I both agree and disagree with Allen.
There’s nothing wrong with retro design that’s been updated. I love the new Ford Mustang, the Chrysler 300, my Delonghi toaster, and other industrial designs that borrow from the past. This new Nikon borrows som nice looks from older Nikon’s which I love. There’s something great about holding an object where design has some meaning (I want to have nice things). Truly, we could be walking around with a box with a built in lens (iPhone?) and take perfectly great pictures with it. Do I *want* to? Well, sometimes. Other times I want to hold something in my hands that helps me to complete the feeling that I *am* a photographer. A nicely designed camera does that for me.
That said, charging $3,000 for something like this is absurd and destines it to be an object desired not for it’s abilities but for its looks. Meaning that well-off photographers and those longing to own a “status symbol” are to be the market for this retro designed machine, not the students of photography, or the photojournalists, or the nature shooter or the amateur. It reminds me of the gold-plated Nikons of the early 80’s. Something to *display* around your neck or on the shelf rather than really use and get dirty and worn and truly used.
It’s funny that Allen says the camera from the future is not from our past especially when the future, and present, of photographs *is* from our past. Consider all the “retro” filters now applied to pictures…
Here’s the link to Allen’s full post.