News After more than 70 years Nikon ends domestic camera production

A Nikon user myself, I am not amused. Nikon has already moved the production of its mirrorless models Z6 and Z7 from its Sendai factory to Thailand. The rest of the DSLR cameras will follow in 2021. If I remember correctly, Canon retained the production of its high-end models in Japan and moved the assembly of other models to Malaysia.

When I was in Japan in 1970-1972 . every military person seemed to want a Nikon , but they were expensive. I ended up getting a Yashica that took amazing night pictures. After about 5 years , it quit on me , but boy , I took a lot of pictures with it. Replaced it with a Canon AE1 that I still have stored away when I went digital .

I never warmed up to nikons, tho I bought/trans-shipped an F and a nikkormat to a couple of people I knew. I used pentax spotmatics, way back when. Downside to those was the screw-on lens mount. I got around that by carrying two cameras, one with a wide lens, the other portrait. And sometimes different films in each.

They had something called ration control at the time in korea, to prevent us from reselling stuff bought in the PX. Limits on numbers of things you could buy--like one iron per year, one mixer, and so on. Big ticket items like a fridge had to be accounted for when you left. Liquor, too, max of a case of beer a day (tho this wasn't watched too carefully), and five bottles of spirits (you'd get chits to use when buying a bottle). I had one alcoholic sergeant who bought the chits from his men. Or your buy your bottle(s), and double your money selling off base.

But then I took a mac flight to tachikawa (free, then stayed in cheap quarters there), bought some camera gear, and on return nobody checked/recorded anything. I went (shopping) again a couple months later.