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Comment by jug | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm a cynic here but such a specific, single bug fix makes it look like it's for PR reasons and headlines like this.

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They are dead serious about supporting legacy stuff, and it long predates the advent of PR. They've been doing it for 100 years, and it's part of their DNA.

If you go to one of their service centers (there's a lot fewer of them, nowadays), in the back, you will often find camera bodies and parts for cameras that are fifty years old. They won't necessarily fix it under warranty, but they'll definitely try to fix it, if possible.

When 9/11 happened, they had cameras in the Melville service center from The Pile, covered with that dust, and they busted their butts to get them fixed up and back out there.

They are a very old company, and take their work seriously. There's lots of things to complain about, with them, but they are serious about Legacy.

PR is as old as humanity.

But even the name predates Nikon by almost two decades according to Wikipedia.

It's ok to praise/reward companies for doing the Right Thing, even if they try to make the most of it with PR.

Sure. I didn’t say it isn’t.

I am still servicing my camera from the 80s and lens from the 70s with them. Nikon warranty in my country does not cover Internationally. But I am usually able to get servicing in every country even after out of the warranty period. Nikon waives my service fee quite frequently too.

Or the most probable thing is that someone internally was annoyed by the bug and got permission to release. A single update to a 10 years old camera on an apparently abandoned product line is not something that gets a big amount of PR coverage, especially since nikon DLSRs had very few updates ever. Unless it is part of an up-and-coming new updating scheme (which I very much doubt), it will not make much difference except a little goodwill from D7100 owners.

Sorry but no. This is in the DNA of Nikon[0][1].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23862471

[1]: https://petapixel.com/2020/07/16/nikon-issues-recall-for-16-...

I think we can all agree it would be better if they issue press releases and advertisements when they want good PR. Fixing bugs is some underhanded stuff.

It could be just an instance of https://twitter.com/swaglord__420/status/1377051721655066629

I'd totally consider something like that, if an issue was bugging me enough.

I hope that’s a joke. I did laugh

If it is not a joke it is a badass move. It also shows that user love and deeply care about your product. And I laughed as well!

The commit was (supposedly) made on March 32nd.

Nikon is pretty good at supporting legacy products, including repairs. Up to the point they almost are embarassed that spare parts are not available anymore. And hey, since their cameras routinely exceed predicted shutter life by a factor of two that is a good thing!

PR reasons on a DSLR camera now?! I don’t think so.

This makes Nikon look like a company that supports all its products in the long term. That's some seriously good PR.

They do just that, though.

Yes I agree, a PR for the company, not for the camera. Indeed is a good thing this support, for that I posted it. A firmware update for a 10y old camera, and a DSLR camera that also the lenses are discontinued. Well, I’m glad for it.

> This makes Nikon look like a company that supports all its products in the long term.

Not "look like", that's how they operate. I love it, wish all companies were committed to quality and longevity, it would be the kind of world I'd like to live in.

Nikon is also pretty obsessive about compatibility, I can mount lenses from the 70s on my D7100 and the features work.

https://kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm

Using a FTZ adapter you can those lenses on a Z9 as well. Not sure about image quality so, those old film era lenses seems, from what I read since I have zero experience, to underperform on modern digital bodies. Doesn't make the lenses any worse or the compatability any less imoressive.

There's a thin filter on top of the sensor of every digital camera that can affect lenses designed for film, but I personally only know of 1-2 lenses where it makes a marked difference.

In terms of underperforming, it's hard to define underperforming. Regardless of what some guy on a blog thinks, I have had many clients comment about how impressed they were with portraits I took of them with lenses from 1971 and 1993, and 0 complain about how the same lenses' corners look soft when shooting a test chart wide-open then blowing it up to 400%.

Couldn't agree more, the beauty of a picture cannot be meassured in a lab. That beinh said, apparebtly lab tests show that some old f-mount lenses don't use the full resolution of 36 MP plus sensors. Whether or not that is actually bad, or if you would notice the difference with the naked eye, is something different.

Thay being said, I'd never replace a lense unless it either broken or I see negative impacts on image quality. If none of that applies I don't see a reason to spend a fortune on new glass just because. Unless of course I want that lens.

Real altruism isn't real. So what?

And shouldn’t they have fixed this 9 3/4 years ago?

A wizard is never late, Harry.

ah yes, the PR PR

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