Nikon Product Woes

I should start this article by saying that I am a loyal Nikon user. I think that Nikon’s products are top notch and as a general observation, I find them to be of higher quality than their Canon counterparts, which I have also used.

With that said, I think that Nikon has a problem. Over the last two decades, Nikon has emphasized megapixels as an important feature with their camera lineup. Their competitors have done the same. Nikon specifically emphasized the move to 24 megapixels when they released the D5200 (an entry level DSLR) and have continued to tout it with subsequent models.

However, they recently made a strange departure. When Nikon launched the D7500, they dropped the resolution to ~20 megapixels. I am certain that they reason they did so was that they added 4k video and it required a different level of processing that would have been difficult to accommodate operating at 24 megapixels. However, this runs contrary to their previous marketing to consumers.

I have spent a reasonable amount of time in camera shops looking at alternatives for a new DSLR and find myself running into people with the same concerns. There is no clear, linear upgrade path.

As a product person, I generally find that this issue arises when product managers fail to communicate their value propositions across their own company. You then end up with some features advancing inconsistently across products from the same company.

As someone in the market for a new DSLR, and a consumer of Nikon’s products, I feel compelled to wait until this problem is addressed. I suspect that there is a D7600 in our future with the current feature set of the D7500 but with the increased resolution.

With NAB in 11 days, I might not have long to wait. :)