Prediction

Jay A

Senior Member
Messages
2,576
Solutions
3
Reaction score
1,408
Location
NY, US
Merely a prediction based on nothing factual, nor do I have any knowledge of anything that Nikon may or may not be working on. This is just based on what I have observed in regards to the Z7 and Z6 cameras so far.

Photokina 2020, Nikon will introduce a $5000+ high end pro version of the Z7 body (maybe called the Z1?). By then they will have several pro lenses out like the 24-70 F2.8, 70-200 F2.8, the Noct, etc. Pros will be less likely to hesitate with a much bigger selection of lenses to use natively with a mirrorless camera at that point. Here is what the new camera will have to differentiate it from the Z7;

- 2 card slots

- state of the art focusing

- State of the art high iso capabilities

- PC flash sync terminal and remote terminal like the D5

- Bigger, higher capacity battery (maybe the D5 type with the D5 grip)

- Round eyepiece like the D5

- D5, D850 mode dial

- lighted buttons

- not sure about MP but certainly greater than 20

- Anything else from the D5 that I am missing

I think the Z6 and Z7 will at that point have basically taken over the $2000 D750 price point and the $3000 D850 price point. The new camera will take the D5 price point. As time goes on, I also think one or two lower level mirrorless bodies will appear taking over the $1000 price point. I think that eventually soon after, everything DSLR will be discontinued except for the D5 (or D6 at that time) which will remain in production for a while, just as the F6 did.
 
Merely a prediction based on nothing factual, nor do I have any knowledge of anything that Nikon may or may not be working on. This is just based on what I have observed in regards to the Z7 and Z6 cameras so far.

Photokina 2020, Nikon will introduce a $5000+ high end pro version of the Z7 body (maybe called the Z1?). By then they will have several pro lenses out like the 24-70 F2.8, 70-200 F2.8, the Noct, etc. Pros will be less likely to hesitate with a much bigger selection of lenses to use natively with a mirrorless camera at that point. Here is what the new camera will have to differentiate it from the Z7;

- 2 card slots

- state of the art focusing

- State of the art high iso capabilities

- PC flash sync terminal and remote terminal like the D5

- Bigger, higher capacity battery (maybe the D5 type with the D5 grip)

- Round eyepiece like the D5

- D5, D850 mode dial

- lighted buttons

- not sure about MP but certainly greater than 20

- Anything else from the D5 that I am missing

I think the Z6 and Z7 will at that point have basically taken over the $2000 D750 price point and the $3000 D850 price point. The new camera will take the D5 price point. As time goes on, I also think one or two lower level mirrorless bodies will appear taking over the $1000 price point. I think that eventually soon after, everything DSLR will be discontinued except for the D5 (or D6 at that time) which will remain in production for a while, just as the F6 did.
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.

Jim
 
Merely a prediction based on nothing factual, nor do I have any knowledge of anything that Nikon may or may not be working on. This is just based on what I have observed in regards to the Z7 and Z6 cameras so far.

Photokina 2020, Nikon will introduce a $5000+ high end pro version of the Z7 body (maybe called the Z1?). By then they will have several pro lenses out like the 24-70 F2.8, 70-200 F2.8, the Noct, etc. Pros will be less likely to hesitate with a much bigger selection of lenses to use natively with a mirrorless camera at that point. Here is what the new camera will have to differentiate it from the Z7;

- 2 card slots

- state of the art focusing

- State of the art high iso capabilities

- PC flash sync terminal and remote terminal like the D5

- Bigger, higher capacity battery (maybe the D5 type with the D5 grip)

- Round eyepiece like the D5

- D5, D850 mode dial

- lighted buttons

- not sure about MP but certainly greater than 20

- Anything else from the D5 that I am missing

I think the Z6 and Z7 will at that point have basically taken over the $2000 D750 price point and the $3000 D850 price point. The new camera will take the D5 price point. As time goes on, I also think one or two lower level mirrorless bodies will appear taking over the $1000 price point. I think that eventually soon after, everything DSLR will be discontinued except for the D5 (or D6 at that time) which will remain in production for a while, just as the F6 did.
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.

Jim
That would be nice!

Also forgot to mention, shutter eyepiece blind, and higher flash sync speed like the D5.
 
My guess; Z9 will be the top of the line pro camera, and will come when they have the lenses. Z8 will come later and will be D850+ level. Z5 is ear-marked to be a cheaper cut-down version of the Z6. Z1-4 reserved for APS-C models. Possibly. I doubt if Nikon itself knows with certainty what they will actually produce.
 
My guess; Z9 will be the top of the line pro camera, and will come when they have the lenses. Z8 will come later and will be D850+ level. Z5 is ear-marked to be a cheaper cut-down version of the Z6. Z1-4 reserved for APS-C models. Possibly. I doubt if Nikon itself knows with certainty what they will actually produce.
No, they will release the Z-AI. It will take the pictures for you, process them in RAW to perfection, and even cook you dinner.
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once or even get to a global readout (reading all rows at once). Sony apparently has some lower res APS-C sensors in their catalog that have global readout so perhaps that's not that far behind for FF sensors. Of course, all this has to be done without compromising noise in low light readout too.

--
John
 
Last edited:
That would be nice!

Also forgot to mention, shutter eyepiece blind, and higher flash sync speed like the D5.
Can you explain to me the benefits of an eyepiece blind on an electronic viewfinder?
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
or even get to a global readout (reading all rows at once).
Sure you don't mean global shutter?
Sony apparently has some lower res APS-C sensors in their catalog that have global readout so perhaps that's not that far behind for FF sensors. Of course, all this has to be done without compromising noise in low light readout too.
 
Merely a prediction based on nothing factual, nor do I have any knowledge of anything that Nikon may or may not be working on. This is just based on what I have observed in regards to the Z7 and Z6 cameras so far.

Photokina 2020, Nikon will introduce a $5000+ high end pro version of the Z7 body (maybe called the Z1?). By then they will have several pro lenses out like the 24-70 F2.8, 70-200 F2.8, the Noct, etc. Pros will be less likely to hesitate with a much bigger selection of lenses to use natively with a mirrorless camera at that point. Here is what the new camera will have to differentiate it from the Z7;
From here on in Photokina is being held yearly, so you may not have to wait that long.
- 2 card slots
Yes, market demand will eventually cause Nikon to bring two card slots back. Dual XQD only. (My guess).
- state of the art focusing
I agree. It’s certainly not perfect now. But it’s no where near as horrible as the internet would have you believe. That said, it’s exciting to think this is the starting point.
- State of the art high iso capabilities
Nikon is good at that.
- PC flash sync terminal and remote terminal like the D5
With all the radio triggers out there, PC sync terminal could go extinct.
- Bigger, higher capacity battery (maybe the D5 type with the D5 grip)
Using the a9 as a bar.... the Z1/9 (whatever) may have a D850 sized body vs D5. But with the ability to add a grip. On the flip side, if we look at the 100mp Fuji GFX body that’s coming, the D5 style body is for extra processing power (and heat dissipation (?)) so if, as you propose, a 24mp 30 fps mirrorless is what we see, the D5 style body could be utilized for porcessing power.
- Round eyepiece like the D5

- D5, D850 mode dial

- lighted buttons

- not sure about MP but certainly greater than 20
The a9 is 24mp if that's any indication.
- Anything else from the D5 that I am missing

I think the Z6 and Z7 will at that point have basically taken over the $2000 D750 price point and the $3000 D850 price point. The new camera will take the D5 price point. As time goes on, I also think one or two lower level mirrorless bodies will appear taking over the $1000 price point. I think that eventually soon after, everything DSLR will be discontinued except for the D5 (or D6 at that time) which will remain in production for a while, just as the F6 did.
My guess is the D850. It’s a better allrounder than the D5

Think about when the D1 came out. “Whoa, first affordable DSLR. 2 million pixels! Mind blown!” No one could have imagined the specs of the D750 let alone the D850 without attaching an astronomical price to it and adding the usual commentary about noise with high pixels as was talked about so much back then. So we can predict the future based on our knowledge of the present but I think in a few years cameras that we would have never imagined could exist, will exist.
 
Last edited:
That would be nice!

Also forgot to mention, shutter eyepiece blind, and higher flash sync speed like the D5.
Can you explain to me the benefits of an eyepiece blind on an electronic viewfinder?
It keeps stray light from illuminating the EVF OLED array, and causing the OLEDs to act as photodiodes and creating electromagnetic interference.

😉

Jim
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet. So, it doesn't appear like the a9 is at this target yet. But, directionally yes. Nikon is behind with the tech that it's shipping now. It was late to FF mirrorless and it shows.

If I were Nikon, I really wouldn't like the fact that one of my main competitors is my sensor manufacturer. It's not like Sony is going to offer Nikon new technology for use in their cameras first before Sony has it in their cameras. And, when Nikon designs some new circuitry for the sensor to advance and offer some new feature, it's not like Sony doesn't know all about it, long before Nikon brings the product to market. That sounds really messy (disadvantage to Nikon). Maybe they're trying to have firewalls between groups within Sony, but...
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet.
I was talking about being able to read out more than one row in a column at a time.

Jim
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet.
I was talking about being able to read out more than one row in a column at a time.
Is that what the a9 is doing? They're not just serially reading faster?
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet.
I was talking about being able to read out more than one row in a column at a time.
Is that what the a9 is doing? They're not just serially reading faster?
12 rows at a time. It's a stacked sensor.


Jim
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet.
I was talking about being able to read out more than one row in a column at a time.
Is that what the a9 is doing? They're not just serially reading faster?
12 rows at a time. It's a stacked sensor.

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sony-a9-electronic-shutter-operation-single-shot/
Very cool diagnosis. I'm guessing that the 20fps then is limited by the pipeline to process and buffer the images, not by the ability to read data from the sensor faster.

Do you know for a fact that the Z7 is only reading one row at a time?
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet.
I was talking about being able to read out more than one row in a column at a time.
Is that what the a9 is doing? They're not just serially reading faster?
12 rows at a time. It's a stacked sensor.

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sony-a9-electronic-shutter-operation-single-shot/
Very cool diagnosis. I'm guessing that the 20fps then is limited by the pipeline to process and buffer the images, not by the ability to read data from the sensor faster.

Do you know for a fact that the Z7 is only reading one row at a time?
No.

Jim
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet.
I was talking about being able to read out more than one row in a column at a time.
Is that what the a9 is doing? They're not just serially reading faster?
12 rows at a time. It's a stacked sensor.

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sony-a9-electronic-shutter-operation-single-shot/
For others in this thread who want to read more about "stacked sensors", here'a an article that explains: https://www.thephoblographer.com/20...stacked-cmos-sensor-in-the-new-sony-a9-works/.

Apparently cell phone sensors have been using this tech for a little while.

The ironic thing in this article is that the video in the article (which is useful for further explanation) has horrible auto-focus (hope that's not what Sony video AF does) as it's mostly out-of-focus and regularly hunting and grabbing focus on the wrong subject in the frame. Also has pretty bad audio (appears to not be using an external or directional mic). But, other than a distraction, the content is still there.

--
John
 
Last edited:
That would be nice!

Also forgot to mention, shutter eyepiece blind, and higher flash sync speed like the D5.
Can you explain to me the benefits of an eyepiece blind on an electronic viewfinder?
Just that it exists on the higher end Nikons, so I don't see why they would leave it out. Why would an electronic shutter make a difference anyway? Wouldn't you still benefit from the blind if you were metering without your eye at the viewfinder?
 
The camera that you're describing cries out for a stacked sensor with close to 1/200 second readout speed and 30 fps.
And a significant step forward in dynamic OSPDAF performance to meet/exceed what the D5 does. There's definitely some tech to be invented before this happens.

As an action shooter and extrapolating from the Nikon 1 line, I was hoping this is what we would have gotten with the Z6/Z7, but now I see that Nikon doesn't quite have that mirrorless tech yet for high res FF sensors.

It's not clear how far away we are from this. It will take a significant new sensor design that allows much, much faster readout. They could get there by just speeding up the row by row readout they have now (less time per row), parallelizing the readout so they have multiple read-out pipelines so they can be reading N rows separately at once
like the a9?
Well, the a9 is at 20fps and I don't hear people saying that it's dynamic low light AF beats the D5 yet.
I was talking about being able to read out more than one row in a column at a time.
Is that what the a9 is doing? They're not just serially reading faster?
12 rows at a time. It's a stacked sensor.

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sony-a9-electronic-shutter-operation-single-shot/
For others in this thread who want to read more about "stacked sensors", here'a an article that explains: https://www.thephoblographer.com/20...stacked-cmos-sensor-in-the-new-sony-a9-works/.

Apparently cell phone sensors have been using this tech for a little while.
The bigger the sensor the harder it is to pull the stacking trick off.
The ironic thing in this article is that the video in the article (which is useful for further explanation) has horrible auto-focus (hope that's not what Sony video AF does) as it's mostly out-of-focus and regularly hunting and grabbing focus on the wrong subject in the frame. Also has pretty bad audio (appears to not be using an external or directional mic). But, other than a distraction, the content is still there.
 
That would be nice!

Also forgot to mention, shutter eyepiece blind, and higher flash sync speed like the D5.
Can you explain to me the benefits of an eyepiece blind on an electronic viewfinder?
Just that it exists on the higher end Nikons, so I don't see why they would leave it out. Why would an electronic shutter make a difference anyway? Wouldn't you still benefit from the blind if you were metering without your eye at the viewfinder?
The viewfinder is not optically connected to the optical path of the sensor or where metering is done in a mirrorless camera. In a proper design, there is no way for light entering the EVF viewfinder to get to where metering is done like there is in a dSLR. Thus, a viewfinder shutter is not needed for that reason in a mirrorless camera.
 

Keyboard shortcuts

Back
Top