Z6 III - Thoughts on Semi-Stacked Sensors - was Nikon right?

[astirusty]

The decision is yours - Nikon has both semi-stacked and stacked sensors in their line-up...its all about $$$

You want a semi-stacked sensor for a lower price - go for the Z6 III

You want a fully stacked sensor for a higher price - go for the Z8 or Z9

More to decision than price. The Z8 is bigger than Z6iii. Z9 is way bigger than Z6iii.

 

[Droster]

What do you think?

To me, semi-stacked sensors are for: When you don't care enough.

Really, don't get Nikon's selling position or customers buying views. Selling or buying expensive high quality Z lenses; whilst selling / buying a camera utilizing Semi-Stacked sensors to increase profits or save some money when buying.

Base camera and body of Z6iii already costs money. So why not charge / pay slightly more and have Z6iii with fully stacked sensors?

It is pretty much price. Or print points. They need to fill in the $2k bracket with a new camera. The cameras sitting in the $2k bracket are incredibly popular. The a7iii/iv, the R6/ii, the a7c/ii. When you go up into $3k, it becomes another thing altogether and stops being a "Z6", and at that point they need to find a new "Z6" to fill in the $2k bracket.

 

[AZ Indie]

I'm seeing a big discrepancy on this forum in general between the opinions of people who have actually used the Z6III in real world situations and of those who have just used the cameras in lab situations. Having used the Z6III a lot over the past months since all the furore about dynamic range and flickering, I have yet to lose any images or video because of these non-issues. If you know the limitations, you can easily work with them. Noise is a much bigger issue than flickering in any case with all the Z9, Z8 and Z6III and is easily dealt with in post.

Also people are quoting absolute numbers as if there was no experimental error on any of these measurments. The differences in EV being talked about here could be much smaller or indeed much greater if errors on measurment are taken into account. The arguments are being presented as highly scientific yet nobody is quoting errors just absolutes.

Spot on! Again!

 

[mosswings]

What do you think?

To me, semi-stacked sensors are for: When you don't care enough.

Really, don't get Nikon's selling position or customers buying views. Selling or buying expensive high quality Z lenses; whilst selling / buying a camera utilizing Semi-Stacked sensors to increase profits or save some money when buying.

Base camera and body of Z6iii already costs money. So why not charge / pay slightly more and have Z6iii with fully stacked sensors?

It seems that an increasingly common theme running through this forum is: so we have to wait longer for a true Z9 at a $2700 price point? For heaven's sake, it's been 3 years.

So far, the lowest price that a stacked sensor has reached is $2500 in the X-H2S. And yes, that was in 2022. In DX. And no, no one else AFAIK has followed suit. Maybe it's that the X-H2S isn't delivering Sony or Canon or Nikon levels of performance. Maybe it's because there's not enough of a market for a DX body with that kind of performance for a company that's actually trying to make a respectable profit to justify the development effort. Maybe it's because in FX it costs a lot more than "slightly".
The Z6iii was targeted at the sweet spot in the market. It's very Goldilocksy but also very forward looking, and got Gold from DPR because of it. With a few warts. That's a well-played hand.

We've gotten very accustomed to the Tik-tok of CPU releases from Intel, AMD, and ARM/TSMC, and Apple. That market is very very big and resources to do so are quickly paid back. The ILC market is orders of magnitude smaller, growth is slowing, and production slots in the few fabs that make ILC sensors are scarce and spendy. The Tik-tok clock runs slower as a consequence...but you still have to make money with products priced to keep the lights on over at R&D. So we get price point products. But ones that are becoming clearly a family, with very common UIs and similar feature sets. Relatively little obvious decontenting. Mirrorless, frankly, doesn't allow much technology decontenting. The Z50ii has about as much price reduction as Nikon can get away with without leaving the Z-9 era family - and has gotten plaudits for doing so.

OK, flame off.

 

[mosswings]

I'm seeing a big discrepancy on this forum in general between the opinions of people who have actually used the Z6III in real world situations and of those who have just used the cameras in lab situations. Having used the Z6III a lot over the past months since all the furore about dynamic range and flickering, I have yet to lose any images or video because of these non-issues. If you know the limitations, you can easily work with them. Noise is a much bigger issue than flickering in any case with all the Z9, Z8 and Z6III and is easily dealt with in post.

Also people are quoting absolute numbers as if there was no experimental error on any of these measurments. The differences in EV being talked about here could be much smaller or indeed much greater if errors on measurment are taken into account. The arguments are being presented as highly scientific yet nobody is quoting errors just absolutes.

Spot on! Again!

Yes, we are talking with curves representing the mean to be sure. I'm suggesting that we step back a little and consider what their overall shape implies. The averaged differences seen in the Claff DR curves I think are real, but their magnitude is quite small, and we've been living with those differences for a few years now without the hue and cry surrounding the Z6iii.

 

[astirusty]

What do you think?

To me, semi-stacked sensors are for: When you don't care enough.

Really, don't get Nikon's selling position or customers buying views. Selling or buying expensive high quality Z lenses; whilst selling / buying a camera utilizing Semi-Stacked sensors to increase profits or save some money when buying.

Base camera and body of Z6iii already costs money. So why not charge / pay slightly more and have Z6iii with fully stacked sensors?

It seems that an increasingly common theme running through this forum is: so we have to wait longer for a true Z9 at a $2700 price point? For heaven's sake, it's been 3 years.

Not a theme from me...

So far, the lowest price that a stacked sensor has reached is $2500 in the X-H2S. And yes, that was in 2022. In DX. And no, no one else AFAIK has followed suit.

Implication? Nikon can relax; being only Fujifilm has put a stacked sensor in DX camera, 2-years ago?

We've gotten very accustomed to the Tik-tok of CPU releases from Intel, AMD, and ARM/TSMC, and Apple. That market is very very big and resources to do so are quickly paid back. The ILC market is orders of magnitude smaller, growth is slowing, and production slots in the few fabs that make ILC sensors are scarce and spendy.

Bananas and Oranges. Two different kinds of CPUs and purposes. Can't link cost R&D and engineering of Intel or AMD CPUs for desktop computers or even laptops to kind of CPUs being used in cameras and video equipment. First being an open to semi-open architecture meant to do general computing. Second being semi-closed to closed architecture, proprietary in nature with specific functions or tasks. Latter being less costly to R&D and engineer.

The Tik-tok clock runs slower as a consequence...but you still have to make money with products priced to keep the lights on over at R&D. So we get price point products. But ones that are becoming clearly a family, with very common UIs and similar feature sets. Relatively little obvious decontenting. Mirrorless, frankly, doesn't allow much technology decontenting. The Z50ii has about as much price reduction as Nikon can get away with without leaving the Z-9 era family - and has gotten plaudits for doing so.

OK, flame off.

Going with Nikon needed to keep cost of Z6iii down and consumers would not pay more for a Stacked Sensor. Why not really keep cost of Z6iii down and increase potential customer buying by making a Z6iii with regular sensor (no stacking / no semi-stacked sensor)?

 

[astirusty]

What do you think?

To me, semi-stacked sensors are for: When you don't care enough.

Really, don't get Nikon's selling position or customers buying views. Selling or buying expensive high quality Z lenses; whilst selling / buying a camera utilizing Semi-Stacked sensors to increase profits or save some money when buying.

Base camera and body of Z6iii already costs money. So why not charge / pay slightly more and have Z6iii with fully stacked sensors?

It is pretty much price. Or print points. They need to fill in the $2k bracket with a new camera. The cameras sitting in the $2k bracket are incredibly popular. The a7iii/iv, the R6/ii, the a7c/ii. When you go up into $3k, it becomes another thing altogether and stops being a "Z6", and at that point they need to find a new "Z6" to fill in the $2k bracket.

Nikon really wants to have Z6iii with low price point and customers are making such a demand. Nikon should have produced a cheaper Z6iii using standard sensor - not a semi-stacked and not a full-stacked sensor.

 

[Horshack]

I'm seeing a big discrepancy on this forum in general between the opinions of people who have actually used the Z6III in real world situations and of those who have just used the cameras in lab situations. Having used the Z6III a lot over the past months since all the furore about dynamic range and flickering, I have yet to lose any images or video because of these non-issues. If you know the limitations, you can easily work with them. Noise is a much bigger issue than flickering in any case with all the Z9, Z8 and Z6III and is easily dealt with in post.

I don't see the discrepancy you're describing. Like many technical performance characteristics, sometimes differences are only noticeable at the outliers of usage. A sports car that only skids when accelerating hard into a wet turn doesn't mean the car will skid for the majority of situations it's driven in. But it does mean it will skid when pushed, and since people buy sports cars partly for their performance they'll probably want to know what they're getting and not getting for the premium they're paying, including comparisons to the alternatives available. Most understand this and factor it into their purchasing decision.

Interesting analogy but I would guess that most people in this area of the market are not looking at sports car equivalents in the camera They are more likely to be looking for a city car with occasional longer trips and will never be pushing the limits to the point where they skid at all. Yet they read the headlines - car prone to skidding - but are not knowledgeable enough to dig into the detail and see that this is not going to be an issue for them. They never go that fast anyway. They are just put off by the headlines, some of which have been very irresponsible (I don’t mean you - you have presented it as you see it without any bias)

I just feel a bit sad about all this though because I am using this camera for stills and video and it is a superb bit of kit with amazing specs - 6K internal raw video in two flavours even at the original price was incredible never mind now at the reduced price. People who have been turned off by headlines don’t know what they’re missing.

I think I may have more faith in the average person researching a $2,200 camera to make a knowledgeable decision without concern for being unduly influenced by headlines. And if I'm wrong, perhaps I'm less concerned with them potentially missing out on a discretionary purchase they may not have needed anyway.

 

[mosswings]

What do you think?

To me, semi-stacked sensors are for: When you don't care enough.

Really, don't get Nikon's selling position or customers buying views. Selling or buying expensive high quality Z lenses; whilst selling / buying a camera utilizing Semi-Stacked sensors to increase profits or save some money when buying.

Base camera and body of Z6iii already costs money. So why not charge / pay slightly more and have Z6iii with fully stacked sensors?

It is pretty much price. Or print points. They need to fill in the $2k bracket with a new camera. The cameras sitting in the $2k bracket are incredibly popular. The a7iii/iv, the R6/ii, the a7c/ii. When you go up into $3k, it becomes another thing altogether and stops being a "Z6", and at that point they need to find a new "Z6" to fill in the $2k bracket.

Nikon really wants to have Z6iii with low price point and customers are making such a demand. Nikon should have produced a cheaper Z6iii using standard sensor - not a semi-stacked and not a full-stacked sensor.

So you would be happy with a Zf that had a modal control design.

But Nikon was trying to offer a product that appealed to advanced videographers as well. That required a faster sensor.

 

[mosswings]

What do you think?

To me, semi-stacked sensors are for: When you don't care enough.

Really, don't get Nikon's selling position or customers buying views. Selling or buying expensive high quality Z lenses; whilst selling / buying a camera utilizing Semi-Stacked sensors to increase profits or save some money when buying.

Base camera and body of Z6iii already costs money. So why not charge / pay slightly more and have Z6iii with fully stacked sensors?

It seems that an increasingly common theme running through this forum is: so we have to wait longer for a true Z9 at a $2700 price point? For heaven's sake, it's been 3 years.

Not a theme from me...

So far, the lowest price that a stacked sensor has reached is $2500 in the X-H2S. And yes, that was in 2022. In DX. And no, no one else AFAIK has followed suit.

Implication? Nikon can relax; being only Fujifilm has put a stacked sensor in DX camera, 2-years ago?

No. But it (and it's main competitors) may not think a Fujiesque move like x-h2s strategic given their market data and their focus on FF.

We've gotten very accustomed to the Tik-tok of CPU releases from Intel, AMD, and ARM/TSMC, and Apple. That market is very very big and resources to do so are quickly paid back. The ILC market is orders of magnitude smaller, growth is slowing, and production slots in the few fabs that make ILC sensors are scarce and spendy.

Bananas and Oranges. Two different kinds of CPUs and purposes. Can't link cost R&D and engineering of Intel or AMD CPUs for desktop computers or even laptops to kind of CPUs being used in cameras and video equipment. First being an open to semi-open architecture meant to do general computing. Second being semi-closed to closed architecture, proprietary in nature with specific functions or tasks. Latter being less costly to R&D and engineer.

The point is time to engineer and productize with the resources of a smallish company serving a tiny market, vs what the potential buyer has come to expect based on experience with mass-market computing devices...inappropriately.

The Tik-tok clock runs slower as a consequence...but you still have to make money with products priced to keep the lights on over at R&D. So we get price point products. But ones that are becoming clearly a family, with very common UIs and similar feature sets. Relatively little obvious decontenting. Mirrorless, frankly, doesn't allow much technology decontenting. The Z50ii has about as much price reduction as Nikon can get away with without leaving the Z-9 era family - and has gotten plaudits for doing so.

OK, flame off.

Going with Nikon needed to keep cost of Z6iii down and consumers would not pay more for a Stacked Sensor. Why not really keep cost of Z6iii down and increase potential customer buying by making a Z6iii with regular sensor (no stacking / no semi-stacked sensor)?

I've offered my take on this elsewhere. The Z6iii is a pivot to a broader market with increased performance demands, but not so much that price overshoots the market. The sweet spot of the market is around 2200-2700, but expects more...not a slightly improved z6ii.

 

[Leonard Shepherd]

To me, semi-stacked sensors are for: When you don't care enough

Or when you do care but do not have a higher budget - for one.

When you want a lighter smaller body with good overall performance to perhaps complement a Z8 and/Z9 (me) - for two.

Nikon seem recently to be making higher profits from their camera division than their competitors - they are only likely to achieve this when plenty of customers are buying what Nikon produce

--
Leonard Shepherd
In lots of ways good photography is similar to learning to play a piano - it takes practice to develop skill in either activity.

 

[CNorre]

ClintGryke wrote:

I think I may have more faith in the average person researching a $2,200 camera to make a knowledgeable decision without concern for being unduly influenced by headlines. And if I'm wrong, perhaps I'm less concerned with them potentially missing out on a discretionary purchase they may not have needed anyway.

Thanks! As I see myself as an average person in this context, I do not have decades of experience within the photo and especially video field, but I research (or try to) before plunging in as even "just" a $2.200 camera is a huge chunk of spare money for me for a hobby "gadget", a roughly $4.000 body even more so, when I do not expect it to pay itself back any time soon.

I'm trying to wrap my head around if these findings are something that might or will impact me. For maybe 80% of my use, it's likely a non-issue (mostly stills) but not being able to utilize one of the biggest selling points (internal 6k raw) without having to deal with the flickering, as it seems to be quite pronounced in some of the test videos under what looks as though but not rare scenarios, and I find it quite disturbing in thoes cases, would be a bummer. That said, for me, it might not matter the slightest in the end but currently this topic does make me think twice before pulling the trigger on one.

Anyway, big thanks for sharing your findings as I for one values that also issues and not only praises are highlighted, so one can make a well though through decision.

 

[chrisD46]

Uhhmm , for best landscape photography image quality shooting low ISO - it sounds like I would be better off with a non - stacked sensor (such as the Z7II ?)

 

[ClintGryke]

not being able to utilize one of the biggest selling points (internal 6k raw) without having to deal with the flickering, as it seems to be quite pronounced in some of the test videos under what looks as though but not rare scenarios, and I find it quite disturbing in thoes cases, would be a bummer.

This shows a lack of understanding of the issue and an inability to interpret the experimental data. Perhaps not surprising as it is complex but you are just seeing the headlines and it is a good illiustration of my point that a lot of people are not able to see beyond the headlines. It is human nature to focus on the negatives and, once the negatives are in, they tend to stick.

If you read what the vast majority of those of us who actually use the Z6III in the real world are saying, you would realise that the flickering is not a real world issue unless you are shooting at extremely high ISO, severly underexposing or opening up very deep shadows. When shooting raw even at moderate ISOs with all Nikon cameras in my experience, it is necessary to use noise reduction anyway which deals with any flickering as well.

 

[ClintGryke]

I'm seeing a big discrepancy on this forum in general between the opinions of people who have actually used the Z6III in real world situations and of those who have just used the cameras in lab situations. Having used the Z6III a lot over the past months since all the furore about dynamic range and flickering, I have yet to lose any images or video because of these non-issues. If you know the limitations, you can easily work with them. Noise is a much bigger issue than flickering in any case with all the Z9, Z8 and Z6III and is easily dealt with in post.

I don't see the discrepancy you're describing. Like many technical performance characteristics, sometimes differences are only noticeable at the outliers of usage. A sports car that only skids when accelerating hard into a wet turn doesn't mean the car will skid for the majority of situations it's driven in. But it does mean it will skid when pushed, and since people buy sports cars partly for their performance they'll probably want to know what they're getting and not getting for the premium they're paying, including comparisons to the alternatives available. Most understand this and factor it into their purchasing decision.

Interesting analogy but I would guess that most people in this area of the market are not looking at sports car equivalents in the camera They are more likely to be looking for a city car with occasional longer trips and will never be pushing the limits to the point where they skid at all. Yet they read the headlines - car prone to skidding - but are not knowledgeable enough to dig into the detail and see that this is not going to be an issue for them. They never go that fast anyway. They are just put off by the headlines, some of which have been very irresponsible (I don’t mean you - you have presented it as you see it without any bias)

I just feel a bit sad about all this though because I am using this camera for stills and video and it is a superb bit of kit with amazing specs - 6K internal raw video in two flavours even at the original price was incredible never mind now at the reduced price. People who have been turned off by headlines don’t know what they’re missing.

I think I may have more faith in the average person researching a $2,200 camera to make a knowledgeable decision without concern for being unduly influenced by headlines. And if I'm wrong, perhaps I'm less concerned with them potentially missing out on a discretionary purchase they may not have needed anyway.

Your faith in the average person is unfounded I think. To me this is a good illustration of the tendency of highly intelligent people (geniuses) like yourself to assume that others will have the same ability to understand and interpret the data you present. I would surmise that the average person reads headlnes and doesn't take the time or doesn't have the mental capacity to understand the real issues. The negative sticks, the camera gets an undeserved bad name. The same applies in the world of politics. Sound bytes are what infuence the majority, not rationality. Anyway we've beaten this to death. Time to step out.

 

[CNorre]

not being able to utilize one of the biggest selling points (internal 6k raw) without having to deal with the flickering, as it seems to be quite pronounced in some of the test videos under what looks as though but not rare scenarios, and I find it quite disturbing in thoes cases, would be a bummer.

This shows a lack of understanding of the issue and an inability to interpret the experimental data. Perhaps not surprising as it is complex but you are just seeing the headlines and it is a good illiustration of my point that a lot of people are not able to see beyond the headlines. It is human nature to focus on the negatives and, once the negatives are in, they tend to stick.

If you read what the vast majority of those of us who actually use the Z6III in the real world are saying, you would realise that the flickering is not a real world issue unless you are shooting at extremely high ISO, severly underexposing or opening up very deep shadows. When shooting raw even at moderate ISOs with all Nikon cameras in my experience, it is necessary to use noise reduction anyway which deals with any flickering as well.

I'll admit that, as highlighted in previous post, I'm not into the niddy giddy details, especially when it comes to video as its something I rarely do, but trying to figure understand the underlying "issue" and if its something that will impact me. Robert May's findings here:

at ~2:05 seem to indicate it is not only in case of severe underexposing and lifting shadows the flickering presents itself, the scene there is something I'd say is fairly common real life usage scenario and watching on a big screen it's quite disturbing to the viewer, well me at least.

Sure its in a underexposed region of a fairly high DR scene, but I would expect scenes like that not to be troublesome.

 

[mosswings]

Uhhmm , for best landscape photography image quality shooting low ISO - it sounds like I would be better off with a non - stacked sensor (such as the Z7II ?)

That's the argument. For certain landscape scenarios with extremely wide dynamic range. Sunset shots with deep shadow data that you want preserved so that you have maximum freedom in rendering down the image into something that's viewable on screen or print.
Years ago Canon digital cameras were infamous for having a limited low ISO range that required very precise exposure and careful post. But they could still take great images. Art Wolfe used Canon during this period (still does). When the Sony EXMOR sensors came out the ISO-DR curve became dead straight, base ISO DR took a big jump - 2-3 stops, and exposure didn't have to be so precise. All of a sudden you saw photographers doing shadow-pulling feats of strength.
The amount of reduction we're talking about here is roughly 1/2 stop. Nonidealities in sensor electronics can vary that amount for specific ISOs but not by much. The question to ask is whether that 1/2 stop reduction is meaningful for your own practice. The DR realized is still a lot more than those older Canons (and others) could muster.

 

[shuncheung]

Here is another video captured entirely with the Z6iii. Audio is from external Newmann microphones.

I find this group challenging to record, for both video and still images, since the young musicians wear white shirts. That creates a lot of contrast in a dark auditorium.

 

[24Peter]

Here is another video captured entirely with the Z6iii. Audio is from external Newmann microphones.

I find this group challenging to record, for both video and still images, since the young musicians wear white shirts. That creates a lot of contrast in a dark auditorium.

You nailed it - again - Shun! Good job!

 

[shuncheung]

Here is another video captured entirely with the Z6iii. Audio is from external Newmann microphones.

I find this group challenging to record, for both video and still images, since the young musicians wear white shirts. That creates a lot of contrast in a dark auditorium.

You nailed it - again - Shun! Good job!

Thank you Peter.

BTW, the microphones were Neumann. They are German made. Newman would have been the English way to spell that.