The "Throw-back"

God knows, that as techno-oriented as I am, I love throw-backs. Although, in the modern era, I've not been much of a professional football fan; I was always a fan of this guy....Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears. A modern day Dick Butkus! Maybe its a function of me getting old, or maybe its just another aspect of my weirdness, but I'm willing to embrace it.

The trend has always been strong in the photographic industry. It could be due to the engineers that still run many of these firms, or possibly that it's all a marketing ploy to get old guys like me (the more well-heeled versions) to buy these nostalgic creations. It's always been around, but it really got going a few years ago with the introduction of the Olympus Pen Micro 4/3rds camera. Clearly it's design cues were taken from the original Pen F of the '60s, but whatever the reason, it was an unequivocal success.

Of course, there were those companies who never did change their product much, even with changing over from film to digital as witnesses by the Leica M9. However, as the movement gained steam in the last few years, it's gotten too much for even the mainstream companies to ignore. 

Surprisingly, the company that got this segment of the market really heated up wasn't any of the expected players. It was Fuji with the various models of the modern version of the interchangeable lens "rangefinder" idiom. 

And now we have this.....the Nikon Df (f for fusion). If you are familiar with traditional Nikons, it'll be self-evident a fusion of what! A full-sized "FX" sensor from the flagship D4, focusing subsystems from the D610, and the concepts and designs of both the Nikon F3 and FM film cameras.

It's $3000 worth of ridiculously good and beautiful. I HATE it! More accurately, I hate that I can't run right out there and buy the thing! The only thing that I can do to soothe myself is to sit here with my D300 and hold it like some sort of talisman! 

It's almost a perfect size. Compared to the D800 which is similar in size to the D700 which it replaced and was based on the D300 chassis, I can clearly see that it's significantly more compact. Almost an ideal "carry-around" size with full-on control knobs for it's major functions which are plainly visible. At the same time, this compact chassis is of the completely magnesium type common to professional cameras. 

At the same time, when the camera is viewed from the back, it's clear that it's every bit the modern day digital SLR and all that they are capable. Yeah; I'm pretty much smitten.