Thank you all for the interesting contributions...
0.75mm is certainly not enough to produce a glassless 1x adapter. This does not lok promising...
On the longer term the future will be using FF lenses on both FF and APS-C bodies with same mount, as is possible already now for Sony and Nikon. Hopefully Canon will release also an APS-C body with RF mount in the future...
Wolfgang
Yes it would seem to be that following the dslr paradigm and having aps-c and FF sensors using similar camera bodies could be replicated.
It seems easy to forget that the dslr started out using aps-c and used them for their premium bodies for some years before graduating to FF sensors. However the aps-c sensor was hardly treated as second tier and only entry level bodies were built to a price. Many just bought aps-c (and loved it) as the FF sensor had not been put on a high pedestal until the Sony A7 series was launched.
Out in the field only brand enthusiasts might distinguish between someone using an aps-c dslr and someone using a FF sensor camera body. But the entry level dslr bodies were obvious to anyone who knew their cameras except those that were buying them who regarded them as “Proper cameras”.
Sony is running parallel lines of camera body styles that use the same lens mount. I don’t keep up but suggest that Sony may have stopped making lenses designed for aps-c and that their a6*** line camera bodies mix and match lens image circles just as much as the dslr owners used to do. The a6*** was once the “NEX” and originally a pretty basic entry level camera body that must have surprised Sony how well it sold and surprised others that it could make good images. It was recast as the a6*** series as a camera body with more serious intent.
Canon played with EF-S lenses with aps-c image circles for a while then switched to EF-M as their “budget” line using aps-c. “Budget” meaning “cheaper” not “cheap”. There are EF-EF-M adapters - not sure if there are RF-EF-M adapters or if this is actually possible. It might be harder for Canon to make an aps-c version of their RF camera bodies without making the future of EF-M rather rocky. They may continue to support EF and EF-M as separate systems. This could leave it more difficult for their users to trade “up”from EF-M to RF (if “up” is the appropriate word). Certainly EF-M appears to me as a more budget line of cameras and as far as I know - not one that is populated by a significant catalogue of native mount lenses (let alone exotic ones). This leaves EF-M owners adapting any lens types that EF-M does not make.
It could be possible that Canon amalgamates is production into RF only which would leave the EF-M users with an otherwise very useful system that has been fossilised. At the very least Canon has determined that RF and EF-M are two quite separate camera systems with RF being the expensive prestige line.
Nikon may not have the funds to make a complete separate line of cameras and after the abandonment of the adventure with the 1” sensor are now trying to use the one mount, different sensor, similar body, line - just like the dslr once did. They might struggle differencing their aps-c cameras as either quality aps-c as they did with their dslr or entry level without being able to make it cheap enough to difference it from their (say) Z5 which simply trades video function for a lower price.
I, for one, don’t need a video capability but do want a capable camera body - a suitable reduction in price (rather than build or other performance) and I would happily dispense with video altogether.
Fuji has concentrated on making their aps-c cameras versatile and ranges the full spectrum of capabilities within their mount system - as does M4/3. Fuji chooses to make a specialised low volume premium medium format line as a prestige alternative. Panasonic is doing something similar using the FF L-Mount to lap up some of the currently fashionable FF gravy train.
Many seem willing to pay significantly more to be in the FF sensor spectrum, the manufacturers on a declining market are only too happy to oblige.
This seems to have shades of the “more megapixels are better” mania that consumed the compact camera market until it died over over-pixelation. Similarly “the FF sensor is the very best” is now the mantra. Despite the fact that aps-c and 4/3 are certainly “good enough” these days. Certainly those buying new but obsolete A7 cameras just a couple of years ago because they were cheap and had the revered FF sensor were overlooking the fact that they would inevitably have to trade up to a camera body that would cost as much as an A7RIV if they wanted to be truly on top of the FF sensor heap - and that is not counting the cost of the exquisite FE lenses that they might need to get the very best out of it. Or was it simply just “any larger sensor was better”?
Leica continues to be Leica. Sigma has hopefully joined the L-Mount consortium to try and replace lost dslr market whilst they reverse engineer the protocols for the ex-dslr majors.
Ricoh-Pentax? Who knows ....
