Nikon FF Mirrorless

[Trek of Joy]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

I am not too sure about that. Have you ever looked at the back of a Sony FE FF lens?? It is scary different. I cleaned it once and the little plastic rectangle thingy poped off inside the lens!!!  ? Fortunately I got it back on, but you can only clean the rear element when the damn lens is zoomed all the way out, and pins that plastic thing against the rear of the mount. I am talking in further than even that rippled, fuzzy looking thing.  It pivots on some pins in there I guess? It is the same with my FE 28-70mm. Sony did not make it that way just for Shits and Giggles. ?

 

I genuinely don't know what you're talking about.

[webrunner5]

2 minutes ago, Trek of Joy said:

I genuinely don't know what you're talking about.

Do you own a Sony FE mount lens?

[Trek of Joy]

1 hour ago, IronFilm said:

So it is very easy to see how there will be twenty plus lenses in total within a year for Z Mount from third parties. Easily more.
 

I think by the end of 2019 that will be the case, and about 10 of those will be from Nikon themselves. I bet we get the zoom trinity and a few more primes in addition to the 35/50 and the 24-70 at launch.

Chris

Just now, webrunner5 said:

Do you own a Sony FE mount lens?

A number of them, including the 16-35/4. What does that have to do with a Nikon mirrorless?

[webrunner5]

41 minutes ago, Trek of Joy said:

I think by the end of 2019 that will be the case, and about 10 of those will be from Nikon themselves. I bet we get the zoom trinity and a few more primes in addition to the 35/50 and the 24-70 at launch.

Chris

A number of them, including the 16-35/4. What does that have to do with a Nikon mirrorless?

Ironfilm saying they will have all these lenses out for the Z mount. Did you read the thread in the last day??

And the piece I was talking about is this rectangle on the inside edge thing at the bottom. It swivels if you touch it when the lens is zoomed in. Don't clean the rear element when it is that way. Big mistake.

The thought behind my comment is Sigma or anyone else is not going to just change a flange on any old lens and make it work without some serious engineering. Now if they use their adapter well maybe. But we have no clue in hell what this Z mount will even really look like, or if they are even going to have a focus motor in the body yet, on and on. The Sony FE lenses are not a normal looking design with the rear exit that is for sure. Who is to say the Z mount won't be some odd duck thing also.

And that dirt, smears is on my iPhone X camera lens. A 16 ounce T Bone steak adds to the mess trust me. Oh I cooked it to perfection tonight, the steak that is.

 

[jonpais]

Beyond this forum, I haven’t heard or seen a single so-called expert as sanguine about the lens situation as some of our esteemed contributors.

Most tend to err on the side of caution. They are too concerned with how well Nikon’s own adapted lenses will function with the new incompatible mount and how quickly Nikon themselves can turn out Z mount lenses.

And pretty much all agree that it will take years for them to catch up with Sony’s at present sixty-odd outstanding primes and zooms.

Think about it for a moment - for how many years have photographers been crying about the lack of Sony e mount lenses, and according to most, their lineup is still lacking in several key areas. And the alpha cameras are what, five years old already?

Many have held off buying into the Fuji system for the same reason - the lack of lenses they consider essential for their work. 

And now that Sony does at last boast a fine collection of fast lenses in the focal lengths I use most, there’s a strong desire to see a whole new set of slower, compact constant aperture primes and zooms (similar to what Fuji offers with their lovely 23, 35, and 50mm f/2 jewels) - at a price we can afford!

Because Sony’s brilliant sensors can see in the dark, not everyone believes that bulky, precious f/1.4 lenses are essential any longer. 

But let’s imagine for a moment that stalwart manufacturers like Tamron, Samyang or Tokina are already tooling up to make Z mount lenses as we speak: number one, their track record isn’t unblemished like Sigma’s, so we can’t be absolutely certain that their mechanical and optical quality will match those of say, the Art lenses (if all lenses were as uniformly excellent, reviewers would soon be out of a job!). And in many cases, adapted and third party lenses don’t focus as quickly as native OEM ones. (Besides which, I intensely dislike adaptors on mirrorless).

And even were Tamron to release a plastic fantastic 16-35mm f/2.8 Z mount the very day of the FX mirrorless announcement, there’s a strong possibility you’ll end up trading it in the moment Nikon unveils their own, with superior build, weather sealing and lightning quick, inaudible focusing motors.

A never-ending cycle of continually buying and upgrading! 

Lastly, one thing I really appreciate about Sony and Fuji are the excellent ecosystems - meaning that I don’t need to waste hours and days on the Internet researching lenses and ending up with a grab bag of optics by a half dozen different manufacturers, each with their own mechanical quirks and coloration, as I did with Panasonic.

[IronFilm]

1 hour ago, webrunner5 said:

The thought behind my comment is Sigma or anyone else is not going to just change a flange on any old lens and make it work without some serious engineering. Now if they use their adapter well maybe. But we have no clue in hell what this Z mount will even really look like, or if they are even going to have a focus motor in the body yet, on and on.

Yes, the electronic lenses will take a little while to figure out for the third parties (if Nikon doesn't give them a helping hand, which is the smart thing to do, but I highly doubt Nikon will do that). 

But my point is there are so many many manual lenses out there that we'll easily see the 20 plus lenses for Z mount come out before the end of the year post launch. 

And even for electronic lenses, I'll give good odds that the first generation of them will come out within the first year. As Nikon mirrorless is such a big target, there will be massive motivation for the third party lens manufacturers to figure this out asap. 

[webrunner5]

6 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Yes, the electronic lenses will take a little while to figure out for the third parties (if Nikon doesn't give them a helping hand, which is the smart thing to do, but I highly doubt Nikon will do that). 

But my point is there are so many many manual lenses out there that we'll easily see the 20 plus lenses for Z mount come out before the end of the year post launch. 

And even for electronic lenses, I'll give good odds that the first generation of them will come out within the first year. As Nikon mirrorless is such a big target, there will be massive motivation for the third party lens manufacturers to figure this out asap. 

Oh I don't doubt Nikon has given all the lens manufacturers the specs for the Z mount. And I am sure they will have a few Nikkors out themselves that are great. So yeah nobody will be lens less for long I am sure if you have deep enough pockets.

It is just like Jon said about the endless new stuff over and over and over. If I spent as much time shooting even with a Canon T2i as I do on here, and Amazon I would be George Lucas LoL. ?

[jonpais]

18 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

And even for electronic lenses, I'll give good odds that the first generation of them will come out within the first year. As Nikon mirrorless is such a big target, there will be massive motivation for the third party lens manufacturers to figure this out asap. 

Just like they did when Sony launched their alpha cameras and Fuji their X mount, right?

And before anyone gets too worked up about a smashing lineup of Zeiss Z mount compact primes, it would be prudent to wait and see whether the Nikon is a capable video camera at all.

[IronFilm]

24 minutes ago, jonpais said:

Just like they did when Sony launched their alpha cameras and Fuji their X mount, right?

When Sony launched their first E mount camera it was a different era to the one we live in today, when mirrorless is seen to be much more important. But even then, dumb adapters appeared on the scene very quickly. 

As for X mount, again in the past (but a bit more recent), however Fuji is a massively smaller player than Nikon, so less of drive to solve their mount quickly than there will be to do Z Mount. (as the first third party to nail Z mount with decent AF will surely make lots of sales)

[jonpais]

Where’s the footage? ???

Frankly, unless Nikon surpasses the video prowess of Sony, they could release one hundred f/.95 lenses at launch, it wouldn’t entice me. 

[Robert Collins]

3 hours ago, jonpais said:

Beyond this forum, I haven’t heard or seen a single so-called expert as sanguine about the lens situation as some of our esteemed contributors.

Most tend to err on the side of caution. They are too concerned with how well Nikon’s own adapted lenses will function with the new incompatible mount and how quickly Nikon themselves can turn out Z mount lenses.

And pretty much all agree that it will take years for them to catch up with Sony’s at present sixty-odd outstanding primes and zooms.

Think about it for a moment - for how many years have photographers been crying about the lack of Sony e mount lenses, and according to most, their lineup is still lacking in several key areas. And the alpha cameras are what, five years old already?

Many have held off buying into the Fuji system for the same reason - the lack of lenses they consider essential for their work. 

And now that Sony does at last boast a fine collection of fast lenses in the focal lengths I use most, there’s a strong desire to see a whole new set of slower, compact constant aperture primes and zooms (similar to what Fuji offers with their lovely 23, 35, and 50mm f/2 jewels) - at a price we can afford!

Because Sony’s brilliant sensors can see in the dark, not everyone believes that bulky, precious f/1.4 lenses are essential any longer. 

But let’s imagine for a moment that stalwart manufacturers like Tamron, Samyang or Tokina are already tooling up to make Z mount lenses as we speak: number one, their track record isn’t unblemished like Sigma’s, so we can’t be absolutely certain that their mechanical and optical quality will match those of say, the Art lenses (if all lenses were as uniformly excellent, reviewers would soon be out of a job!). And in many cases, adapted and third party lenses don’t focus as quickly as native OEM ones. (Besides which, I intensely dislike adaptors on mirrorless).

And even were Tamron to release a plastic fantastic 16-35mm f/2.8 Z mount the very day of the FX mirrorless announcement, there’s a strong possibility you’ll end up trading it in the moment Nikon unveils their own, with superior build, weather sealing and lightning quick, inaudible focusing motors.

A never-ending cycle of continually buying and upgrading! 

Lastly, one thing I really appreciate about Sony and Fuji are the excellent ecosystems - meaning that I don’t need to waste hours and days on the Internet researching lenses and ending up with a grab bag of optics by a half dozen different manufacturers, each with their own mechanical quirks and coloration, as I did with Panasonic.

I still think you are missing the fundamental reasons why the Nikon lens roll out will be faster than Sony.

Sony was first to mirrorless full frame.

As such all the lenses (designed to work efficiently on the mount) had to be redesigned virtually from scratch for two reasons.

1) To incorporate 'stepper motors' for fast and efficient 'CDAF' which is combined with 'on-sensor' 'PDAF' (which is inherently less efficient than a dedicated PDAF array you find on DSLRs). Of note the Sigma ART lenses for FE mount didnt add these motors and people have found their af relative poor on Sony A7x.

2) Lens need to be optically redesigned to take advantage (mostly wide angle) of the much shorter registration distance. As an example the upcoming Laowa 10-18mm FE weighs 40% of Canon's 11-24.

And redesigning a lens from scratch takes quite a long time - two years to production I have read.

But once they have done that for Sony FE, they dont have to do it all over again for Nikon Z mount. The registration distance is near identical and Nikon will use a combination CDAF/OSPDAF focusing system. All they have to do is change the mount which is trivial for a manual focus lens, more difficult for af lenses unless Nikon licenses the mount details.

As an example, The Fuji X mount was launched at the beginning of 2012 and Zeiss introduced totally new lenses - the Touit line - for Sony E and Fuji X in September.

[jonpais]

We don't even know at this point whether Nikon will license other manufacturers to make native mount lenses. This is all pure speculation that leads nowhere.

A more fruitful discussion would surround Hugh Brownstone's video, in which he outlines what he believes Nikon must do in order to surpass Sony.

[Robert Collins]

10 minutes ago, jonpais said:

We don't even know at this point whether Nikon will license other manufacturers to make native mount lenses. This is all pure speculation that leads nowhere.

A more fruitful discussion would surround Hugh Brownstone's video, in which he outlines what he believes Nikon must do in order to surpass Sony.

You should probably save up for the A7siii which will use Sony's stacked cmos technology and hopefully be out before the end of the year.

 

[jonpais]

5 minutes ago, Robert Collins said:

You should probably save up for the A7siii which will use Sony's stacked cmos technology and hopefully be out before the end of the year.

 

That's brutal. I was thinking more along the lines of the 6D mark II.

[Danko]

1 hour ago, jonpais said:

Frankly, unless Nikon surpasses the video prowess of Sony, they could release one hundred f/.95 lenses at launch, it wouldn’t entice me. 

Haven't you mentioned a couple of times you're not a representative sample for the market?

18 minutes ago, jonpais said:

A more fruitful discussion would surround Hugh Brownstone's video, in which he outlines what he believes Nikon must do in order to surpass Sony.

The gentleman you've mentioned has to say that Nikon has to surpass Sony or that Fuji has to do something else because that's how he attracts views. You'll go there for confirmation of your opinions, someone else will go again because they are 'fanboys'. It's like a tabloid war. You think it's about right and wrong. And in reality, it's about the number of views and engagements.

- Do you think Nikon or Canon market decisions are guided by the video users' needs?

- Do you think their 'future' depends on catering to video shooters?

[Django]

For the sake of comparisons, here's an article on what our own Andrew Reid had to say on the D850 vs everything:

https://www.eoshd.com/2017/10/nikon-d850-vs-everything/

he concluded with:

Nothing has yet beaten the Canon 1D C’s 4K on pure quality terms, although the GH5 has a better codec.

The Sony A7S II is the closest full frame camera to beat the 1D C’s incredibly cinematic image but it is 100Mbit/s 4:2:0 vs 500Mbit 4:2:2.

The Nikon D850 feels the most like the 1D C out of everything so far – similar LOG profile, the closest colour, full frame with no crop sensor (the 1D C is 1.3x crop, still nice).

The data rate of the codec is around the 150Mbit/s mark so higher than on the Sony cameras.

The detail level is similar to the Sony A99 II in full frame 4K mode with hardly any moire or aliasing. MUCH better than the A7R II full frame 4K.

I had no complaints over the full frame 4K from the A99 II. It’s early days with my D850 but I detect slightly less false colour than the A99 II, possibly even less noise and a more filmic rendering, indeed better colour at first impressions although EOSHD Pro Color 3.0 helps the A99 II A LOT. I’ll do a full comparison later.

Moire is practically a non-issue.

(...)

Now, add on a 4K video mode with image quality to edge out even the best Sony full frame cameras and you have a compelling hybrid.

It also helps that I can actually see my images, because the screen is way better than on all of my Sony cameras!

-----

Now this was written before the alpha iii series but a lot of it still holds true including the codec size & screen resolution.

Also most of the negatives Andrew lists there have to do with DSLR limitations (no EVF, no IBIS, etc) and lack of good video PDAF.

Video AF is to me the big question mark but i can't imagine Nikon not responding to dual pixel tech from their main competitor, Canon.

but in the end if you are a Sony shooter, i agree best is indeed to look past all this and hope towards the A7SIII..

[jonpais]

30 minutes ago, Danko said:

Haven't you mentioned a couple of times you're not a representative sample for the market?

I do not recall mentioning anything of the kind. Anyway, so what if I’m not?

31 minutes ago, Danko said:

- Do you think Nikon or Canon market decisions are guided by the video users' needs?

I’ve got no idea. You tell me!

38 minutes ago, Danko said:

The gentleman you've mentioned has to say that Nikon has to surpass Sony or that Fuji has to do something else because that's how he attracts views.

I’ve seen people civilly disagree with his conclusions, but before you, I’ve never heard anyone question Hugh Brownstone’s integrity. He is no shill, if that’s what you’re suggesting.

41 minutes ago, Danko said:

- Do you think their 'future' depends on catering to video shooters?

Again, why don’t you enlighten us?

This is a video forum, so naturally I’m concerned above all else with video performance. 

49 minutes ago, Danko said:

You'll go there for confirmation of your opinions, someone else will go again because they are 'fanboys'. 

I subscribe to lots of YouTube channels, but I arrive at my own conclusions independently. 

[hansel]

all i  hoping for is that the f to z adapter, if there will be one, is going to af my old screw lenses. That would be mental, even if it is just for photo af.

[IronFilm]

2 hours ago, jonpais said:

Where’s the footage? ???

Frankly, unless Nikon surpasses the video prowess of Sony, they could release one hundred f/.95 lenses at launch, it wouldn’t entice me. 

Well as we've said, including Andrew, if Nikon simply matches the quality of the D850 footage and nails the rest of their mirrorless roll it then I'm sure it would be successful. 

1 hour ago, Robert Collins said:

I still think you are missing the fundamental reasons why the Nikon lens roll out will be faster than Sony.

Sony was first to mirrorless full frame.

As such all the lenses (designed to work efficiently on the mount) had to be redesigned virtually from scratch for two reasons.

1) To incorporate 'stepper motors' for fast and efficient 'CDAF' which is combined with 'on-sensor' 'PDAF' (which is inherently less efficient than a dedicated PDAF array you find on DSLRs). Of note the Sigma ART lenses for FE mount didnt add these motors and people have found their af relative poor on Sony A7x.

2) Lens need to be optically redesigned to take advantage (mostly wide angle) of the much shorter registration distance. As an example the upcoming Laowa 10-18mm FE weighs 40% of Canon's 11-24.

And redesigning a lens from scratch takes quite a long time - two years to production I have read.

But once they have done that for Sony FE, they dont have to do it all over again for Nikon Z mount. The registration distance is near identical and Nikon will use a combination CDAF/OSPDAF focusing system. All they have to do is change the mount which is trivial for a manual focus lens, more difficult for af lenses unless Nikon licenses the mount details.

As an example, The Fuji X mount was launched at the beginning of 2012 and Zeiss introduced totally new lenses - the Touit line - for Sony E and Fuji X in September.

Exactly!

Especially the point: "All they have to do is change the mount which is trivial for a manual focus lens"

 

Which is why I believe we'll see 20+ Z mount lenses within a year of launch, because just counting the manual lenses there are plenty coming along soon.

[jonpais]

6 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Well as we've said, including Andrew, if Nikon simply matches the quality of the D850 footage and nails the rest of their mirrorless roll it then I'm sure it would be successful. 

Correctomundo - if they build the perfect camera, it will be successful. ?