NIKON...MIRROR LESS NOW WITH FIRMWARE UPDATE

WestEndFoto

I agree with MHedges. Even Sony’s mirrorless AF tech is a long way from competing with a D5.

moreorless

WestEndFoto said:

I remember a salesman telling me not to bother with fast lenses because I could reproduce the effect in Photoshop. I laughed out loud.

Honestly I think a lot of the problem many larger chain camera stores have is that they think they can get away with unknowledgeable staff. I remember applying for a job at Jessops a few years ago when I was starting out professionally and basically being old that knowledge of photography was irrelevant as they would "teacher me in the induction day", not surprised at all when they went bust.

HankB

Nikon’s next mirrorless (Z8 ?) will certainly need at least a second memory card running in parallel if it is to compete with this frame rate.
https://www.livescience.com/63827-fastest-camera.html

rmp

RAID 0 configurations in a camera? Why not?

HankB

RAID in the camera! Why
didn’t I think of that

WestEndFoto

What would the benefit of RAID in a camera be?

rmp

HankB suggested it, he just didn't name it.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Devices.

The benefit of RAID 0 is speed, called striping. RAID-0 reads/writes to two disks at once, so it looks like one drive that is twice as fast (almost twice as fast.) Half the data is written to one disk while the other half of the data is written to a second disk. RAID-0 is less reliable, if one disk fails, the data on both disks is lost.


The benefit of RAID-1 is reliability, called mirroring. RAID-1 reads/writes to one disk and copies or mirrors the exact same data to the second disk, so the total read/write time takes a little longer but is backed up.


There are many other RAID configurations with many more disks. Imagine 4 disks: Two in RAID-0 for speed and two more in RAID-1 for reliability.

PB_PM

The current backup in dual slot cameras functions basically as a RAID 1 array, so it’s kind of there already.

WestEndFoto

That is my thought. RAID in camera sounds like a more costly, complex and perhaps inferior alternative to the current solution.

mhedges

Yep. 2 cards works fine.

tc88

The Z7 is already pretty much in stock now. I wonder how soon they will have a price reduction.

mhedges

Is there some rule that they have to cut prices because they can actually keep a product in stock? That’s how it’s supposed to be, right?

Nikon can’t win. If they were out of stock everywhere then they would get dumped on for underproducing. If they have product on shelves then it must be a dog.

Internet enthusiasm notwithstanding $3400 cameras have typically not sold in huge volumes. $1500-2000 seems to be the sweet spot.

Presumably they are using the same line to make the Z6 and will be switching it over soon. So with that in mind it makes sense that they build up some Z7 stock to sell while they are making Z6’s.

spraynpray

mhedges said:

Nikon can’t win. If they were out of stock everywhere then they would get dumped on for underproducing.

Like with the D850.

snakebunk

I think an interesting idea for a camera with two card slots would be to alternate between the cards for each image, i.e. first image goes to card 1, second image to card 2, third image to card 1, and so on...

In this way you could achieve twice the write speed and also get a bit of reliability since you'll always have half of your photographs even if there is a card failure.

A modified RAID 0 you might call it .

mhedges

Yeah but wouldn't that be a PITA to get your images off the cards? You'd have to do twice the work.

snakebunk

mhedges said:

Yeah but wouldn't that be a PITA to get your images off the cards? You'd have to do twice the work.

That is a software issue that would need to be handled. One easy solution would be to have the camera name the files so that they have unique names but sort alphabetically in the order they are shot. Files from both cards can then be put in one folder and from there it would be just as if they come from the same card.

Pistnbroke

Snakebunk if like me you always take two images to avoid blinkers then yes you would have two sets and lightroom would shuffle them into order so you could check for the best image.....Think I will stick to the two card duplication …...

BVS

Camera Labs finished it's review of the 24-70 f/4 S. Basically, it's as good or better than the 24-70 f/2.8 E in nearly every respect IQ wise, just f/4 instead of f/2.8.

https://cameralabs.com/nikon-z-24-70mm-f4s-review/

Summary:

"The Nikon Z 24-70mm f4S is a no-brainer for owners of Z-series mirrorless bodies: optically it is as good as the renowned 24-70mm f2.8E VR with a one stop advantage in image stabilization and almost no loCA. It also delivers very usable close-up performance and retains its high contrast even in contra-light situations. Plus by being roughly half the size and weight it's much more portable and a perfect match for the compact Z-series bodies it's designed for. The new Z Nikkor also focuses as fast and reliably and is sealed as thoroughly as the 24-70mm f2.8E VR. The only drawback of the Z 24-70mm f4S is its relatively ordinary f4.0 focal ratio, but that's easily compensated for by the relatively low price - and did I mention the small size and weight?. So if you're getting a new Z body, be sure to bag yourself this excellent zoom in a kit bundle: Highly Recommended!"

mhedges

Looks good. Excited to get one with my Z6.

Ordered a 64 gb XQD card the other day, so I'll be ready to go.

Vipmediastar_JZ

Zeiss ZX1 has no card slots. I actually thought the Z bodies would have on board storage and the 1 slot would be the backup slot.
SSD inside camera would be the main storage and the card slot would be the backup. Doesn't sound bad but who knows.

How are you guys liking your Z7 cameras?

WestEndFoto

I don’t think that SSD’s are durable enough for that application.

Pistnbroke

Of course the simple solution is to put say 128GB of internal memory and one card .That may be smaller than a card slot.

mhedges

Trouble is that the NAND memory used has limited write cycles. I'm not sure what the number is exactly, but eventually it will fail. That makes hardwired storage a problem on something like a camera where you have many more write/read/erase cycles than the typical SSD. Also you have to decide how much memory to put in, which is a balancing act and whatever amount gets decided on is sure to displease some folks.

donaldejose

Putting two card slots in a camera is the best option so the user can decide the size of each and the use of each. I like to write JPEG to one card and RAW to another card.

retread

The D500 was my first camera with two slots. At first I put raw on faster card and jpeg to slower card. Now I just write raw to both as a backup, seems to work fine.