Nikon QV-1000C (1988)

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The Nikon QV-1000C. Nikon's first and only contribution to the still video camera market. Announced in August 1988. According to a silly article (now defunct) of the quarterly Nikkor Club magazine(?) on the Nikon website it is said that "..it is such a camera of illusion as only hundreds pieces exist in the world". Whatever that means! Other sources state that total number of produced cameras was "...below the thousands". True, the Nikon QV-1000C is among the rarest of the marketed still video cameras and recent camera auctions proved that it's value can quickly rise to a several thousand dollars.

What else could I salvage from that (I presume) machine translated article? For instance that the QV-1000C was developed exclusively for the press and was not sold to general users. The camera was sold as a set consisting of the main body, two lenses, a transmitter (QV-1010T) and a battery and battery charger, all contained in a carrying case and was not sold separately.
The QV-1000C was a limited edition because the system was not acceptable to general users. The set price exceeded $15,000 and that was only for a monochrome camera where the output of the result could only be viewed via the QV-1010T. No doubt, Nikon's cameras were press cameras. Ever since the analogue haydays. Nikon was among the first to develop a transmitter (NT-1000) in 1979 to transmit images to newspapers all over the world.

1988 was also the year the Nikon F4 was introduced. Therefore it is no coincedence that the operating characteristics of the QV-1000C should resemble those of the F4. Nikon anticipated that both cameras would be used at the same news spot. But the QV-1000C did not have an F-mount, it was a smaller, specialized electronic mount. Two dedicated SV Nikkor lenses were developed and marketed.  To use regular Nikkor lenses a special lens adaptor was needed (QM-100). The Nikon QV-1000C won a Good Design Award in 1989.

Since I am no fan of copying other people's hard work on my website and respect the work of other authors, I advise all readers to take a look at Jarle Aasland's article about the Nikon QV-1000C. His work on vintage SVC and DSLR's is as dedicated as mine and his article can simply not be outdone.