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Author Topic: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in ... late September 2018  (Read 159298 times)

BernardLanguillier

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #20 on: May 30, 2018, 02:47:00 am »

I think a lot of wishful thinking here. Nikon doesn’t even have a camera yet and already it’s competing for top spot.

I just hope it’s good. No one wants to see Nikon fail. And they have to compete with Sony’s plans to spend 9 billion over the next few years on development.

No wishful thinking as I don't especially wish for this scenario to unfold. ;)

But it would be plain stupid for Nikon and Leica not trying to fight for the top spot since they are releasing products way after their competitor. What sense would it make to release something inferior?

The same applies to Canon of course, but this wasn't the point of my post that was focusing on the sensor provider as you understood of course.

Cheers,
Bernard

Martin Kristiansen

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #21 on: May 30, 2018, 03:10:48 am »

I have a very close friend who is heavily invested in Nikon gear. We are working on a collaborative project and there are times when a mirrorless camera would be a big help. He tried the Fuji system and didn’t get along with it. Currently he is using the 850 and I know he is hoping the new Nikon will fit his requirements.

 I really hope so as well. There are times when the big 850 is a real hinderance, lovely as it is. Think hours and hours walking up and down a busy street with a fair bit of personal risk involved in terms of crime. I use an apsc 6500 with three tiny primes. Guess who feels most vulnerable.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #22 on: May 30, 2018, 03:29:53 am »

I really hope so as well. There are times when the big 850 is a real hinderance, lovely as it is. Think hours and hours walking up and down a busy street with a fair bit of personal risk involved in terms of crime. I use an apsc 6500 with three tiny primes. Guess who feels most vulnerable.

There are certainly cases where a more compact camera helps get the shot and mirrorless associated with the right lenses can clearly help achieve this.

Now, I would not expect the Nikon mirrorless to be cheap. I would instead expect it to sell for 2,500~3,000 US$. ;)

Another thing is that today going mirrorless isn't as much about a rationale set of measurable advantages as it is about hype. You are mirrorless your'in, you are DSLR, you'r out.  ;D

The good old DSLRs still have superior AF, a much wider set of lenses, shooting experience is overall still much nicer with OVFs,... and still take better pictures in a majority of sitations, but this isn't relevant anymore it seems.

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: May 30, 2018, 04:17:18 am by BernardLanguillier »
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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #23 on: May 30, 2018, 04:25:56 am »

Can’t really argue with much that you say. When I’m using the full frame Sony it feels like a DSLR to me. Focus is 100% fine for my use. Feels in the hand a bit like an old slr so it’s just another camera really. I do see some advantages beside the size. I like the customisable viewfinder. Ability to easily use 30 year old glass. That sort of thing. What I’m shooting happens so quickly and often in poor light the EVF is actually easier for me. Boosting the signal for really dark places gets noisy but still more usable  than OVF. Then there is in body stabilisation. Also useful. But it’s a camera. No more or less. I don’t really get the mirrorless hype myself. I understand it’s the future for all sorts of reasons but so what

Tell you what is lovely though. Using an APSC and FF where you can swop lenses between and it’s a seamless thing. I use a 500 mm Minolta mirror lens on the 6500 I get stabilisation with 24mp at the equivalent of 750mm. Can then swop it to the Sony A7 and get 42 MP. I don’t buy the 6 stops with IBIS at all. It’s rubbish

I hear people go on about balance with bigger bodies and I don’t buy it. One chap sold off his A7 because it’s too small. Same man successfully uses a phone and you couldn’t get the TV remote off him even if you broke both thumbs. How does he manage that?  Big lens on small body you just hold it different. If it’s all about balance explain an 850 with a nifty fifty and then with a 400mm fast lens. They can’t both balance now can they.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #24 on: May 30, 2018, 05:48:55 am »

I find the ergonomics of the a7/a9 to be ok, not great but it would certainly not prevent me from buying one.

If compactness, silent shooting or IBIS were important for me I would own either already.

For the rest what I currently own still perforns better I believe.

The future will tell. If I am not convinced by Nikon’s mirrorless offering I’ll most probably go Sony or even Canon. Brand isn’t relevant. ;)

Cheers,
Bernard

Rob C

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #25 on: May 30, 2018, 09:33:11 am »

Can’t really argue with much that you say. When I’m using the full frame Sony it feels like a DSLR to me. Focus is 100% fine for my use. Feels in the hand a bit like an old slr so it’s just another camera really. I do see some advantages beside the size. I like the customisable viewfinder. Ability to easily use 30 year old glass. That sort of thing. What I’m shooting happens so quickly and often in poor light the EVF is actually easier for me. Boosting the signal for really dark places gets noisy but still more usable  than OVF. Then there is in body stabilisation. Also useful. But it’s a camera. No more or less. I don’t really get the mirrorless hype myself. I understand it’s the future for all sorts of reasons but so what

Tell you what is lovely though. Using an APSC and FF where you can swop lenses between and it’s a seamless thing. I use a 500 mm Minolta mirror lens on the 6500 I get stabilisation with 24mp at the equivalent of 750mm. Can then swop it to the Sony A7 and get 42 MP. I don’t buy the 6 stops with IBIS at all. It’s rubbish

I hear people go on about balance with bigger bodies and I don’t buy it. One chap sold off his A7 because it’s too small. Same man successfully uses a phone and you couldn’t get the TV remote off him even if you broke both thumbs. How does he manage that?  Big lens on small body you just hold it different. If it’s all about balance explain an 850 with a nifty fifty and then with a 400mm fast lens. They can’t both balance now can they.


1. Swapping from format to format: I use both the D200 and D700 bodies, and that gives you the swap in effective focal lengths.

2. 500 Reflex. It was and still is one of my best-loved lenses but so demanding of specific subjects (water) in order to reveal itself at its most useful (to me).

The snap was taken using a very glam Rowi that arrived in the Bahamas with one totally shattered leg joint, courtesy British Airways.

On the plus side, I did learn that a duopod still offers a very useful upgrade to a mono! This was originally Kodachrome 64 Pro on Nikon F or F2.

It was a lot easier doing that with a split-image screen than with the screen on either of my two digital Nikons. Using the green focus dot under the image is okay if there is no movement, but nowehere as good as the old splits! Small apertures didn't seem to cause too much of a problem with black halfs on splits.

One massive advantage of the digital era, though, with those slow 8/500mm things, is the variable and useful higher speed ratings.

« Last Edit: May 30, 2018, 09:42:21 am by Rob C »
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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #26 on: May 30, 2018, 09:59:54 am »

Funny lens is it not Rob? Yes the old focussing screen argument. Man I loved them. I was looking through the old SRT101 last week. That split screen surrounded with the course fresnel circle. It worked so well. Remember that ghost image thing on rangefinders? Liked that too.

What really helps on mirrorless is the ability to rapidly magnify the view to check focus and also focus peaking. That kills OVF in my opinion. And yes it’s my opinion so please don’t tell me it’s wrong. It’s entirely subjective. If more people knew the difference between objective and subjective things this would be a far less combative place.
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PeterAit

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system ... I doubt with curved sensors
« Reply #27 on: May 30, 2018, 10:00:32 am »

It would also ruin in any backward compatibility with existing lenses (unless some fancy optical adaptor could fix that) so I am skeptical.

Is that true? I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that  for any lens, the surface of "perfect" focus was always spherical. No?
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EricV

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system ... I doubt with curved sensors
« Reply #28 on: May 30, 2018, 12:26:08 pm »

Is that true? I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that  for any lens, the surface of "perfect" focus was always spherical. No?
By itself, a simple lens does produce a curved surface of best focus, when imaging a flat object.  But camera lenses are far from simple, and a major design goal is correcting field curvature.
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Guillermo Luijk

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #29 on: May 30, 2018, 03:23:21 pm »

Another thing is that today going mirrorless isn't as much about a rationale set of measurable advantages as it is about hype. You are mirrorless your'in, you are DSLR, you'r out.  ;D

The good old DSLRs still have superior AF, a much wider set of lenses, shooting experience is overall still much nicer with OVFs,... and still take better pictures in a majority of sitations, but this isn't relevant anymore it seems.

Hi Bernard, just to try to clarify a bit personal preferences from facts:

* Superior AF: just doesn't hold true anymore. Last A9 and A7 III are very competitive and even superior to DSLR's AF in some areas (wider and finer AF coverage, eye AF which social photographers are simply loving).

AF tracking on A7 III:




* Wider set of lenses: still true but in few cases decissive. For manual focus applications you can adapt almost any lens (I can use zero-D Canon 24mm TS on my Sony, you can't on your Nikon :) ). Lens range is getting wider specially now that Sigma and Tamron entered the E-Mount game.

* OVF vs EVF: just a matter of personal taste. I even prefer my old Olympus VF-3 EVF over any OVF because it allows me to forget about metering, something I always found distracting and uninteresting.

* Better pictures DSLR in a majority of situations: I would just say that in most situations both systems at equal price range provide the same quality, and would add that there are more niche situations where mirrorless are better than DSLR than the opposite (street photography, silent shooting, high speed electronic shutter as ND filter, legacy lenses IBIS).

Regards

Telecaster

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #30 on: May 30, 2018, 04:23:09 pm »

Another thing is that today going mirrorless isn't as much about a rationale set of measurable advantages as it is about hype. You are mirrorless your'in, you are DSLR, you'r out.  ;D

The good old DSLRs still have superior AF, a much wider set of lenses, shooting experience is overall still much nicer with OVFs,... and still take better pictures in a majority of sitations, but this isn't relevant anymore it seems.

C'mon, this is fanboy silliness. A wider range of camera tech options is a good thing. VF choice is a matter of taste.

-Dave-
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #31 on: May 30, 2018, 05:16:10 pm »

C'mon, this is fanboy silliness. A wider range of camera tech options is a good thing. VF choice is a matter of taste.

Honestly I think it is just the opposite.

I am fully in favor of the mirrorless development and have nothing against it. I am just saying that the hype is overall a bit ahead of the reality. Yes, there are certainly use cases where an a7rIII/a9 is ahead of the D850, but I believe it remains a minority.

I have shot with these cameras, I like them overall, but I have a hard time imagining that a majority of people prefer the EVF experience over the OVF one. EVF do have objective advantages in some case but, again overall, I believe that the OVFs are far more enjoyable still.

I believe this to be an objective assessment, even if it is of course based on me.

But yes, if just preferring one option over an another makes you a fanboy, I guess that I am still a DSLR fanboy at the moment.

If preferring an option over another ignoring facts makes you a fanboy, my view is that some posters in this thread are more mirrorless fanboys than I am a DSLR one. ;)

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: May 30, 2018, 06:21:14 pm by BernardLanguillier »
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Manoli

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #32 on: May 30, 2018, 06:23:51 pm »

I am fully in favor of the mirrorless development and have nothing against it. I am just saying that the hype is overall a bit ahead of the reality.

Honestly, Bernard, you do keep bangin' away at that old drum.
There are two fields in which DSLR's are still more prevalent - Fashion and Sports.
For the rest mirrorless clearly has the momentum.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #33 on: May 30, 2018, 06:40:53 pm »

Honestly, Bernard, you do keep bangin' away at that old drum.
There are two fields in which DSLR's are still more prevalent - Fashion and Sports.
For the rest mirrorless clearly has the momentum.

Hum... I still prefer the ISO64 mode of my D850 for landscape as well as the superior color rendering and quite a few other things as well (better weather sealing that works, the ability to display in parallel 2 parts of an image for T/S shooting, better battery life in the field,...), so I have to disagree your assessment is an objective one.

The a7rIII is an excellent landscape camera, but there is no objective fact supporting the proposition that it is the best option today.

Will the a7rIV be superior to the D860? There are many reasons to think it will be, but I am taking pictures with cameras available today, not with a potentiality for future superiority. ;) This is why I keep saying the same thing... the a7rIII is an amazing and very desirable camera. It offer the best bang for the buck per gram and per cubic inch... but it is being overhyped a bit when described as the best available option today. Besides, by the time the a7RIV is out, we will have options from Canon and Nikon on the table as well and it will not be any longer about mirrorless vs DSLR but about comparing various mirrorless options.

And overall, I am not even speaking about the ability to get access to some unique lenses with fully working AF functionality. I could simply not have taken this image with an a7rIII. Close yes, but not exactly the same rendering. Now we can of course discuss whether close is good enough or not, but I see no value in regressing at this point just for the sake of being on the trendy momentum train.


D5 + 200mm f2.0 at f2.0 / the 10 years old version

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 12:13:33 am by BernardLanguillier »
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Manoli

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #34 on: May 31, 2018, 02:50:09 am »

Hum... I still prefer the ISO64 mode of my D850 for landscape as well as the superior color rendering and quite a few other things as well [...] so I have to disagree your assessment is an objective one.

Bernard - all valid points , for 'you'. but I didn't refer to 'objective' advantages/disadvantages which ultimately are personal decisions - what I said was that 'mirrorless has the momentum' (IBIS, FP, eye auto focus, silent shooting ... ) - not my opinion more empirical observation.

Wonderful shot by the way. More down to your daughter rather than the 200/f2 Nikkor ...
Although try pointing that bazooka at her when she's a teenager and see how appreciative she'll be  [/clin d'œil]
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Manoli

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #35 on: May 31, 2018, 03:08:24 am »

That shot may just be the perfect advertisement for Eye AF.
Zoom in and you'll see that the plane of focus is on the wisps of hair above her left eyebrow and the tip of her nose. Her chin is already out-of-focus. When you play with such razor-thin DOF (a big focus aid for any DSLR), you're tempting fate..

Still a wonderful shot of an even more wonderful daughter, though.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2018, 03:13:06 am by Manoli »
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Martin Kristiansen

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #36 on: May 31, 2018, 03:31:38 am »

Personally I choose EVF over OVF. It’s not even close. I don’t really get the “enjoy” experience thing Bernard. Taking a photo I’m looking at focus, balancing compositional elements and engaging with the subject. I enjoy the process but I barely notice the viewfinder. Info. That’s what I want. Histogram bottom right for a quick check, focus peaking if I’m manual focussing. Camera level. That’s it.

You say it’s objectively better in your opinion. Is that not contradictory? If it’s your opinion it’s not objective. It’s subjective.

But anyway. I hope Nikon hit it out the park.
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SrMi

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #37 on: May 31, 2018, 04:07:28 am »

As a regular user of mirrorless and DSLRs, I also prefer OVFs. To me, the problem of EVFs is that it adds an additional layer between me and the subject, alienating the subject from me and removing the emotional element in the photography. I dislike the possible overlays on EVFs (histogram, horizon, etc) as they block the view. I dislike the lack of detail in shadows and low resolution when compared to OVF. I dislike the (occasionally occurring) wrong colors. Some advantages I see in EVFs are: the possibility of magnification for manual focus; large/bright viewfinder even with small sensors and closed aperture.
I will continue using both DSLRs and mirrorless cameras as I often care more about the available lenses than the bodies.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #38 on: May 31, 2018, 04:34:15 am »

Still a wonderful shot of an even more wonderful daughter, though.

I know, she is cute (sometimes)! ;)

Cheers,
Bernard

BernardLanguillier

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Re: Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in early 2019
« Reply #39 on: May 31, 2018, 04:41:40 am »

Personally I choose EVF over OVF. It’s not even close. I don’t really get the “enjoy” experience thing Bernard. Taking a photo I’m looking at focus, balancing compositional elements and engaging with the subject. I enjoy the process but I barely notice the viewfinder. Info. That’s what I want. Histogram bottom right for a quick check, focus peaking if I’m manual focussing. Camera level. That’s it.

You say it’s objectively better in your opinion. Is that not contradictory? If it’s your opinion it’s not objective. It’s subjective.

EVF are clearly superior at delivering most information, no doubt.

Now, there is one - in my view essential - piece of information EVF are objectively worse at compared to OVFs, it is to display the subject you are trying to photograph as it is.

To me, who has the assumed luxury of shooting for pleasure (although I pretty much treat each image I shoot as if there were a paying client waiting for the shot), viewing a subset of a scene in a viewfinder is the base and the core of photography. It is a key reason why I like shooting.

I agree that calling this aspect important is subjective, but I still think that the superiority of the OVF along this axis is objective.

Cheers,
Bernard
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