[HN Gopher] Nikon to stop making SLR cameras and focus on mirror...
___________________________________________________________________
Nikon to stop making SLR cameras and focus on mirrorless models?
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 185 points
Date : 2022-07-12 14:40 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (asia.nikkei.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (asia.nikkei.com)
| orangepurple wrote:
| 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.
| eropple wrote:
| 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.
| dmtroyer wrote:
| For all the people who have left high end DSLR to go to high end
| mirror less, I'm genuinely curious how the viewfinders compare in
| quality. I'm behind the times with an A6000 but have always been
| kind of disappointed when looking through the viewfinder compared
| to similar gen mid level DSLRs.
| ytch wrote:
| https://www.nikon.com/news/2022/0712_01.htm
|
| 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
| jetrink wrote:
| > 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.
| tchalla wrote:
| I really appreciate you pointing out that difference.
| Critical reading is a skill.
| frognumber wrote:
| This will never happen, but I think there's a solid business in
| selling a mirrorless which adapts solidly to all the dSLR mounts.
|
| A-mount is big here. Sony dropped support here first, and the LA-
| EA adapters all have significant issues. Even today, in many
| cases, Sony mirrorless adapts better to Canon than to Sony
| A-mount.
|
| Eating up other mounts would be big too. K-mount customers
| wanting to go mirrorless. Nikon and Canon would be big too,
| obviously.
|
| That would open several markets:
|
| - People looking to switch
|
| - People wanting to use esoteric lenses (e.g. Minolta's 500mm f/8
| reflex, STF lenses, some of the neater tilt-shifts, etc.)
|
| - Less profitable, people wanting to use cheaper used lenses
|
| In the long term, most people will switch to native lenses,
| eventually, as lens technology moves on too.
| caymanjim wrote:
| Are there really people who used to buy SLRs and now don't
| because of phones? They seem like entirely different markets.
| Professionals and dedicated amateurs have lenses and other gear
| that simply don't exist for phones.
|
| Maybe SLR sales are down because of the kinds of people who would
| buy them and literally never use them, because now instead of
| thinking "I wish I had a camera for this vacation" (which they
| wouldn't use after buying), they just use their phone. That
| doesn't seem like a significant market though.
| fleddr wrote:
| Yes, as example I'll use one of my friends, a mother. Several
| years ago, before smartphones, she bought a DSLR because she
| wanted to make better photos of her kids, in comparison to the
| crappy compact cams back then.
|
| And as I saw her work with the camera, it's easy to see why the
| exodus to smartphones was so sudden and swift.
|
| The truth is that a DSLR has the capability to create far
| better photos, and this is still true today, but it's not
| normie-proof.
|
| They just want to point at something, push a button, and
| magically have a great photo. Where the subject they pointed at
| is in focus, sharp, correct colors, the like.
|
| Next they see that focus is a massive problem, it's impossible
| to take a photo in the dark, some photos have weird color
| issues (white balance) and the whole thing just sucks.
|
| Perhaps most depressing is that one of the key features,
| shallow depth of field, is pretty much seen as a bug: why isn't
| everything sharp?
|
| They should learn how to use the DSLR, but they won't. Because
| they want high quality snapshots and aren't photographers for
| the sake of photography. The smartphone solves all of this for
| this particular goal.
| hristov wrote:
| Yes. Me. I was an amateur and was definitely buying in the low
| end of the SLR spectrum, but I kind of stopped when iphone
| cameras started getting very good. I thought that photography
| was a cool hobby and liked being able to control a bunch of
| parameters, but once the iphones got good enough cameras, it
| was not cool anymore to hang out in bars and cafes with a huge
| slr camera, it was not conversation starter, and at some point
| the camera just got too much of a pain to take with me when i
| went out, so i started leaving it home, and I stopped spending
| money on it, and eventually i just kind of put it away.
| kypro wrote:
| Probably. I used to take either my SLR or mirrorless camera
| with me almost everywhere I went a decade or so ago. I don't
| anymore because my phone camera is good enough for most things.
|
| If I'm going somewhere nice and know I know I'll want to take
| pictures I'll still take my mirrorless camera, but honestly
| phone cameras have gotten to the point where for a lot of shots
| the average person won't be able to tell the difference anyway.
| Dedicated cameras only really shine in extremes now, or if
| you're looking for a very specific shot.
| armadsen wrote:
| Absolutely. For example, my parents in law, who are very much
| non-technical, had a Canon DSLR, and a film SLR before digital,
| that they used to take normal family/vacation photos. They've
| long since switched to just using their phone. I think you're
| underestimating the number of people who bought low-end (D)SLRs
| with the cheap kit zoom lens and used them for regular, non-
| enthusiast, non-professional photography without ever taking
| the lens off let alone buying higher end ones.
|
| The alternative used to be a compact or bridge camera without
| an interchangeable lens, and those too have gone close to
| extinct.
|
| Essentially, the market served by (D)SLRs has changed to be
| almost entirely pros and dedicated hobbyist photographers,
| which is a small market compared to "everyone who takes
| photos". And now, mirrorless is well on the way to taking over
| that small market. I'm an enthusiastic hobbyist photographer,
| and switched to mirrorless in 2014 (Fuji X-T1). I knew
| immediately after getting my first mirrorless camera that I
| would never buy another DSLR.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Good. There's no reason to have mirrors in cameras anymore, they
| just add weight and moving parts.
| munificent wrote:
| 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.
| armadsen wrote:
| 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.
| tokai wrote:
| Nikon still produce two film SLRs and 8 different old school
| manual focused lenses for them. Nikon mo is to move slow. So
| stopping SLR production would be very surprising
| yakubin wrote:
| A bit offtopic: is it publicly known what sort of software stack
| camera manufacturers like Nikon, Canon and Sony use in their
| cameras?
| luisobo wrote:
| Nikon says this is not true:
| https://www.nikon.com/news/2022/0712_01.htm
| coldtea wrote:
| That's when you know it's definitely true and they're waiting
| to dump the inventory.
| lrem wrote:
| Are they finally done with the pro film bodies?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| 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)
| coldtea wrote:
| They already have. They just had the F6 which they
| discontinued years ago:
|
| https://petapixel.com/2020/10/06/nikon-has-finally-
| discontin...
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>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.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| 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.
| xattt wrote:
| 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?
| Wistar wrote:
| My friend, a very talented photographer, has the Z9 and
| thinks it is simply the finest camera on the market. His
| recent imagery seems to confirm this.
|
| https://www.instagram.com/timdurkan/?hl=en
| lttlrck wrote:
| Not that long ago they'd be on Flickr and it would
| actually be possible to scrutinize those pictures.
| fooker wrote:
| 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.
| Wistar wrote:
| 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.
| fleddr wrote:
| 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.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| 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.))
| PicardsFlute wrote:
| 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.
|
| Edit: I was beaten to it!
| ramshanker wrote:
| 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"!
| hef19898 wrote:
| 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.
|
| Good news so for people buying used, like myself!
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Thanks for pointing that out. I've added a question mark to the
| headline.
|
| 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.
| fomine3 wrote:
| 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.
| albatross13 wrote:
| 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.
| duffyjp wrote:
| 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--
| hotpotamus wrote:
| What did you get for $50?
| duffyjp wrote:
| I got a bundle of a Fujifilm S9800 and S8200 for $100 on
| eBay. Nobody else bid.
|
| https://www.dpreview.com/products/fujifilm/compacts/fujifil
| m...
|
| It's great. It even takes AA batteries so no hassle with
| some specific pack & charger.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| 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.
| sporkland wrote:
| > 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?
| albatross13 wrote:
| 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.
| bbgm wrote:
| 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).
| hef19898 wrote:
| 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.
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| 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.
| dboreham wrote:
| Having autofocus focus in the same plane as the photosites is a
| big win too.
|
| 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.
| throwanem wrote:
| > 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.
| Dave_Rosenthal wrote:
| 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.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > 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.
| rhines wrote:
| 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.
| vr46 wrote:
| 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.
| gsliepen wrote:
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| gsliepen wrote:
| I think I never tried enabling live view boost for night
| time shots. I'll try it out, thanks!
| albatross13 wrote:
| 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.
| kirse wrote:
| 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.
| FpUser wrote:
| ">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.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Why not RAW?
| wwkeyboard wrote:
| 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.
| nebusoft wrote:
| 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.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| 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.
| technick wrote:
| So the D6 is the last DSLR body that will be available.
|
| I've been a Nikon shooter for 2 decades now, shooting with the
| D100, D70, D2S, D2X, D3X, D300, D700, D810 and D850. It's easier
| to list the Nikon lenses I didn't buy vs the ones I bought...
| which I didn't buy anything over an F2.8 aperture.
|
| This is heart breaking for me.
|
| Now Nikon expects me to buy into a new camera and new lens
| system...
| 120photo wrote:
| Nikon F mount...
| mikece wrote:
| Let's just hope they get their autofocus issues ironed out or it
| will no longer be the Big Three of photography but just Canon and
| Sony.
| iasay wrote:
| My Z50 and Z6 autofocus is pretty amazingly good. What issues
| do people report?
| speg wrote:
| 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.
| iasay wrote:
| Ah I don't take pictures of people. Explained.
| mnholt wrote:
| 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.
| adwww wrote:
| Where do Fuji feature in size? IMO their products are
| exceptional - coming from Nikon DSLRs at least.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| They don't have a full-frame offering, unfortunately. So low-
| light performance lags behind.
|
| [edit]: They do have medium-frame, but that's another league
| entirely.
| isatty wrote:
| Not really a huge problem imo - their bodies are superior
| when it comes to having manual controls close to your
| fingers and their glass is amazing.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Do you have experience with e.g. modern Sigma or Zeiss
| lenses on EF/F mount? Are their lenses comparable or
| better?
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Everyone is stopping making SLRs. It has been a dead format since
| Sony introduced mirrorless.
|
| Is this even news?
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Minor nitpick.
|
| The Epson RD-1 is probably the first digital mirrorless
| interchangeable lens camera followed by the Leica M8.
| Understandably those were never meant to be replacements for
| modern SLRS.
|
| The MFT format was the first autofocus mirrorless launching in
| 08. Sony was 2 years after that.
|
| It's not surprising news, but it is news that a camera format
| that Nikon helped popularize, made them a household name, and
| has been making for about 70 years is now dead.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I say Sony because it was Sony that took Nikon's marketshare.
|
| Why I don't think it it's big news to ordinary people is that
| it is not a huge difference for them. If I put a mirrorless
| camera in front of most people they would think it was an
| SLR. If you dig a little deeper you may find it even fits
| your old lenses with an adapter.
|
| It is hard for ordinary people to see it as even an important
| development. A digital camera does not require a mirror, so
| they made one without it. Without the mirror it is possible
| to improve on certain things in a small way. The camera
| business is a nerd business. Even small changes are good for
| sales. Ordinary people don't care.
|
| I suspect Nikon are being coy about this because they still
| have inventory of SLR cameras and lenses.
| zinekeller wrote:
| I wouldn't be shocked if this true, mirrorless is the future of
| photography whether you like it or not (but since this is
| Verge...)
|
| Edit: Nikkei is also reporting on this, so that makes it more
| believable.
| hanniabu wrote:
| What's the benefit of mirrorless and why isn't it more
| prominent today?
| cheschire wrote:
| 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.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| 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.
| jjav wrote:
| > Now there is, in real use, no advantage to SLR type
| cameras
|
| 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.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| 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.
| jmyeet wrote:
| A lot of this is incorrect.
|
| > 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.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| > 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.
| mlyle wrote:
| > The Z mount 14-24mm f/2.8 that's even sharper and has
| fewer optical flaws than the F-mount version.
|
| And weighs 35% less, and is a bit smaller.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| > 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.
| mlyle wrote:
| > 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..)
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| 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.
| helloworld11 wrote:
| 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.
| lm28469 wrote:
| I've shot up to 1000 pics on a single battery with my xt4, I
| bought a second battery "just in case" that I never used.
|
| Even on my m10 monochrom, which has a very poor battery life, I
| never reached for the spare in normal usage.
| kenneth wrote:
| I barely charge my A7C ever. I go weeks without a a charge
| and never really worry. The battery life on cameras these
| days is just insane
| petepete wrote:
| 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.
| iasay wrote:
| 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.
| vparikh wrote:
| The mirror box / pentaprism combo is not required. DSLR cameras
| were built as the technology did not exist to eliminate them. Now
| that processor, LCD and AF systems have caught up, the SLR is
| redundant.
|
| The primary advantage of the SLR was that you can see the image
| as the lens is framing the image - a huge improvement over
| rangefinder systems (such as the Leica M). This allowed the use
| of super telephoto, wide angle, macro and tilt shift lenses to be
| much easer. The primary downside of the SLR was that it did not
| show you how the exposure was going to be recored on the film or
| digital sensor.
|
| The mirrorless system eliminates that and now lets you see
| precisely how the image is framed as well as how it is exposed in
| real time *without* taking the image as the LCD and viewfinder
| are constantly reading from sensor. In addition you gain the
| possibility to handhold at much lower shutter speeds due to the
| mirror slap being removed and the on board sensor shift
| stabilization systems. DSLRs couldn't do this and relied on lens
| based solutions (Olympus & Pentax did have sensor shift
| stabilization, but it was niche and the market leaders Nikon &
| Canon relied on lens based stabilization). Another advantage is
| that with the removal of the mirror box, you can have short
| flange distances allowing new lens designs and lens
| interoperability. Nikon has the shortest flange distance in the
| industry and has support for just about every other lens mount
| out their (though through third party adapters - some with full
| AF capability also).
|
| So the DSLR, except for maybe a few niche cases is old technology
| that is superseded in every single way. The interesting thing
| will be to see how the new mirrorless cameras effect the UI and
| ergonomics of the camera systems. So far, the pro level systems
| (Z9, R5, etc..) are all still for the most part using the DSLR
| form factor. Especially Nikon. I actually like this, but lets see
| what the future holds.
| vngzs wrote:
| I spent some time doing press photography for concerts and
| couldn't imagine shooting mirrorless during a show. High-action
| environments demand super low-latency, high-resolution
| viewfinders. No mirrorless I've handled so far can keep up with
| an optical SLR. And the crummy digital viewfinders make low-
| light manual focus into a painful chore.
|
| The closest thing I've found is the Fujifilm X-Pro 3's "hybrid"
| viewfinder. It has a Leica-style rangefinder that can, with the
| flip of a switch, convert into a digital image like every other
| mirrorless. It can even overlay the frame and a digital focus
| preview onto the analog image in the rangefinder as you move it
| around. It's not useful for concerts - the 23.5x15.6mm sensor
| is too small - but I photographed some of the the 2020 protests
| in NYC and the extra field of view in the rangefinder is
| actually an advantage in that kind of hectic environment.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| > High-action environments demand super low-latency, high-
| resolution viewfinders. No mirrorless I've handled so far can
| keep up with an optical SLR. And the crummy digital
| viewfinders make low-light manual focus into a painful chore.
|
| For low latency maybe it's now feasible to use a 30fps or
| 60fps motor drive (aka video camera) all the time? And I
| thought AF systems now work well enough that MF is just for
| use with old lenses with no AF.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| The latest sony A7* cameras have a lower latency EVF mode
| that's extremely good. I've shot F1 races with it without
| issue. There's also huge benefits to EVF's with manual focus
| like focus peaking.
|
| Things have definitely improved from the Fuji X-Pro 3 if you
| want fast-paced action with a mirrorless camear.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| The latest sony A7* cameras have a lower latency EVF mode
| that's extremely good. I've shot F1 races with it without
| issue. There's also huge benefits to EVF's with manual focus
| like focus peaking.
|
| Things have definitely improved from the Fuji X-Pro 3 if you
| want fast-paced action with a mirrorless camera.
| aspyct wrote:
| I spend my time doing horse sports photography, and I can
| tell your mirrorless is fine.
|
| Zero latency problem, really. Go for it, you'll love it! It's
| a game changer.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Low light is probably not an issue here, as horses don't
| tend to congregate indoors in low light environments.
|
| I would take a pentaprism SLR over an EVF any day. That
| being said, my budget has usually been constrained to
| penta-mirror SLRs.
| retcon wrote:
| EVFs can be better than the Fujifilm you have and especially
| Nikon is (currently giving theirs better signal than other
| makes.
|
| I cannot agree more about low light photography.
|
| The problem with EVF design common to all current mirrorless
| is the autofocus needs more exposure to work in low light.
| This refutes just one of the OP's marketing claims which I
| disagree with Thom Hogan isn't the under sold story because
| of poor marketing (Nikon is selling their flagship to, to
| quote Thom *[sic] "users who buy my 1200 pages guidebook to
| use their "automatically everything" wonder and don't even
| know how to download and open the PDF" my view is that the
| Japanese manufacturers are being sensitive to over promising
| during this extremely painful transition. Having a six
| figures toolkit (not atypical sports pro investment just buy
| a couple of super telephotos and the accompanying bits) made
| obsolete and second class over night naturally offends
| American and most western sensibilities.
|
| Edit: spelling of EVF first line; can be instead of are first
| sentence; about not able para2; under sold story for story
| told para3
| brudgers wrote:
| _a huge improvement over rangefinder_
|
| The SLR is a great alternative to a rangefinder.
|
| But not necessarily an improvement because rangefinders often
| show what is outside the image frame, the view through the
| finder can be close to f1 without weight or bulk, and the
| absence of a mirror tends to make cameras quieter.
|
| To be fair I always thought of SLR's as the pinnacle in accord
| with decades of marketing.
|
| Until I bought my first rangefinder, an Olympus 35RC which is
| not all that much much bigger than a pack of cigarettes.
|
| I still like SLR's as an alternative experience to rangefinders
| (and zone focus viewfinder cameras and view cameras, and TLR
| cameras).
|
| And just to make a pedanticism, view cameras also let the
| photographer compose through the taking lens...without a
| pentaprism in the way.
| cratermoon wrote:
| I've been a photographer for decades, and I have used
| everything from tiny pocket 110 cameras to bulky 4x5 view
| cameras. For many years a couple of Nikon SLRs were my
| primary "work" cameras. I always carried around at least one
| small 35mm rangefinder with me. The Olympus XA for a long
| time, A Voigtlander Bessa L until the gears wore out, a
| Canonet QL17 G-III, and other simple cameras. I've made some
| of my best photos with them.
| jjav wrote:
| > So the DSLR, except for maybe a few niche cases is old
| technology that is superseded in every single way.
|
| This is a one-sided comment, as you describe the advantages of
| mirrorless but don't discuss the significant disadvantages.
|
| With mirrorless you don't see through the optical lens, you're
| always looking at an LCD even on the viewfinder. This is not a
| good thing, it means the camera is always consuming battery.
| With a DSLR battry life is measured in months (I go on
| vacations and don't even bother bringing a charger) since the
| camera doesn't need to consume any power most of the time.
| snapetom wrote:
| Here's the thing. Yes, you're giving up battery life with the
| EVF. However, you're also giving up all the other new
| advances manufacturers are shoving into newer mirror less
| cameras. Eye tracking auto focus, great low light
| performance, next gen lenses, etc.
|
| I too was very anti EVF until I used one last year. In the
| end, the visual performance fears didn't show up, the battery
| life can be dealt with, and the benefits of the Canon R5 were
| just too much.
| lttlrck wrote:
| The Canon EOS 50 film camera had eye controlled focusing in
| 1995... sure it could only manage 3 zones but that's all
| the camera had :-)
| vparikh wrote:
| True the DLSR has the advantage in power consumption,
| however, most users will accept the trade of and carry extra
| batteries / charge more often to take advantage of the
| advantages that mirrorless provides. The battery consumption
| is improving with every generation of mirrorless.
|
| But yes, that is probably the biggest advantage the DSLR has
| left.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Hopefully the lenses from their DSLR stuff will work on the
| mirrorless cameras. My lens investment is more important than
| the camera body.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The FTZ adaptor, both gen 1 and 2, works pretty well from
| what I hear. So no real need to throw all your good F mount
| lenses out. If you do so, well there will be plenty of happy
| takers!
| achairapart wrote:
| One problem may be that your long and heavy zoom/telephoto
| lens (plus adapter) may be extremely unbalanced attached to
| the light and compact body of a mirrorless camera.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| rr888 wrote:
| 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.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Why are you regretting it? I am still extremely happy with
| mFT.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| rr888 wrote:
| 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.
| fleddr wrote:
| 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.
| h2odragon wrote:
| 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| 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.
| eropple wrote:
| I'd be interested in seeing substantiation of this claim. I
| can't think of why mirrorless cameras would have more noise.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Here's something I found:
| https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57249761
|
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > 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.
| gruturo wrote:
| This is only true when:
|
| 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
| hef19898 wrote:
| c) doesn't apply to Nikon so, does it?
| BeetleB wrote:
| a) Yes, true.
|
| 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).
| hef19898 wrote:
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Why would they be? Where is any noise advantage of the DSLR?
| balls187 wrote:
| 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.
| peanut_worm wrote:
| Thats not a surprise considering mirrorless cameras are popular
| now. I keep seeing this news being spinned as "iPhones replacing
| cameras". Not sure why, iPhones have an effective range of like 8
| feet obviously people need to take pictures of things further
| away.
| mc32 wrote:
| Phone cameras are the Kodak Brownies of today. Sure, they can't
| take telephoto shots, macro/micro or action shots in the
| traditional way, but outside of pros and semi-pros, phone
| cameras cover 98% of users' needs. People always carry their
| phone, it's secure --less likely to get snatched, easier to
| insure, etc. Also lightweight and pretty advanced imaging algos
| to produce output users like.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| IPhones have replaced compact and bridge cameras, and as they
| continue to improve in quality they eat into the entry level
| camera market because they're _right there_ and portable.
|
| That also removes the on-ramp to getting more into the
| ecosystem.
|
| I've gone from no camera to spending as much as a car on camera
| gear in the last 3 years, and while I love it, I fully
| recognize the market forces at work here. It's a declining
| market with cellphones eating into it. In the end we'll likely
| see extremely expensive pro-level gear and slightly less
| expensive enthusiast gear, with the low and mid-end taken over
| completely by cellphones.
|
| You still can't beat sensor area and optics size, but it might
| be good enough for most people.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| No surprise, there.
|
| 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...
| mnw21cam wrote:
| 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.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> 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.
| mc32 wrote:
| 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]?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I suspect, up, but I'm no expert.
|
| 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.
| javajosh wrote:
| 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!)
| klodolph wrote:
| 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.
| arbitrage wrote:
| 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.
| klodolph wrote:
| For now. DSLR sales have been declining since 2012. It's
| just a matter of time--it's not like Nikon still
| manufactures film SLRs, for example.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Yes, battery life takes some hit, but is it really relevant in
| practical situations, especially with the availability of USB-C
| power banks?
| klodolph wrote:
| High-end cameras have removable batteries. Instead of using a
| power bank, you'd normally pop the battery out and swap in a
| charged one.
|
| This is assuming that you're taking pictures for a living.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| eropple wrote:
| 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.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Why would you say that uFT 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 uFT also has big advantages.
| eropple wrote:
| 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.)
| _ph_ wrote:
| I am also a uFT-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.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| 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.
| eropple wrote:
| Huh. TIL. I am very much a video-not-film shooter and
| photography is a weird art I do not understand, so thank
| you for setting me straight!
| hef19898 wrote:
| 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.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| 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.
| javajosh wrote:
| If you want to use an optical viewfinder, then yes it's
| relevant. If you spend more time framing than shooting, it
| could be very relevant.
| _ph_ wrote:
| 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.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Yes and no.
|
| 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.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 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...
| mnholt wrote:
| > 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.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| 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?
| PicardsFlute wrote:
| 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).
| fleddr wrote:
| "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.
| rhines wrote:
| 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.
| fleddr wrote:
| Excuse me, a much simpler camera like the D850? I have an
| ebook here explaining its auto focus system, it's 200
| pages.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| 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.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 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.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| 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.
| gsliepen wrote:
| 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.
| amelius wrote:
| > 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?
| gsliepen wrote:
| 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.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 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.
| Youden wrote:
| 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).
| mnw21cam wrote:
| 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.
| positus wrote:
| 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.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The battery in my AE-1 lasted about 25 years. Battery life has
| been totally downhill from there.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Note that this means single-lens "reflex" cameras, i.e. those
| with mirrors. Nikon is happily producing mirrorless cameras, as
| is everyone else.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| It's really unclear what advantage the SLR design has now. It's
| more mechanically fiddly, and on the same platform (body/lens)
| requires faster base shutterspeeds when handheld.
| ekianjo wrote:
| 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.
| chenster wrote:
| 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.
| fleddr wrote:
| 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.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| 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.
|
| That market is gone and will never return.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| 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.
| dlevine wrote:
| 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.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| > 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.
| Animats wrote:
| _" 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.
|
| [1] https://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/webcam-
| utility...
|
| [2] https://www.hikvision.com/en/products/Turbo-HD-
| Products/Turb...
| ekianjo wrote:
| > 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.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Early digital compact cameras were terrible compared to
| phones today.
|
| On the other hand they were revolutionary compared to film
| cameras, so it didn't really matter.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| Are you really comparing 2005 compact cameras to the multi-
| lens machine learning tiny sensor capabilities of modern
| phones?
|
| Your argument only holds up if you're taking high aperture
| landscape photos in broad daylight...
| ekianjo wrote:
| The Sony Rx-100 Was released in 2012. That's 10 years ago
| already and that still beats hands down the best phones
| out there in terms of image quality.
| mlyle wrote:
| 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?
| rscrawfo wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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.
| mlyle wrote:
| 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".
| soylentcola wrote:
| 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.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Maybe it means we'll finally get a true entry level mirrorless
| camera under $1000 now.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Nikon has 3 mirrorless cameras under $1k. Other manufacturers
| also have tons. What features are you looking for?
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| mavbo wrote:
| 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
| nomel wrote:
| > 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.
| post_break wrote:
| 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.
| hef19898 wrote:
| 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.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| As a pro, I actually haven't invested in any Z mount lenses.
| They're completely neglecting the mainstays of wedding
| photography - f/1.4 lenses.
|
| The single memory card slot of the first generation was also
| ridiculous for the wedding photographer crowd in that it made
| them completely unusable.
| hef19898 wrote:
| 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.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| 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.
| fleddr wrote:
| 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.
| cypress66 wrote:
| 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)
| FpUser wrote:
| When I am on nature I see boatloads of people with pro
| looking cameras. For example Tomson part here in Toronto is
| choke full of those.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| 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.
| ska wrote:
| > Have you seen what the top-of-the-line iPhone can do? It's
| amazing
|
| 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...
| positus wrote:
| 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.
| kenneth wrote:
| 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
| fleddr wrote:
| Nikon isn't dying.
|
| 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.
| armadsen wrote:
| 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).
| fleddr wrote:
| If you want to be a contrarian, you can consider right now to be
| the golden age of DSLR. That is, for the gear heads and bargain
| hunters.
|
| The truth of the matter is that as it comes to image quality, a
| DSLR is in no way inferior to mirrorless, it's just that
| mirrorless has several features helping you to take the shot.
|
| There's quite a few types of photography where those features are
| close to irrelevant, not everybody does fast-moving sports
| photography.
|
| Given that baseline capabilities are still excellent, you can
| exploit this transition to get a lot of value (and fun) out of
| the legacy.
|
| If you now take a high-end DSLR, preferably on the cheap, you can
| make stunning photos with it for as long as it lasts, and nobody
| can tell that it is "obsolete". Modern DSLRs have incredible
| noise performance, a huge dynamic range, very high resolution.
|
| Specifically for Nikon, lens hunting is also fun. For example, I
| have a f/1.2 from 1979. It's a stunning lens, all metal, manual
| aperture, ridiculously fast. And it works just as well as it did
| back then.
|
| Unfortunately, it seems the market recognizes that high-end DSLRs
| are still excellent, second hand prices are not coming down, I've
| been monitoring this for years.
| chenster wrote:
| Time to sell my DSLR camera
| tshanmu wrote:
| nope - keep it in mint condition and try selling after
| production has stopped :) collectors item etc.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| 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 $6000EUR 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..
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Same reason someone would buy that ridiculous Ferrari watch
| that showed up the other day, imho.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32046036
|
| 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.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| Someone said it corrupts the rich enjoying it and the poor
| envying it. I guess a little just corrupt a little.
|
| I also prefer looking through the lens -\\_(tsu)_/-
| yladiz wrote:
| 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.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| 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.
| semiquaver wrote:
| I've been an amateur photographer my whole life and spent the
| best parts of my formative years in a darkroom. I've owned a
| number of film and digital SLRs that are quite dear to me.
|
| That said, it seems like irrational nostalgia (which is perfectly
| understandable) is the only reason to prefer SLRs over mirrorless
| cameras at this point. The comparative disadvantages of
| mirrorless cameras were mostly temporary and rooted in the fact
| that SLRs had been around much longer. Now that the lens
| selection and technology has caught up, SLRs are strictly worse
| in every way.
|
| Am I missing something or are there any durable advantages to
| resisting the seemingly inevitable march towards mirrorless?
| amelius wrote:
| But do they keep the sound?
| beanjuice wrote:
| Yes, optionally. For some Japanese versions of mirrorless
| cameras, there is a forced sound even in silent modes.
| amelius wrote:
| Interesting, do they produce the sound through a speaker,
| or do they use some other mechanism?
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Is that because of the camera voyeurism issues?
| gwill wrote:
| exactly. same reason why phones sold in japan don't have
| an option to disable the camera sound.
| amelius wrote:
| Ok, so record a video instead, then pick the desired
| frame later.
| acomjean wrote:
| The slr tech is pretty cool (it's mirror and a prism that gets
| the light from the lens to your eye). And a neat tech that
| flips the mirror out of the way so the "film" or sensor can see
| the light. You see close to what the camera sees, much better
| than the range finder cameras.
|
| But it's mechanically complex , expensive to produce and more
| than needed now. Especially if you can autofocus on sensor now.
| These new cameras should be cheaper to produce...but demand
| must be much lower.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_single-lens_r...
|
| It's amazing how good we get at designing:making things, then
| in a few years they go obsolete (my film camera T90 canon for
| example). I feel gas powered cars are going that way too, a bit
| more slowly.
| imagetic wrote:
| Long overdue. If it's not true, it should be.
|
| 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.
| perardi wrote:
| From one of the best camera industry observers:
|
| 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.
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