Author Archives: Ian Tan

About Ian Tan

Ian worked in the media industry for a decade, focusing on communications, photography and technology. He now works in the IT industry, permanently plugged into his PC and Facebook.

Thoughts before 2012

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2011 was an amazing year in many ways. But isn’t every year amazing for you and me?

We went through a General Elections where we managed to finally exercise our collective voice through the Internet (the Prime Minister actually apologized on behalf of his party, can you believe it?) as a galvanizing force, we demonstrated to the local news media that we no longer consumed media in the old, top down manner, and technology continues to transform the way we consume content with greater acceleration than ever.

On the personal front, I completed my fourth year working in Microsoft, and my SPH journalism days are but a faint and distant memory. My thought processes remain much like a journalist – always probing, always skeptical – but my daily skill sets have shifted from the verbal to the numerical.

It’s hard to believe, but I’m finding it harder and harder to write posts on this blog. The older you get, the less you want to say about how you feel and the things that you observe. It’s also more difficult in a corporate world when people can easily misconstrue what you write. Facebook now offers me a private space where I can share my ramblings and images constantly with my close friends and acquaintances, without fearing some random stranger who would read my posts and form an inaccurate picture of me.

And this year, after 15 years since I first rode my army motorcycle, I finally got my own civilian bike, freeing me from the tyranny of the Certificate of Entitlement (which have returned to sky-high levels of the early 2000s) but exposing me to the relentless Singapore wet weather and reckless Johor riders.

As we head into 2012, apparently the year the world ends according to the Mayans, I do have some wishes I hope to see come true before the Mayan or Christian Apocalypse. They might seem insignificant to some of you, but hey, they mean a lot to me. These are things I think about daily these days, and I hope the new year brings improvements in these areas.

More good drivers on the roads, seriously.

If you think about it, there is much stress, anger, time wastage, loss of productivity and general unhappiness that is generated by lousy drivers and riders. One fool tailgating and smashing into another car in front can generate a traffic jam on the PIE, CTE and AYE combined. And totaling your car today by choice or otherwise, is a very expensive proposition, since COEs are so high. Bad drivers can really spoil everyone’s day, so for brighter days ahead, let’s drive well and be better role models to the young drivers around us so they won’t pick up bad habits that other people impress upon them.

Better weather

Global warming is upon us and it sucks. From higher temperatures to colder Novembers, we who live at the Equator suffer pretty badly. We don’t get hit by typhoons or tidal waves, but there are people who do and we should pray for them too.

More sensibility

Personally, I don’t like Twitter. I mean, why restrict me to a stupid 140-character limit? And I’ve mentioned before that it drives poor social media behavior as people seek to be as controversial or as witty as they can, even if the situation does not call for it. We’ve seen various companies and individuals taken down by poor use of Twitter and Facebook. In the new age where we talk less and post more, we need more common sense, and more wariness of what the Internet can do to our reputations.

Sensibility also extends to the way we think about our society and our neighbors. I’m personally appalled by much of the xenophobia and bias towards foreign talent in our country, when society is a free-for-all and everyone has a right to grab their opportunity if the talent and the heart fit the job. So what if they speak differently from us? They’re still people, with families, with dreams and with emotions. Just like you and me.

More guts

More people need to speak up on the things that are going wrong. For too long, we’ve kept mum as some public services have deteriorated (MRT services, COE management, housing policies etc) but because so many Singaporeans like to complain about the smallest things, people think that it’s wrong to complain too much. Excuse me, it’s never wrong to complain when something is really wrong, but one must also provide intelligent solutions, Otherwise, the ones you complain about will always say you don’t know what’s going on, so keep quiet. Show them you know, show them you’ve got the guts to speak up, and show them you’ve got the brains to offer alternatives and answers.

A greater pursuit of happiness and contentment 

My personal philosophy of life is to seek happiness + contentment for myself, my family and my friends. I recently cleared a few drawers full of old letters and receipts. Now I was cheered to see letters and photos of long lasting friendships, but I was also stunned by how many receipts I had for materialistic goods like speaker systems, cameras and other gadgets. I love technology, and I love gadgets, but I have to remind myself I’m no longer writing technology stories and keep my gear to a minimum of what keeps me happy and contented. Many of my gadgets served that purpose, but quite a few didn’t. I will also have to work harder on bringing happiness to those around me.

Contentment is another tough thing to achieve. When is enough enough? Especially in a society like ours where it is so difficult to satisfy everyone? We should not be content with poor services or policies, but we should be thankful that life here is much better than many places in the world. We should not be content with the terrible education system that forces children to lose their childhood, but we should be glad that the kids can grow up in a safe environment here. Contentment doesn’t mean accepting every situation, but being positive about what we have that is good and useful.

More believers

And finally, I pray that many more people will come to know Jesus and the message of hope, love and eternal life that he brings to us. I also pray for older Christians like me who are constantly on the verge of forgetting his grace and power. Every day, I remind myself that the things I have are made possible only because He allows it, and we pray daily with the kids, always hoping that they will walk the straight and narrow path, and not veer off it. In a world where so many things are uncertain and where many of my desires as listed above may never come true, God remains the one constant that does not change. Whether we’ll have a financial meltdown again, or whether we will get stuck in another train disruption, there’s only one person to rely on no matter how bad or how good things get for us.

So here’s a great new year to you.

The Black Widow

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I was done with the modifications to the Ninja 250, then a jealous act of vandalism marred the black fuel tank with an ugly scar. I can never understand what would make people so jealous that they would whip out a key or coin to scratch a brand new vehicle that has done them no harm. My bike was hardly 4 months old!

So with a trip to the Paint Extreme workshop, where the tank was repainted and decaled with a Kamen Rider logo 仮面ライダー, the Black Widow was born.

Public transport and the lack of discourse

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A scene from the Bishan MRT platform during the train system breakdown on 15th Dec. Photo from AFP

I just spent two weeks in Hong Kong and Penang, and it was during this time that two things happened in the Singapore public transport system - Comfort DelGro changed its fare taxi structure and SMRT suffered two consecutive days of train breakdowns on its Circle and N-S lines. Both things sparked off citizen fury on different levels, and what is remarkable is how little the Govt. has stepped in to moderate public sentiment, as well as its own image after the recent poor showing at the General Elections.

Transport is always a hot potato in Singapore for several reasons, and these are not being tackled correctly by the people in charge.

It highlights widening class differences

With today's stratospheric COE prices, only the well-off can afford to buy a new car. I bought my Toyota Altis nearly 3 years ago at SGD49K brand new when the COE was at its all time low of a few thousand dollars, and now the current model is priced at over SGD100K. Thus it is no surprise that the cheap car brands in SG have died off or declined rapidly, leaving top car sales to the premium brands like Audi and BMW.

Most CEOs and ministers in Singapore do not take public transport, and if you drive all the time, you would not know the level of unhappiness on the ground when it comes to overcrowded trains (at all times, not just peak hours) and always-late public buses. Sure, a minister can give public transport a spin for several weeks to do his research, but surely he wouldn't take it all the time.

The resentment that people would have towards Transport Ministry policymakers, cab company and SMRT CEOs, would probably include anger at the lack of empathy due to the different lifestyles involved.

It is all too easy for people to frame this as a contest of wills between the Haves and Have-Nots. Why would the Haves really bother about the transport woes of the Have-Nots?

Of course, there are a lot of well-paid people who do take the MRT daily, especially those working in the Raffles Place area where it's not whether you can afford the season parking, it's whether you can actually get a season parking lot.

FYI, for various reasons, I take the train, bus, car and motorcycle on different days of the week so I experience all the issues involved in any mode of transport. I hate taking public buses though, because the wait can really kill you.

It is not world-class, at least in the eyes of the locals

If you travel overseas quite a bit, you'd really appreciate the range of public transport choices there are here in Singapore. If you don't, you'd always be unhappy with the situation.

In Penang, we struggled to find cabs to flag down, and when we did, we still had to haggle over pricing (which I would always lose if there are no cabs in the vicinity to provide competition). The bus stops were a sad sight, often with no signage about which buses actually stopped there. And if you go to Jakarta, you can't simply escape the traffic jam by running to the subway - because there isn't one.

On the other end of the spectrum is Hong Kong, where there is true competition in the transport industry. Taking taxis in HK has always been a fuss-free affair for me, and the MTR subway always impresses with its ability to transport millions of people with more efficiency than our MRT even though the HK system is older (and more grimy looking).

Singapore's public transport is somewhat near HK's level but the problem is that there is no perceived competition in Singapore (hey look, the national taxi association is encouraging the other companies to increase their fares like Comfort), there are confusing taxi surcharges all around, our public buses are notorious for being slow to arrive, and our MRT system is simply overloaded most of the time due to the population squeeze.

To the average Singaporean, it doesn't matter whether it is CityCab/Comfort or SMRT that you're dealing with. It all seems like the same entity and you always feel that you have no say over their levels of service standards. And if you don't own a car or bike, you can't actually boycott the main public transport providers.

When people write in to the media complaining about the lack of rationale or logic over public transport price hikes, the transport companies are either silent or give some template answer that doesn't answer anything. That's not good PR, that's terrible PR. If you need to raise taxi fares due to rising costs, put forth your data - Singaporeans are largely educated and can analyse the data for themselves. At its most basic, good PR is simply communicating to people what you want to say and making sure people get your message with no distortion or misunderstanding. If it is rising COEs that is adding to the cost of taxi operations, then go fix that bit with LTA, not pass the cost to consumers.

It is a critical barometer of public sentiment

Due to poor management of the COE system by LTA in the past decade, the car population here rose rapidly, straining the road network and increasing the number of traffic jams. Add to that the influx of foreigners into Singapore which helped to put a strain on the public transport system.

Unlike other political issues which people may forget about (eg. ministerial pay, which we have still yet to hear anything about six months after the elections), public transport hits you like a sledgehammer every morning if you are part of the commuting crowd trying not to smell the other guy's armpit in the train.

Yet oddly, on many instances when we face public transport issues, the authorities hardly  manage public sentiment on the issue with any finesse.

When Comfort raised its fares, this was the Govt's response as reported by Today newspaper:

While he was "sympathetic" to concerns of both commuters and cabbies, Mr Cedric Foo, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for transport, noted that the taxi sector has been deregulated and market conditions would decide fares.

To observers, if one is "sympathetic", one would use this to generate political goodwill rather than just let the taxi companies have their way (which still baffles the average person, including me) with no semblance of further action or thought on the matter.

So much damage has been done to SMRT, Comfort DelGro and the LTA's image in the past two weeks, it is a no-brainer that the politicians should use this opportunity to repair public sentiment, and that PR experts should enter the fray to show them how proper damage control is done. It was only with the recent SMRT breakdowns that the Transport Minister finally stepped in to give his public comments, but what about the earlier taxi fare hikes?

The bottomline is this - if you don't manage the issue of public transport carefully in Singapore, be it the actual infrastructure or the communications surrounding it, you will end up being on the receiving end of societal class divisions and anger at the lack of public engagement. There has been a consistent lack of discourse by the stakeholders in the transport industry, and they've allowed the media (traditional and social) to have a field day with their shortcomings.

In the meantime, I will go for a spin on my motorbike.

 

What my violin taught me

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Every Monday, I will bid goodnight to my violin teacher JJ and hurriedly pack my books, violin and bow so I can get home. On the way down the escalator, I’m either feeling pleased over a good lesson, or miserable over a not-so-good performance. Inevitably, the question will bubble to the surface: “Ian, why are you still doing this?”

It’s been ten years since I started my violin classes. In the beginning, I was fueled by curiosity and fascination. Could an adult like me pick up an instrument at 25 and do well at it? Could I fulfill a lifelong dream to read and play music? And how good could a violin sound in my hands?

Over the past decade, the key goals haven’t really changed, but I see it so differently now.

1. There’s a long way to go in improving myself.

The technical difficulties of the violin, coupled with a working and family life, means that it takes me much longer than a child to learn and play new violin pieces. And every time my teacher demonstrates how to play a piece, I feel so embarrassed because it’s a reminder of how poorly I still play after all these years. But while there is momentary discouragement, there is hope, that perhaps one day I can play as well as my teacher.

The violin epitomizes the ACS motto: The Best Is Yet To Be.

2. I have bad habits I cannot see, and they take a long time to remove

My teacher will sometimes teach me techniques to overcome my bad habits (eg. too much bow strength at the end, rather than the beginning of a bar). These habits are so ingrained in me, they take a really long time to abolish. The worst thing is that when the piece is difficult, these habits come back immediately and I don’t even realize it.

Thankfully, my teacher has infinite patience and continues to help me along, and I’m very grateful for it. The same also applies to the way I live my life at work and home – I have bad habits that have become so much a part of me, I need others to tell me and help me change for the better. It’s never nice to take honest and brutal feedback, but it’s even worse to continue on the wrong path.

3. Technical excellence is possible in anything, just practise, practise and practise.

I’m a pretty good photographer, because I spent so much time on it during my younger days. I devoured books, shot off hundreds of rolls of film, spent countless hours on Photoshop and in my home darkroom, and received continual feedback from my seniors in TNP’s Photo Desk. I wish I spent that much time on my violin, because technical excellence remains within grasp, but I just don’t practise enough.

The difference is that I desired so greatly back then to become a pro photog, but I am fearful that I will never be anything more than a lousy violinist. There are two very different motivations here, and I’m still trying to motivate myself to overcome my fears, and plunge myself into music like I did with photography.

And truth be told, music is far more difficult than photography, and requires several magnitudes more of commitment to excise the errors and to be able to emote the tunes with flair. It is always humbling to attend classes with young kids and see them play so well because they have, voluntarily or not, put in the hours needed to create the muscle memory in their fingers.

My teacher told me this gem: “Don’t practise till you get it right. Practise till you don’t get it wrong.”

4. Life is about enjoying the moment and letting go

I know I need to relax in order to play faster, but I still get too tensed up and I mess up the semiquavers. It’s such a paradox that you need to unwind more to play more difficult pieces, but it’s true. Once in a long while, I might enter the zone and play with a relaxed mind, but most of the time, I’m worrying to much.

That has taught me that in life, when the going gets really tough, you really need to let go and let the practice kick in. Everything else is up to God.

 

How to increase your likability by Kawasaki

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From Guy Kawasaki’s blog. Some of the words are a bit small and hard to read, but because it is a vector image, you can zoom in (Try CTRL + on a PC, and Command + on a Mac) to read the text. I was so excited by this image I bought the book “Enchantment” immediately on Amazon as a Kindle ebook. After 2 hours, I am already halfway through it and feeling uber inspired.

Enchantment - Increase Likability

Of Art, Ads and Naked Men

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I was driving into Orchard Road with the family a few weeks ago when I saw the huge billboard (above, from Mr Brown’s site) from Abercrombie & Fitch. I was so stunned that I took a second look and probably put myself at risk of an accident. It was a black and white image of a rippling male body with his genitals barely hiding from view underneath the low-slung jeans.

I said to Goy: “Wow, that picture is going to cause a few accidents.” but left it at that. After all, the billboard did its job of capturing my attention and the male model does have an amazing body. And it was a very well-taken photograph, never mind that it had little to do with A&F apparel at all – such is the nature of brand advertising.

In recent days, the billboard has become a tabloid-style news story. First it was reported that the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS) had suspended the billboard. Then it came to light that the Authority had no authority to do so, since A&F was not part of its group and not beholden to their bidding (which I found was the more newsworthy bit, rather than the near-naked guy). The Media Authority of Singapore  supported ASAS’ call but said that the industry is self-regulated. In short, nobody can take down the ad except A&F themselves, and I’m sure many ad agencies are rubbing their hands in glee thinking about what they can achieve now with their clients.

I don’t know if they’ll ever get the billboard taken down but I oppose such a move on artistic grounds. Yes, we are a conservative society, but we are also living in a wasteland of mediocre visuals and advertisements. If you’ve ever visited Rome, one of the key attractions is a statue of a very nude man – Michelangelo’s David.

I’ve visited the statue twice, and both times, I’ve just sat there staring at the sheer beauty and perfection of the sculpture. No, I’m not gay, but there is something enthralling about the artistic depiction of a human body. And you don’t see people going “eeeee, that man is naked!” because it is undoubtedly art, and it is not vulgar.

And the Christian fundamentalist shouldn’t wrongly compare the story of Adam and Eve who fell into sin and quickly covered their nakedness in front of God – our Creator made them perfect and unclothed but sin caused them to become self-conscious of their bodies. Man would of course fall greater into sin and lose self-control of their bodies, which is what the Bible warns against repeatedly. Then we should also consider what happens when someone views an image that he purports will make him lose self-control of his body – this is the line drawn between art and pornography.

When it comes to art, everyone has the right to disagree on the interpretation. What is vulgar to someone may seem as virtuoso to another. But art is always judged and weighed in the zeitgeist of the times, and overlaid with common standards of morality and sensibility. It is not surprising to see ASAS’ objection to the ad, but one also must ask: “Are there a lot of people who are upset with the ad?” Personally, I haven’t heard anyone complaining and demanding the billboard’s removal. These sort of images, my dear ASAS, are par for the course these days.

And as a Straits Times forum writer pointed out, there are far more vulgar ads going around that ASAS does nothing about. It’s just that they are all smaller than the billboard in size.

I’m more upset with the general low standards of advertising in Singapore which celebrates the lack of wit, creative expression and artistics standards. Marketing managers are happy to adapt the most boring global visuals they can get from their HQ and just get their media agencies to book the ad space – because they don’t know what they can achieve in creating customer excitement. Most of them have never stepped into Bras Basah’s Basheer Books and flipped through the vast collection of award-winning advertising visuals and graphic art, and thought about doing it better themselves.

I’ll be very clear here: I don’t wear Abercrombie apparel, nor am I a fan. I’m a conservative in many ways, but I also appreciate art deeply. I’ve taken my fair share of sexy fashion photos during my photography days and I hope they weren’t seen as vulgar. I’m also very inspired by the billboard’s abs of steel and I shall do more sit-ups tonight.

If ASAS hasn’t gotten it by now, the whole furor has just given A&F the absolute best advertising in town – public controversy where the advertiser hasn’t really done anything illegal. The more ASAS tries to pull the billboard down, the worse it will look on them, because all A&F did was to put up a thought-provoking visual and it turned out that ASAS is really toothless after all its public statements. Bigger powers may step in, and they will be in turn branded as prudes or overreacting by the younger crowd in Singapore.

It’s always amusing to us media and ex-media alumni how stories are generated in Singapore. Many times, newsmakers do not know when they are exposing themselves to ridicule or embarrassment when they decide to go public with something. Then the media has a field day and the newsmaker wonders how did things go this way.

Just leave the billboard alone folks. A&F will change it when next season’s apparel arrives anyway. So far there haven’t been any car accidents right?

My Kawasaki Ninja 250R – Black & Red Edition

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One of the most unexpected things I received in the army was a motorcycle licence. Back in 1996, I was drafted into a recon company and required to learn how to ride a bike. And it wasn’t until 2007 that I decided to finally get a civilian bike licence, after so many years of thinking about it. I took a little longer than expected to finish my Class 2B course (I took a break of two years between lessons due to a heavy travelling), and then moved on to get the Class 2A licence.

In July this year, I finally received permission from the CEO of the house to have my own two wheels. Then it became a question of which bike to get.

Now in Singapore, most Class 2A licence holders will go for a Honda CB400 (Super 4) as the licence allows you to get a bike up to 400cc. I had no desire to get a bike that everyone was riding on the roads, especially one that we used as the training bike in Bukit Batok Training Centre. Due to Honda’s dominance of this category, bike dealers now bring in very few other streetbike or sportbike models in the 201-400cc range.

The stock Ninja 250R in black, which is what my bike looked like when I bought it.

After shopping around, I decided to go for the Kawasaki Ninja 250R. An extremely popular model worldwide (apparently it is Kawa’s bestselling model in the US), this bike is hardly found on the roads here due to people’s preference to get the Super 4. It was also half the price of the Super 4 when new (I hear too many horror stories of second hand vehicles to bother with used).

Much has been written about how the Ninja is a great little performer – it’s light, it’s nimble, and the 2008 redesign is just plain sexy. Honda launched the new CBR250 around the same time with more modern parts (ie. a digital speedo), but the Ninja has the edge in looks.

For the first two months or so, I was focused on just breaking in the bike. Then I discovered the wonderful/terrible world of bike modifications. By nature I’m not a car or bike nut, nor did I modify my Corolla Altis very much apart from changing the rims and audio system. But motorcycles have an amazing capacity to be modded and the Ninja is no exception. You can do small mods or extreme stuff like changing all the fairings (the plastic body which gives it its overall look).

I did most of my mods at Unique Motorsports at Kaki Bukit Autobay, and AHM Performance (a few doors down from Unique) helped to order and install the Koso digital speedometer. The Ninja mod project was like a big Gundam airbrushing assignment – how to bring out the best parts of the machine without going overboard.

My Ninja, after all the major mods which turned it into a black and red beauty. The old rear mud guard was removed and replaced by EvoTech Tail Tidy, and the bulbous stock signal lights replaced by tiny Rizoma lights. I also repainted the rims, which is a stronger visual option than just pasting rim stickers (which can peel after a while).

The worst thing about modding is how addictive it is – once you do a small mod, you think about which other parts you need to mod. The best thing about bike mods is that it is relatively unexpensive when compared to car mods – the total cost of my Ninja mods is still lower than a complete set of Ah Beng car tyre rims.

Driven metal red grips, Motovation bar ends, ASV brake and clutch levers, EvoTech brake fluid reservoir. Sorry for the distracting sun ray, but you must agree such photo angles don’t come all the time.

Red bolts and gold engine oil cover to add small accents to the side of the bike. I changed most of the visible nuts and bolts to red.

Another dash of gold with the rear brake fluid reservoir. I’ve thought about changing the stock exhaust but the legal ones are all not too pretty, and they don’t really improve performance for the money.

I also changed the brakelines into braided steel red colored ones.

The Über-cool Koso digital speedometer. You can’t get this here as demand is pretty low, so we had to ship it in from Germany (even though the product is made in Taiwan). Koso also makes a special Ninja 250R mounting board and plug & play wiring kit for easy installation. I guess most people who own this bike can’t wait to get rid of the ugly, old school analogue dashboard. 


 A clearer view of the handlebar area. I also added red and gold bolts to accentuate the dashboard area. You can also see the small analogue clock from www.clocks4bikes.com which is specially machined to fit Ninja 250Rs.

 The Immortal Graphix tank protector pad took some time to source, as most of the designs on the market are just plain tacky or just plain. 

 The rear seat was replaced by the original Kawasaki rear seat cowl accessory. It makes the bike look cooler as a single seater, but it does make it less comfortable to ride when I’m carrying a backpack to work.

Nikon should have gone further than 1-inch

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I’ll just start off with the disclaimer that I don’t fancy Nikon cameras. There is a long story behind how I gained much respect for the Nikon semi-auto F4 camera, and lost it all when I was forced to use the atrocious Nikon D1 as a young photojournalist. When it comes to professional dSLRs, it’s Canon or bust for me.

(Never mind the fact that I use my Olympus Pen more frequently than any other camera these days.)

Anyway, the world was waiting for Nikon to announce its new mirrorless camera system and they did just that this week. I was expecting more from Canon’s longtime rival, but they lived up to their disappointing reputation. Calling it the “Nikon 1″ system after the 1-inch sensor in the camera body, this will no doubt send the fanboys into ecstasy. But there is little reason to, and here’s my take.

The 1″ sensor is just too small to compete

Here’s how the various sensor sizes stack up, from Dpreview.com

This Dpreview article goes into detail about why the author thinks that making a 1″ sensor system will work well for Nikon – that it will not cannibalize their cash cow dSLR market. I completely disagree. The Nikon sensor needs to be at least as big as the Micro Four Thirds sensor to succeed.

dSLRs, despite their popularity, are really designed more for professional work than casual use. The casual user will probably never bother to learn how to use the manual dials on his dSLR camera, and sooner or later, will be frustrated by the sheer bulk of it. Neither will they be keen in investing in better zoom lenses, or even prime lenses.

The main reason why many people have upgraded to dSLRs in the past ten years, is due to the obvious limitations of their compact cameras in terms of image quality and flexibility. And some very effective marketing too.

With the Micro Four Thirds and NEX sensors being about half the size of a 35mm film frame, yet producing an image that is nearly as good in color and resolution as a dSLR (to most consumers), the three small players Panasonic, Olympus and Sony have grabbed an amazing amount of market share in just two years.

According to this Bloomberg article, the mirrorless camera has jumped from 5% in 2009 to 40% market share today in Japan. Canon and Nikon’s number crunchers must be petrified by this figure, but I’m sure things aren’t so bleak for them worldwide. Still, it’s a sign of things to come as the Japanese are often early adopters.

Nikon is coming into a new market that has been created by the smaller players. It has to play by their rules and benchmarks. By now, many consumers may have become aware of the great quality produced by the current crop of mirrorless cameras. Consumers are not stupid, and many do their research online (especially those who can afford a mirrorless camera worth USD700).

It just takes a few review websites to demonstrate in coming weeks that a smaller sensor will not produce the same image quality, especially at the same megapixels. It will also produce less depth-of-field effect, which is a great marketing tool (hey see that dreamy out of focus look!).

Nikon might be trying to avoid cannibalizing its own dSLR market, but as market data already shows, the mirrorless cameras have already done just that. So why not just go with what consumers want, and grow the market by selling a big-sensor mirrorless camera rather than run away from the inevitable decline of dSLR units?

The Nikon V1 is not that small

And furthermore, Olympus has an upcoming Micro Four Thirds camera called the E-PM1 that is 110 x 64 x 34 mm in dimensions. The Nikon V1 is 113mm x 76mm x 44mm, and the lower-end J1 is 106mm x 61mm x 30mm. The J1 is not that much smaller, and yet has a smaller image sensor than the Micro Four Third line of cameras.

Now personally, I’m comfortable shooting with a modern smartphone, my Olympus XZ-1 compact, my Pen camera or EOS 5D. They all produce great images for the money, and my photography experience can help overcome most of the inherent limitations they pose. But to the average joe, they want the best of every world, and yet they don’t know how to expose a photo correctly. They just want to buy a camera that can do it all, and must be the most advanced out there if they are going to fork out the cash.

The consumer will judge the Nikon 1 system not merely by its design, but by its minute specifications and review ratings. So unless Nikon pulls a big rabbit out of the hat, the N1 series already takes a hit before launch.

Legacy lenses support but…

What can help Nikon or Canon catch up is some form of legacy support for its older lenses on the new, smaller body. On my Pen, you can use an adapter ring to mount other bigger Oly E lenses or old school manual lenses from brands like Leica. For example, I currently use a 25mm lens meant for the bigger E-series on my Pen.

The Nikon 1 system will have an adaptor for older Nikkor lenses, but the crop factor is so high at 2.7x, I’m not sure if this will entice any existing Nikkor owner to get the new body. For example, if my maths is correct, a 24mm Nikkor wide angle lens will produce a telescopic 65mm field of view on the N1, totally negating the value of the original wide angle. And imagine a 300mm Nikkor lens on a Nikon 1 body! This is all because, I reiterate, the sensor is just too small.

I won’t comment on subjective things like design (I do dig the metallic red!) but I would just say that in trying to compete with the smaller players, Nikon may have actually forgotten that it’s no longer just a two-horse race. Instead, the hounds are actually racing ahead of the horses.

Now, I could be completely wrong in my analysis above and the Nikon 1 does roaring business when it launches in late October. And my bias towards Canon will never motivate me to buy a Nikon to begin with.

I just hope I’ve laid out some objective facts before you spring for this system. Do give all the various platforms a try and make your own decision.

Let’s see what Canon comes up with, and I hope to be thrilled.

Update: An interview with Nikon’s RnD GM was published by Dpreview after I had posted the above. It’s interesting how the Nikon 1 sensor is able to do all sorts of advanced stuff like shoot at 60 frames per second, and uses a hybrid autofocus system. There’s also this quote:

And, if the company’s market research is correct, there’s every chance this market sector’s expectations are very different from those of the enthusiast photographers who are currently scratching their heads and expressing their dissatisfaction about the new product.

Hey, they’re referring to me! But Nikon, please hear me out. For any new camera system to take hold of the mainstream, it is often up to us early adopters and enthusiasts, as well as the professionals, to embrace it and start spreading the word around. The average consumer is not confident of investing in any new camera system unless it is obviously amazing/groundbreaking or comes with much recommendation from their friends or from their social networks.

One mistake I felt that Olympus made when they were launching the Pen system in 2009 was trying to attract the female crowd with lifestyle ads. That’s not wrong in itself, but they failed to convince the early adopters and pros to come onboard (“is this Pen a girly camera?”), and that’s also part of the reason why Panasonic had more opportunity to shape the market despite Oly launching its products first. There are those of us who sprung for the EP-1 immediately at launch even without reading an Oly ad (and I never regretted it), but there are even more who have sat on the fence because of mixed messaging.

And Nikon is also assuming that the new features they’ve packed into the Nikon 1 system is a big carrot to entice the average consumer – let’s see how the market reacts.