How to convince Sony to do lossless raw on A7RII and others?

[spidermike]

However one of the main Nikon customer complaints is "where is our mirror-less Sony/Fuji killer? " [/i]

Source:
http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/nikon-q1-financial-results.html

So precisely how many Nikon owners are actually calling for this? The internet is great at magnifying peoples' voices beyond all scale of their actual numbers and given the sales of DSLR and MFT (not the magazine bandwagons but actual sales) such a decision would be considered reasonable in any other area.

[Chris Livsey]

So precisely how many Nikon owners are actually calling for this? The internet is great at magnifying peoples' voices beyond all scale of their actual numbers and given the sales of DSLR and MFT (not the magazine bandwagons but actual sales) such a decision would be considered reasonable in any other area.

I refer you to the link I provided.
Thom Hogan has conducted a number of surveys of owners with large numbers participating and distilled the responses. The sample is of course skewed as this is web based but if you want numbers go there, or indeed some of the other Nikon-centric forums.
I did not say BTW that the decision was unreasonable, quite the contrary, given the sales figures of Nikon, and profits, they do not currently need to chase that small, currently, market segment.

[shadowblade]

So precisely how many Nikon owners are actually calling for this? The internet is great at magnifying peoples' voices beyond all scale of their actual numbers and given the sales of DSLR and MFT (not the magazine bandwagons but actual sales) such a decision would be considered reasonable in any other area.

This is the downfall of any large company with an established product base to protect, and a huge opportunity for any up-and-coming company (or an old company having a revival).

Anyone remember Nokia? A huge company with a well-established product base, reduced to nothing because they missed the smartphone revolution while they were busy trying to sell people more and more of the same old thing (they made a few, feeble attempts - too little, too late). Or Kodak, reduced from being the big name in photography to a mere shell, subsisting mostly on a bunch of old patents? Or IBM, who missed the PC revolution because, in their myopia, they couldn't see a use for a computer in the home? Or, conversely, Apple's revival, from being a has-been in the 90s, with minimal market share and no-one buying their Macs (with all their software compatibility/availability issues), to becoming a dominant player firstly with the iPod (and, more importantly, iTunes), then the iPhone. And, more recently, Sony, whose digital imaging division has become the one bright spot in an otherwise-fading company?

There was no demand for cars before Henry Ford created one, and horses had a far larger share of the market than early cars...

[capital]

Thank you, Jim, Matthew and Wayne. I was reading some more about it, I found a short write up here:
http://caspegroup.com/How%20an%20electronic%20shutter%20works%20in%20a%20CMOS%20camera.pdf

So, it seems then that we can treat it like a scanning back, which trundles across the focal plane at a fixed pace, resetting, then reading out columns sequentially.

With that part clear, and knowing that they are prioritizing timeliness of column read outs, it seems like this is actually an artificial construct and not a hard limit. I don't see why they could not have this user assignable, as in allow prioritize for speed, versus prioritize for quantization.

[Chris Livsey]

There was no demand for cars before Henry Ford created one, and horses had a far larger share of the market than early cars...

Which is why Nikon customers are concerned and think the company is not listening. Do their numbers matter? Does it have to be a crowd or a minimum number who can see what is happening before Nikon wake up? ( they may be awake and working on it but don't want to say) They are realtime users not the "ambassadors" Nikon and other companies who have equivalents, who have already "made it" and form part of the PR, they have the best "horses" and also can't see why anyone would need a car, particularly a low "status" inexpensive one.
Those real users have seen the "car" and don't want another minor variant on the "horse". BTW I mentioned the D300 replacement, what a damp squib that will be now, unless they pull something out of the hat, maybe a mirror-less with pro build for DX glass?
Despite all this it is more likely the mass market will move even further away from "ILC cameras" as we know them to devices that take pictures and have connectivity  I think they call them mobile phones, tablets etc and the niche left for long glass and sports enabled high speed autofocus image capture will be filled by still frames from "video" cameras.

BTW I apologise for drifting too far from the thread topic, lets say: Why should Sony listen to a small number of customers ( and BTW "precisely how many Nikon " Sony "owners are actually calling for this? The internet is great at magnifying peoples' voices beyond all scale of their actual numbers." I think that is called a circular argument.

[shadowblade]

Which is why Nikon customers are concerned and think the company is not listening. Do their numbers matter? Does it have to be a crowd or a minimum number who can see what is happening before Nikon wake up? ( they may be awake and working on it but don't want to say) They are realtime users not the "ambassadors" Nikon and other companies who have equivalents, who have already "made it" and form part of the PR, they have the best "horses" and also can't see why anyone would need a car, particularly a low "status" inexpensive one.
Those real users have seen the "car" and don't want another minor variant on the "horse". BTW I mentioned the D300 replacement, what a damp squib that will be now, unless they pull something out of the hat, maybe a mirror-less with pro build for DX glass?
Despite all this it is more likely the mass market will move even further away from "ILC cameras" as we know them to devices that take pictures and have connectivity  I think they call them mobile phones, tablets etc and the niche left for long glass and sports enabled high speed autofocus image capture will be filled by still frames from "video" cameras.

BTW I apologise for drifting too far from the thread topic, lets say: Why should Sony listen to a small number of customers ( and BTW "precisely how many Nikon " Sony "owners are actually calling for this? The internet is great at magnifying peoples' voices beyond all scale of their actual numbers." I think that is called a circular argument.

That's exactly what I've been saying. Sony gave us the mirrorless 'car' and popularised it on a huge scale. Meanwhile, Canon and Nikon, instead of embracing the new technology and releasing their own competitive mirrorless products, continue to milk their current technology for all that it's worth and sell us more and more models of horse-and-buggy. Which will work for a time, until mirrorless matures and matches the D4s/1Dx in AF and the current crop of SLR lenses become due for replacement (or Sony finds a way to make them AF as fast on Sony bodies as they do on Canon/Nikon bodies, allowing people to switch systems at no cost).

[LKaven]

I'd hesitate to use the car <-> horse-and-buggy as an analogy to mirrorless ILCs and mirrorful ILCs.  The car analogy is a forced one in cameraland to begin with, and I don't feel that the mirrorless is so revolutionary as that.  They are different tool forms, each suited for a different style of working.  For the time being, they are each useful.

[eronald]

I'd hesitate to use the car <-> horse-and-buggy as an analogy to mirrorless ILCs and mirrorful ILCs.  The car analogy is a forced one in cameraland to begin with, and I don't feel that the mirrorless is so revolutionary as that.  They are different tool forms, each suited for a different style of working.  For the time being, they are each useful.

Yes, yes, the SLR will be immortal like the rangefinder, Leica will continue to make them for another 50 years
Frankly, I prefer the SLR. But King Canute ...

Edmund

[BernardLanguillier]

That's exactly what I've been saying. Sony gave us the mirrorless 'car' and popularised it on a huge scale. Meanwhile, Canon and Nikon, instead of embracing the new technology and releasing their own competitive mirrorless products, continue to milk their current technology for all that it's worth and sell us more and more models of horse-and-buggy. Which will work for a time, until mirrorless matures and matches the D4s/1Dx in AF and the current crop of SLR lenses become due for replacement (or Sony finds a way to make them AF as fast on Sony bodies as they do on Canon/Nikon bodies, allowing people to switch systems at no cost).

Well, Nikon does still have IMHO the best on sensor AF with the 1 series that I have first hand experience with, so they clearly have the core mirrorless technology figured out for quite come time. It is just a matter of deciding to apply it to larger sensors based cameras.

But they have also a very large user base that, to a certain extend, probably prefers OVF over EVF. Having tried the a7x, I find their finders usable but still offering a far worse viewing experience than OVF. I see the rush to those cameras, but to me the technology isn't mature quite yet.

So Nikon and Canon are facing a tough dilemma here. I think that's the reason why there isn't a D400 yet, Nikon keeps hesitating between delivering a boring, yet effective, 7DII killer or a more daring Samsung NX1 killer. They know that either way they choose, they will make hundreds of thousands of unhappy people. So they should probably release both versions and let photographers choose?

Now, would that make sense with existing lenses? Can they afford to develop a new mount and lenses? Probably not, which is why I still think that Nikon should adopt the FE mount for their mirrorless offering.

Cheers,
Bernard

[eronald]

I think Nikon are going under. The market is deflating, year by year, there is no room for 3 companies at the top, and Nikon is the only one which has no video products of its own, and no large sensor design team, while Sony has a money pump with its sensor business, and Canon is a monster conglomerate that has cash and time.

Edmund

Well, Nikon does still have IMHO the best on sensor AF with the 1 series that I have first hand experience with, so they clearly have the core mirrorless technology figured out for quite come time. It is just a matter of deciding to apply it to larger sensors based cameras.

But they have also a very large user base that, to a certain extend, probably prefers OVF over EVF. Having tried the a7x, I find their finders usable but still offering a far worse viewing experience than OVF. I see the rush to those cameras, but to me the technology isn't mature quite yet.

So Nikon and Canon are facing a tough dilemma here. I think that's the reason why there isn't a D400 yet, Nikon keeps hesitating between delivering a boring, yet effective, 7DII killer or a more daring Samsung NX1 killer. They know that either way they choose, they will make hundreds of thousands of unhappy people. So they should probably release both versions and let photographers choose?

Now, would that make sense with existing lenses? Can they afford to develop a new mount and lenses? Probably not, which is why I still think that Nikon should adopt the FE mount for their mirrorless offering.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

I think Nikon are going under. The market is deflating, year by year, there is no room for 3 companies at the top, and Nikon is the only one which has no video products of its own, and no large sensor design team, while Sony has a money pump with its sensor business, and Canon is a monster conglomerate that has cash and time.

That is very possible. But for now Nikon still delivers the best solution on the market I feel. They have also been releasing for one year a constant stream of top level lenses, some offering unique combinations of features. Yes, all of those still work within the traditional DSLR framework.

I don't see why I should penalize myself by not using their products because of a technology trend that has not yet reached full maturity. Compactness is currently less important for me than absolute performance but I will see things differently when I'll turn 60 I am sure.

I'll switch to Sony the day they will help me capture images better than Nikon does. That will also mean they have lenses superior to those I am currently using.

This being said, I would buy a a7rII tomorrow as an addition to my main kit if it cost half it does, but no thank you at 430,000 yen. It is a great camera, but is over priced IMHO.

Cheers,
Bernard

[eronald]

That is very possible. But for now Nikon still delivers the best solution on the market I feel. They have also been releasing for one year a constant stream of top level lenses, some offering unique combinations of features. Yes, all of those still work within the traditional DSLR framework.

I don't see why I should penalize myself by not using their products because of a technology trend that has not yet reached full maturity. Compactness is currently less important for me than absolute performance but I will see things differently when I'll turn 60 I am sure.

I'll switch to Sony the day they will help me capture images better than Nikon does. That will also mean they have lenses superior to those I am currently using.

This being said, I would buy a a7rII tomorrow as an addition to my main kit if it cost half it does, but no thank you at 430,000 yen. It is a great camera, but is over priced IMHO.

Cheers,
Bernard

Hugely overpriced in japan. It is at $3200 at B&H with the D810 at $3K.
Anyway, the kit you already own should probably see you through until you are 60

Edmund

[BernardLanguillier]

Hugely overpriced in japan. It is at $3200 at B&H with the D810 at $3K.

Yes, a new D810 goes for less than 280,000 in Tokyo compared to the Sony at 430,000... Don't know what they smoked at Sony Japan... the a7II is in stock everywhere btw.

Cheers,
Bernard

[eronald]

Yes, a new D810 goes for less than 280,000 in Tokyo compared to the Sony at 430,000... Don't know what they smoked at Sony Japan... the a7II is in stock everywhere btw.

Cheers,
Bernard

Price for Sony gear always crashes when the new model comes out

Everything that is made in China is going to see its prices come down even sooner

Edmund

[stevesanacore]

That is very possible. But for now Nikon still delivers the best solution on the market I feel. They have also been releasing for one year a constant stream of top level lenses, some offering unique combinations of features. Yes, all of those still work within the traditional DSLR framework.

As long as you're not an architectural photographer. I was crazy about the Nikon D800E and loved the dynamic range, hoping they would come out with a new 24 and 17mm shift lenses to complement that fabulous sensor. But after waiting and waiting and waiting, Sony introduced a better solution. Now it's bye bye Nikon. A few years ago when digital really took over photography,  I told my assistants that one day we would be shooting with Sony and Panasonic cameras and they thought I was nuts..... Canon can compete with the big boys, but I'm not sure Nikon can.

[BernardLanguillier]

As long as you're not an architectural photographer. I was crazy about the Nikon D800E and loved the dynamic range, hoping they would come out with a new 24 and 17mm shift lenses to complement that fabulous sensor. But after waiting and waiting and waiting, Sony introduced a better solution. Now it's bye bye Nikon. A few years ago when digital really took over photography,  I told my assistants that one day we would be shooting with Sony and Panasonic cameras and they thought I was nuts..... Canon can compete with the big boys, but I'm not sure Nikon can.

Nikon has indeed been really slow reacting on the T/S lens front and I would probably have done the same had stitching not been my preferred solution for such images (I don't have productivity constraints).

This being said, I sincerely hope for you that they doesn't announce next gen T/S lenses in the coming months, but I am pretty sure they will... Future will tell.

There are of course significant issue remaining in their lenses line up (macro lenses needing a refresh, 135mm f2.0 and the T/S of course), but they have done a good job recently at filling the gaps and most of their recent designs have been best in class. I am not too worried for them.

Cheers,
Bernard

[hjulenissen]

That's exactly what I've been saying. Sony gave us the mirrorless 'car' and popularised it on a huge scale. Meanwhile, Canon and Nikon, instead of embracing the new technology and releasing their own competitive mirrorless products, continue to milk their current technology for all that it's worth and sell us more and more models of horse-and-buggy. Which will work for a time, until mirrorless matures and matches the D4s/1Dx in AF and the current crop of SLR lenses become due for replacement (or Sony finds a way to make them AF as fast on Sony bodies as they do on Canon/Nikon bodies, allowing people to switch systems at no cost).

For every horse vs car analogy, one can find counter analogies such as car vs hovering car, DVD vs Bluray, etc where the new technology did not catch on.

History does not support the idea that every new idea is "better" than older ideas. Mirrorless may well be the way to go today, or it may be the way to go in 10 years or it may never be. The answer to that lies in the decisions made by the manufacturers and the choices made by camera customers.

-h

[shadowblade]

For every horse vs car analogy, one can find counter analogies such as car vs hovering car, DVD vs Bluray, etc where the new technology did not catch on.

History does not support the idea that every new idea is "better" than older ideas. Mirrorless may well be the way to go today, or it may be the way to go in 10 years or it may never be. The answer to that lies in the decisions made by the manufacturers and the choices made by camera customers.

-h

Blu-ray has caught on and largely replaced DVD for anyone who still buys physical copies of films.

Also, where's my hovercar? I want one...

[shadowblade]

I'd hesitate to use the car <-> horse-and-buggy as an analogy to mirrorless ILCs and mirrorful ILCs.  The car analogy is a forced one in cameraland to begin with, and I don't feel that the mirrorless is so revolutionary as that.  They are different tool forms, each suited for a different style of working.  For the time being, they are each useful.

Early cars were slower than a horse.

Mirrorless is really quite revolutionary and opens up a lot of possibilities, once the technology becomes mature. High resolution and electronic shitters allow for simultaneous hi-res stills and 8k video shooting for action photography. Face recognition and fast processors also allow for much greater accuracy when shooting action. Constant recording and buffering allow for taking a shot after the event has actually taken place (2s buffer means you can press the shutter up to 2s after an action has taken place and still get the shot). It also allows for truly huge dynamic range - instead of taking a single 1s exposure, just use a firmware option to take 100 1/100s exposures and add up however many is needed to give correct exposure in each part of the image. Finally, the electronic nature of the display means that you are no longer physically tied to the camera, opening up remote tethering options for things like aerial and submersible drone photography.

[brianrybolt]

"electronic shitters"  That would be a revolutionary possibility!!