Nikon patents password security for lenses

[Matt. K]

You can see where they are dreaming of taking this nonsense. The rammifications are:
1...Third party lenses will no longer work on Nikon bodies. (Or they will have to pay a hefty licence fee)
2...If you buy a lens for a D70 and then later wish to use it on your newly aquired D4 you will have to pay an unlock/upgrade fee
3...If you forget your password then Nikon will send you a new key for a $90 fee.

I can hear their greedy brains grinding with glee.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/04/15 ... for-lenses

[chrisk]

I'm reasonably cynical and I highly doubt that scenario would be the case.

[phillipb]

Next they'll put fingerprint scanners on the camera grip.
I got a feeling this announcement was supposed to come out a couple of weeks ago, around April 1st.

[aim54x]

I'm reasonably cynical and I highly doubt that scenario would be the case.

I would agree, but it could mean that sharing lenses between friends could become an issue

[sirhc55]

A quote from DPreview: This is an attempt by the the company to prevent resale of stolen gear.

What a load of, trying to think of a good word, BOLLOCKS!

There you are at 5am on the rocks at Long Reef ready to shoot the dawn. Your choice of lens is a 35mm but suddenly you see the need to use a longer focal length.

Scenario 1 - today, push lens lock button twist and lens is free from camera. Position other lens twist and lock. Shoot, shoot, shoot.

Scenario 2 - tomorrow, push lens lock button twist and lens is free from camera. Position other lens twist and lock. Shoot, oh! bugger have to input security number. Hang on what the feck is the number? OK got it. Inputting number, wrong, must have entered a digit incorrectly and so on and so forth.

Finally got it working, oh great it’s now 4pm and I might as well wait for the sunset.

Must remember to sell my gear on eBay tomorrow and buy a Canon

[Murray Foote]

There are a lot of assumptions going on here. My guess is that all it would mean is that if you had a passwordable lens and a password-accepting body, you'd just enter the password for that lens into the body like you do for an autofocus correction number. You'd never have to do it again for that body. If you wanted to lend the lens to a friend, you'd just tell him the password and he'd only have to set it once. If the body didn't recognise passwords, you wouldn't need one. I doubt there would be any other adverse implications.

[ozimax]

Must remember to sell my gear on eBay tomorrow and buy a Canon

Finally Chris, you've seen the light!