But you may find that a DX version of the Z mount won't make cameras smaller. The Z6/Z7 are about the same size and weight of the Fuji APS C mirrorless cameras.
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While the latest iteration of the Dxxxx announced today may make it seem like nikon is abandoning the low-end market (i.e., killing it with yawns), there is no way they are going to walk away from what is making them the most money. One might wonder if they're address it correctly--uninspiring reiterations, lack of better lens support, etc. But the D3500 shows two things: 1) Nikon isn't leaving it, and 2) They think their current iteration style is sufficient. Again, DX makes them the most money. And no, that's not coming from the D7500/D500. What is weird is that Nikon didn't do DX mirrorless first. But apparently they felt it better to ward off Sony rather than go after Canon.
CanonSharpShooter
Forum Enthusiast
No they are not, check out the Fujifilm X-E2, X-E3, X-T2, X-T20, X-T10, XT100. That’s a lot of bodies to choose from that are smaller and lighter than the Z twins. Also it’s the lenses that makes the setup big and heavy, Fujifilm has the most extensive APSC lenses to boot.
DPFranz
Senior Member
The Z bodies are similar in size to a D3###. The extra mount size is plainly not a huge limit on small body size.
If wanted, one could make the lens barrel smaller than the mount itself...just a wider region right in front of the mount. The constraint is the image circle spanning the sensor, not the mount diameter.
Yield is still inversely proportional to area, so costs still scale quadratically with linear size. Only about twenty full-frame sensors can be produced on a 20 cm wafer, but about 100 DX sensors will fit. Also significant yield reduction due to the large area for contaminants per component, i.e., a full frame sensor has a quadratically larger likelyhood of a local fault.
Doubtful. This is 9:1 of their sales. Mirrorless reduces camera costs in the long run - fewer moving parts, more automation. I have no crystal ball, but I'd be very surprised if there were never a Nikon DX mirrrorless body.
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FF Nikon Z6 with lens: $2,599.95
APS-C Canon M50 with lens: $699.99
Nikon can't afford to unilaterally give away the low-end mirrorless market, by not having an APS-C mirrorless camera.
The Canon M50 /Kiss M is the best selling mirrorless camera in Japan, and is probably also selling well in Asia. Asia (excluding Japan) buys more mirrorless cameras than The Americas and Europe combined.
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And the APS-C Fujifilm X-T100 with lens for $699, in “Champagne Gold”. :-D
Canon is the proverbial “elephant in the room” when discussing the future of mirrorless cameras. I would not be surprised to see Canon dominant the camera market in less than ten years.
peripheralfocus
Veteran Member
Canon already completely dominates the camera market. But if you mean the mirrorless camera market, I think their time to dominance is more like 10 months, not years.
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They can, if the margins on those $700 cameras suck. Which, at that price point, is virtually guaranteed.
Also, Nikon tried the small-sensor low-cost mirrorless route, and it failed -- twice. 1 series failed, DL didn't even launch. I don't think they will be too excited by trying a 3rd time.
Times change, market dynamics change. Camera sales have fallen off a cliff, and are still falling. Chasing market share in a falling market doesn't sound like a brilliant plan. Don't be too surprised if there isn't a Z mount APS.
peripheralfocus
Veteran Member
It puts a small constraint on body size; Nikon can't go quite as small as Canon or Sony or Fuji go with their absolute smallest models, but they can get reasonably close with the right design.
They can easily make quite small lenses. See my post lower down in this thread for a picture of how Olympus handles the large lens flange issue.
Nikon has way, way more than enough money to invest for any reasonable level in the camera business, if they think it's worth it. (There's some real doubt about whether it is.) Nikon is in a quite positive equity position and could invest hundreds of millions of dollars in any business they wanted to go into. They don't have enough to get into shipbuilding or oil or automobile manufacturing, but the camera business is no problem.
I'm not sure, but I think your speculation here has more credibility than other people on this thread are giving it. There is more unit volume in the APS-C market tiers, yes, but they are much less profitable, and I'm certain they are eroding faster than the FF tiers.
peripheralfocus
Veteran Member
This was certainly true once, but I'm not sure it still is. There is some evidence that it may not be, although I don't have conclusive proof yet.
I agree, there will soon be a DX mirrorless. And their likely to use the same mount for the ff mirrorless. My prediction is they will come out with one high end DX mirrorless lens, and create similar priced value lenses like they did with the DSLR DX.
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vadims
Guest
Tired of size and weight. At the time I bought into Sony (wouldn't call it a "switch" as I retained all my Canon gear):
My Canon 5D mk2 + 24-105/4: 850g + 670g ==> 1,320g
My Sony a6000 + 16-70/4 ==> 344g + 308g = 652g (more than twice as light)
As to "superior image quality", it's a... complicated matter. You may want to go to image comparison tool, select a6000 and 5Dmk2 and compare their performance in low light -- you'll see that Sony is actually better. And it has higher resolution, too.
More importantly, sensor isn't everything that you need for great IQ.
It's a huge topic, but I'll give one example: in certain conditions, IBIS allows my a6500 take shots with higher IQ than many FF cameras w/o that feature. And IBIS in APS-C cameras will IMHO always be better than IBIS of FF simply because the sensor is lighter (that's big part of the reason why Olympus has the best implementation in the industry, better than Sony APS-C).
Lastly, I've been shooting film for decades, and output of modern APS-C cameras beats that by such a huge margin that I feel like being in photographic heaven...
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vadims
Guest
I do look at Fuji every now and then.
As a long time film rangefinder shooter, the idea to revive that experience with a modern, capable camera has always been very appealing...
Problem with Fuji (for me!) is that they treat cameras with corner VFs as second-tier, never giving them their best AF systems (X-E3, X-Pro2), or full sets of mechanical controls (X-E3).
As a long time film rangefinder shooter, the idea to revive that experience with a modern, capable camera has always been very appealing...
Problem with Fuji (for me!) is that they treat cameras with corner VFs as second-tier, never giving them their best AF systems (X-E3, X-Pro2), or full sets of mechanical controls (X-E3).
Fair enough. Thanks for the honest reply.
For what I shoot, I don't really mind the size and weight difference of full frame when I need it. I have both the d500 and d750. Since I often shoot sports/action, and have a 70-200 f.2.8 hanging off the front of my camera, the size of the camera has little impact to the overall size of what I'm hauling around.
I would say the same for the dSLR/mirrorless divide (again, for what I shoot). I get enough better AF performance shooting with a d500 that that alone makes sense.
sandy b
Veteran Member
The Z7 not much bigger than the D3500. They can make a plenty small one.
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vadims
Guest
I'm not exactly "waiting"... But my experience tells me that every system has something unique to offer; and not just "unique", but something I'll want.
I was thinking about buying Canon M for my son. Ended up buying him Sony a6300 + 18-135 though.
I seriously looked at getting Olympus 12-100/4 (having stunning quality) with some compact body as a walk-around combo, for myself. Dropped that idea only after I paid attention to the 12-100's size and weight.
I bought my daughter Canon SL1 and Tamron 16-300, and to this day I didn't see a lens that would beat that Tamron in quality/versatility tradeoff.
When I wanted to get the best 35mm-equivalent walk-around combo, I seriously looked at Fuji offerings... Ended up getting Zeiss 24/1.8 for an existing Sony body though.
Again, I have zero brand loyalty, and can easily see that one day Nikon will release something that interests me.
kiwi2
Veteran Member
Not what I'm seeing. Fuji can be as small as Olympus micro 4/3s.
http://j.mp/2wv6yhg
Fuji does offer that small size advantage for people who are looking for that.
Putting a APS-C sensor inside their new Z6/Z7 body and Z mount will struggle to achieve that.
In some near-future scenario where MILCs take over in every market segment, it makes sense to me that Nikon might eventually ditch the mirror for their current APS-C line.
I expect it would be geared more toward consumers.
That's been Canon's approach with the EOS-M line. It was frustrating to me until I accepted it for what it is and just rolled with it. If you just want to dabble in, say, ultra-wide and want to spend $350 not $1250 on the lens, but still get pretty sharp results, it's actually pretty handy.
If you're holding out for a new MILC that's going to really push the envelope with IQ and fast lenses and advanced user amenities, I think you're already looking at Nikon's new system for that. If that's what you're craving and it has to be APS-C for some reason, it might be Fuji or bust at this point. (Maybe Sony if their current lens lineup meets your needs - new offerings there have come to a near standstill. Or M4/3...)
The new Z mount seems like it might be a bit ungainly for APS-C. I expect Nikon would use a narrower "DZ" mount to better facilitate the compactness that is part of the appeal with "crop" formats.
I expect it would be geared more toward consumers.
That's been Canon's approach with the EOS-M line. It was frustrating to me until I accepted it for what it is and just rolled with it. If you just want to dabble in, say, ultra-wide and want to spend $350 not $1250 on the lens, but still get pretty sharp results, it's actually pretty handy.
If you're holding out for a new MILC that's going to really push the envelope with IQ and fast lenses and advanced user amenities, I think you're already looking at Nikon's new system for that. If that's what you're craving and it has to be APS-C for some reason, it might be Fuji or bust at this point. (Maybe Sony if their current lens lineup meets your needs - new offerings there have come to a near standstill. Or M4/3...)
The new Z mount seems like it might be a bit ungainly for APS-C. I expect Nikon would use a narrower "DZ" mount to better facilitate the compactness that is part of the appeal with "crop" formats.
Craig Gillette
Forum Pro
I'm thinking the easiest route would be to use an F mount with current lenses. They don't really need all the space the new mount offers and another smaller mount/adapter is an added product and distraction. They have some nice consumer lenses out there and third party participation.
If you look to the consumer price of the Z6 and 24-70/4 and A7iii and 24-70/4, they are $1000 or so more than say the A6500 and 18-135 or D7500 and 18-140. I'm not sure that's a product area any of the big players really want to just leave to the others. Not glamorous or special but phones aren't there yet and some potential customers still want more than a phone.
If you look to the consumer price of the Z6 and 24-70/4 and A7iii and 24-70/4, they are $1000 or so more than say the A6500 and 18-135 or D7500 and 18-140. I'm not sure that's a product area any of the big players really want to just leave to the others. Not glamorous or special but phones aren't there yet and some potential customers still want more than a phone.
lancet
Well-known member
I agree on that. And in the future they can design lenses that extend into the mount when there is no mirror there, so the difference in size would be negligible. And the F mount is plenty wide for the APS-C, it's almost like Z mount is to FF.
Currently they have a whole set of lenses that would focus great even with mirrorless, no worse that they are focusing now (except for D500), and the dim, small viewfinder in the entry level bodies could be replaced by more viewable EVF.
I would bet they will go that route.
