Nikon Z9 with 8k Posted on B&H

Nikon has to again earn and rebuild everyone's trust (at least on the video side).

We all want them to succeed but really tired of the hand-me-downs a year or two after Canon and Sony have released their own cameras.

For once, negotiate with your superior business colleagues and introduce a desirable full-package for a reasonable price at the same time.

Remember, Nikon...Sony and Canon need you too.
 
I know all we care about is video of this forum but the bread and butter for the big established players is professional photographers. Canon, Sony, and Nikon are trying to secure a path for their professional DSLR photographers to migrate to mirrorless and don't want them to leave their lens eco system. Currently most pro photographers still use DSLRs but these latest mirrorless cameras have overcome most of their disadvantages to make them suitable for event/news/corporate pro use.
 
IMO, we're past the transition point.

It's been 3-4 years...you're either shooting on a mirrorless or not and won't be.

Unless finances are limitless, if you're a professional photographer in your 30s-40s-50s with $10K-$20K worth of lenses, you're not going to start over with your own money, especially when your DSLRs are already very good for what you do.

Some will definitely move to the new bodies because they like cameras and technology, and fortunately all of these systems have great adapters that don't skip a beat with almost all photography tasks besides the most demanding like extreme bursts for sports or nature (and even then they have a pretty nice hit rate).
 
'Z mount will bring amazing things'

Normal G mount zoom 24-70 2.8 ($1700)

New z mount zoom.... 24-70 2.8 ($2300)

With that sort of innovation im underwhelmed.
 
It's a little different because switching to mirrorless you generally can't or wouldn't want to adapt a DSLR lens. This means for example if Nikon doesn't offer a suitable mirrorless that meets company needs then it wouldn't cost any more to switch to Canon since they can't use their prior lenses. Ie there in no barrier to switching.

In photography there has been two problems with mirrorless cameras that pro photographers don't want to put up with. The first is the electronic evf, has a delay or can black out between shots. In sports photography this is a big drawback. The second problem is the electronic shutter is more susceptible to banding from lighting. Whether you're an espn photographer or working for a large news organization, missing a shot or having a important photo ruined for either of these reasons isn't acceptable.

But going forward once these issues are sufficiently dealt with there are talks that things like news conferences might require silent cameras so big pro clients want to start transitioning to mirrorless. These camera manufactures want to make sure they retain this type of deep pocket customer because it is now the life blood of their business. If they loss them they have nothing to fall back on.
 
There are no banding or blackouts on the high end sports/action cameras anymore and the new EFV's are of higher quality than the DSLR (new Canon R1 is rumored to have a ~ 9M dot EVF, as if 6M wasn't enough)

In any case, the high end pro market is very small. Taking out the ultra high end of Phase One/Hasselblad, the portrait, landscape & architecture pros can comfortably go with the 102 MPX Fuji GF100 series medium format cameras (or a 47 MPX Leica, if someone prefers the look). The "worst case scenario" for them is the 61 MPX Sony A7RIV, which has the medium format specs of a very recent vintage (sans the 16-bit). And that takes the high end out of Nikon's hands. It wasn't like that when the D800/810 premiered in 2012 but these days there's nothing special about Z7 that one can't get with its competitors.

Canon 1DX II and III dominate the high end pro sports niche. D5 has a very small portion of it and, on top of that, Sony moved into that territory with A9I&II and now with A1.

The entry level APS-C is lower margin and dominated by Sony A6400/6500/6600 and Canon Rebels, with Fuji cleaning up the APS-C higher end.

Micro Four Thirds does well on the entry level, action/BiF and video. And even there Olympus lost beaucoup bucks.

The mirrorless is taking over what's been left by the smartphones and that ain't much. Meanwhile Nikon's share in mirrorless is negligible anyway. Their product is getting bracketed from all sides and the only way to break out of it is by leaving the cartel. Which Mitsubishi won't let them. In which case, as PacMan once said, it's game over.
 
ahalpert said:
aren't the lenses generally better and lighter tho?
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I dont know about mass. In terms of performance the old ones are excellent.

Of course everyone has different priorities cost, speed reach.

But here we see raised cost and no gain in speed or reach

I think we all agree that cost is the one element we want to be static or go down, while desiring more speed (faster Tstop) or a greater reach in terms of zoom ratio.

For sure the new lenses seem to talk to the Z mount af better.

looked it up.. its 800 vs 900 g with a win for the z mount . no great shakes?

Cretainly there is nothing special apart from apparently more cash into nikons pocket. No winner (22-70 or 24-150 2.8) nothing that could pull customers across or keep them loyal.
 
Some say they're better ie focus quicker or are sharper. One thing for sure I've read lenses are where these companies make most of their money. Sigma/Tamron seem to be able to sell their lenses for a fraction of the price and still turn a healthy profit. It's safe to assume the OEM markup must be big. Someone said that Sony G master lenses could have been smaller but instead of redesigning from scratch for mirrorless they repurposed their existing lens to save costs.
 
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morgan_moore said:
I dont know about mass. In terms of performance the old ones are excellent.

Of course everyone has different priorities cost, speed reach.

But here we see raised cost and no gain in speed or reach

I think we all agree that cost is the one element we want to be static or go down, while desiring more speed (faster Tstop) or a greater reach in terms of zoom ratio.

For sure the new lenses seem to talk to the Z mount af better.

looked it up.. its 800 vs 900 g with a win for the z mount . no great shakes?

Cretainly there is nothing special apart from apparently more cash into nikons pocket. No winner (22-70 or 24-150 2.8) nothing that could pull customers across or keep them loyal.
Click to expand...

the list on the old G 24-70 is $2268. so probably it came down in price over time and the Z version will as well?

are you comparing the performance of the two lenses? I feel like most of the mirrorless vs reflex lenses with redesigns that I see perform better - sigma, canon...
 
and take the upcoming sony 50 f/1.2:

The filter size is 72mm
close focus distance is 0,4m (1.32ft)
Definitely shorter than the Sigma 35mm f/1.4
Lighter than the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4
Announcement on March 16
Click to expand...

the only question is if it will focus with abrupt stepping through the range or if it will be smooth. (the sigma 35 f/1.2 has discrete jumps in focus unfortunately). not that i'd pay $3k for this sony 50 1.2 much as i would enjoy it
 
The thing is any nikon from 5 years ago (stills and lens performance) is completely brilliant (same is true for canon - I remember handling the 1dx - brilliant) The lenses are brilliant.

My 20-35 is ancient.. and brilliant.

Shaving 5% off an MTF curve is a irrelevant as delivering 8k. It means nothing compared to the huge holes in making these cameras (canon sony nikon) usable for video.
Big EVF
No wires out the side
Af that is intuitive not a menu dive
audio inputs
and of course ND or ultra low ISO.

I have a 50 1.2 manual and a 50 1.4 AF.. and a 50 1.8 mf that I use all the time.. that 50 1.2 the size of a coke bottle is a complete joke. No one shoots at 1.2 anyway - not enough DOF - more complete irrelevance and 1.8 gives as little DOF as one can want.

My 50 1.8 is tiny and brilliant.

Back to the topic.. the Z mount has not delivered anything remarkable yet.
 
Of course people shoot at f/1.2 - at least in the wedding and portraiture worlds. And great for shallow DOF at wider framings. Of course video is harder to maintain focus at that DOF, but AF may change that. And supposedly the new lens will not be that big.

But yeah there's a big divergence between photo needs and video needs and it sounds like you're critiquing mirrorless cameras from a video perspective, which is fair and true.

Sony AF is very intuitive IMO

All these considerations turn on one's needs. If I could connect a lanc controller to my A7SIII and if it had eND, then frankly there would be little left to improve it for my use case of the camera. (Granted, I dont use it in every situation or rigging)

But certainly for you it sounds like mirrorless are doing nothing for you. All the photogs I know rave about improvements in mirrorless autofocus at least

Your point is well taken about mtf curves, but they matter more to some (landscape and macro photographers?)
 
The OP failed to mention this isn't a camera release, the only thing on B&H is a picture without any specs.
 
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ahalpert said:
Sony AF is very intuitive IMO
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Can you become a youtuber.?? I have no idea that the focus is like that.

Maybe the chef sequence.

100mm face of chef
100mm hands of chef chops onions
35mm MCU of chef focussed on face
15mm introducer of room.
Same all with space for copy right.

Product on slider holding focus
Product on slider holding focus as one goes past a pot plant/dirty foreground
Product on slider pans to second product without popping to background

Do this lot and talk through the exact moves through the menu and across the buttons
 
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ahalpert said:
All the photogs I know rave about improvements in mirrorless autofocus at least

..(landscape and macro photographers?)
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AFAIK any raving about AF is meaning that maybe it is catching up with DSLR/Mirror focus from 5 years ago?

Lascape and macro done on zooms? Call me a dinasaur but this is prime territory
 
morgan_moore said:
Can you become a youtuber.?? I have no idea that the focus is like that.

Maybe the chef sequence.

100mm face of chef
100mm hands of chef chops onions
35mm MCU of chef focussed on face
15mm introducer of room.
Same all with space for copy right.

Product on slider holding focus
Product on slider holding focus as one goes past a pot plant/dirty foreground
Product on slider pans to second product without popping to background

Do this lot and talk through the exact moves through the menu and across the buttons
Click to expand...

i can't tell if this is somehow sarcastic or serious :) but i was never good at detecting tone

i have a custom button on my camera set to switch face af on/off for when you don't want it grabbing a face

i have the screen set to touch tracking, so whatever i touch will be tracked as it moves across the frame

there are two settings for focus shift speed and for subject switching sensitivity. i have those two in my quick menu. one button push enters the quick menu, a lateral move with the joystick selects the setting to change (or touch it on the screen) and then i use the scroll wheel to dial it up or down. so if i want to do a panning shot and have the focus grab the leading edge of the pan, i can set it to a quick subject switch sensitivity. if something will be passing through the foreground or it's a messy foreground in general, i can set it to subject lock.

then you can turn mf/af on/off often with a switch on the lens or else a custom button or in the quick menu

the point being - i can control many different parameters, often with a dedicated switch or button, or else in a quick menu with a single push which overlays it on my frame

but i spend most of my time just tapping my screen (or smartphone wifi controller) and not actually changing af settings
 
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morgan_moore said:
AFAIK any raving about AF is meaning that maybe it is catching up with DSLR/Mirror focus from 5 years ago?

Lascape and macro done on zooms? Call me a dinasaur but this is prime territory
Click to expand...

im talking about photogs. apparently mirrorless af is typically better than dslr af

prime lenses benefit from the designs permitted by a short flange length as well, i believe. but i think it's more advantageous for wideangles? or maybe for field curvature in general
 
Im 100% serious as really I have no clue how to use video AF Im probably pretty clueless with stills too but seem to have managed for 20 years. What I do know is that doing things like entering the menu to dial sensitivty seems completely impractical.

Im also of the opinion that glass/mirror AF has been excellent for years. My chums think this too and they cover the olympics.

Its interesting you can custom button face on and off that is good to know. Also Im interested if the app is solid.. would it work through a car to a gimbal externally mounted. Is the lag so bad as to render it a toy?

--

Of course there are benefits to short flange. But I dont see them coming to market. Nikon launch a short flange and then deliver the same old 24-70 2.8 for £2000 and others at the usual speed/price/sizes and then a 50 1.2 collectors lens which I dont think any working pro will buy for £2200 for a 50 (!) Yep there might be a 20 1.8 which is not a standard for FF mirror cameras and could be usueful. What is not there is the video standard 24-150 ( or s35 15-100) pro build lens that is missing from every system.

Also lacking is HFR, 10 bit (?) and any/much connectivity that is more relevant to today than 8k.
 
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