Nikon's response to A1...

justcrusin said:

Tailslol said:

justcrusin said:

Tailslol said:

I don't think they need any response to A1.

A1 is way too expensive. What Nikon needs is an answer to R5. A 3500-4000$ camera which does high fps with better AF and less blackout. It doesn't even need 8K video, which is a pure gimmick for stills shooters. You cannot even watch an 8K video at home. Who has an 8K monitor or plans to buy one soon? Apple's highest resolution monitor is 6K at 6000$.
It doesn't even need more MP. 45MP is plenty but if they want higher MP, so be it.

So give me a 45MP 20 fps almost blackout free Z8 with slightly better AF at 3500$ and I'm done. I wouldn't think about upgrading that for 4 years at least.

20 fps vs 30 fps, no thanks. I already have too many photos at 9 fps of Z7. Can't even think about 30 fps. Each extra frame has much less effect once you get high enough.

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Nikon will have to respond to the A1 if they are still interested in the Pro market and still want to be reckoned as a technology leader...

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I really don't think they have to. Suppose they respond to this and then Sony releases a 65MP 60 FPS camera. Yes, technologically it'll be far superior, but when is enough enough in terms of specs on paper? At some point nobody will care about more FPS. It's for stills after all. Who wants to deal with sooo many frames that look more or less the same?

In terms of AF, we are almost at a situation where all the frames you shoot are in focus. After that, "better AF" won't mean much either.

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It does not matter what you and I think...the market drives things. Yes, things will stabilize after some time but you need to drive things and not be a follower.

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You can be a follower on certain categories. Nikon is not a sensor manufacturer, so on that they will always follow Sony. And basically all the bells and whistles of A1 is about the stacked sensor.

One thing they can do is to go to another manufacturer and ask for an even more advanced sensor, if there are any available.

Even Apple with all their big cash is still buying their sensors from Sony though. So I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I still think it's not that big of a deal for Nikon to leapfrog A1. R5 for example does not leapfrog A1 however it's a much more attractive camera due to lower price. It'll sell much more and make Canon much more money than A1 will for Sony. This is just a statement camera, exactly like the new Noct.

Even if Nikon can do something similar to this at 6500$, I wonder if they should. I certainly would not spend 6500$ on a body, whatever it's specs are. But if I was a Canon user, I'd be first in line to purchase my R5. So I think it's important for Nikon to match or exceed R5 in their next body. Not the A1. Or at least, do both. If they release a single ultra expensive body to match A1, it won't make them any money. They need a volume seller to earn some cash from Mirrorless.

Tailslol said:

David Cartagena said:

justcrusin said:

The battle is going to be between Sony and Canon. Both of them have the money to pump into R&D, both of them produce sensors that drive a lot of things around them.

Sony came out with an answer to Canon R5...and till the time Nikon comes with an answer they will have something better.

Nikon at the present is not leading..that is for sure!

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The A1 is more than an answer to R5. It's in a totally different league. It's DU, 1Dx territory, and above that.

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Yeah, A1 is not really an answer to R5. R5 currently is still the best mirrorless camera out there.

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Tailslol said:

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Tailslol said:

. The only important thing is that the tech exists to create this camera right now, so it'll eventually trickle down to cheaper cameras.

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I guess eventually is a truism. But how soon is eventually? The a9 has been out for almost four years, and much of the tech that makes it special--the stack sensor, the extremely fast processing, fast readout--has not trickled down to other Sony cameras. Canon has cut the gap a bit, but still the Canon's readout speed is only half that of the a9 (1/4 of the a1?).

Hopefully the a7IV will finally get some of the a9 tech. We will see.

Tom Ames said:

I'm sure Nikon will announce some good new Z camera bodies. But will Sony let them use this new 50mp sensor this year? It often takes 12-18 months before they allow Nikon to get the latest and greatest sensors.

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The breakdown in that logic is that Nikon needs to use the A1 sensor. The sensors in the Nikon D8xx and Z7 models have never been used by a Sony camera. The Nikon D800 came out before any camera from Sony in that MP range.

The only thing one should do is wait and see what Nikon announces. It certainly is fun to speculate. Personally, I would disregard the folklore that Sony doesn't release sensors to other companies until their own Sony cameras have used them for a while.

cosmicnode said:

tozz said:

cosmicnode said:

tozz said:

Leonard Shepherd said:

tozz said:

I also fell for the lens mount marketing (I'm a Z owner and user) but I've since realised it was just that, marketing, the benefits have yet to been seen (there's a clear IBIS benefit that's observed, but as far as lens performance there's not).

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My experience is the opposite.

My 7 Z lenses are each optically better to much better than the F mount equivalent or near equivalent, and Arneo coating in the lenses which have it are superior for most landscapes.

Two of the Z lenses I own use in lens VR. The VR maximum gain for the 5 Z mount lenses with VR are one at 5.5 stops, three at 5 stops and one at 4.5 stops, - much better than the average for F mount VR lenses.

Nikon say the purpose of the new lens mount is higher optical quality. My experience owning Z mount lenses and most test sites show Z mount lenses so far are optically comfortably better than even the best (and many are very good) F mount lenses.

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Well the F-mount was an extremely limited mount, I'm talking about the competition in the ML space (which is the only relevance in this context).

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Strangely the Sony FE mount is slightly smaller than the F mount, so in the ML space the Sony mount by your definition is an extremely limited mount.

Read this article to find out how mounts are measured and a table of mount sizes.

https://photographylife.com/what-is-lens-mount

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Quite dishonest to only look at one axis.

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No it's the one that counts the most. A short registration distance is good for wide angles that have a smaller rear diameter element but for long focal lengths where the rear element is larger and a long distance away from the sensor the small diameter mount causes vignetting and requires extra elements at the rear of the lens to "bend the light" to reach the corners of the sensor. A wide lens mount does not have that problem irrespective of it's distance from the sensor, you can place elements protruding from the mount or well inside the mount. The biggest problem is the electrical contacts inside the mount which reduce the diameter of the rear element by around 12mm. So around 43mm for a Nikon or Canon rear element, and around 9mm smaller for a Sony.

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You should read what you post, also, Nikon has repeatedly said that the benefit of Z-mount is for wide angles to short tele, nothing else (which correlates with physics). We don't see that when comparing to E-mount wide angles with Z mount wide angles.
From the link,
"Lastly, the throat diameter combined with flange distance determines the maximum possible angle of incidence of the marginal rays from the lens, which is important in designing lenses – generally, the larger the angle of incidence, the easier it is to make high-performance lenses."
Sony E: 28.58°
Nikon F: 12.14°
Nikon Z: 41.19°
So the limitations of F mount far exceeds those of E mount. As for vignetting, the Z mount has plenty of it, again no actual benefit in real life over E mount (which is a good comparison because of the drastic difference in size).

michaeladawson said:

Tom Ames said:

I'm sure Nikon will announce some good new Z camera bodies. But will Sony let them use this new 50mp sensor this year? It often takes 12-18 months before they allow Nikon to get the latest and greatest sensors.

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The breakdown in that logic is that Nikon needs to use the A1 sensor. The sensors in the Nikon D8xx and Z7 models have never been used by a Sony camera. The Nikon D800 came out before any camera from Sony in that MP range.

The only thing one should do is wait and see what Nikon announces. It certainly is fun to speculate. Personally, I would disregard the folklore that Sony doesn't release sensors to other companies until their own Sony cameras have used them for a while.

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Yes, the D800 nine years ago. You are correct. But after 2012.. Have Nikon gotten any high end Sony sensors before or simultaneously as Sony use them? Folklore, don't think so.

And we most likely will not see this 50mp sensor in a Nikon Z body in 2021.

But as you say, they may use other sensor manufacturers.

BasilG said:

travelinbri_74 said:

Price is prohibitively expensive. I am a Sony shooter, but this drives me towards Canon.

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You think Canon's flagship will cost less?

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Similar to another post, my focus is on landscape, wildlife (including birds), and travel. I like the speed and AF of the Sony A9II and the resolution of the A7R3 or A7R4. The Canon R5 gets me close enough to this, whereas Sony only offers one or the other; to get both you have to jump to this A1 which is prohibitively expensive. For me personally, the R5 gets you 85-90% of the way there, the A9II or A7RIV get you more like 60% there. I don't need that last 10% at a cost of nearly 3000 additional USD.

tozz said:

As for vignetting, the Z mount has plenty of it, again no actual benefit in real life over E mount (which is a good comparison because of the drastic difference in size).

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And this is surprising to me. A wider mount with a proper lens design should intuitively bring less vignetting to same sensor size. Maybe Nikon decided to sacrifice vignetting in favor of other parameters like low aberrations... Vignetting seems pretty easy to correct in postprocessing - even in-camera.

Matt Irwin speculations:

Love Photography 888 said:

Rumors are Nikon going to follow Olympus.

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That's an example of why people shouldn't pay attention to rumors.

Nikon's next batch of financial results will be released on February 4, 2021. It should include an update on how their restructuring program is going.

The real danger is that their R&D is so far behind the curve with the high-end offering (Z8/Z9) that it is now effectively scrapped because it is no longer a response to anything given the recent releases from Canon and Sony. They simply had their intended product “obsoleted” before it ever reached launch.

And they probably do not have the finansials to make a new bet on competing in high-end.

So likely there will be a “glued” together higher end model with a few years old tech, and that will follow the curve of the Z6/Z7’s - Very good and solid cameras but no where near cutting edge.

I think Nikon is out of the cutting edge game for good.

Lets hope it is a sustainable business model to be the Pentax of the mirrorless generation.

DerKeyser said:

The real danger is that their R&D is so far behind the curve with the high-end offering (Z8/Z9) that it is now effectively scrapped because it is no longer a response to anything given the recent releases from Canon and Sony. They simply had their intended product “obsoleted” before it ever reached launch.

And they probably do not have the finansials to make a new bet on competing in high-end.

So likely there will be a “glued” together higher end model with a few years old tech, and that will follow the curve of the Z6/Z7’s - Very good and solid cameras but no where near cutting edge.

I think Nikon is out of the cutting edge game for good.

Lets hope it is a sustainable business model to be the Pentax of the mirrorless generation.

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Well, you could have said the same thing 2.5 years ago about Canon by looking at their entrance to FF mirrorless. RP and R literally sucked compared to Z6 or Z7 or Sony offerings. Measly low framerates, less resolution, and so on.

Yet after 2 years, Canon did release gamechangers.

Tom Ames said:

michaeladawson said:

Tom Ames said:

I'm sure Nikon will announce some good new Z camera bodies. But will Sony let them use this new 50mp sensor this year? It often takes 12-18 months before they allow Nikon to get the latest and greatest sensors.

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The breakdown in that logic is that Nikon needs to use the A1 sensor. The sensors in the Nikon D8xx and Z7 models have never been used by a Sony camera. The Nikon D800 came out before any camera from Sony in that MP range.

The only thing one should do is wait and see what Nikon announces. It certainly is fun to speculate. Personally, I would disregard the folklore that Sony doesn't release sensors to other companies until their own Sony cameras have used them for a while.

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Yes, the D800 nine years ago. You are correct. But after 2012.. Have Nikon gotten any high end Sony sensors before or simultaneously as Sony use them? Folklore, don't think so.

And we most likely will not see this 50mp sensor in a Nikon Z body in 2021.

But as you say, they may use other sensor manufacturers.

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D850 sensor. Still not used in any Sony camera. Also used in Z7 and Z7 II...

Tailslol said:

Well, you could have said the same thing 2.5 years ago about Canon by looking at their entrance to FF mirrorless. RP and R literally sucked compared to Z6 or Z7 or Sony offerings. Measly low framerates, less resolution, and so on.

Yet after 2 years, Canon did release gamechangers.

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That is true. To be fair - Canon does have VERY much larger financial muscles to flex, and they are also designing and producing their own Sensors and actually several other internal parts. So while the situation was the same they did have a lot more “dry gunpowder” in the armory



Nikon on the other hand, buys all of their internals from the outside - some of the critical parts has historically been designed to some extend by Nikon and manufactured by third party. But the terrible financial situation puts tremendous pressure on that kind of R&D, which is then replaced with:

- Reuse of older parts (double expeed processors in ZxII to get close to the needed performance, same sensors for several generations and so on)

- Buying “of the shelf” parts - even from competitiors - with no specific Nikon IP inside....

Both of which means no more cutting edge.

The A1 price point sadly is too high for most including me, but hoping that such an announcement will entice Nikon and others to follow suite and eventually and hopefully the price for such a product will be more attainable.

DerKeyser said:

Tailslol said:

Well, you could have said the same thing 2.5 years ago about Canon by looking at their entrance to FF mirrorless. RP and R literally sucked compared to Z6 or Z7 or Sony offerings. Measly low framerates, less resolution, and so on.

Yet after 2 years, Canon did release gamechangers.

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That is true. To be fair - Canon does have VERY much larger financial muscles to flex, and they are also designing and producing their own Sensors and actually several other internal parts. So while the situation was the same they did have a lot more “dry gunpowder” in the armory

Nikon on the other hand, buys all of their internals from the outside - some of the critical parts has historically been designed to some extend by Nikon and manufactured by third party. But the terrible financial situation puts tremendous pressure on that kind of R&D, which is then replaced with:

- Reuse of older parts (double expeed processors in ZxII to get close to the needed performance, same sensors for several generations and so on)

- Buying “of the shelf” parts - even from competitiors - with no specific Nikon IP inside....

Both of which means no more cutting edge.

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Nikon did all of the above, all the time. Yet D850 was the best camera at that time. Same with D800. They just had more money to burn, that's the only difference.

However, they did invest heavily into the Z system by now, lots of glass available and lots more coming. So I really don't think they don't have the money to develop better bodies.

They may be looking to produce a decent body at a much more competitive price.

Canon and Sony basically upped the game, by upping the price substantially. Maybe Nikon wants to stay around 2000$-3000$. Because at that price, their current generation bodies are quite competitive.

Tailslol said:

Nikon did all of the above, all the time. Yet D850 was the best camera at that time. Same with D800. They just had more money to burn, that's the only difference.

However, they did invest heavily into the Z system by now, lots of glass available and lots more coming. So I really don't think they don't have the money to develop better bodies.

They may be looking to produce a decent body at a much more competitive price.

Canon and Sony basically upped the game, by upping the price substantially. Maybe Nikon wants to stay around 2000$-3000$. Because at that price, their current generation bodies are quite competitive.

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I’m not disagreeing - in fact, are we not saying the same thing? Very good cameras, but because of the financial situation it’s the end of “Cutting edge”, but not the end of good and competetive cameras based on solid well known tech.

Why does Nikon have to "respond"? Are people really going to ditch Nikon en masse for a $6500 camera body?

It also comes with a cheap rear Screen. 8K is the buzz word but who needs that?

Touch screen is still limited and it is menu from system A7S III , not new. Even with this it is a pain to use.

9.6 EVF is for viewing files only. It down sizes when using as EVF for pictures.