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PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
If Gerald and Ian stopped sparring with each other and set aside their partisan sentiments, many readers of this thread (myself included) might be better informed about the very interesting world of Japanese camera evolution in the 1950s.

"Historical truth" is rarely found through press adverts and the statement that one maker's lenses "were chosen as the standard by which all other Japanese lenses were tested" lacks credibility without a clear link to its source. Any first year history undergraduate handing in stuff like this would, quite rightly, be told that it's both inadequate and unacceptable to a critical reader.

C'mon guys, I want to learn more, but I want to know where the assertions and 'evidence' actually come from. So it's a "D-minus" for you both, so far Very Happy


PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
To be fair, i don't have any partisan sentiments, I couldn't care less who made the kit i use as long as it does the job. I just object to Gerald's misleading rhetoric.


PostPosted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
scsambrook wrote:
If Gerald and Ian stopped sparring with each other and set aside their partisan sentiments, many readers of this thread (myself included) might be better informed about the very interesting world of Japanese camera evolution in the 1950s.

Sorry to say, but your entire post is only a criticism of others, with no technical contribution to the original topic of the thread.
Your interest in the evolution of Japanese lenses in the 50s is legitimate, but I remember you that the topic is about the status of photographic lenses in the mid 80s.


scsambrook wrote:
"Historical truth" is rarely found through press adverts and ...


Generic comments like yours has no purpose other than to disqualify the debate. The Nikon advertisement was published in Modern Photography November 1986, the time of the discussion raised by the OP.

MP was a magazine of global circulation, and highly respected in the photographic world. Its editor, Herbert Keppler was a connoisseur of photographic equipment that accompanied the technological developments in the area since the early 50s. Modern Photography was the last place for Nikon publishing a lie that would ultimately destroy its credibility.

If you have something interesting to enrich the debate, we will all be anxious to hear what you have to say. If you have nothing interesting to say, just listen. Thank you.

Regards


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Gerald wrote:

Generic comments like yours has no purpose other than to disqualify the debate. The Nikon advertisement was published in Modern Photography November 1986, the time of the discussion raised by the OP.


It is still an advertisement, which was made to encourage people to buy a product. If you want facts it'd be better to dig up an actual article or lens test.

Ads can say all sorts of things!


In any event does anybody have a valid comparison of Nikon and Zeiss SLR lenses?


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Mos6502 wrote:
Gerald wrote:

Generic comments like yours has no purpose other than to disqualify the debate. The Nikon advertisement was published in Modern Photography November 1986, the time of the discussion raised by the OP.


It is still an advertisement, which was made to encourage people to buy a product. If you want facts it'd be better to dig up an actual article or lens test.

Ads can say all sorts of things!


In any event does anybody have a valid comparison of Nikon and Zeiss SLR lenses?


Why didn't you post a bigger picture so we could know what the advertisement was about?


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
The advertisement was for the Yugo car, made in Communist Yugoslavia, it was a truly awful car.

Advertising is a large part of why Canon and Nikon 'won' and became the two biggest camera companies, it's not because they had the best products, other companies produced equally good, in some cases, superior products.

Until the late 90s, the Volkswagen Beetle was the world's best selling car, more had been made than any other model. Of course, this is not because it was the best car, in many ways, it was a piece of crap. However, it had the best advertising campaign ever seen and it is the ad campaign used as a case study in colleges and universities.



PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Mos6502 wrote:


Ads can say all sorts of things!




Lol, love this... the Yugo is top of its class, but keep in mind it is in a class of its own.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
But as soon as we find a solution this funny thread will cease to exist Laughing

Lets not bother with that but continue to construct arguments with imagination Razz


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Gerald wrote:
Why didn't you post a bigger picture so we could know what the advertisement was about?


You haven't seen "Drowning Mona"? Shocked Shocked Shocked


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
This is off-topic but I have to ask. I cannot help laughing out loud when I read the Volkswagen ads to the part about the hat. I am wondering if the ads came out before or after the widespread of a particularly bad joke regarding The VIP with a magnificent head gear?


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
and even more off topic..

WAIT WAIT WAIT! are we talking about lenses with UV filters installed over the top? because I'll have you know. My hoya UV0 Filter from 1976 is simply remarkable Laughing


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
kenetik wrote:
Mos6502 wrote:


Ads can say all sorts of things!




Lol, love this... the Yugo is top of its class, but keep in mind it is in a class of its own.


Hey! I once had a Yugo when I was flat broke and couldn't afford a 'real car'. Not good, but it sure beat waiting for buses in the cold and wet Wink


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Gerald wrote:
scsambrook wrote:
If Gerald and Ian stopped sparring with each other and set aside their partisan sentiments, many readers of this thread (myself included) might be better informed about the very interesting world of Japanese camera evolution in the 1950s.

Sorry to say, but your entire post is only a criticism of others, with no technical contribution to the original topic of the thread.
Your interest in the evolution of Japanese lenses in the 50s is legitimate, but I remember you that the topic is about the status of photographic lenses in the mid 80s.


scsambrook wrote:
"Historical truth" is rarely found through press adverts and ...


Generic comments like yours has no purpose other than to disqualify the debate. The Nikon advertisement was published in Modern Photography November 1986, the time of the discussion raised by the OP.

MP was a magazine of global circulation, and highly respected in the photographic world. Its editor, Herbert Keppler was a connoisseur of photographic equipment that accompanied the technological developments in the area since the early 50s. Modern Photography was the last place for Nikon publishing a lie that would ultimately destroy its credibility.

If you have something interesting to enrich the debate, we will all be anxious to hear what you have to say. If you have nothing interesting to say, just listen. Thank you.

Regards


Gerald - thanks for your thoughtful comments. Advice from those better informed than one's self - especially those who clearly have such a firm concern for, and grasp of, historical truth - should always to be taken seriously. I shall sit quietly and reflect on the inadequacy of my own knowledge, properly chastened by my inability to make any interesting contribution.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 1:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Some people went off-topic on purpose when they posted advertisements of cars long out of line. Their goal was ridiculing advertisements in general, and consequently discrediting an advertisement of 1986, when Nikon claimed that "Nikon cameras are used by more professional photographers than all other 35mm SLR cameras combined" (Picture below)

Those people suffer from the simplistic conception that advertising is a lie, and therefore anyone can say anything in an advertisement. This is ridiculous. If advertising were how those people think, Yashica could also have said that "Contax cameras are used by more professionals than all other 35mm SLR cameras combined!" The same for Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta ...

Those people certainly have never heard of JCIA, Japan Camera Industry Association, and CIPA, Camera & Imaging Products Association. Sales and shipments of cameras and lenses are registered, so a member of CIPA knows, for example, what was the number of cameras sent by competitors to the various markets. In 1986, Nikon knew that it sold more cameras for professionals than all other competitors combined. And the Yashica and Canon also knew that. So, Nikon could claim that "Nikon cameras are used by more professional photographers than all other 35mm SLR cameras combined".

Other important sources of information about the number of professionals who use different brands of cameras are the services of professional support of Japanese manufacturers of cameras:
Nikon: NPS - Nikon Professional Services
Canon: CPS - Canon Professional Services
Sony: SupportNET

I read somewhere that to be a member of NPS, the photographer must have at least two professional Nikon cameras. The D600/610, for example, is not considered a professional camera by Nikon. On the other hand, the D800/810 and D4 are. Nikon takes, and always took very seriously the professional photographers.

I think it is very clear that Nikon could never say that it was the absolute leader in professional photography in 1986, if it were not true. There was a lot of data that proved it.

My point was that the prices posted by Gardener made sense. Nikon lenses were as good or better than the Zeiss for Contax. Nikon was the unchallenged leader of professional photography in 1986. The professional photographers know very well the qualities and limitations of the equipment they work with. If Nikon lenses were inferior to Zeiss, most professionals would have switched to Contax.

That's all I had to say on the subject. Here I close my participation in the discussion of this topic.






PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 2:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Actually the reason for not looking to advertising for facts is the about the same reason for not letting an entrant into a competition be his own judge.

Not particularly difficult to understand the problem inherent.

Further, whether or not "pros" use anything is beside the point of quality. If we're discussing the qualities of lenses - then sales figures and popularity are unrelated.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Funny thing: the advertisement says nothing about optical quality of the Nikon glasses, but advertise us about metering modes and AF capabilities. This has nothing to do with the main content of this thread.
Nikon can say what they want: the only thing that is evident is a ocean of "white lenses" with some exception we can see in the Olympic games, FIFA world cup, Winter Games, etc. against a small amount of black lens which can be everything else but Canon.
Gerald, from a bunch of one hundred lenses from Nikon we pic 4-5 superb lens thinking only in optical qualities. For the same amount from Zeiss we dig 4-5 crap lenses, (maybe weak corners, etc.). MTF charts are all out there to compare the time we want.
This translates in this: buying Nikon lenses you have 95% chances to buy crap. Buying Zeiss you have 3% of acquiring a paper weight.
If you compare the best from Nikon with the worst from Zeiss you can arrive at mad results as the one you did.
But saying that, that in the 80's Nikon made lense equal in quality or even better lenses then Leica and Zeiss I can argue: about how many lens projects are we talking about? This is a generalization that presents a lot of wind but proves nothing then al preference of yourself.

About sales to the pro's, let's face the reality: the camera and lenses Nikon argue it's a pro gear is used by the minority of the pro due to skyrocket price tags. I know maybe 100 of pro's here in Brazil which uses Nikon and maybe the same amount which has Canon and other brands. I know one photographer which has a Nikon D4. And the hole group of sports photographers I know doesn't even uses a full frame camera, due to the fact that crop sensor cameras are lighter and have faster AF responses. None of the photographers I know which works with AP (Associated Press), France Press, the newspapers Estadao and Folha de S. Paulo uses a D4 in the field. Sebastião Salgado (Magnum) uses a Canon camera and lenses.

The numbers at Japan Camera Ass. are counting are too narrow to make sense. Is the same accounting stuff which states that in a year you and I had eaten 100 chicken, even if i'm a vegetarian (which is not true),

Abs,

Renato


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Gerald wrote:
Nikon lenses were as good or better than the Zeiss for Contax.


This point is open to debate, my opinion, and I think many share it is that most Nikkors are inferior to the equivalent Zeiss Contax.

Gerald wrote:
Nikon was the unchallenged leader of professional photography in 1986.


In certain areas such as press photography yes, but in other fields not at all, wedding, studio and fashion pros were using Bronica, Mamiya, Hasselblad; freelancers were using whatever they liked, which is why Pentax, Minolta and others made pro bodies.

Gerald wrote:
If Nikon lenses were inferior to Zeiss, most professionals would have switched to Contax.


Not true. The quality of the lens is very far from the most important criteria for a pro. For a pro, if the lens is good enough, it is good enough and in the area where Nikon was the leader - press photography, the lens quality was not that important as the end result was reproduced in a newspaper as a lores image made up of benday dots. Being able to get your body repaired or to lease a replacement body were important factors and Nikon had a large dealer network and service centre network, which Contax didn't. Nikon and Contax were targetting different markets.

Bottom line, the theory that Nikon lenses must be the best because they had the largest share of the pro market is deeply flawed and there are several other factors that are more important to a pro when choosing a system.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 7:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
I think many share it is that most Nikkors are inferior to the equivalent Zeiss Contax.

I think that if you make a list of Zeiss Contax lenses that have equivalent Nikkors it won't be very long, and the list of people who own matching pairs, and so can provide first-hand opinion, will be be significantly shorter. You probably will find quite a few people who own both Planars and 50mm Nikkors. Perhaps some who have both Distagon and Nikkor 28/2.8. What else would be a direct match? 135/2.8? Uber-expensive 85/1.4 and 135/2.0?


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Ad-wise, Miranda was the best:



PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 8:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
iangreenhalgh1 wrote:
Gerald wrote:
Nikon lenses were as good or better than the Zeiss for Contax.


This point is open to debate, my opinion, and I think many share it is that most Nikkors are inferior to the equivalent Zeiss Contax.

Gerald wrote:
Nikon was the unchallenged leader of professional photography in 1986.


In certain areas such as press photography yes, but in other fields not at all, wedding, studio and fashion pros were using Bronica, Mamiya, Hasselblad; freelancers were using whatever they liked, which is why Pentax, Minolta and others made pro bodies.

Gerald wrote:
If Nikon lenses were inferior to Zeiss, most professionals would have switched to Contax.


Not true. The quality of the lens is very far from the most important criteria for a pro. For a pro, if the lens is good enough, it is good enough and in the area where Nikon was the leader - press photography, the lens quality was not that important as the end result was reproduced in a newspaper as a lores image made up of benday dots. Being able to get your body repaired or to lease a replacement body were important factors and Nikon had a large dealer network and service centre network, which Contax didn't. Nikon and Contax were targetting different markets.

Bottom line, the theory that Nikon lenses must be the best because they had the largest share of the pro market is deeply flawed and there are several other factors that are more important to a pro when choosing a system.


I think Ian has nailed it, Nikon probably had the best all round package, the camera's were legendary for their reliability and robustness - the paramount criteria when working in war zones and disasters. Getting a damaged or failed camera fixed was just as important. The optical quality of the lens was secondary - "if the lens is good enough, it is good enough" - was the bottom line which ensured their dominance. How many of the renowned images we've seen in print have been blurred or badly exposed? If it's the only picture of a news event, it's the picture we see.


PostPosted: Wed Oct 01, 2014 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Why would Nikon introduce ED glasses in all its professional telephoto lenses if image quality was not important? If it was just to "get the shot", Nikon would have made all its telephoto lenses with ordinary glasses, which were good enough for newspaper photography.

If a superior image quality was not important, why Nikon would design the legendary... oops I forgot the word "legendary" is taboo here, especially when used for a Nikon lens... Noct-Nikkor 58mm F1.2 with an aspherical lens that eliminated coma?

Professional photography is not only about B&W photojournalism for newspapers. Many professional photographers used Nikon cameras for nature, sports, events, wedding, fashion and commercial photography, for publishing in high-quality color magazines like National Geographic, Time-Life, Vogue, etc. For these applications, high quality of image was paramount.


PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 12:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I guess it bears repeating, popularity is not directly correlated to quality.

I'd like to see some actual comparisons, in case anybody here is attempting to be serious. Laughing


PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 12:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Mos6502 wrote:
I guess it bears repeating, popularity is not directly correlated to quality.

Neither is unpopularity.


PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 1:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Mos6502 wrote:
I guess it bears repeating, popularity is not directly correlated to quality.

I'd like to see some actual comparisons, in case anybody here is attempting to be serious. Laughing


No we have mentioned as such Shhh already, you are ruining the show Razz


PostPosted: Thu Oct 02, 2014 2:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Those who are so excited to see a comparison between a Zeiss and a Nikon (or Canon and Sigma), should take a look here:

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2014/09/just-the-lenses-canon-and-nikon-mount-85mm-f1-4-and-1-2-primes

You will see that there is nothing like a Zeiss lens. Razz
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