NIKON...MIRROR LESS NOW WITH FIRMWARE UPDATE

henrik1963

@WestEndFoto: Yes indeed - why not both. Different tools for different tasks. In the end we should not be so hung up on gear. Better to get a good picture with an old outdated camera than to get a boring picture with the latest and greatest - happy shooting.

WestEndFoto

In fact, my AIS lenses, the 50mm 1.2 in particular, are my favorite to shoot.

Pistnbroke

Well canon seem to have made an even bigger mess of it with ONE SD card only 30 MP and no IBIS...don't know the price yet ….

There is an extensive list of places to try the Z7 on the Nikon global site ..I doubt many will be more than 30 miles from one in the UK..going to have a look Thursday.

henrik1963

WestEndFoto: Then you will be happy with mirrorless - there should be better help to focus MF lenses

rmp

Any one see a direct comparison of Image Quality between the Z7 and D850? The MTF charts seem to promise a step up in sharpness.

HankB

I will bet that in pure Image Quality terms, there is no difference between the Z7 and D850 sufficiently meaningful to even slightly influence a purchase decision.

(But I am not at all saying that the slight differences that would exist won't make interesting gear technical discussions)  
 

WestEndFoto

henrik1963 said:

WestEndFoto: Then you will be happy with mirrorless - there should be better help to focus MF lenses

That will be interesting.

mhedges

Yeah it better give a lot of help for folks to have any chance of focusing that Noct lens. Heck, I have trouble manual focusing a 50 1.8 on DX.

spraynpray

WestEndFoto said:

henrik1963 said:

WestEndFoto: Then you will be happy with mirrorless - there should be better help to focus MF lenses

That will be interesting.

I use focus peaking on my D850, it works well with my Irix 15mm up close.

spraynpray

rmp said:

Any one see a direct comparison of Image Quality between the Z7 and D850? The MTF charts seem to promise a step up in sharpness.

That is one of the big advantages Bob - getting the lens closer to the sensor gives better sharpness.

WestEndFoto

rmp said:

Any one see a direct comparison of Image Quality between the Z7 and D850? The MTF charts seem to promise a step up in sharpness.

I expect that the image quality improvements between the Z7 and D850 are negligible. However, certain lenses, particularly wide lenses, will benefit and the MTF charts of the 35 1.8 suggests this. I would expect, however, that a 200mm lens would see little improvement on a Z. Call this my working hypotheses.

BVS

I'm curious how the diffraction correction setting works. Does it work with RAW too, or just JPEGs?

WestEndFoto

henrik1963 said:

WestEndFoto: Then you will be happy with mirrorless - there should be better help to focus MF lenses

Funny that this article came out at the same time as I was thinking about my favorite walk around lens.

https://photographylife.com/nikon-50mm-f-1-2-ai-s-as-a-walk-around-lens

When I go to Europe, I will have a selection of six lenses for the trip, plus the 50 1.2AIS to use when I just want to shoot that lens.

PB_PM

WestEndFoto said:

rmp said:

Any one see a direct comparison of Image Quality between the Z7 and D850? The MTF charts seem to promise a step up in sharpness.

I expect that the image quality improvements between the Z7 and D850 are negligible. However, certain lenses, particularly wide lenses, will benefit and the MTF charts of the 35 1.8 suggests this. I would expect, however, that a 200mm lens would see little improvement on a Z. Call this my working hypotheses.

Wider lenses tend to suffer the most on cameras with close flange distance, due to required increase in the bending of light at the corners, but maybe Nikon's new lens design addresses that better than Sony/Fuji/Panasonic have managed thus far. I wonder if Nikon is doing any in camera processing to fudge the numbers?

tc88

rmp said:

Any one see a direct comparison of Image Quality between the Z7 and D850? The MTF charts seem to promise a step up in sharpness.

The image quality will pretty much be identical, as several others mentioned. I saw some sensor plots on the internet confirming that. We have reached a point where it's very difficult to extract more image quality from the sensors. So trust any magic claims on the sensors with spoons of salt. And I thought MTF is on lens, not cameras?

The new mount will of course provide opportunity to make better lens. Even the latest advances on lens design and manufacturing will allow better lens even on the F-mount. On the other hand, those lens are priced higher. So the performance improvement does not come for free for the consumers.

mhedges

PB_PM said:

WestEndFoto said:

rmp said:

Any one see a direct comparison of Image Quality between the Z7 and D850? The MTF charts seem to promise a step up in sharpness.

I expect that the image quality improvements between the Z7 and D850 are negligible. However, certain lenses, particularly wide lenses, will benefit and the MTF charts of the 35 1.8 suggests this. I would expect, however, that a 200mm lens would see little improvement on a Z. Call this my working hypotheses.

Wider lenses tend to suffer the most on cameras with close flange distance, due to required increase in the bending of light at the corners, but maybe Nikon's new lens design addresses that better than Sony/Fuji/Panasonic have managed thus far. I wonder if Nikon is doing any in camera processing to fudge the numbers?

I thought short flange distance was better for wide angles? Intuitivly that makes sense to me. Anyway if the short distance is a problem they can always build more spacing into the lens itself.

I do agree that it will be very interesting to see what kind of processing Nikon chooses to do for the EVF/rear screen. Will it have live distortion correction?

tc88

Actually there are two aspects of this.

For shorter flange distance, there is actually less bending of the light needed to be made by the lens, because the angle of the light from outside to the lens and from the lens to the sensor don't need to differ too much. Imagine if you have a pinhole which doesn't bend any light, how close to the sensor it needs to capture wide angle. Thus from the lens' perspective, it's easier to make and can be made more compact.

From the sensor's point of view, shorter flange distance is bad because the sensor is not flat, and if the angle of light is shallow, not all light can reach the sensor. You can imagine it has "hills" and "frames" to block the light entering inside. Thus the curved sensor is one research area.

Finally, from a camera maker's point of view, the shorter flange distance of a mount gives them flexibility, but they don't necessarily need to use all of it when making lens.

HankB

@tc88, excellent explanation!

Also, l believe the Z-mount's wider throat will give lens designers that much more flexibility.

As I said once before, I really wonder how much of a competitive edge Nikon has lost to Canon over all these years because of the F-mount’s narrow throat. If Nikon had a crystal ball way back when Canon had last redesigned its mount, would Nikon have done so too.

mhedges

HankB said:

@tc88, excellent explanation!

Also, l believe the Z-mount's wider throat will give lens designers that much more flexibility.

As I said once before, I really wonder how much of a competitive edge Nikon has lost to Canon over all these years because of the F-mount’s narrow throat. If Nikon had a crystal ball way back when Canon had last redesigned its mount, would Nikon have done so too.

They were "damned if you do, damned if you don't". At the time Nikon had a virtual monopoly on the Pro market, and those folks would have been pretty unhappy if they were all obsoleted. It was easier for Canon because their share was lower.

snakebunk

I read somewhere (in an interview with Nikon I think) that the large mount and short flange distance of the Z mount makes it easier to build sharp lenses because you don't have to bend the light as much. I've also read in an interview with Sigma that the F mount is the bottle neck (you can read that in two ways) when they design lenses.

I think we will see a slight improvement in lens performance with the Z mount. Maybe with the exception of very compact lenses that uses the flexibility of the Z mount to be small rather than optically great.

trolley

Just seen this review: https://www.stuff.tv/nikon/z7/review?utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=enews bulletins&utm_source=2018-09-03&utm_content=article_headline
And here's some sample photos: https://imgur.com/a/f21gRh8#k9drTnu
Apologies if this has been referenced before - take it down if it's a duplicate.
I like the (I presume) hand-held night shots

mhedges

snakebunk said:

I read somewhere (in an interview with Nikon I think) that the large mount and short flange distance of the Z mount makes it easier to build sharp lenses because you don't have to bend the light as much. I've also read in an interview with Sigma that the F mount is the bottle neck (you can read that in two ways) when they design lenses.



I think we will see a slight improvement in lens performance with the Z mount. Maybe with the exception of very compact lenses that uses the flexibility of the Z mount to be small rather than optically great.

That may be true but they will still have to consider the F mount when designing lenses. It's going to be a long time (if ever) before the Z mount market is bigger than the F mount market.

spraynpray

But if you read the interview on the blog, they say they will be considering the F mount into the future, so we are all happy right?

snakebunk

@mhedges:
My point was basically that the Z mount is a big improvement over the F mount, and that it makes it slightly easier for Nikon to make great lenses. It is hard to know anything about the future of the F mount because it is all related to the success of Z. Sigma has sold a lot of F mount lenses and they will make them as long as there is a demand, but they may also start to make lenses for full frame mirrorless only.

mhedges

@snakebunk very true. And good point on how Sigma may make mirrorless only lenses now, since they have three mounts to use.

Speaking of three mounts - what are everyone's thoughts on the Canon mirrorless? Single card slot and no IBIS? 30 MP but more expensive than the Z6, especially with the kit lens? It doen't look like a "Z" killer to me, anyway.