The long-awaited Nikon feature request list - part one

Hi all. For several years I've been promising to assemble a list of the feature requests that have been discussed on this forum, with the plan to do a survey and see which of these features people actually like (or hate) and pass the assembled data on to Nikon. I have no magic route to the development team, but I have to assume that requests are more likely to be considered if accompanied with some sense of how popular the feature would be - and the Nikon forum here is full of relatively experienced photographers who know their cameras.

 

Well, I've finally got around to it. This is a two-stage process: firstly that people have a look at what I've already described and offer additional suggestions for the document (either by posting further ideas here or by messaging me privately to do so - I'm retaining editing privileges to avoid conflicts). Once people have had a reasonable chance to contribute and the list is fairly complete (with the understanding that the idea request process could continue indefinitely if we waited long enough), I'll post a survey on which people can express their feelings about each proposal. Since this is planned, I don't really want us to discuss the merits of the ideas in the first pass, other than to refine them - several of the ideas already present are either irrelevant to me or would actively stop me from buying a camera.

 

To be clear, I've limited this list to features that Nikon haven't (I believe) implemented anywhere or have decided to remove in recent models - I've cross-referenced with my D850 and D810 (and some manuals). These are all relevant to dSLRs (with a special section for the Df), but many also apply to mirrorless bodies. I suspect Nikon has a team whose job it is to decide which features should be exposed on which models across the range in order to differentiate them - so requesting a MultiCAM-20K autofocus system in a D3500 successor probably doesn't belong in this list. I'm also not including incremental updates (increased shooting rate, more pixels, better eye detection) or anything to do with price. I do note that a lot of features listed could be (probably) implemented entirely in camera firmware - I imagine that features which are expensive to implement and add significantly to the cost of a camera body will not be considered unless they are useful to a large number of users (such as a large touchscreen LCD), so I doubt an interchangeable lens mount with EF compatibility is going to be worth proposing, for example.

 

Without further ado, the draft proposals list can be found here. (Note: I've only added a few illustrations to save time; I can add some more if I get feedback that some features need more explanation, or if you really want to see my updated Df proposal in its entirety.)

 

I've done my best to remember previous proposals and rummage through the forum history, but I'm sure I'll have missed quite a few, so fire away.

 

Thanks for any feedback!

Thanks for the likes - without any feedback I'm a bit worried that people are having trouble reading it, but I'm assuming I'm somewhere between having thought of everything and "TL;DR".

 

To make the latter worse, I've made a few changes: each suggestion has a comment in the speaker notes indicating why it might be a bad idea, I've split out the USB C suggestion from the dedicated storage suggestion (I think they're orthogonal), I added a suggestion for HEIF support and one for moving the front dial to a position where using it doesn't make the grip on the camera so secure.

 

Since we're not exactly overwhelmed with further suggestions, I'll give it a few more days and then do the "does anyone want any of this" survey - if you have something that you'er stewing on and want longer to think, please let me know.

Can we have user designated Focus Limiting please?

Can we have user designated Focus Limiting please?

 

Good one. Adding it.

A long list. Haven't found something that I want yet.

:-) If that means the things you want aren't in there, I look forward to adding your requests, BeBu. If you're completely satisfied with your camera, I'm happy for you (but Nikon won't be able to sell you anything). I hope you'll still vote, even if it's against everything!

Nicely done.

I would like to see what Olympus calls Pro Capture implemented on Nikon mirrorless cameras. The camera begins recording when the shutter is half pressed and records 20-30 retrograde images to capture action that would have otherwise been missed 1/2 a second or so before the photographer thinks to fully actuate the shutter release.

Good one. Adding it.

I guess it could be implements either numerically, ie 3 > 5m or maybe

 

Press 1 = near, Press 2 = far... ie now look/search from here to here, and no closer or further.

 

I'm sure Canon had something like this eons ago or was it a 'here to here' means use f16 or somesuch? Can't remember!

:) If that means the things you want aren't in there, I look forward to adding your requests, BeBu. If you're completely satisfied with your camera, I'm happy for you (but Nikon won't be able to sell you anything). I hope you'll still vote, even if it's against everything!

I want to be able to program the program mode. If I can I would use it as of now I don't use it because the preprogrammed is wrong for me. I would like to have accurate shutter speed and aperture (minimum better than 1/10 stop). But if they changed to full electronic shutter then it's not an issue for shutter speed. Aperture is still a problem but I found with older cameras the apertures are more accurate than shutter speed.

I also would like the camera to display accurate focused distance.

I don't care much for the metering with old lenses although I use old lenses quite often. I don't really need a meter.

I also would like the camera to display accurate focused distance

Yup, I'll second that.

Maybe combined with a realtime readout of DoF.

Thanks, all.

 

2Oceans: is slide 42 what you want? Can I tweak it for you?

 

Mike: I'll tweak slide 9 to request quick selection (button press/button+dial) between preconfigured ranges - is that what you're after?

 

BeBu: How would you like to change program mode? Just checking what you want beyond program shift.

 

Exact shutter I have on slide 14 (not that I know how the Nikon shutter works - I imagine at least electronic shutter should be possible at arbitrary speed).

 

Exact aperture - can I check what you want it for? I imagine there's a difference between precise changes to the current aperture (as in power aperture), repeatability (what the aperture ring was good at), and actually having a defined value. I suspect we're looking at E aperture lenses in order to take some of the slop out of the equation. I was under the impression they'd already improved the repeatability thing, and that removing variation from time lapses was one of the goals for E aperture, but I could be wrong.

 

Focus distance - I'll add that to hardware features. If "D" lenses only divide distance into about 20 sections, it'll need a new lens protocol, which I suspect is going to be a harder sell on the F mount than a new body feature; you might get it in Z (if it's not already there). Why do you need to know? (Could you mount a golf rangefinder to the hot shoe?)

Progammed Mode:

The camera pick a combination of shutter speed and aperture based on the meter reading. Assuming that you agree with the meter I would like to be able to program which combination of shutter speed and aperture the camera would pick for each of the EV value.

What I want exact aperture for? I want the camera to set exactly the value I tell it to.

So you want program shift to be applied automatically but differently depending on EV? I thought my "configurable exposure" was complicated. :-) Any thoughts on what the interface should look like?

 

Do you want to be able to specify a still photo with exactly the same exposure as applying a bit of power aperture in video mode? Or do you just want f/4 to be more exactly f/4? I've wondered about 1/6 stops before (1/2 stops lets you set values 1/3 stops doesn't). Given the differences in T-stop between lenses, the bokeh behaviour and manufacturing/mechanical tolerances, I'm just trying to understand what behaviour is actually needed so the right cost/performance trade-off might be made. I doubt old lenses are anything like accurate to 1/10 of a stop, but for one lens a given mechanical aperture ring setting might be quite consistent.

So you want program shift to be applied automatically but differently depending on EV? I thought my "configurable exposure" was complicated. :) Any thoughts on what the interface should look like?

 

Do you want to be able to specify a still photo with exactly the same exposure as applying a bit of power aperture in video mode? Or do you just want f/4 to be more exactly f/4? I've wondered about 1/6 stops before (1/2 stops lets you set values 1/3 stops doesn't). Given the differences in T-stop between lenses, the bokeh behaviour and manufacturing/mechanical tolerances, I'm just trying to understand what behaviour is actually needed so the right cost/performance trade-off might be made. I doubt old lenses are anything like accurate to 1/10 of a stop, but for one lens a given mechanical aperture ring setting might be quite consistent.

 

The interface would be a PC and it would look like a spreadsheet. Download to the caimera. I don't need nor want a lot of buttons or touchscreen interaction with the camera.

I want f/4 to be exacty f/4 (true aperture and not T stop) 1/3 stop increment is fine. Just need f/4 is f/4.

Ok, thanks, I'll document that re. Program mode.

 

To be clear, what's your definition of f/4 in these circumstances? Average diameter at the entrance aperture divided by focal length? Anything without a perfectly circular aperture has a funny definition. Do you still want Nikon's traditional thing of varying the reported aperture by focus distance, compared with Canon's traditional fixed aperture value? (Nikon reporting a typical f/2 macro lens at 1:1 as being f/4?)

 

Perhaps I should ask what kind of "not f/4" you're seeing? If it's just a matter of consistency, that's likely more to do with the slop in the lens aperture mechanics than the aperture lever movement on the camera, and E aperture should, I think, have fixed it.

An "Auto ISO Mode" that lets the user set both Shutter Speed and Aperture, with the Auto--ISO automatically adjust (using the lowest ISO value possible) to provide the correct exposure. Currently, we need to use the "Manual" mode with Auto-ISO to do this - which is not a problem, but many end up not using this incredible convenience.

Sorry Andrew, so far I only managed to read a few of the suggestions - just swamped with things to do.

Mary - so the functionality is okay but you'd like it to be labelled like the Pentax TAv mode? I imagine a bit of a disconnect between models (it's ok for bodies with a "mode" button, but you can't really retrofit it to hard-wired mode dials), but I appreciate that for some manual mode is "wrong".

 

In some sense the whole SPAM thing is broken by auto ISO, and we should talk about what's allowed to change and over what range - which comes back to my complicated configurable exposure modulation thing.

 

(Also, I notice Pentax has a single button to press to turn on raw shooting, which might be useful if the shot of a lifetime happens in the middle of a card-filling sequence.)

 

Dieter - no problem, it's taken me forever to write this up. Let me know if you think you'll never get to it and I shouldn't wait for you!

 

BeBu - I worry I sound argumentative; I'm just trying to make sure I describe what you want properly...

 

I wonder whether the D6 will pick off any of this?

Updated. At the time of writing:

• I renamed "metering" to "exposure" for consistency.
  
• "TAv" mode (Mary) is described on slide 30.
  
• Quick range selection (Mike) added to slide 9.
  
• Precise distance information and display described on slide 10 (I'm concerned about the lens protocol limitations for this one, and added an interpolation suggestion).
  
• Spreadsheet override for Program exposure mode (BeBu) is slide 27.
  
• Exact aperture setting (BeBu) is slide 16 (after exact shutter speed) - but I'm not sure I've captured BeBu's needs properly.
  
• 1/6 stop exposure mode added (slide 17).
  
• 1/8 stop power aperture readout added (slide 60), unless I did it wrong when experimenting.
  
• Dial acceleration added (slide 42).
  
• Push-to-select-raw added to the image area request (slide 34).
  

I feel better that I didn't think of everything in the first pass - although BeBu's "exact aperture" thing still worries me.

Another update: I've added notes to the things that I've noticed interact with the D6 specs (USB C, fully-programmable buttons[?], new autofocus module, and I added a slide 36 that matches the D6's apparent ability to change multiple settings with a single programmable button - I may have more to say when I've seen how the D6 implements this).

D6.

 

Well, this is intersting...

 

Advanced customizations.

The D6 has a total of 14 buttons that can be personalized with

up to 46 different functions for quick, intuitive access to your favorite settings.

 

Oh, and built in GPS wasn't on your list...:)

 

EDIT. Ah, you got there first. p.net didn't refresh on time!

Edited February 12, 2020 by mike_halliwell

Built in GPS wasn't on my list because I had a thing about sending annotations including GPS from a phone (also the phone can cross reference with phone networks and WiFi). Having had corporate warnings about it, I mostly consider GPS tracking of images to be a security risk. But if pros want it... (Do pros want it? And also, who on earth is buying a D6 or D850 and using Instagram filters applied in the camera?)

 

I'm curious about the controls. I added a note to my document saying the D6 may have done this, and if they have, good (please back port it to older bodies). But being cynical, they might just mean the 14 buttons (I don't believe there are new ones over the D5, but I've clarified that the third front button is one I want on multi-digit bodies) are assignable to something - not necessarily that all 46 functions can be assigned to each button. Let's hope I'm wrong. First rule of software engineering human interfaces, any arbitrary decision or restriction you apply is going to inconvenience somebody.

What I don't get is 14. If it was 3 Fn buttons with 4 subsets, that's 12, If it's 4 Fn buttons with 3 subsets it's 12. 4 x 4 is 16... 5 x 3 is 15.

 

7 x 2?

? 14 separate buttons. Looking at a D5 manual for reference:

 

Front:

1 Pv

2 Fn1

3 Fn2 (envious)

 

Portrait grip:

4 Fn button (vertical)

 

Rear:

5 AF-on

6 AF-on (vertical)

7 joystick centre (sub selector)

8 joystick centre (vertical multi selector)

9 Fn3

 

Top:

10 Movie rec

11 Meter (according to the image above)

12 Bkt (according to the image above)

 

Lens:

13 Lens button(s)

 

Maybe you can also override Qual and WB? Not that you can reach them. Overriding i might be useful. And some day I'll work out who thought separate i and Info buttons were a good idea. Probably the same person who decided that "photo shooting", "custom settings" and "setup menu" were sensible groupings.

The 14th button may be ISO.