The Nikon Z6 Starts Shipping on November 16 (2018) Plus Holiday Promotions

[ilkka_nissila]

If the aperture is f/5.6 or wider, then the live view, focusing and taking of the picture happen using the same aperture, so between these operations there is no need to adjust the aperture. If the aperture is set to, e.g., f/8, then viewing and focusing happens at f/5.6, and there is a click when taking the picture as the aperture closes down.

[Andrew Garrard]

I do mind and that's why I avoided f/1.8 and f/1.2 lens. I much rather have the f/2.0 or f/1.4. I hate it when the lens maximum aperture is not on a full stop.

 

BeBu: Isn't this because you like setting the aperture with aperture rings, and therefore you don't always work in 1/3 stop increments? :-)

 

As Shun indicates, while I appreciate that I'm better off than some in this world, I have a lot of money sitting on a credit card at punitive interest (I should transfer it...), I'll be paying off my D850 for about the next 18 months, and I really give a combination of Nikon and various financial institutions more of my money than is advisable. On occasions I restrain myself, and I think a fast 58mm is a case where I should. If I cared about faster-than-f/1.4 primes, I wouldn't have switched away from Canon. Or I'd be using a 150mm f/2.8 on a 5x4.

 

A lens that fast is useful at a moderate distance, or for a specific effect; if you like a sharp eye in a blurry head shot, it'll do it. (Arguably so will a tilt-shift or a Lensbaby Velvet, but I don't dispute that they're slightly different things.) If you really want one and can afford it, or need one for a job, I absolutely believe it's justified. I've always bought lenses when I found I needed one for a shot that I couldn't take with my current glass; I don't see myself taking the kind of shot where a 58mm f/0.95 would be useful, but I don't deny that it exists. By a vaguely similar argument, I don't deny that the 55mm Otus is optically better than the 50mm Sigma Art - but for me it's not by enough that it would make up for missing focus because it's a manual lens, and certainly not by the extra £2000. YMMV.

 

I'm sure if Leica stopped at f/1.0, Nikon would have been happy to do so; since the Noctilux is an f/0.95 lens, Nikon couldn't make an f/1 optic because discussion sites would just say "Leica's still faster". Of course, Nikon have made f/1.0 lenses before, and Canon have made a 50mm f/0.95, just neither for SLR mounts; still, I believe Nikon missed a trick by not finding a way to make it autofocus, partly because of the challenge of locking in the focal plane and partly because an autofocus f/0.95 lens is actually a new thing. I do think Canon's f/2 zoom is likely to have a wider appeal, but there's no harm in a halo product. I've gawped at the view through a 6mm and drooled over a 300 f/2.

 

Canikon have to persuade customers that the new bodies actually benefit them. This means making the most of the EVF even if a lot of mirrorless bodies only have rear LCDs, it means smaller, lighter lenses for portability (although the Z6 is way heavier than a D3500 and also bigger), and it means trying to do things optically that the dSLR mounts couldn't. Unless someone has dropped the ball, the actual reason they want customers to use these bodies is that they're a lot cheaper to make. The same was true (but more so) of the 1 series, which made it especially galling that Nikon priced them in the D7x00 range - they were perfectly acceptable cameras at a sub-£300 price point. This doesn't make the other reasons less justified, but it does motivate the companies in the long term.

[BeBu Lamar]

BeBu: Isn't this because you like setting the aperture with aperture rings, and therefore you don't always work in 1/3 stop increments? :)

 

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No! Even if that was true I don't think the Z is capable of displaying f/0.95 any way. From f/1.0 to f/0.95 is less than 1/3 stop. I actually use in between stops when I shoot even with aperture ring. I found the aperture ring is quite linear on Nikon. Not so on the Pentax.

[ilkka_nissila]

Unless someone has dropped the ball, the actual reason they want customers to use these bodies is that they're a lot cheaper to make.

I don’t think that’s the case at all; Nikon note themselves that the initial cost of the new mirrorless system has reduced their profitability. The cost of developing the new EVF, the sensors, new AF technology, and supplying the camera with enough processing power that it can read and process the AF data from the sensor fast enough, that it can do full sensor 4K without line skipping, etc., a whole new lens lineup, all of that costs money. A DSLR primarily for still photography can function with relatively moderate computing power and while there are fewer focus points for sure, somehow the AF is still very effective in handling moving subjects.

 

All the mirrorless systems seem to come at premium prices to the users, and I don’t believe this is because the manufacturers got greedy, it is because it costs a lot of money to develop these things. Furthermore what increases costs is that there are many companies making mirrorless cameras so the volume of cameras and lenses that each manufacturer can expect to sell is much smaller than what the two dominant DSLR makers could sell for those systems. The variety and choice is not free.

 

Electronics and custom ICs are cheap when the manufacturer can expect to sell 100 million units, such as might be in the cell phone business. With full frame mirorrless we are talking about products that might sell 0.1%-0.2% of that volume. So the cost of development is a larger part of the purchase price.

[ShunCheung]

There is clearly initial cost to design an entirely new camera system and lenses. There could have been 10, 20 different Z camera prototypes but only one (or two?) survived as a product, but Nikon has to pay for those unused units as well. Not to mention that Nikon went through that process for the Nikon 1 mirrorless system, which eventually died. However, in the longer run, mirrorless should be much cheaper to make since it eliminates a complex mirrorbox and pentaprism. And lenses should be better also.

 

In any case, high-tech electronics is a fast changing field. Nikon and others cannot sit on old technology. Kodak is a very good example. It used to be a Dow Jones 30 stock in most of the 20th century, starting from 1930, but it was dropped from the Dow in 2004 and finally filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

[Andrew Garrard]

True, Ilkka; let's say the component and assembly cost reduces, so as a long-term prospect it's in the interests of the camera manufacturers to get there. But you and Shun are quite right that the R&D of making the first one has to cost money.

[mike_halliwell]

Any reason they started at 6?

 

......other than the 'current' single digit D is a 5!!;)

[Andrew Garrard]

Any reason they started at 6?

 

......other than the 'current' single digit D is a 5!!;)

 

Well, they're kind of aimed at the same market segment as the D6x0 and D7x0 (and D8x0). I suspect Sony's A7 naming convention came into it. I'm not sure what Nikon will do when they revise the bodies - whether they'll do a Canon "mk2" or something else.

 

I see the first sniffs of a D6 rumour are beginning to appear.