I bought a D4 battery on Amazon. I couldn’t find the battery cover there, so I went to B&H. There it was. I ordered one. Then I had a look around at what other D4 stuff they had. One of the things was the D4 camera strap. That made me think of Jackson Hole.
Back in my skiing days, Jackson Hole used to have a series of awards that you’d get for skiing various levels of vertical. The most prestigious award was a gold belt buckle that you got for skiing a million vertical feet. The tallying of the vertical feet was entirely voluntary. There were places on the trail map to check off the number of times you rode each lift, and you were requested to turn in your pass at the end of your stay so the Jackson Hole folks could keep track of your total.
I first encountered the system, I asked a friend of mine, who was wearing a gold belt buckle, were they afraid that people would cheat? He said, “Not only that, they hope they cheat.” He showed me that he places where the 3µ gold was wearing off the pot metal base of his belt buckle. I saw his point.
Then I got my gold belt buckle, and I really understood. The Jackson Hole folks had a photographer shoot the JH director of something-or-other handing me my buckle and a certificate, then they sent press releases announcing my “achievement” to all the newspapers at all close to where I lived. I think they all took a pass, but it was an impressive try.
I think the same thing is going on with the D4 camera straps. There’s probably a tiny market for people who have D4’s who have damaged the straps that ship with the camera. On the other hand, there may be a reasonably sized market for people who want to use those straps on lesser cameras. Nikon, if they’re smart, is not at all put off by that. It’s a great thing for them if people are walking around advertising their latest camera.
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