compared to so many of the other products that Nikon tells us about. The 12-24DX zoom was "released" over a year ago and you'll still have to look pretty hard to find one in stock anywhere. I don't think B&H has ever had it in stock, the ones they get have all gone to customers on their waiting list. Problem with B&H is, they're about the biggest in the world, and have a huge waiting list. Sure, I buy most of my stuff there but in a case like this you'll probably do better at a smaller shop.

Canon, on the other hand, did well with the Digital Rebel. It was announced, and in stock even at my horrible local place within that same month.

[setiprime]

Seb-

With out exception, camera manufacturers employ whatever means they can to work up interest and anticipation for there newest models, well ahead of the actual availability of the units.

Hype, (building of interest) is critical in order to get more market share.
So much of each "introduction" is designed to allude to "New", "Improved", "faster", etc.

The actual "improvements" seldom come up to what is advertised, or if they do-- do you really need them??

Nikons "New" 8700 is a good example - Same case, menus, lens, etc. as the 5700.
They give you more Megapixels (Too many ??) and a focus assist light.

so what - You are jamming more info into the same CCD, resulting in exactly what? More noise, larger file size etc, and to what end??

This is very typical of each manufacturer to a greater or lesser degree.

Now lets see what everyone else says -

[another view]

"You are jamming more info into the same CCD, resulting in exactly what? More noise, larger file size etc, and to what end??"

Sounds familiar from something I read once, it will be interesting to see if the images are any better (already very good). And don't forget - more resolutions means that you might need more and bigger C/F cards, storage, etc.