Nikon's Z Series Mirrorless Cameras

Styx_II

The Grand Illusion
Well, Nikon launched their new FF mirrorless cameras and are taking a beating over it on the internet and youtube. The single card slot seems to be the #1 complaint, along with a few others (lack of eye AF). As an enthusiast, the single card slot isn't an issue for me but for a pro, I can certainly see why it is. I would have liked to have seen more in these new offerings but it is a start. Canon, you're up next!

Is anyone one planning to pre-order either of the two?

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-p...:ml:ml_cameras:082318:wwa_ml#z-series-rethink
 
Hi Styx -
I am thinking about replacing my Oly OM-d-e5 and Fuji XT1 with one of these. Love to be able to use my Nikon lenses. Not sure why there are bashers. M 4/3 are not wildlife or sports cameras. And card failure is extremely rare.......I will wait a few months post launch to see how things work out tho....
 
I’ve got a Z6 kit on order. Pretty excited to get it! Overall I think these cameras look good, although the Z7 seems overpriced to me given that the only difference I’ve seen is the resolution, which few people really need.

The rage over the card slot thing is a bit over the top if you ask me. I’d like to see stats about reliability of XQD vs SD. All reports are that XQD is far better.
 
If you're a wedding or an event photographer, duel card slots are a must have, no doubt. I think what adds fuel to the fire is Sony took a lot of grief for years for not having 2 card slots and now they have them. With the new A series cameras, Sony in many ways, has set the standard for FF mirrorless and to come to the same market with anything less, is a miss in many peoples eyes.

XQD cards aren't cheap. Hopefully, other companies will begin to offer them to drive the price down. I believe Sony is the only one making them at the point and oddly enough, they doesn't use them in their cameras.
 
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I'm happy with my DSLRs (canons)
I really can't make a case to even move up
Both my phone and my camera are smarter than me.
And my camera more qualified to take pictures:D
 
Just can't justify it.

I'd love to be just hitting a point to step up from an entry or mid level camera right now. Very good chance I'd lean towards Sony but the options out there are pretty incredible even compared to ten years ago.
 
If you're a wedding or an event photographer, duel card slots are a must have, no doubt. I think what adds fuel to the fire is Sony took a lot of grief for years for not having 2 card slots and now they have them. With the new A series cameras, Sony in many ways, has set the standard for FF mirrorless and to come to the same market with anything less, is a miss in many peoples eyes.

XQD cards aren't cheap. Hopefully, other companies will begin to offer them to drive the price down. I believe Sony is the only one making them at the point and oddly enough, they doesn't use them in their cameras.

I agree its strange Sony doesn't use XQD in their ILC cameras. They are infamous for forcing homegrown proprietary formats.

There's a good post on Thom Hogan's Sansmirror.com site about this. Basically he is saying the odds that XQD fails is similar to the odds of the camera itself failing for whatever reason (including dropping it etc), and to really protect yourself you need to have duplicates of everything.

If it's that much of a worry I have heard of people doing real time backup on D7200's via wifi HDD, so I expect that will be an option with these also.
 
I'd love to try the Z6 out, but the Sony A7iii still is the one I want. So far I haven't been able to use my A7ii to its fullest extent so I guess I'm good for now.
 
The new Nikon Z system is late, but a good start. Especially the larger lens mount, that will allow for crazy fast f/0.95 lenses. But currently, I think there are only 3 native lenses for the mount. You can use an adaptor ($250) and use their huge collection of older lenses. Not sure how that is working out.

Nikon has some catching up to do, to the top-end Sony's Alpha cameras. A lot of Nikon and Canon shooters already jumped ship. Sony has been out long enough, they've dropped the price of the body. That makes it a $600 price difference on the top end.

I'm really liking my Sony A7Riii and lenses.
 
The new Nikon Z system is late, but a good start. Especially the larger lens mount, that will allow for crazy fast f/0.95 lenses. But currently, I think there are only 3 native lenses for the mount. You can use an adaptor ($250) and use their huge collection of older lenses. Not sure how that is working out.

Nikon has some catching up to do, to the top-end Sony's Alpha cameras. A lot of Nikon and Canon shooters already jumped ship. Sony has been out long enough, they've dropped the price of the body. That makes it a $600 price difference on the top end.

I'm really liking my Sony A7Riii and lenses.

The adapter is $150 with camera body purchase. I can live with that. And all reports are that it works very well. It’s even been shown to work on third party lenses.

As far as being late to market, sure you can say that. It’s much easier for a new (to the market) company to jump in on a technology change than it is for an established company to walk away from their bread and butter and embrace something different. Canon, as the market leader, has an even tougher choice. I think Nikon did pretty well timing wise, and their first generation cameras seem broadly competitive with Sony’s third generation models, which is pretty respectable.
 
If you're a wedding or an event photographer, duel card slots are a must have, no doubt. I think what adds fuel to the fire is Sony took a lot of grief for years for not having 2 card slots and now they have them. With the new A series cameras, Sony in many ways, has set the standard for FF mirrorless and to come to the same market with anything less, is a miss in many peoples eyes.

XQD cards aren't cheap. Hopefully, other companies will begin to offer them to drive the price down. I believe Sony is the only one making them at the point and oddly enough, they doesn't use them in their cameras.


The problem with the dual card slots in the Sony is that one is fast the other is slow. I believe it slows down the writing process.

Canon 5D Mk 3 and 4 have dual slots (CF and SD.) Great idea but the SD slot is way slower and does slow down the writing process. Pretty much unusable after a 10 frame burst.
 
The A7III is very tempting but I plan to wait for quite some time to see how things play out.
 
The adapter is $150 with camera body purchase. I can live with that. And all reports are that it works very well. It’s even been shown to work on third party lenses.

As far as being late to market, sure you can say that. It’s much easier for a new (to the market) company to jump in on a technology change than it is for an established company to walk away from their bread and butter and embrace something different. Canon, as the market leader, has an even tougher choice. I think Nikon did pretty well timing wise, and their first generation cameras seem broadly competitive with Sony’s third generation models, which is pretty respectable.


Canon and Nikon refused to read the writing on the wall. They are getting their asses kicked by Sony because they were in denial for too long.

It seems to me that the major reason more professional photographers do not switch over is due to the cost of all new gear.
 
The problem with the dual card slots in the Sony is that one is fast the other is slow. I believe it slows down the writing process.

Canon 5D Mk 3 and 4 have dual slots (CF and SD.) Great idea but the SD slot is way slower and does slow down the writing process. Pretty much unusable after a 10 frame burst.

Yep that's a fairly standard complaint on cameras with dissimilar card slots. Like on the D500 and D850 lots of folks wind up using the SD or the XQD but not both. Some use SD because they are too cheap to buy XQD cards. Others use XQD only because SD slows it down.
 
Canon and Nikon refused to read the writing on the wall. They are getting their asses kicked by Sony because they were in denial for too long.

It seems to me that the major reason more professional photographers do not switch over is due to the cost of all new gear.

I don't think they are in denial, exactly. But it's hard for dominant companies to back away from their established money earning tech and go into something new. For one thing they don't want to anger their existing user bases by making them think the companies have abandoned them.
 
I don't think they are in denial, exactly. But it's hard for dominant companies to back away from their established money earning tech and go into something new. For one thing they don't want to anger their existing user bases by making them think the companies have abandoned them.


I have colleagues that have spoken to upper level management at Nikon and Canon. (I dealt with upper level Nikon management in the 1990's. They refused to see beyond what was in front of their face.) Both Nikon and Canon executives refused to see the advantages of mirrorless cameras.

I can imagine Canon is a bit more gun shy about switching because they alienated so many people with the change to EOS lenses.

Sony cameras work well with Canon lenses via adapters. That is the way Nikon and Canon could have made mirrorless possible. But no, they did not want to abandon flapping mirrors.
 
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Apparently they are selling so well, even without the dual slot, that Nikon has had to apologise for the fact that they aren't able to supply all the pre-orders that they have received. Oh, and I have never, touch wood, had a card fail on me.

The thing that I find interesting is the new lens mount. The throat is, well, wide. Is a larger than full frame sensor on the horizon maybe? Makes sense.

I shifted to Sony a while back, and for what I do my Nikon/Leica/whatever lenses work well with third party adaptors. But I will be looking at the next generation Nikon when it comes out. Maybe.
 
I have colleagues that have spoken to upper level management at Nikon and Canon. (I dealt with upper level Nikon management in the 1990's. They refused to see beyond what was in front of their face.) Both Nikon and Canon executives refused to see the advantages of mirrorless cameras.

I can imagine Canon is a bit more gun shy about switching because they alienated so many people with the change to EOS lenses.

Sony cameras work well with Canon lenses via adapters. That is the way Nikon and Canon could have made mirrorless possible. But no, they did not want to abandon flapping mirrors.

Hmm well I find it hard to believe that they don't now see the advantages of mirrorless. Maybe a while back that was the case.

Nikon does have an adapter to allow use of F mount lenses. Sounds like it works pretty well.

I think it's harder for Canon because they are the market leader. Its always hardest to make major changes when you are out in front like that.

The thing that I find interesting is the new lens mount. The throat is, well, wide. Is a larger than full frame sensor on the horizon maybe? Makes sense.

Yeah it's bigger. People are saying that maybe one day we will get a Nikon Z mount camera with an almost MF size sensor. That would be cool.
 
I'm not professional photographer, but I am serious when it comes to image quality and performance. Same with audio. Last year I was saving up for the Nikon D850. Then SONY seemingly came out of the blue and blew past Nikon and Canon. Nikon had to make a better foundation to stay competitive. SONY has a good head start. Not sure what Canon is doing. Technology and progress doesn't wait. If you wait long enough, there will always be something better. Wait to long and you'll loose the race.

I researched extensively and then invested quite a bit in SONY and I'm quite pleased. I won't be switching any time soon.
 
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