Nikon did not confirm nor deny the report so it's basically a pure fluff piece.
> As well as the rise of mirrorless tech, SLR cameras have also been out-competed by smartphone technology, which has shrunk the camera market over decades.
The market has shrunk but it's nothing to do with smartphone cameras, it's like saying McDonalds have shrunk the market for three stars restaurants. Not the same audience at all, not the same use, you'll find that the DSLR market has been mostly stagnating innovation wise for a while, making it hard to justify buying a new model for just a few more megapixels every now and then. A 10 years old DSLR is still a formidable image-maker.
I disagree. A large percentage of the DSLR market are hobbyists who want to feel professional, just like with musical instruments, sports equipment and so on. Amateurs outnumber professionals by 1000:1 or more.
A large percentage of those people have realised they can take really good photos with their phone now, good enough that they don't feel inadequate, and maybe they don't feel like carrying around heavy equipment either.
> can take really good photos with their phone now
That does not make any sense, it was already the case that you could make excellent pictures with compact cameras 15 years ago, without having a DLSR. If your hypothesis was right the DSLR market would have disappeared much earlier.
Before, one had to make a conscious choice to get a compact camera. People who wanted to take pictures had a choice-- do I get a SLR and have all the bells and whistles and be "serious", or do I get a compact camera? Also, appearances matter-- do I want to look serious?
Now, a pretty excellent compact camera is in pretty much everyone's hands. So the question becomes-- is it worth another camera to be serious? Would I even carry it anywhere?
I think most of the hobbyists have stuck with DSLR/mirrorless, but I knew a lot of people that used a dslr for family / vacation pictures. Those people all use phones now.
Although We’re probably saying the same thing, just differing on our definition of hobbyist.
Yes, most of those vacation photos look terrible. Good enough on a beach at midday, but in other lighting conditions they're often under exposed or blurry or backlit or just poorly composed. And in fairness to smartphone cameras, most of those problems are more due to photographer incompetence than device limitations.
I was just on vacation and took some photos with my phone camera, and some with my Nikon D4000 and a pretty basic 55-200 lens.
The phone pics have the benefit of some pretty good automatic processing, ease of use (the thing is already in my pocket), and for typical landscape or portrait stuff, they are just fine.
But there really is no comparison when it comes to "real" bokeh/shallow DOF stuff, not to mention the sheer flexibility offered by a full-fat lens, bigger sensor, and controls that don't have me poking around in touch screen menus. I could even swap to my 35mm f/1.8 if I wanted to shoot in lower light than my phone can do without digital tricks or longer exposure times.
If I were in the market today, perhaps I would go for a mirrorless camera, but as someone decidedly not professional at all WRT photography, I still enjoy having something flexible in addition to using my phone as a decent backup point-and-shoot camera.
Yes, but... a phone you take with you every day is different from an SLR that you take on specific occasions.
Perhaps 20% of pictures I've shot have been on a DSLR, and 80% on phones. By sheer numbers, a really big share of the best shots are from a phone camera. And there's a lot of things that I took pictures of, that there's some rather obvious phone camera penalties from... but at least I have a picture while with a DSLR I would likely not.
It's freeing, too, to not have to choose between "do I lug the big camera today in difficult conditions or get no photos today?"
... I am looking forward to picking up a mirrorless to reduce the barrier a little bit of carrying "the big camera".
I have the latest iPhone 13 Pro Max, shoot RAW and with acoustic filters mounted on my phone and what not. Both my photos and iPhone photos that I’ve seen at “iPhone photography” art exhibits are clearly lower quality.
Now one could argue about whether the tiny censors on smartphones in of itself is just another dimension of artistic expression.
But my personal aesthetic preference as a hobbyist photographer and art consumer is that unintentional censor noise is not good.
I have an old DSLR (Nikon D90, circa 2008) and hadn't taken it anywhere in quite some time (due to it being big and heavy and smartphones being more or less good enough). However, I had been slightly disappointed with the vacation photos I was getting on my iPhone 11.
So I dug out the old DSLR and brought (lugged?) it with me on a recent vacation to Peru. I threw in the largest SD card it would accommodate (32GB), which gave me literally thousands of photos at the highest quality JPEG setting (don't really want to deal with post-processing RAW images). The only lens I brought was a 35mm 1.8 DX lens.
I have to say that the quality of my photos was much better than I had seen in quite some time. It is hands down better than my smartphone. Even though they are both ostensibly 12MP, the larger sensor and lens make a big difference. The two things I missed from my iPhone were super wide angle shots and low light. Since I had my iPhone with me, I could just pull that out if needed.
I briefly thought about buying a new DSLR or a mirrorless, but really my old one is good enough. I will probably just buy an 18-55 zoom or something for my next vacation.
> I disagree. A large percentage of the DSLR market are hobbyists who want to feel professional, just like with musical instruments, sports equipment and so on. Amateurs outnumber professionals by 1000:1 or more.
And tons of people who want to have a youtube channel. Hell there are lots of people that use a SLR just for their zoom calls.
As a hobbyist photographer myself I can confirm that I spend serious amount of money on equipment that is pro-level. The last camera I got was the Nikon Z6 Mark II, which is an entry-level pro camera. Why? Because "The picture quality matters" and it feels good to have a really nice camera when you're standing around a bunch of other hobbyists who all have pro cameras.
For the most part the people who take photos with their phones were never really buying DSLRs. They were buying all the other digital cameras. When you go for a DSLR you're wanting to control everything, shutter speed, the aperture, etc. You want to be able to go wide-lens, tele-lens, you want to be able to choose between 2000/second and 100/second. You want to do time delay.
If you're even half interested in taking good photos you're looking to get a DSLR even if you don't understand everything. You can look at the photography sites for hobbyists such as youpic.com and 500px.com. These sites are full of people sharing their hobby photos and you'll find 1-2 out of hundreds using their mobile.
"There are lots of people that use a SLR just for their zoom calls."
That's the crap webcam problem. You'll never use the mirror mechanism in a DSLR in that situation.
Nikon promotes using their DSLRs as webcams.[1] What you really want, of course, is the good optics, sensor, and electronics without the viewfinder, mirror, battery, and manual controls, and with good connectors and no overheating during continuous operation.
Neither the webcam makers nor the traditional camera makers have addressed this market. So who's doing it? Hikvision, the surveillance camera makers.[2] Their thing is making high-rez cameras that handle widely varied lighting conditions. So they offer some of those packaged as webcams.
DSLR camera is still better of course, but people won't use it due to its bulky and heavy and their mobile phone can do 80% of photoing faster and probably just as good albeit a few areas that DSLR still has advantages. But for most of us, a good enough camera is just fine.
Nikon and Canon used to make the vast majority of their revenue from their entry level DSLR systems.
That customer base has pretty much disappeared and it has everything to do with smartphones. If I recall the statistic correctly, the DSLR market shrunk by 40% across the board in just a few years because of this.
Due to this, Nikon and others have re-positioned their market to high price/margin prosumer/pro gear mostly.
Some folks prioritize the quality of the image in the viewfinder, and mirrorless uses an electronic viewfinder. Other folks prioritize weight and size, and for them the mirrorless has clear advantages.
For landscape people you get far better wide-angle lenses, auto-focus systems which are way more consistent at the 50 MP mark and composition+exposure helpers (e.g. distortion-corrected viewfinder, histograms, zooming to 800 % in the viewfinder).
For people people you get eye-autofocus and eye-tracking (better DSLRs have done people and face tracking for ages, but one of the more en-vogue styles in people photography of the last couple years is ultra-large apertures with sharp eyes, and with DSLRs that's really pushing it, especially at 50 MP).
For media people you tend to get better video support. The latest flagships (e.g. 8K capabilities of the Z9) start to infringe on cinema camera territory (though with none of the connectivity, which would add an unacceptable amount of bulk to a photo/hybrid camera).
For sports people you get more images per image and no blackout at all (Z9 only, for now).
For wildlife people you get quiet operation (no mirror, no shutter necessary, depending on the model).
In terms of the image quality itself, the hypothetical spherical cow in a vacuum, there's no advantage per se, various DSLRs and mirrorless cameras use practically identical sensors. Tiny mark against mirrorless for PDAF pixels, but that's not a practical concern for any current camera. Shutter-less mirrorless avoid a possible source of IR contamination (the optical barrier used by the camera to time the shutter), but that's about it. Oh, and IBIS, obviously.
> For landscape people you get far better wide-angle lenses
What specifically? Just comparing Nikon mirrorless to Nikon DSLRs, the F-mount (for DSLRs) has, for example, the highly regarded 14-24mm f/2.8. What's the mirrorless equivalent to that?
> For sports people you get more images per image
I assume you mean more images per second? That much is true (eg 14fps for the D6 vs 30fps for the Z9 at full res).
> ... no blackout at all (Z9 only, for now).
This is... partially true. There is an inherent blackout in SLRs but that may or may not matter. Assume you're shooting at 1/500 shutter speed and you're continuous shooting on a Z9 you're going to get some inherent blackout because you won't be shooting 500fps (because you can't).
But here's the big thing with DSLRs over mirrorless: input lag for target tracking. An optical viewfinder ("OVF") is just inherently faster than any electronic viewfinder ("EVF"). For a lot of people that doesn't matter. If you're trying to shoot an animal on the run or a racing car then it probably does.
It's also worth noting that some DSLRs can also shoot shutterless and get a lot of the benefits of mirrorless.
> But here's the big thing with DSLRs over mirrorless: input lag for target tracking. An optical viewfinder ("OVF") is just inherently faster than any electronic viewfinder ("EVF"). For a lot of people that doesn't matter. If you're trying to shoot an animal on the run or a racing car then it probably does.
The OVF lag on the high end models is significantly faster than the time it take the mirror to retract (a D5 SLR has about 40ms of shutter lag). This means that while you might have a very minimal lag on the EVF, you make up for it in shorter shutter lag.
Just a note: I used to do Photojournalism for a living. This kind of precision timing is irrelevant for action shooting. Once AF and motor drive happened, the technique shifted from trying to hit the decisive moment, to just mashing the shutter and picking the best shot from the series.
> The OVF lag on the high end models is significantly faster than the time it take the mirror to retract (a D5 SLR has about 40ms of shutter lag). This means that while you might have a very minimal lag on the EVF, you make up for it in shorter shutter lag.
As you point out, 40ms delay doesn't matter for shutter timing. Coming at it from a gaming and controls perspective: delay can make it a little harder to track things, though. I don't know how big of a deal this is to real users. I do know that the sheer amount of blackout on almost all current mirrorless sucks.
> Once AF and motor drive happened, the technique shifted from trying to hit the decisive moment, to just mashing the shutter and picking the best shot from the series.
Yah, and this is a place mirrorless cameras win and even phone cameras perform very well-- 10 picture/second burst rate on iPhone which few DSLRs can match. Middle/lower end Canon now is hitting 15FPS mechanical shutter and 23FPS electronic/silent, which is absolutely nuts to me (I have memories of buying a "blindingly fast" 7FPS camera..)
> What specifically? Just comparing Nikon mirrorless to Nikon DSLRs, the F-mount (for DSLRs) has, for example, the highly regarded 14-24mm f/2.8. What's the mirrorless equivalent to that?
The Z mount 14-24mm f/2.8 that's even sharper and has fewer optical flaws than the F-mount version.
> But here's the big thing with DSLRs over mirrorless: input lag for target tracking. An optical viewfinder ("OVF") is just inherently faster than any electronic viewfinder ("EVF"). For a lot of people that doesn't matter. If you're trying to shoot an animal on the run or a racing car then it probably doe
The only thing that matters here for something like the Z9 is the delta between hitting the shutter release and it capturing an image. That is indisputably longer, though short enough it doesn't matter for most folks.
For cameras like the Z7ii (which I have personal experience with), yes, tracking kind of sucks because of blackout (in 5 FPS mode) and really sucks in 10 FPS mode (where you're just seeing the last frame). Neither of those are in play for the Z9. I expect we'll see that trickle down to more cameras as time goes on.
> What specifically? Just comparing Nikon mirrorless to Nikon DSLRs, the F-mount (for DSLRs) has, for example, the highly regarded 14-24mm f/2.8. What's the mirrorless equivalent to that?
The old 14-24 is a mediocre lens compared new ultra wide zooms. Nikon hasn't got to an z-mount f2.8 yet, but their f4 is already sharper. When they do a f2.8 it likely will be even better.
Mirrorless is incredibly common. Every major player has a full range of mirrorless options. Pentax is the last holdout not offering a mirrorless option.
The last market segment that was holding out was the Pro and Prosumer segment since initially mirrorless lagged on feature parity, especially in AF. Mirrorless cameras have effectively reached parity now.
Now there is, in real use, no advantage to SLR type cameras, and, pure guess, mirrorless are probably cheaper to make since you can dispense with an entire mechanical assembly.
> There was a media article regarding Nikon's withdrawal of SLR development. This media article is only speculation and Nikon has made no announcement in this regards.
That's not really a denial though, just a statement that they haven't announced anything.
Most of the complaints I’ve seen are around the face/eye tracking. Improved in the second generation and even more so in the Z9 but still not quite on par with Sony/Canon.
They ironed out nearly all autofocus issues with the Z9. If they can bring that tech downmarket in a reasonable amount of time they will be okay IMO. The bigger problem is that the market for standalone cameras is still shrinking.
This is unfortunate, IMHO. DSLR's are (far) superior in terms of battery life. This was inevitable, of course. It is similar to the transition from dumb phone to smart phones (which, interestingly, had a similar tradeoff!)
Specifically when you are setting up your shot with the DSLR you are looking at a ground-glass screen and the sensor and screen can be turned off.
For a mirrorless camera the sensor and screen are on when you are setting up.
The flip side is that a mirrorless camera makes a great video camera with some caveats. For instance if you want to do a shot that smoothly zooms in or out you have a rocker control on a real video camera that you can hold steadily and it does just that. I can't do the same with a mirrorless lens because I can't turn the zoom ring on a lens very smoothly.
I'm confused by this - many mirrorless lenses setup for video work have a zoom switch rather than a zoom ring. An electronic motor ensures smooth zoom.
Furthermore, why are you unable to hold a mirrorless camera as steadily? Something like the Peak Design Clutch strap ought to remedy that I would think? Not to mention cameras like the X-T4 have quite good IBIS built-in to steady out the shot a bit.
This is the same complaint people had about, e.g., film cameras, and before that, electronically controlled shutters. Very few people are willing to live will all those sacrifices just to get better battery life from an older generation of camera. History repeats itself.
Fortunately, there are two product lines with lots of overlap and unique qualifications that the vast majority of individuals can choose from and be happy with.
Nobody is forced to make a sacrifice they don't want to. This is a complete win/win for the consumer.
Well, yes. Basically all mirrorless cameras have removable batteries. And changing them is obviously the direct way of keeping your camera operating continuously. But the one situation in which I can assume you would notice the difference in battery consumption is, if you are waiting for hours in a single spot to shoot rare wild life. This is where you might be watching for hours without taking any shots. But in these situation, you could add external power supply to not even have to exchange batteries.
Yeah, external power is the play. On current-gen cameras, you can run with USB-PD. I have a 256000mAh Anker bank and you can shoot 4K60 for a very, very long time on a Panasonic GH6. M43 isn't the best wildlife body, but I have to assume you can get some pretty staggering runtimes in idle on something full-frame.
Why would you say that µFT isn't the best wildlife body? There the long range lenses shine (do I need to say 150-400/4.5?). Also wildlife often means hiking through the wild, where µFT also has big advantages.
I mean, I shoot only M43, so I'd do it because I wouldn't have anything else on hand, but the smaller sensor does present quality challenges a full-frame doesn't and modern full-frames can get pretty small while still being able to pack a pretty long lens (though as you say, the long M43 lenses are pretty tiny!). If money's no object, I would think most folks would pick a Nikon Z9 or the like over an M43 option. You can totally get fine pictures out of the M43 in a wildlife/outdoors setting for sure.
(The smaller M43 lenses are a big part of why I use it, though, as I am a video-first shooter and Panasonic's video-friendly, silent-motor lenses are pretty ridiculous.)
I am also a µFT-shooter, e.g. OM-1 with the 300/4. I named the 150-400, a lens which certainly doesn't have a 35mm counterpart. At which point the "quality" advantage of a 35mm sensor becomes moot. And of course also, if one doesn't have a lens to match my more affordable 300/4. Assuming the 35mm shooter is even willing to carry the equipment :p. The camera body size of course does no longer make a difference, but the lens size still does.
Smaller sensor sizes, generally, work better with high zooms (with the exception of astrophotography). Look at broadcast TV cameras as an extreme example; those use sensor sizes even smaller than M4/3. It simply becomes impractical to build a very long focal length lens for a large size sensor that isn't telescope-sized.
And even when people are shooting with full-frame lenses (e.g. on Sony), they often use an APS-C camera body because it has more pixels in the very middle of the captured image, with the assumption being that you're going to be doing a lot of digital cropping anyway to get more effective zoom.
Long exposure and video are an issue. One Nikon solved with second gen mirroless bodies which can be charged while on through usb-c and second gen battery handles that can do the same. Other than that, battery swaps are fast enough.
I was referring to the battery life. If you want to use an optical viewfinder, that is a different argument. The question just is: how often is it really making a significant difference in battery life? One which you cannot reasonably compensate for with more batteries or external power supply.
Considering with only one mirrorless camera and one DSLR I have to lug around 10+ batteries in my camera bag...yeah. Running out of batteries at a wedding isn't an option.
Plus I keep backups just in case my camera bag is stolen, and first party Nikon batteries are $70 per. I hadn't considered keeping a battery bank and a long USB-C cable as a backup though, so I'll need to look into that.
Battery life is much worse but when you go all in on next gen Mirrorless cameras there are gains that are just impossible otherwise in a DSLR. The thing that convinced me was using an A7RII 5 years ago in NYC at night. The simple fact of the matter was that the camera could focus and validate setup in the dark better than my own eye with my personal Canon DSLR, even with the wide open nifty 50. I think we are on the edge of major innovations in camera tech. The size advantage makes it easier to carry more batteries as well.
Really the biggest thing is that Nikon is just brutally behind in tech compared to Sony and even Canon. The market has moved past DSLRs. Sony showed up and showed how to do it and that was it.
> Really the biggest thing is that Nikon is just brutally behind in tech compared to Sony and even Canon.
I don't see how that is true in the slightest. The Z9 is a true flagship that stacks up well against the competition. Cameras lower down on the segment stack can also hold their own, albeit some would argue the autofocus is lacking. Autofocus is just one piece of the tech in a camera.
Almost went for the Z9 myself but a lot of people were complaining about the autofocus. Supposed to be a firmware update for the autofocus soon, if it hasn’t already been released. Anybody working with it that can talk about the improvements to the AF since the release?
I think you were getting trolled. The auto focus from day one has been excellent and has only gotten better as they have been releasing updates. I own one and don't really care to take part in forum mudslinging, but I would seriously question anyone who thinks that the autofocus is anything but good (for MILC).
There are issues with AF, but that goes for Sony and Canon flagships as well. Overall, Nikon probably still is third in AF performance, but it's a very, very close third with the Z9. You do however need to know how to use the camera. A lot of the complaints about the AF online are from people who pick it up after using a much simpler camera like a D850 and expect to be able to get the most out of it without reading the manual or conducting tests.
"a lot of people were complaining about the autofocus"
A lot? This must mean you get your info from Youtube grifters. Every serious reviewer has praised the Z9 for having world class auto focus capabilities that defy belief. People are panning tiny birds in flights and it just keeps hitting it.
The only criticism is that Sony has a tiny notch up in very specific situations, yet that gap is rapidly shrinking. We're talking really marginal differences here.
> Sony showed up and showed how to do it and that was it.
The annoying thing is that Sony simply cannot do software. I love my A7S2, the hardware is excellent even years past its release, but the menus are confusing as fuck, why does it even ship with WiFi with the option to connect it to an existing network when their own software can't detect it there, or why does it need yet another piece of proprietary software to be used as a webcam instead of just implementing USB UVC...
I have 4 batteries at all times. two are official nikon ones. I've never gone past two. maybe if you're spending several days out in the middle of nowhere it makes a difference but a single battery is sufficient for most people that aren't shooting video.
But that's almost the only thing they are superior in. Mirrorless cameras have ways to mitigate the problem somewhat, for example by having sensors to detect if your eye is actually looking through the viewfinder, and if not they will turn it off, saving battery.
Mirrorless has several advantages: no more mismatch between the focus sensor and the CMOS sensor, no more mirror lag, viewable area matches CMOS sensor area perfectly, electronic viewfinder can show the image as it would be after exposure (making over/underexposed areas easy to spot while composing the shot), and most importantly it allows for much more compact lens designs because the last optical element can be much closer to the sensor since there is no mirror in the way.
Viewfinder lag has not been an issue anymore since 10 years ago. And with recent CMOS sensors having phase-diversity elements, autofocus can be as fast as with DLSRs.
I was shopping for lenses the other day for my Sony and what stood out is a lot of lenses that are very small such as the Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 SEL35F18F that make for a very light kit combined with a mirrorless camera that is itself much lighter than a DSLR.
I got the opposite kind of lens, one at the upper end of what you can wrangle in your hands. If your lens is big you have a heavy pack, look like a dork, can't hold it steady, all that. There is a lot to say for a camera that is easy to handle.
The body can make a substantial difference but if you're using big lenses on your DSLR, you're probably going to be using big lenses on your mirrorless too. The weight of the lens is down to the optics and build rather than the mount. For me, the weight of the lenses is by far the bigger problem.
To take your SEL35F18F as an example, the lens weighs 280g. The Nikon DSLR equivalent, "AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G ED", weighs 300g.
To go to extremes, Sony's SEL600F40GM weighs 3kg and so does Canon's "EF 600mm f/4L IS III USM" (admittedly, Nikon's equivalent weighs 4kg).
I'm not saying this to prove you "wrong" or anything, a Sony A7RIV weighs 665g to a Nikon D850's 1kg or a Canon 1DX Mk3's 1.4kg but switching to Sony might just be the difference between a 5kg kit and a 4.7kg kit: it's still pretty heavy.
I'm just pointing this out because when I was starting out I heard a lot of people talking about how small and light mirrorless cameras were. I think at the time this idea was focused more on cameras like the Olympus OM-D series. Amateurs/enthusiasts (including myself, who owned an OM-D) often didn't realise that one of the major reasons an OM-D kit was much lighter than a DSLR kit was that it was optically less capable due to the differences in sensor size. A big part of the reason an 17mm f1.8 MFT lens is so small is that it isn't equivalent to a full-frame 35mm f1.8 the way many people thought it was. It's more accurately equivalent to a 35mm f3.5 which could be made similarly light for the larger sensor, if anybody wanted that (but few people want that).
Yeah, I read an article a while back that was complaining that the new mirrorless cameras were claiming to be saving space and weight by being smaller and allowing better lens designs closer to the sensor. But they weren't. In actual fact, the lenses were bigger in a way that more than makes up for the smaller lighter camera body.
What they didn't point out is that those bigger heavier lenses are bigger and heavier because they are more recent, and the camera sensors are so detailed that the cameras need fantastically sharp lenses, which means that they are bigger. Also, people's expectations of the quality of lenses has increased. So, they could make some small light lenses, but then someone would pixel peep and complain about how blurry they are, when in actual fact they would be just as sharp as the old DSLR lenses, but the cameras are more able to reveal their shortcomings.
I've used modern Fujifilm (X-Pro 1-2-3, XT-1-2-3-4, X100 series), Sony (A7s3), Nikon (Z7) and other mirrorless cameras and I still hate the experience. Battery life is not great. I don't need or want exposure preview. The refresh rate will never match a SLR. With every camera there was a feeling of being detached from the scene and subject because of the EVF and almost every EVF gives me a headache after a few minutes of using it. The user experience on the whole has been more frustrating and less reliable than something like a Nikon D3 which just kind of gets out of the way when I am making images.
The accurate autofocus is nice but I would rather have an older flagship DSLR than any modern mirrorless camera. The only exception I might make is for a more recent Leica M camera, but that's only because I've sold one and would like to use those nice tiny little lenses again.
> most importantly it allows for much more compact lens designs because the last optical element can be much closer to the sensor since there is no mirror in the way.
But are these lenses and bodies actually designed that way, or do they keep the old dimensions because of backward compatibility?
It seems Nikon has introduced the Z-mount for its mirrorless cameras, and you have an adapter to go from Z to the F-series mount for older lenses. There will be Z-mount lenses specifically designed for mirrorless, but there might also be lenses (especially from third parties) that use an old design, and just modify the mount so it fits on mirrorless cameras without the need for an adapter.
Nikon's 4k60 rolling shutter issues mean you can't realistically use them for modern videography. Nikons suffer from extreme rolling shutter because of how the sensor is sampled.
From what I've seen (I don't shoot Nikon but I keep up with the market) Nikon's rolling shutter issues seem to be mostly addressed as of the Z9; you can shoot oversampled or subsampled 4K60 and the sensor readout is fast. Rolling shutter on the Z9 seems to be no worse than the Sony a1. I would expect this to move downmarket over time.
>>This media article is only speculation and Nikon has made no announcement in this regards
Perhaps...but this statement sounds awfully weaselly to me, i.e. 'we don't currently have any plans for layoffs' pronouncements that corporations often make right before announcing layoffs.
The whole point of the Z9 is that it achieved auto-focus parity with the D6 for sports and wildlife, it was really obvious that the D6 would be the last D camera, just like the F6 was obviously the last F camera. The re-designed ultra-teles (as opposed to "take existing optical and mechanical design of the EF version and integrate a flange extension" like Canon did) slot into this strategy by offering a real benefit over the preceding F lenses.
Nikon has a pretty long history (in Western memory going back to the Nikon S) of executing well and consistently. They're often not the first mover: Nikon S was a "best of" Zeiss-Leica body (pretty much all Zeiss, but using the Leitz shutter - this is why Nikon lenses mount, focus and zoom to the left), became quite popular. Nikon F wasn't the first SLR system, either, but well executed and became the benchmark.
You seem knowledgeable about the Nikon world. The current Z9 is being touted as the first ILC with a completely electronic shutter. How is this possible without having an impact on image quality when so many DSLRs/MILCs have been dependent on physical shutters?
These are great pictures, sure. However none of these rely on the capabilities of a camera like the Z9.
Your friend (and most skilled photographers) could have clicked those pictures with entry level cameras paired with appropriate lenses.
I linked to his photos as a confirmation that he is an adept photographer whose opinion about a camera is valid. But, hey, the shots are—at the least—not worse than his pre-Z9 images.
There's no such thing as an image relying on the capabilities of a Z9. In terms of raw image quality, it uses the same-ish sensor as a high-end DSLR, say a D850. Resolution and dynamic range are highly similar.
A mirrorless system does not create better pictures. It does increase the likelihood that you capture the image you want at all.
> There's no such thing as an image relying on the capabilities of a Z9
Sure there is.
For example consider the problems involved in taking a high resolution picture for a fast moving but difficult to focus object in low light. A Z9 will do brilliantly but cheaper cameras -- not so much.
A camera is not just the image sensor, modern sensors are all fairly close technologically in the grand scheme of things.
The mechanical shutters used in photo cameras are a mechanical rolling shutter, where each curtain takes about 1/500s or so to travel across the frame.
The electronic shutter in a rolling shutter CMOS is very similar: The first curtain is where rows of pixels are reset, the second curtain is when they are sampled/read out and digitized. For normal camera sensors this takes between 1/20s and 1/60s, depending on the resolution - high resolution cameras take longer.
The limiting factor for that isn't actually the pixel array itself, but the speed at which data can be transferred off the sensor. This is where stacked sensors come in: you can move data way more quickly between the front sensor die and the back logic/storage die than you can move it off chip. So the trick of the fast stacked sensors is that they read the image from the sensor die into the memory die, and then transfer the image through the usual, much slower link to the image DSP. But at that point the image has been fully exposed and the slowness of the link doesn't matter, except for the maximum frames per second.
This way you can make an image ~50 MP sensor whose electronic "shutter curtains" travel at a similar speed as the shutter curtains of a mechanical fp-shutter and so you don't reeallly need the mechanical shutter any more, because the motion artifacts will be basically the same. There are some edge cases, e.g. high frequency flickering light sources can apparently create issues, but they don't seem to be a show-stopper.
(There are some additional tricks, like CMOS sensors have been column-parallel for a long time, where each column of pixels have their own PGA and ADC, but these newer sensors seem to sample multiple rows in parallel as well)
((There are also global-shutter CMOS sensors, which can "near simultaneously" sample all pixels in the array, in the analog domain, but since this requires extra transistors in each pixel, it's always detrimental to other parameters for a ceteris paribus rolling shutter sensor. These are used mostly for machine vision / slow motion purposes. Higher-spec global shutter sensors are export controlled.))
I can answer that as I own a Z9 and was I am interested in the tech as well. Essentially, it is using a "Stacked CMOS" sensor that has a readout time of ~1/270 s. For comparison, the Z7ii is 1/30s if I am remembering correctly. Essentially, it just reads out the data on the sensor fast enough to hide any shutter artifacts (with the exception of LEDs, but this happens even with mechanical shutters as well, and isn't that big of a deal)
The only other camera from the big 3 flagships that matches this speed is the Sony A1 with 1/250s. The Canon R3 is 1/180s. It has a mechanical shutter, but I think the Z9 proves that its worth the omission in 99% of the shooting scenarios. Especially when it is coming in $1000 cheaper than the Sony.
Quoting from newsroom >>>>> There was a media article regarding Nikon's withdrawal of SLR development. This media article is only speculation and Nikon has made no announcement in this regards. Nikon is continuing the production, sales and service of digital SLR. Nikon appreciate your continuous support.<<<<<
Notice how they didn't mention continuation of "DEVELOPMENT"!
That Nikom stopped development of DSLRs, and F-mount lenses, isn't a big surprise so. The D780, D850 and D6 are propably the last generation of Nikon DSLRs we see. Which is ok, times move on.
Nikon is still producing a few manual focus (Ai-s) lenses. Or if not actively producing any more, then they're at least not officially discontinued so far. Since the 55mm and 105mm Micro-Nikkors pop up in machine vision applications, I'm assuming they have long-term supply agreements with industrial customers for those lenses. (A lot of industrial cameras are Nikon F-mount)
Nikkei's leak article for Japanese company and official half-denial response is classic. Then company often release same release as leak. Perhaps Nikon won't release any release but just stop developing.
I shoot wildlife using a combo of DSLR and Mirrorless and I have to say, I almost always reach for my R5 (mirrorless) over my 5d mark4.
One of the things I love most is seeing exposure in real time, it's a nice little quality of life thing you don't think about until you experience it. Over the years I think anyone who takes photography seriously has gotten pretty good at gauging exposure, but to actually see it change in real time when you adjust ISO or Aperture is pretty slick.
But all of that being said, I'll hold onto my DSLRs forever too- as one person pointed out the battery life is far better and when you're out for 10 hours at a time that really matters.
> EVF is much more convenient for near vision glasses wearers too.
How so? I use diopter adapters in my DSLR eyepieces, since the built-in adjustment doesn't suffice and I hate to shoot through glasses that prevent me seeing all of the viewfinder.
I wouldn't have thought an EVF could natively improve on this, but now you've got me intrigued.
Yeah, as resolutions climb autofocus not being aligned exactly to the sensor is a bigger and bigger problem.
I have a very high res (mirrored) medium format system and keeping the “focus trim” set correctly to align the AF system with sensor seems impossible, seemingly changing with temperature or other conditions.
> seemingly changing with temperature or other conditions.
Focus also shifts with aperture, it's impossible to have an open loop system that works accurately. Some lenses will front focus wide open, be spot on at f4 and back focus after that, or the opposite. Or be spot on wide open and oof when you stop down.
Also can change with what focus point is used, distance to the subject, focal length (for a zoom). It's a huge source of frustration, and while mirrorless cameras aren't perfect at this, they're so much better than DSLRs. I do still love the shooting experience of an optical viewfinder though.
Funny, I picked up a 5D4 for a song a few months ago, while everyone sells their stuff off to buy mirrorless. The 5D4 has more features! The only real advantage of mirrorless viewfinders for me is the ability in low light. I have a Q2 and its size/quality/workflow wins most everytime though.
I stocked up on all the film cameras I couldn’t afford as a kid when the sell off happened about ten years ago. I imagine DSLRs will have a burst of retro popularity at some point once people get bored of whatever it is they’re using.
For low light some electronic viewfinders are actually worse than optical ones. I have a (rather old) Minolta dImage 7i which does binning on the sensor in low light, giving excellent results in darkness, but my Olympus OM-D EM1 does not do so and is just cranking up the ISO so much it is very noisy when it's dark.
It might be noisy, but it definitely delivers a reasonably bright image where an optical viewfinder would be completely dark already. Especially in the high gain modes, you have like a night vision device - try pointing the E-M1 at the stars with the higher of the live view amplification modes. It is great how many stars you can see this way.
You made a solid choice, the 5D4 is an excellent body- I usually keep it nearby and constantly with a lens on it ready to go when I need it.
Have you tried the eye tracking auto focus on the R5? It's actually pretty phenomenal and can help a lot when photographing wildlife. Funny story though, if you're photographing animals with white butts and black tails (like a bighorn sheep) from behind..it's gonna track the butt as if it were a face. That made me laugh when it happened.
I knew the 5D4 would be the end of the line, and I ditched my 1DX which was just too heavy, the 4 is better in every way. I had the original 5D and the mk2, and very impressed at how refined the 4 is.
I did try the R5 and I also used the original eye-tracking Canon EOS 5 back in the 90s so I can see things have come a long way :) The deal-breakers on the R5 were:
1) Huge cost
2) Lack of GPS
3) New lenses required
And the extra value of quality and video and speed weren’t enough to compensate. On those points, I also think there’s a bunch of trade-offs.
Firstly, the file sizes. My first digital camera, the Nikon D1X, had file sizes of 5-6 Meg, and my Q2 is coming in at 85 Meg. That’s 17 times as much drive space needed to deal with this, not to mention network bandwidth to move everything around. Do I need this many pixels? Well obviously I want them, but I just sent out a 49 x 30 inch print to a client that was upsized in Topaz and was taken on the 21MP 5D2. Was it stunning? Definitely.
Secondly, the lenses. They are ridiculously good these days, as they need to be to resolve for 60+MP sensors coming up. But they are also getting pricy and heavy. Do I really want to replace an entire bag of primes? I save 100 grams on the camera to lose it all tenfold on the lenses. This was always the biggest cost involved with a system. The R5 is hardly cheap but I’d honestly rather switch to Leica S at this point.
Thirdly, at these pricing levels, we really are in Leica territory and the Q2 absolutely trounces Canon in terms of value and workflow. I’ve been running the Q2 for three years and it’s got 51 real MP to play with, a lens that makes you laugh with its ability, plus speed and control. It’s completely outgunned if we’re talking wildlife photography and long lenses, but on everything else it is camera number 1.
DSLRs aren’t being truly killed by their mirrorless replacements, not yet maybe, but by anyone who can shoehorn smartphone tech into a real camera.
Maybe interchangeable lenses are the things getting in our way?
I picked up a couple used FujiFilm bridge cameras recently. I got them to teach my son photography but now I find myself packing the $50 Fuji over my DSLR. I'm getting some amazing shots. I'd go Mirrorless, but none of the lenses I'd want are under $2000--
Thanks! I used to work in a camera store back around the turn of the millenium in a period when people would come up and ask for the tradeoffs between digital and film. I didn't like AA cameras at the time because they'd consume lots of them, but you make a good point about their afterlife and of course NI-MH are a lot better now too. I was afraid your recommendation would trigger me to acquire yet another camera, and it looks like it will lol. Kind of crazy how good they are compared to when I was selling them, and how those very good ones are already just about ready for the trash heap.
Yep, I’ve had (mirrored) Canon DSLRs and lenses for 20+ years (since the original D30) and just this past week sold the entire system. I hadn’t picked it up since I got the mirrorless R5 a couple of years ago.
I sold all my DSLRs over the past 18 months and jumped into the deep end. The lens systems are better, the cameras are better. I love having a histogram in the viewfinder. There's very little reason and battery life has never been an issue (it is for video but that's a different story).
When I went back to photography I put quite some thought into the next gear, obviously the old D70 I ahd lying around wasn't going to cut it. And I wanted full frame, so the D200 I borrowed from ky dad was at best a back up.
In the end I ended uo using, and loving, my dad's D700 I switched the D200 for (he's on a D750/200 combo now). I came to the conlusion that, regardless how good Nikon's Z cameras and lebses are, I prefer to spend the money on vacation and trips to places to shoot great pictures. So I am going to stick with the D700, with a mint, used D300 as a back-up. Some additional budget will go into a 400mm and a 20mm lense. And maybe a spare D700 body as long as those are still available with <50k shots taken. Honestly, this camera gave me the fun in ohotography back, I love using it. For my use as an artistic tool it the perfect camera.
As a pro so I would go mirroless, no doubt about that.
I've been doing a lot of research recently on the D700 and from everything I've read and heard is that it's a fantastic camera. It seems that it has all the right ingredients to produce stunning images. Additionally, it seems to be highly regarded for its ergonomics. Lucky you!
Ergonomics are great, picture quality has something special about even in RAW. The body is sturdy as a tank, feels a lot like a F4. Which already means I love it, back as 13 year old I was allowed to use my dad's back-up F4 to learn photography on film, slides and B&W. Another benefit is small files it creates, it makes post processing so much easier.
The one issue I see, so, is cropping. I am not talking about cutting some sides or going to portrait format, but rather cropping out e.g. birds. That's the only time the 12 MP hinder you. In a sense a D700 forces you to shoot better pictures.
Overall, if you can, get one. There are some from places like mpb.com with below 50k shutter count in very good condition for around / less than 400 Euro. You cannot do anything wrong.
Oh, a D700 doesn't do video. No problem for me, but if you want to do video that is a missing feature.
I bought a Fujifilm X-T4 for my first "big boy" camera last year and the deciding factor in my head was that the best camera is one you want to carry. The 18-55mm kit lens is one of the best + the X-T4 has easy knobs and settings for great snaps out of the box.
I shoot everything JPEG, usually 16:9, immediately download to phone, and basically delete the raw as soon as the edits are done in Snapseed or VN. Photography in the age of social media is highly ephemeral. It's there for a day and then people are onto the next story or snap dopamine hit. I prefer a form of photography that is more like blitz chess, which is to see how quickly you can snap something good and create/post a decent edit.
">I shoot everything JPEG, usually 16:9, immediately download to phone, and basically delete the raw as soon as the edits are done in Snapseed or VN. Photography in the age of social media is highly ephemeral. It's there for a day and then people are onto the next story or snap dopamine hit."
Different take here.
I do show some photos to family / friends and keep web album for that. But mostly I photograph for my own viewing on large 4K screen. Photos from smartphones just do not cut it for me so I stick to mirrorless. The fact that most are happy with smartphone is irrelevant to me. It is my hobby and as long as I am happy the rest does not matter.
Fuji's JPEG colors are great, and if you're willing to spend the time to get it right in the camera they are sufficient for personal work. Especially if your personal interests are being out shooting instead of sitting behind a computer editing.
I mostly agree but I find modern software algorithms with "automatic" adjustment on the RAW tend to do a good job for the stuff I'm happy to have a lower quality JPEG anyway. It allows me to spend less time adjusting settings on my Camera, just load it into lightroom, auto-wb and auto-color tone and the jpg is "ready" to send.
I do almost no editing beyond crops and occasional WB / color correction, but holy crap you're leaving SO MUCH on the table by marrying JPEG on the camera.
> But all of that being said, I'll hold onto my DSLRs forever too- as one person pointed out the battery life is far better and when you're out for 10 hours at a time that really matters.
Aren't you better off carrying spare batteries than a whole extra camera?
It's easier to have an extra camera on hand, with a 300mm attached, than it is to switch a camera off a 600mm onto a smaller lens. Lots of weird shit happens when shooting wildlife photography, you want multiples on hand.
The end of an era, but Nikon is following a lot of other manufacturers like Olympus, Sony, Leica. SLRs were a great product, but about 10 years ago, mirrorless cameras started to overtake them in many aspects. The EVF has many advantages, of course especially for video recording. All new camera models now are mirrorless. Like analog SLRs gave way to DSLRs, now the migration to mirrorless is going to be finished. I wouldn't expect Canon to stick to DSLRs much longer either.
For the same price point, mirrorless cameras are of inferior quality when it comes to noise. This is why many still choose DSLRs.
Edit: OK, I should say inferior quality w.r.t noise when all other features are similar.
Certainly, it's not anything specific about mirrorless that makes it noisy. It's just that if I have a DSLR with certain features, and another mirrorless with similar features (and noise profile), the latter tends to cost more.
And my information may be a bit dated - the last time I checked was in 2018. And I only buy APS-C, which usually was quite a bit more expensive for mirrorless, with not better quality.
It basically seems to come down to the fact that with DSLR you can disable Live View, therefore keeping the sensor cool until you take your exposure.
I expect then that a camera like the X100V or X-Pro3 - both of which are mirrorless cameras that also have an OVF - would have the same advantage as a DSLR.
The argument has been made often. Yes, noise raises with sensor temperature. But I haven't seen a test which shows that it makes any difference in real-life situations.
> therefore keeping the sensor cool until you take your exposure.
That'd only be true if the sensor is a significant heat source that's unable to dissipate that heat adequately. Which... I can't think of any reason that would be inherently true. The ISP generates some decent heat, which is why many cameras have limits on how long you can record 4k video. But does the cmos sensor? Especially when you're talking full-frame, the energy density seems like it'd be pretty tame. If it's not meaningfully rising above ambient temperature, then there's no reason a DSL sensor would be cooler & therefore less noisy.
a) You use a smaller sensor (while this is the norm, mirrorless does not absolutely imply APS-C vs Full Frame)
b) You use smaller lenses (same disclaimer as above)
and, above all else, by far
c) You deliberately cripple your mirrorless line because you're too afraid to cannibalize your SLR business, praying really hard that everyone else is doing the same
The Nikon 1 was an ugly camera, usually Nikon bodies a rather well designed ergonomically and optically. Isn't the Nikon 1 series deprecated by now? To me it seemd that the Nikon 1 series was kind of a trial for Nikon to feel the waters for DSLR alternatives.
My point isn't that fundamentally mirrorless has more noise. It's that for the same price mirrorless cameras tend to be inferior in this regard.
For context, my DSLR is APS-C and not full frame. The last time I looked (2018), I couldn't find a mirrorless camera that performed as well noise wise than my Nikon for the same price (and other features).
The price is actually also a choice of the vendors. Some of it is actual economies of scale, returns on R&D and cost of manufacturing, but some is certainly a deliberate choice of where to position the product on the market. They build (or used to, until very recently) considerably inferior mirrorless cameras, but did not price them proportionally lower compared to the SLR ones, because they would again cannibalize their sales by doing it.
Aren't, e.g., the Z6 and D780 and the D850 and Z7 using the same sensor? There arw differences between the two technologies, better noise performance is purely driven be the sensor, not the presence or absence of a mirror.
ugh its a potential death spiral. I bought an Olympus and expected to keep the 4/3rds lenses for decades. Now its mostly a dead end, I have to choose another and start from scratch now. I’d actually like to go Nikon but don’t want to get burned twice in a row.
Sadly the only rational choice left might be Sony. I chose between Sony and M4/3 five years ago, went with M4/3, and now regret it took should've gone with alpha APS-C.
It seems like a dying platform, and Sony sells better camera bodies (though admittedly they still aren't as ergonomic to use). I went with Olympus, and in particular, Sony does better video.
Well, the Olympus FT system had its last camera 2010. But there was the migration path to mFT, which supports FT lenses. You might though hurry to grab the lens adapters, as they are no longer in production. The mFT system is quite alive and the camera spin-off from Olympus, OMDS, seems to do well with the recent OM-1 camera. You should definitely give it a try.
I shouldn't have said dead end, its been a great camera but the truth is I bought the Panasonic 18-35 zoom which has gone a bit soft I must have damaged it. I have a few nice primes but figure its a good time to change platforms.
My usage has changed. 10 years ago I was happy with the e-m5 as it was lightweight. Now my phone is great lightweight camera, I need something once a month for special shots, so might as well get something bigger.
I think my main point is that once a camera company starts losing market share its very difficult to attract new users.
I've got the fancy f/2 zoom 4/3rd lens. Thing is awesome and at this point there's pretty much no hope of using it with better sensors etc. I should be buying up Olympus E bodies to make sure I'll have something behind it while it lasts.
They are fantastic lenses. Which one have you got? I have the 150/2. Why shouldn't you use the lens with the newest mFT cameras with the current sensors?
If you are looking for a beefy camera, you can currently get the E-M1X increadibly cheap and of course to get the newest, the OM-1 works nicely with them too. You just need to look around for the Olympus adapter, which unfortunately is avaliable only used. That is what you should be buying up, preferrably the mmf-1, as it is more robust than its successors.
On Nikon's Z mount you can use F mount lenses with an adapter going back to 1959, just to illustrate their extreme commitment to backwards-compatibility. This new Z mount isn't going anywhere. It's not Nikon's style to change mounts, it's been 60 years. They intentionally made the new Z mount as large as physically possible as to make it future-proof.
I suspect this is half way to the truth. The Z mount lens portfolio is looking pretty good these days. At some point the FTZ will be the only F mount being sold.
I sold all my F mount lenses last year finally. Despite owning a Z50 and a Z6 I only seem to use the Z50 and the DX kit lenses. Might sell the full frame stuff apart from the 35mm prime which is amazing on the Z50.
I don't think I'm going to invest in a new system.
The combo of my 5D4, and latest iphone pro seem to have me covered.
I'm tempted to rent a latest canon mirrorless body, but I can't see how Canon can keep up with IQ innovation through processing the way Google and Apple have.
This is anecdotal at best but I went to my big camera store last weekend. The last time I went was around 2011. Back then it was 48% Nikon, 48% Canon, and the rest being the other makers, think pentax, fuji, sony, etc. Now it's 30% Canon, 30% Sony, 20% Nikon, 20% Fuji. I think Nikon is dying. Sony ate everyone's lunch, now Canon is coming back big with the R mirrorless cams, and Fuji is also making one hell of a comeback. The Leica, Panasonic, Sigma alliance is also working to their advantage.
Nikon is late to mirroless, but their Z mount lenses are superb. As are their second gen mirrorless bodies. Also their first gen, even if the gear fanatics had some greavences about single memory card slots. In that light, also considering Z mount lenses took a while to be released, 20% is actually pretty solid.
Agree for wedding photographers regarding the f/1.4 lenses. For all other purposes so... Tge second card slot was fixed so, and I don't know of anyone who actually lost shots due a failing memory card. I do see the need for redundancy for stuff like weddings and events so.
The bigger story of course is that phones came along and ate everyone's lunch. I don't know a single person who desires to lug around a body and lens, no matter how compact, anymore. (Have you seen what the top-of-the-line iPhone can do? It's amazing.) I say this as someone who used to own five figures worth of Canon glass. The whole industry feels like it is dying to me. The professional segment will always be there but the consumer and, increasingly, "prosumer" markets are history.
The loss of the prosumer market is the one that will hurt the most - professionals can support a smallish group of companies/models, but prosumers buy way more camera than they need.
Yes and I blame the manufacturers for this. They turned the hobby into a gear sport, spent decades convincing this exact segment that step zero to taking "real" pictures was to buy about $5000 worth of equipment. It worked well and made a lot of money for a long time... but also completely took all the fun out of photography imo. People were more likely to sit around arguing on online forums about "bokeh" and f-stops than go out and actually shoot pictures. Now suddenly everyone has an amazing camera sitting in their pocket, everyone is a photographer, picture taking has increased, what, ten-thousand fold? Photography is fun again ... and they are not even in the conversation. You reap what you sow.
I use two Nikon N90x bodies with AF-D lenses and occasionally shoot 4x5 as well. I develop and scan the negatives myself and make traditional prints in a darkroom. The only thing I really use my iPhone (13) camera for is for taking visual notes of things I need to refer to later. It's convenient, but the small sensor of a cell phone cannot replicate the look and feel of a large format film camera.
Most professionals have moved on though, for sure. It is going to be interesting to see how things continue to develop.
I don't know. My 10 year old dslr has much more detail than an iPhone. IPhones photos basically can't be cropped. Even uncropped, when I see a photo at almost full screen size on my 27" monitor, it looks pretty crappy.
Of course you can argue for social media it doesn't matter. But that's another point. And for things such as YouTube it's incredibly noticeable when a video is properly filmed vs using a phone (see Mkbhd "secret" iPhone recorded videos)
It's easy to think so. And I did for a while. I was on Canon DSLRs and eventually as iphones got better I stopped using the setup. For a few years I was back to fully mobile photographer. Now recently picked up a Sony full frame mirror less and it's been amazing rediscovering what you can do with a better camera. I don't take it everywhere, but I do make the effort to bring it out with two primes when I know photo opportunities will present themselves. Can you tell what shots are what camera? https://instagram.com/kballenegger
The industry is not dying, it's returning to its former prosumer/pro territory, and in that section it's very much surviving. Prosumer may even be thriving.
The Z9 has made quite a splash, though. So it's hard to criticize Nikon's most recent moves. That said, I switched to Fuji (from Canon SLRs) almost 10 years ago, and Fuji certainly makes the most interesting cameras to me as a dedicated but decidedly non-professional photographer with a real interest in cameras themselves. For example, Fuji's rangefinder-style cameras with a hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder are just plain cool (X-Pro and X100 series).
They were slow to make the jump to mirrorless but that's due to their giant legacy customer base, which Sony lacks. And in a way, Nikon never really is fast in releasing things.
Only now is the Z system really coming together and it's quite fabulous, worth the wait. The lenses are top notch, their second generation bodies very competitive and the Z9 an absolute beast. Further, they are aggressively pricing new releases, undercutting the competition.
So the true adoption for the Z system is still to come, whilst they're already doing quite well given the late entry.
They're not going to be market leaders anytime soon, maybe never, but they're not dying, far from it. Note that they also sit on a lot of cash and are part of a far larger corporation.
the nikon z50 WIth lens comes out to 999. technically under 1k.
they also recently released the new z30 whihc eschws the evf for just the backmuond display. its definitely a compromised design heavily geared towards youtubers rather than still photography but it uses the same mount and lenses and retails for
$849 WITH lens.
I was amazed the first time I looked into the viewfinder of a medium format SLR. After mostly using mirrorless digital cameras, even returning to a 35mm/full frame viewfinder feels like magic. The experience of seeing the image rendered by the lens on the ground glass in “full screen” with your eye’s superior color depth and dynamic range is really something. Digital viewfinders/mirrorless cameras certainly provide more utility in certain cases, but they’ll never match the “experience” of ground glass
> he experience of seeing the image rendered by the lens on the ground glass in “full screen” with your eye’s superior color depth and dynamic range is really something.
Sure, but it's not what you end up with once you stop looking at pretty projections and hit the shutter button.
As an amateur, I don't care too much, since I only use obsolete stuff.
Black & white film are trendy, though expensive and there is not much that can break on my F3 camera.
Out of curiosity, I went to the Leica store recently, to test out the Q2 monochrome (and the M11). It has a great lens, a great great 47mpx sensor, a even greater tactile experience and a sh*tty EVF. I can't fathom why non pros would by such a poor UX for $6000€ or so.
On the other hand, the comparable M setup with its great but rather limiting UX would be over 10k.
I don't know about pros, but for amateurs, price and electronic UX feel like good reason to just stay retro and enjoy..
I used to have a Leica M6. It was a lovely camera, but I actually really prefer to shoot with my Nikon FE2 to the Leica, and so I sold the M6. Hope it ended up in the hands of someone who enjoys it.
I'm curious what your definition of UX is in this case. I have a Q2 and I find that while it's a little quirky and they made some specific strange decisions in development to be a very powerful and pleasant to use camera and I enjoy using it over my previous DSLR because of its low weight, beautiful lens (which in reality is what you're paying 2/3 of the money for anyway) and the photos it can produce, and specifically on the point of the EVF, it's really one of the better ones on the market from my experience. The biggest critique I have for the camera is the abysmal battery life, and the fact that they changed to a proprietary (and very thick) battery compared to the Q.
I cannot say I am surprised by the great quality of the build and the resulting images, it's Leica. They are expensive but they surely deliver. "Not surprised", but still, it's really good.
The EVF though was laggy, had weird focus picking/assist in manual mode, weird blueish white balance, the artificial depth of field preview ... I am sure it's featureful and better than the competition but I did not enjoy the experience, which is usually the brand trademark, rangefinder and so on.
I found the Fuji X100 hybrid EVF/OVF approach more pleasing.
Me not understanding the appeal doesn't mean others can't though. I wish you all the best with this camera.
It is self-evident that DSLRs are basically done—I would be surprised if any totally new cameras with actual flipping mirrors are introduced. But there’s no actual evidence that Nikon is stopping production of its remaining higher-end DSLRs.
If anyone has ever been in a service shop, and seen a DSLR, taken apart, you would be gobsmacked at the complexity of the mechanisms, therein.
Lots of moving parts. Hard to design, hard to make, hard to maintain, and hard to fix. Also, writing firmware to control all those moving parts is a nightmare.
Ideally, the lens should be the only part of the camera with a moving part.
I'm hoping that this means that they will finally embrace the concept of a "true" software-driven camera, but time will tell...
So is the price for used SLR equipment (lenses) going to go up or down due to this announcement [edit: apparently speculation as no official announcement has been made]?
Photographers are a funny crowd. They have both the artist, and the craftsman. Some will not ever want to change their toolset, while others, will jump right onto the bandwagon.
Some of the better mirrorless cameras have some extra moving parts, for the anti-shake mechanism, which is capable of moving the sensor around to cancel out the movement of the camera. Yes, you can do anti-shake in the lens, but I think there are some advantages to having it in the body as well.
My camera isn't a mirrorless, but I'm actually glad it still has the focus motor inside it, because that means that I can go and buy an old cheap (but still good) second-hand lens that still uses the mechanical focus gear, and get autofocus. Some other camera bodies don't have that motor, so those older lenses are manual focus only with them. With the mirrorless, by dint of having a brand new lens mount, they were able to mandate that each lens has its own autofocus motor, but I just thought I'd point this reason to have more mechanical stuff in the camera out.
And of course I also have somewhere an old film camera where absolutely everything (except the lightmeter) works if you take the battery out. Quite how they got the precision to be able to set shutter speeds between seconds and 1/2000th of a second is quite beyond me.
I suppose it was inevitable but it breaks my heart.
I shot on film in high school. I had a decent job so I could buy enough film and processing that I didn't worry too much about "wasting" shots.
I used various point-and-shoots in the late 90s and early 2000's. I constantly had "battery anxiety". I missed a lot of good shots because I kept the camera powered-off for fear of draining the battery. When I threw caution to the wind and kept the camera on the battery would inevitably die and I'd miss shots. I was constantly thinking about my battery. It sapped a lot of the joy from shooting pictures.
I never worry about that with my Nikon DSLRs. I can grab the camera when I head out in the morning and know I can shoot as much as I want, all day, and never run out of battery. (Realistically a big shooting day for me is only 400-500 shots. Still...)
Given how long my D30, D3100, and now D7200 have lasted I guess I can find some inventory blowout on a couple newer cameras and hoard them away.
I'm a D500 shooter and don't plan on switching yet. I'll probably pick up a D850 at some point as the prices will inevitably drop as people make the leap and sell off their old gear.
I have a nice selection of lenses, I don't want to give them up or use adapters.
Seems a bit odd to me. Many older film cameras from the 80s and 70s (or earlier) can still take perfectly decent photos even without a battery. As long as you can guesstimate things correctly and manually control for other settings such as aperture, it becomes easy to do. I've used my old Asahi Pentax for decades sans battery or exposure meter.
As much as I love my Nikon DSLR, MILC has surpassed it as a technological possibilities. They needed to pour all of their available resources into MILC 4 years ago.
The Z9 was a big release for Nikon, proving they could rival Sony's dominance and match the performance of the D6.
The Z6/7 releases were great proof of concepts but not competitive cameras, at least not in a ring with Sony and Canon. And now that we know they can, they need to put it all on the line as their market share just keeps declining.
As someone who has shot SLRs (digital and even some analog) for almost thirty years: It's a dying format and it should die. I have about twenty years of investment in Canon EF SLR lenses and even so, I bought a mirrorless body last year. I still have my EF lenses (and an EF-RF adapter) but I'll probably sell them gradually and never buy another EF lens again.
It's important to understand the history of SLRs. When they were invented, they were competing against rangefinders. With a rangefinder, you have a lens that exposes directly onto the film. Then you have a separate little viewing window that you look through to aim and compose your shot. That little eyepiece is off center from the actual lens and film, so what you see looking through it isn't exactly what the lens will see when you take the shot. Also, you can't preview things like the aperture, depth of field, and focus.
SLRs were a radical improvement over that. With an SLR, there's a little mirror/pentaprism thing between the lens and film. When the shutter is closed, it routes light up from the lens to the eyepiece. Then when you press the shutter button, the mirror flips out of the way (this is part of the iconic "take a photo" sound) and the light going through the lens goes straight onto the film.
In this way, what you see in the eyepiece is exactly what the lens sees. The whole point of an SLR is to make previewing a photo before taking a shot match the actual taken shot.
Digital SLRs have the exact same structure, but with a digital sensor instead of film. When you look through the eyepiece, you are looking through the pentaprism and mirror and then out the lens. So you see exactly what the lens sees, and what the sensor will see when the shutter opens. But the framing tends to not be exactly the same since the sensor may crop in various ways that the eyepiece doesn't.
Also, the eyepiece doesn't show you anything that the sensor is doing to the photo, like exposure control, ISO, noise, motion blur, etc.
If your goal—which was the original goal of SLRs!—is to make your eyepiece match the final photo, the best way to do it is to have the eyepiece be a digital display that shows what the sensor itself sees. That is as close to the ground truth as you can possibly get.
This is what mirrorless cameras do. Not only are they superior when it comes to previewing accuracy, they are lighter, smaller, simpler, and more durable because they don't need the large moving parts for the pentaprism and mirror.
I loved my SLRs over the years, but its time has passed.
To me, the SLR has always seemed like a somewhat inelegant design that nevertheless solved real problems present in rangefinders (and other non-reflex cameras). The whole idea of a big, heavy, loud, flappy mirror mechanism just seems clunky on some level. Mirrorless digital cameras get to solve the same problems in a much simpler, more elegant fashion, and the day I got my first mirrorless camera, I knew I'd never buy another DSLR.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 255 ms ] thread> As well as the rise of mirrorless tech, SLR cameras have also been out-competed by smartphone technology, which has shrunk the camera market over decades.
The market has shrunk but it's nothing to do with smartphone cameras, it's like saying McDonalds have shrunk the market for three stars restaurants. Not the same audience at all, not the same use, you'll find that the DSLR market has been mostly stagnating innovation wise for a while, making it hard to justify buying a new model for just a few more megapixels every now and then. A 10 years old DSLR is still a formidable image-maker.
A large percentage of those people have realised they can take really good photos with their phone now, good enough that they don't feel inadequate, and maybe they don't feel like carrying around heavy equipment either.
That market is gone and will never return.
That does not make any sense, it was already the case that you could make excellent pictures with compact cameras 15 years ago, without having a DLSR. If your hypothesis was right the DSLR market would have disappeared much earlier.
Your argument only holds up if you're taking high aperture landscape photos in broad daylight...
On the other hand they were revolutionary compared to film cameras, so it didn't really matter.
Now, a pretty excellent compact camera is in pretty much everyone's hands. So the question becomes-- is it worth another camera to be serious? Would I even carry it anywhere?
Although We’re probably saying the same thing, just differing on our definition of hobbyist.
The phone pics have the benefit of some pretty good automatic processing, ease of use (the thing is already in my pocket), and for typical landscape or portrait stuff, they are just fine.
But there really is no comparison when it comes to "real" bokeh/shallow DOF stuff, not to mention the sheer flexibility offered by a full-fat lens, bigger sensor, and controls that don't have me poking around in touch screen menus. I could even swap to my 35mm f/1.8 if I wanted to shoot in lower light than my phone can do without digital tricks or longer exposure times.
If I were in the market today, perhaps I would go for a mirrorless camera, but as someone decidedly not professional at all WRT photography, I still enjoy having something flexible in addition to using my phone as a decent backup point-and-shoot camera.
Perhaps 20% of pictures I've shot have been on a DSLR, and 80% on phones. By sheer numbers, a really big share of the best shots are from a phone camera. And there's a lot of things that I took pictures of, that there's some rather obvious phone camera penalties from... but at least I have a picture while with a DSLR I would likely not.
It's freeing, too, to not have to choose between "do I lug the big camera today in difficult conditions or get no photos today?"
... I am looking forward to picking up a mirrorless to reduce the barrier a little bit of carrying "the big camera".
Now one could argue about whether the tiny censors on smartphones in of itself is just another dimension of artistic expression.
But my personal aesthetic preference as a hobbyist photographer and art consumer is that unintentional censor noise is not good.
So I dug out the old DSLR and brought (lugged?) it with me on a recent vacation to Peru. I threw in the largest SD card it would accommodate (32GB), which gave me literally thousands of photos at the highest quality JPEG setting (don't really want to deal with post-processing RAW images). The only lens I brought was a 35mm 1.8 DX lens.
I have to say that the quality of my photos was much better than I had seen in quite some time. It is hands down better than my smartphone. Even though they are both ostensibly 12MP, the larger sensor and lens make a big difference. The two things I missed from my iPhone were super wide angle shots and low light. Since I had my iPhone with me, I could just pull that out if needed.
I briefly thought about buying a new DSLR or a mirrorless, but really my old one is good enough. I will probably just buy an 18-55 zoom or something for my next vacation.
And tons of people who want to have a youtube channel. Hell there are lots of people that use a SLR just for their zoom calls.
As a hobbyist photographer myself I can confirm that I spend serious amount of money on equipment that is pro-level. The last camera I got was the Nikon Z6 Mark II, which is an entry-level pro camera. Why? Because "The picture quality matters" and it feels good to have a really nice camera when you're standing around a bunch of other hobbyists who all have pro cameras.
For the most part the people who take photos with their phones were never really buying DSLRs. They were buying all the other digital cameras. When you go for a DSLR you're wanting to control everything, shutter speed, the aperture, etc. You want to be able to go wide-lens, tele-lens, you want to be able to choose between 2000/second and 100/second. You want to do time delay.
If you're even half interested in taking good photos you're looking to get a DSLR even if you don't understand everything. You can look at the photography sites for hobbyists such as youpic.com and 500px.com. These sites are full of people sharing their hobby photos and you'll find 1-2 out of hundreds using their mobile.
That's the crap webcam problem. You'll never use the mirror mechanism in a DSLR in that situation.
Nikon promotes using their DSLRs as webcams.[1] What you really want, of course, is the good optics, sensor, and electronics without the viewfinder, mirror, battery, and manual controls, and with good connectors and no overheating during continuous operation.
Neither the webcam makers nor the traditional camera makers have addressed this market. So who's doing it? Hikvision, the surveillance camera makers.[2] Their thing is making high-rez cameras that handle widely varied lighting conditions. So they offer some of those packaged as webcams.
[1] https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/webcam-utility...
[2] https://www.hikvision.com/en/products/Turbo-HD-Products/Turb...
That customer base has pretty much disappeared and it has everything to do with smartphones. If I recall the statistic correctly, the DSLR market shrunk by 40% across the board in just a few years because of this.
Due to this, Nikon and others have re-positioned their market to high price/margin prosumer/pro gear mostly.
Edit: Nikkei is also reporting on this, so that makes it more believable.
For people people you get eye-autofocus and eye-tracking (better DSLRs have done people and face tracking for ages, but one of the more en-vogue styles in people photography of the last couple years is ultra-large apertures with sharp eyes, and with DSLRs that's really pushing it, especially at 50 MP).
For media people you tend to get better video support. The latest flagships (e.g. 8K capabilities of the Z9) start to infringe on cinema camera territory (though with none of the connectivity, which would add an unacceptable amount of bulk to a photo/hybrid camera).
For sports people you get more images per image and no blackout at all (Z9 only, for now).
For wildlife people you get quiet operation (no mirror, no shutter necessary, depending on the model).
In terms of the image quality itself, the hypothetical spherical cow in a vacuum, there's no advantage per se, various DSLRs and mirrorless cameras use practically identical sensors. Tiny mark against mirrorless for PDAF pixels, but that's not a practical concern for any current camera. Shutter-less mirrorless avoid a possible source of IR contamination (the optical barrier used by the camera to time the shutter), but that's about it. Oh, and IBIS, obviously.
> For landscape people you get far better wide-angle lenses
What specifically? Just comparing Nikon mirrorless to Nikon DSLRs, the F-mount (for DSLRs) has, for example, the highly regarded 14-24mm f/2.8. What's the mirrorless equivalent to that?
> For sports people you get more images per image
I assume you mean more images per second? That much is true (eg 14fps for the D6 vs 30fps for the Z9 at full res).
> ... no blackout at all (Z9 only, for now).
This is... partially true. There is an inherent blackout in SLRs but that may or may not matter. Assume you're shooting at 1/500 shutter speed and you're continuous shooting on a Z9 you're going to get some inherent blackout because you won't be shooting 500fps (because you can't).
But here's the big thing with DSLRs over mirrorless: input lag for target tracking. An optical viewfinder ("OVF") is just inherently faster than any electronic viewfinder ("EVF"). For a lot of people that doesn't matter. If you're trying to shoot an animal on the run or a racing car then it probably does.
It's also worth noting that some DSLRs can also shoot shutterless and get a lot of the benefits of mirrorless.
The OVF lag on the high end models is significantly faster than the time it take the mirror to retract (a D5 SLR has about 40ms of shutter lag). This means that while you might have a very minimal lag on the EVF, you make up for it in shorter shutter lag.
Just a note: I used to do Photojournalism for a living. This kind of precision timing is irrelevant for action shooting. Once AF and motor drive happened, the technique shifted from trying to hit the decisive moment, to just mashing the shutter and picking the best shot from the series.
As you point out, 40ms delay doesn't matter for shutter timing. Coming at it from a gaming and controls perspective: delay can make it a little harder to track things, though. I don't know how big of a deal this is to real users. I do know that the sheer amount of blackout on almost all current mirrorless sucks.
> Once AF and motor drive happened, the technique shifted from trying to hit the decisive moment, to just mashing the shutter and picking the best shot from the series.
Yah, and this is a place mirrorless cameras win and even phone cameras perform very well-- 10 picture/second burst rate on iPhone which few DSLRs can match. Middle/lower end Canon now is hitting 15FPS mechanical shutter and 23FPS electronic/silent, which is absolutely nuts to me (I have memories of buying a "blindingly fast" 7FPS camera..)
The Z mount 14-24mm f/2.8 that's even sharper and has fewer optical flaws than the F-mount version.
> But here's the big thing with DSLRs over mirrorless: input lag for target tracking. An optical viewfinder ("OVF") is just inherently faster than any electronic viewfinder ("EVF"). For a lot of people that doesn't matter. If you're trying to shoot an animal on the run or a racing car then it probably doe
The only thing that matters here for something like the Z9 is the delta between hitting the shutter release and it capturing an image. That is indisputably longer, though short enough it doesn't matter for most folks.
For cameras like the Z7ii (which I have personal experience with), yes, tracking kind of sucks because of blackout (in 5 FPS mode) and really sucks in 10 FPS mode (where you're just seeing the last frame). Neither of those are in play for the Z9. I expect we'll see that trickle down to more cameras as time goes on.
And weighs 35% less, and is a bit smaller.
The old 14-24 is a mediocre lens compared new ultra wide zooms. Nikon hasn't got to an z-mount f2.8 yet, but their f4 is already sharper. When they do a f2.8 it likely will be even better.
The last market segment that was holding out was the Pro and Prosumer segment since initially mirrorless lagged on feature parity, especially in AF. Mirrorless cameras have effectively reached parity now.
Now there is, in real use, no advantage to SLR type cameras, and, pure guess, mirrorless are probably cheaper to make since you can dispense with an entire mechanical assembly.
There are big advantages of SLRs over mirrorless: battery life and speed.
I dread the day if I ever have to go to mirrorless, I really don't want those drawbacks.
https://www.nikon.co.jp/news/2022/0712_01.htm
Nikon denies the report:
> Nikon is continuing the production, sales and service of digital SLR
That's not really a denial though, just a statement that they haven't announced anything.
[edit]: They do have medium-frame, but that's another league entirely.
For a mirrorless camera the sensor and screen are on when you are setting up.
The flip side is that a mirrorless camera makes a great video camera with some caveats. For instance if you want to do a shot that smoothly zooms in or out you have a rocker control on a real video camera that you can hold steadily and it does just that. I can't do the same with a mirrorless lens because I can't turn the zoom ring on a lens very smoothly.
Furthermore, why are you unable to hold a mirrorless camera as steadily? Something like the Peak Design Clutch strap ought to remedy that I would think? Not to mention cameras like the X-T4 have quite good IBIS built-in to steady out the shot a bit.
Nobody is forced to make a sacrifice they don't want to. This is a complete win/win for the consumer.
This is assuming that you're taking pictures for a living.
(The smaller M43 lenses are a big part of why I use it, though, as I am a video-first shooter and Panasonic's video-friendly, silent-motor lenses are pretty ridiculous.)
And even when people are shooting with full-frame lenses (e.g. on Sony), they often use an APS-C camera body because it has more pixels in the very middle of the captured image, with the assumption being that you're going to be doing a lot of digital cropping anyway to get more effective zoom.
Plus I keep backups just in case my camera bag is stolen, and first party Nikon batteries are $70 per. I hadn't considered keeping a battery bank and a long USB-C cable as a backup though, so I'll need to look into that.
Battery life is much worse but when you go all in on next gen Mirrorless cameras there are gains that are just impossible otherwise in a DSLR. The thing that convinced me was using an A7RII 5 years ago in NYC at night. The simple fact of the matter was that the camera could focus and validate setup in the dark better than my own eye with my personal Canon DSLR, even with the wide open nifty 50. I think we are on the edge of major innovations in camera tech. The size advantage makes it easier to carry more batteries as well.
Really the biggest thing is that Nikon is just brutally behind in tech compared to Sony and even Canon. The market has moved past DSLRs. Sony showed up and showed how to do it and that was it.
I don't see how that is true in the slightest. The Z9 is a true flagship that stacks up well against the competition. Cameras lower down on the segment stack can also hold their own, albeit some would argue the autofocus is lacking. Autofocus is just one piece of the tech in a camera.
A lot? This must mean you get your info from Youtube grifters. Every serious reviewer has praised the Z9 for having world class auto focus capabilities that defy belief. People are panning tiny birds in flights and it just keeps hitting it.
The only criticism is that Sony has a tiny notch up in very specific situations, yet that gap is rapidly shrinking. We're talking really marginal differences here.
The annoying thing is that Sony simply cannot do software. I love my A7S2, the hardware is excellent even years past its release, but the menus are confusing as fuck, why does it even ship with WiFi with the option to connect it to an existing network when their own software can't detect it there, or why does it need yet another piece of proprietary software to be used as a webcam instead of just implementing USB UVC...
Mirrorless has several advantages: no more mismatch between the focus sensor and the CMOS sensor, no more mirror lag, viewable area matches CMOS sensor area perfectly, electronic viewfinder can show the image as it would be after exposure (making over/underexposed areas easy to spot while composing the shot), and most importantly it allows for much more compact lens designs because the last optical element can be much closer to the sensor since there is no mirror in the way.
Viewfinder lag has not been an issue anymore since 10 years ago. And with recent CMOS sensors having phase-diversity elements, autofocus can be as fast as with DLSRs.
I got the opposite kind of lens, one at the upper end of what you can wrangle in your hands. If your lens is big you have a heavy pack, look like a dork, can't hold it steady, all that. There is a lot to say for a camera that is easy to handle.
To take your SEL35F18F as an example, the lens weighs 280g. The Nikon DSLR equivalent, "AF-S NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G ED", weighs 300g.
To go to extremes, Sony's SEL600F40GM weighs 3kg and so does Canon's "EF 600mm f/4L IS III USM" (admittedly, Nikon's equivalent weighs 4kg).
I'm not saying this to prove you "wrong" or anything, a Sony A7RIV weighs 665g to a Nikon D850's 1kg or a Canon 1DX Mk3's 1.4kg but switching to Sony might just be the difference between a 5kg kit and a 4.7kg kit: it's still pretty heavy.
I'm just pointing this out because when I was starting out I heard a lot of people talking about how small and light mirrorless cameras were. I think at the time this idea was focused more on cameras like the Olympus OM-D series. Amateurs/enthusiasts (including myself, who owned an OM-D) often didn't realise that one of the major reasons an OM-D kit was much lighter than a DSLR kit was that it was optically less capable due to the differences in sensor size. A big part of the reason an 17mm f1.8 MFT lens is so small is that it isn't equivalent to a full-frame 35mm f1.8 the way many people thought it was. It's more accurately equivalent to a 35mm f3.5 which could be made similarly light for the larger sensor, if anybody wanted that (but few people want that).
What they didn't point out is that those bigger heavier lenses are bigger and heavier because they are more recent, and the camera sensors are so detailed that the cameras need fantastically sharp lenses, which means that they are bigger. Also, people's expectations of the quality of lenses has increased. So, they could make some small light lenses, but then someone would pixel peep and complain about how blurry they are, when in actual fact they would be just as sharp as the old DSLR lenses, but the cameras are more able to reveal their shortcomings.
The accurate autofocus is nice but I would rather have an older flagship DSLR than any modern mirrorless camera. The only exception I might make is for a more recent Leica M camera, but that's only because I've sold one and would like to use those nice tiny little lenses again.
But are these lenses and bodies actually designed that way, or do they keep the old dimensions because of backward compatibility?
Perhaps...but this statement sounds awfully weaselly to me, i.e. 'we don't currently have any plans for layoffs' pronouncements that corporations often make right before announcing layoffs.
Nikon has a pretty long history (in Western memory going back to the Nikon S) of executing well and consistently. They're often not the first mover: Nikon S was a "best of" Zeiss-Leica body (pretty much all Zeiss, but using the Leitz shutter - this is why Nikon lenses mount, focus and zoom to the left), became quite popular. Nikon F wasn't the first SLR system, either, but well executed and became the benchmark.
https://www.instagram.com/timdurkan/?hl=en
A mirrorless system does not create better pictures. It does increase the likelihood that you capture the image you want at all.
Sure there is. For example consider the problems involved in taking a high resolution picture for a fast moving but difficult to focus object in low light. A Z9 will do brilliantly but cheaper cameras -- not so much.
A camera is not just the image sensor, modern sensors are all fairly close technologically in the grand scheme of things.
The electronic shutter in a rolling shutter CMOS is very similar: The first curtain is where rows of pixels are reset, the second curtain is when they are sampled/read out and digitized. For normal camera sensors this takes between 1/20s and 1/60s, depending on the resolution - high resolution cameras take longer.
The limiting factor for that isn't actually the pixel array itself, but the speed at which data can be transferred off the sensor. This is where stacked sensors come in: you can move data way more quickly between the front sensor die and the back logic/storage die than you can move it off chip. So the trick of the fast stacked sensors is that they read the image from the sensor die into the memory die, and then transfer the image through the usual, much slower link to the image DSP. But at that point the image has been fully exposed and the slowness of the link doesn't matter, except for the maximum frames per second.
This way you can make an image ~50 MP sensor whose electronic "shutter curtains" travel at a similar speed as the shutter curtains of a mechanical fp-shutter and so you don't reeallly need the mechanical shutter any more, because the motion artifacts will be basically the same. There are some edge cases, e.g. high frequency flickering light sources can apparently create issues, but they don't seem to be a show-stopper.
(There are some additional tricks, like CMOS sensors have been column-parallel for a long time, where each column of pixels have their own PGA and ADC, but these newer sensors seem to sample multiple rows in parallel as well)
((There are also global-shutter CMOS sensors, which can "near simultaneously" sample all pixels in the array, in the analog domain, but since this requires extra transistors in each pixel, it's always detrimental to other parameters for a ceteris paribus rolling shutter sensor. These are used mostly for machine vision / slow motion purposes. Higher-spec global shutter sensors are export controlled.))
The only other camera from the big 3 flagships that matches this speed is the Sony A1 with 1/250s. The Canon R3 is 1/180s. It has a mechanical shutter, but I think the Z9 proves that its worth the omission in 99% of the shooting scenarios. Especially when it is coming in $1000 cheaper than the Sony.
Edit: I was beaten to it!
Notice how they didn't mention continuation of "DEVELOPMENT"!
Good news so for people buying used, like myself!
https://petapixel.com/2020/10/06/nikon-has-finally-discontin...
The OP says "Nikkei has learned", so presumably they have some source telling them this and how true it is depends on how reliable the source is.
One of the things I love most is seeing exposure in real time, it's a nice little quality of life thing you don't think about until you experience it. Over the years I think anyone who takes photography seriously has gotten pretty good at gauging exposure, but to actually see it change in real time when you adjust ISO or Aperture is pretty slick.
But all of that being said, I'll hold onto my DSLRs forever too- as one person pointed out the battery life is far better and when you're out for 10 hours at a time that really matters.
EVF is much more convenient for near vision glasses wearers too.
That said, I think you need an R5/R6 generation body to not be annoyed by mirrorless readout slowness and VF lag.
How so? I use diopter adapters in my DSLR eyepieces, since the built-in adjustment doesn't suffice and I hate to shoot through glasses that prevent me seeing all of the viewfinder.
I wouldn't have thought an EVF could natively improve on this, but now you've got me intrigued.
I have a very high res (mirrored) medium format system and keeping the “focus trim” set correctly to align the AF system with sensor seems impossible, seemingly changing with temperature or other conditions.
Focus also shifts with aperture, it's impossible to have an open loop system that works accurately. Some lenses will front focus wide open, be spot on at f4 and back focus after that, or the opposite. Or be spot on wide open and oof when you stop down.
I stocked up on all the film cameras I couldn’t afford as a kid when the sell off happened about ten years ago. I imagine DSLRs will have a burst of retro popularity at some point once people get bored of whatever it is they’re using.
Have you tried the eye tracking auto focus on the R5? It's actually pretty phenomenal and can help a lot when photographing wildlife. Funny story though, if you're photographing animals with white butts and black tails (like a bighorn sheep) from behind..it's gonna track the butt as if it were a face. That made me laugh when it happened.
I knew the 5D4 would be the end of the line, and I ditched my 1DX which was just too heavy, the 4 is better in every way. I had the original 5D and the mk2, and very impressed at how refined the 4 is.
I did try the R5 and I also used the original eye-tracking Canon EOS 5 back in the 90s so I can see things have come a long way :) The deal-breakers on the R5 were:
1) Huge cost 2) Lack of GPS 3) New lenses required
And the extra value of quality and video and speed weren’t enough to compensate. On those points, I also think there’s a bunch of trade-offs.
Firstly, the file sizes. My first digital camera, the Nikon D1X, had file sizes of 5-6 Meg, and my Q2 is coming in at 85 Meg. That’s 17 times as much drive space needed to deal with this, not to mention network bandwidth to move everything around. Do I need this many pixels? Well obviously I want them, but I just sent out a 49 x 30 inch print to a client that was upsized in Topaz and was taken on the 21MP 5D2. Was it stunning? Definitely.
Secondly, the lenses. They are ridiculously good these days, as they need to be to resolve for 60+MP sensors coming up. But they are also getting pricy and heavy. Do I really want to replace an entire bag of primes? I save 100 grams on the camera to lose it all tenfold on the lenses. This was always the biggest cost involved with a system. The R5 is hardly cheap but I’d honestly rather switch to Leica S at this point.
Thirdly, at these pricing levels, we really are in Leica territory and the Q2 absolutely trounces Canon in terms of value and workflow. I’ve been running the Q2 for three years and it’s got 51 real MP to play with, a lens that makes you laugh with its ability, plus speed and control. It’s completely outgunned if we’re talking wildlife photography and long lenses, but on everything else it is camera number 1.
DSLRs aren’t being truly killed by their mirrorless replacements, not yet maybe, but by anyone who can shoehorn smartphone tech into a real camera.
Maybe interchangeable lenses are the things getting in our way?
https://www.dpreview.com/products/fujifilm/compacts/fujifilm...
It's great. It even takes AA batteries so no hassle with some specific pack & charger.
In the end I ended uo using, and loving, my dad's D700 I switched the D200 for (he's on a D750/200 combo now). I came to the conlusion that, regardless how good Nikon's Z cameras and lebses are, I prefer to spend the money on vacation and trips to places to shoot great pictures. So I am going to stick with the D700, with a mint, used D300 as a back-up. Some additional budget will go into a 400mm and a 20mm lense. And maybe a spare D700 body as long as those are still available with <50k shots taken. Honestly, this camera gave me the fun in ohotography back, I love using it. For my use as an artistic tool it the perfect camera.
As a pro so I would go mirroless, no doubt about that.
The one issue I see, so, is cropping. I am not talking about cutting some sides or going to portrait format, but rather cropping out e.g. birds. That's the only time the 12 MP hinder you. In a sense a D700 forces you to shoot better pictures.
Overall, if you can, get one. There are some from places like mpb.com with below 50k shutter count in very good condition for around / less than 400 Euro. You cannot do anything wrong.
Oh, a D700 doesn't do video. No problem for me, but if you want to do video that is a missing feature.
I shoot everything JPEG, usually 16:9, immediately download to phone, and basically delete the raw as soon as the edits are done in Snapseed or VN. Photography in the age of social media is highly ephemeral. It's there for a day and then people are onto the next story or snap dopamine hit. I prefer a form of photography that is more like blitz chess, which is to see how quickly you can snap something good and create/post a decent edit.
Different take here.
I do show some photos to family / friends and keep web album for that. But mostly I photograph for my own viewing on large 4K screen. Photos from smartphones just do not cut it for me so I stick to mirrorless. The fact that most are happy with smartphone is irrelevant to me. It is my hobby and as long as I am happy the rest does not matter.
Aren't you better off carrying spare batteries than a whole extra camera?
Edit: OK, I should say inferior quality w.r.t noise when all other features are similar.
Certainly, it's not anything specific about mirrorless that makes it noisy. It's just that if I have a DSLR with certain features, and another mirrorless with similar features (and noise profile), the latter tends to cost more.
And my information may be a bit dated - the last time I checked was in 2018. And I only buy APS-C, which usually was quite a bit more expensive for mirrorless, with not better quality.
It basically seems to come down to the fact that with DSLR you can disable Live View, therefore keeping the sensor cool until you take your exposure.
I expect then that a camera like the X100V or X-Pro3 - both of which are mirrorless cameras that also have an OVF - would have the same advantage as a DSLR.
That'd only be true if the sensor is a significant heat source that's unable to dissipate that heat adequately. Which... I can't think of any reason that would be inherently true. The ISP generates some decent heat, which is why many cameras have limits on how long you can record 4k video. But does the cmos sensor? Especially when you're talking full-frame, the energy density seems like it'd be pretty tame. If it's not meaningfully rising above ambient temperature, then there's no reason a DSL sensor would be cooler & therefore less noisy.
a) You use a smaller sensor (while this is the norm, mirrorless does not absolutely imply APS-C vs Full Frame)
b) You use smaller lenses (same disclaimer as above)
and, above all else, by far
c) You deliberately cripple your mirrorless line because you're too afraid to cannibalize your SLR business, praying really hard that everyone else is doing the same
c) Possibly true.
My point isn't that fundamentally mirrorless has more noise. It's that for the same price mirrorless cameras tend to be inferior in this regard.
For context, my DSLR is APS-C and not full frame. The last time I looked (2018), I couldn't find a mirrorless camera that performed as well noise wise than my Nikon for the same price (and other features).
My usage has changed. 10 years ago I was happy with the e-m5 as it was lightweight. Now my phone is great lightweight camera, I need something once a month for special shots, so might as well get something bigger.
I think my main point is that once a camera company starts losing market share its very difficult to attract new users.
I sold all my F mount lenses last year finally. Despite owning a Z50 and a Z6 I only seem to use the Z50 and the DX kit lenses. Might sell the full frame stuff apart from the 35mm prime which is amazing on the Z50.
The combo of my 5D4, and latest iphone pro seem to have me covered.
I'm tempted to rent a latest canon mirrorless body, but I can't see how Canon can keep up with IQ innovation through processing the way Google and Apple have.
The single memory card slot of the first generation was also ridiculous for the wedding photographer crowd in that it made them completely unusable.
Most professionals have moved on though, for sure. It is going to be interesting to see how things continue to develop.
Of course you can argue for social media it doesn't matter. But that's another point. And for things such as YouTube it's incredibly noticeable when a video is properly filmed vs using a phone (see Mkbhd "secret" iPhone recorded videos)
It's amazing what it can do with such a small lens and sensor, but doesn't stack up well to pro gear really, or even all but the worst prosumer gear.
It mostly doesn't matter, I suspect. After all the best camera is the one you have with you, and phones are always there...
They were slow to make the jump to mirrorless but that's due to their giant legacy customer base, which Sony lacks. And in a way, Nikon never really is fast in releasing things.
Only now is the Z system really coming together and it's quite fabulous, worth the wait. The lenses are top notch, their second generation bodies very competitive and the Z9 an absolute beast. Further, they are aggressively pricing new releases, undercutting the competition.
So the true adoption for the Z system is still to come, whilst they're already doing quite well given the late entry.
They're not going to be market leaders anytime soon, maybe never, but they're not dying, far from it. Note that they also sit on a lot of cash and are part of a far larger corporation.
they also recently released the new z30 whihc eschws the evf for just the backmuond display. its definitely a compromised design heavily geared towards youtubers rather than still photography but it uses the same mount and lenses and retails for $849 WITH lens.
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/mirrorles...
I'd most definitely qualify either as Entry level so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
I myself sprang for the z5 for the full frame, absolutely loving it.
Sure, but it's not what you end up with once you stop looking at pretty projections and hit the shutter button.
Out of curiosity, I went to the Leica store recently, to test out the Q2 monochrome (and the M11). It has a great lens, a great great 47mpx sensor, a even greater tactile experience and a sh*tty EVF. I can't fathom why non pros would by such a poor UX for $6000€ or so. On the other hand, the comparable M setup with its great but rather limiting UX would be over 10k.
I don't know about pros, but for amateurs, price and electronic UX feel like good reason to just stay retro and enjoy..
I used to have a Leica M6. It was a lovely camera, but I actually really prefer to shoot with my Nikon FE2 to the Leica, and so I sold the M6. Hope it ended up in the hands of someone who enjoys it.
I also prefer looking through the lens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The EVF though was laggy, had weird focus picking/assist in manual mode, weird blueish white balance, the artificial depth of field preview ... I am sure it's featureful and better than the competition but I did not enjoy the experience, which is usually the brand trademark, rangefinder and so on.
I found the Fuji X100 hybrid EVF/OVF approach more pleasing.
Me not understanding the appeal doesn't mean others can't though. I wish you all the best with this camera.
Yeah, no.
https://bythom.com/newsviews/nikkei-needs-new-staff.html
It is self-evident that DSLRs are basically done—I would be surprised if any totally new cameras with actual flipping mirrors are introduced. But there’s no actual evidence that Nikon is stopping production of its remaining higher-end DSLRs.
If anyone has ever been in a service shop, and seen a DSLR, taken apart, you would be gobsmacked at the complexity of the mechanisms, therein.
Lots of moving parts. Hard to design, hard to make, hard to maintain, and hard to fix. Also, writing firmware to control all those moving parts is a nightmare.
Ideally, the lens should be the only part of the camera with a moving part.
I'm hoping that this means that they will finally embrace the concept of a "true" software-driven camera, but time will tell...
Photographers are a funny crowd. They have both the artist, and the craftsman. Some will not ever want to change their toolset, while others, will jump right onto the bandwagon.
My camera isn't a mirrorless, but I'm actually glad it still has the focus motor inside it, because that means that I can go and buy an old cheap (but still good) second-hand lens that still uses the mechanical focus gear, and get autofocus. Some other camera bodies don't have that motor, so those older lenses are manual focus only with them. With the mirrorless, by dint of having a brand new lens mount, they were able to mandate that each lens has its own autofocus motor, but I just thought I'd point this reason to have more mechanical stuff in the camera out.
And of course I also have somewhere an old film camera where absolutely everything (except the lightmeter) works if you take the battery out. Quite how they got the precision to be able to set shutter speeds between seconds and 1/2000th of a second is quite beyond me.
If you meet the engineers and scientists that do this, you would understand. It's almost a religious obligation.
Also, I think a lot of anti-shake is now done with piezo. Not "true" "no moving parts," but close.
I shot on film in high school. I had a decent job so I could buy enough film and processing that I didn't worry too much about "wasting" shots.
I used various point-and-shoots in the late 90s and early 2000's. I constantly had "battery anxiety". I missed a lot of good shots because I kept the camera powered-off for fear of draining the battery. When I threw caution to the wind and kept the camera on the battery would inevitably die and I'd miss shots. I was constantly thinking about my battery. It sapped a lot of the joy from shooting pictures.
I never worry about that with my Nikon DSLRs. I can grab the camera when I head out in the morning and know I can shoot as much as I want, all day, and never run out of battery. (Realistically a big shooting day for me is only 400-500 shots. Still...)
Given how long my D30, D3100, and now D7200 have lasted I guess I can find some inventory blowout on a couple newer cameras and hoard them away.
Even on my m10 monochrom, which has a very poor battery life, I never reached for the spare in normal usage.
I have a nice selection of lenses, I don't want to give them up or use adapters.
As much as I love my Nikon DSLR, MILC has surpassed it as a technological possibilities. They needed to pour all of their available resources into MILC 4 years ago.
The Z9 was a big release for Nikon, proving they could rival Sony's dominance and match the performance of the D6.
The Z6/7 releases were great proof of concepts but not competitive cameras, at least not in a ring with Sony and Canon. And now that we know they can, they need to put it all on the line as their market share just keeps declining.
It's important to understand the history of SLRs. When they were invented, they were competing against rangefinders. With a rangefinder, you have a lens that exposes directly onto the film. Then you have a separate little viewing window that you look through to aim and compose your shot. That little eyepiece is off center from the actual lens and film, so what you see looking through it isn't exactly what the lens will see when you take the shot. Also, you can't preview things like the aperture, depth of field, and focus.
SLRs were a radical improvement over that. With an SLR, there's a little mirror/pentaprism thing between the lens and film. When the shutter is closed, it routes light up from the lens to the eyepiece. Then when you press the shutter button, the mirror flips out of the way (this is part of the iconic "take a photo" sound) and the light going through the lens goes straight onto the film.
In this way, what you see in the eyepiece is exactly what the lens sees. The whole point of an SLR is to make previewing a photo before taking a shot match the actual taken shot.
Digital SLRs have the exact same structure, but with a digital sensor instead of film. When you look through the eyepiece, you are looking through the pentaprism and mirror and then out the lens. So you see exactly what the lens sees, and what the sensor will see when the shutter opens. But the framing tends to not be exactly the same since the sensor may crop in various ways that the eyepiece doesn't.
Also, the eyepiece doesn't show you anything that the sensor is doing to the photo, like exposure control, ISO, noise, motion blur, etc.
If your goal—which was the original goal of SLRs!—is to make your eyepiece match the final photo, the best way to do it is to have the eyepiece be a digital display that shows what the sensor itself sees. That is as close to the ground truth as you can possibly get.
This is what mirrorless cameras do. Not only are they superior when it comes to previewing accuracy, they are lighter, smaller, simpler, and more durable because they don't need the large moving parts for the pentaprism and mirror.
I loved my SLRs over the years, but its time has passed.