Originally posted by Aristophanes Much of what Thom Hogan has written points to some deep collaboration between the two companies.
So what? If Hogan wrote the moon is "Nikon designed" would you believe him as well?
Hogan writes (shortly after the part you quoted):
"That doesn't mean that the sensors don't have elements from other makers in them or that they stopped using Sony as a supplier, only that Nikon's sensors appear to now be 100% exclusive to Nikon."
The Sony sensor used in the D7000 is not exclusive to Nikon. It is commonly believed that the K-5 uses the same sensor.
Hogan writes
"When you compare a Nikon DX 14mp or 16mp camera to a competitor's, any difference in image quality is now completely engineered by Nikon. The results so far look very promising, so Nikon is on to something."
He ignores that the K-5 scores higher than the D7000 in the DxOMark tests.
Hogan admits himself that he makes "a modest living off of documenting Nikon products". No wonder that he needs to cater to Nikon fanboys quite a bit. He will be critical as well -- always good to document independence -- but he'd be shooting himself into the foot if his writings didn't let Nikon appear in a good light overall.
I do not believe Hogan when he writes that Pentax is plugging along the same path and is getting the same results. He doesn't even know much what happens at Nikon, let alone other makers. He writes
"Now that Nikon's not driving Sony's sensor production, Pentax is going to be looking for sensors, too. My guess is that they'll be the first Aptina customer."
That's rubbish, as far as I'm concerned.
Originally posted by Aristophanes So much so that Sony completely stopped (albeit and admittedly temporarily) its own use of its own FF sensors for the better part of a yearly revenue cycle.
Pure conjecture.
Originally posted by Aristophanes I have no doubt--because it is the norm in multi-tier industrial design--that Nikon's innovations and original design are not found in Sony's FF sensors that may be shopped to other companies like Pentax.
Please share with us what these alleged innovations and original design ideas by Nikon are supposed to be. Nikon did not invent column parallel A/D. Sony did. Nikon did not introduce the first back-illuminated sensor. Sony did.
Originally posted by Aristophanes Making Nikon a preferred and maybe even exclusive customer, even to the point of dropping your own FF products to see where the retail demand goes, is a business no-brainer for Sony.
I'm not buying it. Sony does not depend on Nikon. In other posts you argue that the FF market is super small, so according to yourself, Sony would not lose much by losing FF sensor sales to Nikon.
It is the other way round, Nikon depends on Sony. To which sensor manufacturer would Nikon turn to if Sony didn't supply them with sensors? How would Nikon keep their cameras competitive if they lost access to Sony sensors?
I'm not claiming any overview or even inside knowledge whatsoever, but the idea that Sony needs to please Nikon seems absurd to me.
Last edited by Class A; 12-16-2011 at 07:33 AM.