DX Mirrorless?

[Andrew Garrard]

I assume BeBu specifically meant that should the sensor size change, the mount should be sized appropriately, rather than everything being proprietary (from a user perspective, I suspect everyone agreeing on, say, the L-mount alliance would be most helpful).

 

To get it out of the way, standards (which I'm allowed to say because I work in standards), and

. (Don't get me started on someone who recently suggested our documentation be sized to 210x279mm as a common subset of Letter and A4...)

 

There were good reasons for Nikon to do something other than the F mount for mirrorless - Pentax tried the alternative, and were soundly ridiculed for it. Besides, Z mount is more flexible (and adaptor-friendly) than just allowing lenses to intrude into where the mirror box would have been (like the old fish-eyes). While it's possible to stretch a sensor under a lens mount (Pentax again) I don't think CX was ever going to be a useful start, even if there was a reason to preserve it.

 

That leaves two questions:

• If Nikon do DX mirrorless, should it share the Z mount or have something else?
  
• If Nikon do larger than FX, should it have a new mount?
  

For the former, Canon went for "different" - EF-M (APS-C) is incompatible with RF. Sony went for "same" and squeezed a full-frame sensor into the E mount. Nikon are unusual in doing full frame first (if they do DX). Without having handled one of the Z bodies, I can't really judge whether Z mount wastes a large amount of space that I'd want back on a DX-coverage lens, or expands the throat enough to limit a DX body. Given Nikon's justifiable DX history of "just buy the FX telephoto lens" and slightly less justifiable history of "and upgrade if you want a wide angle", I suspect compatibility would be the safer route - the biggest risk with the Z (and RF) mount is the time it takes the lens line to fill in, and stretching that risk across two sensors is not in anyone's interest. Nikon and Canon did the "we have a lot of 35mm lenses, please use them on our crop bodies" thing and benefitted hugely from it in the time it took, say, the micro 4/3 people and Fuji to get their dedicated lens line together.

 

As for bigger than FX, obviously that takes us back towards losing the supposed benefits of the Z mount (in terms of being able to route light from well outside the sensor area) - but given how shallow the Z mount is, you could argue "not by much". There are medium format mounts that are smaller than the sensor/film that fits under them (most of them, in fact) - indeed, the F mount is barely larger than the diagonal of 35mm film - but they all have space between the mount and sensor to route the light. While I'm unsure how restrictive the mount actually is, Canon have clearly managed to get AF f/1.0 and 1.2 lenses into the EF mount and Nikon have never gone past a manual f/1.2. So you could go a bit bigger, and Z mount is just larger than the (small) medium format 43.8x32.9mm 50MP Sony sensor used by Fuji, Hasselblad, Phase One (I think) et al. - but I think you'd be quite optically compromised at the edges for light path, so I'd expect at best a lot of vignetting. Reviews show only a small benefit over the D850 sensor anyway, although a 100MP sensor may change that.

 

But what's the benefit of medium format in a Z mount? You could use Z mount lenses, which are probably going to be quite limited in coverage in general - but you're paying a lot of money (both because it's big and because it's rare) for a large sensor body and mostly using a crop subset, like sticking DX lenses on a D3x. You could buy medium format lenses to "plan ahead" for a future upgrade, in the way that many of us were a little wary of DX/EF-S lenses when we used crop bodies because we thought we might go full frame at some point - but medium format lenses tend to be very big, expensive, and not as fast as for smaller formats, so that's not the appealing trade-off that you got from a used market full of F or EF lenses.

 

So... If I were Nikon, if I were going to do DX mirrorless at all, I'd keep the Z mount. But if I went for a bigger sensor, I'd put a new mount on it. But I know nothing about product planning, obviously.

[mike_halliwell]

Maybe the extra throat size allows more space for an advanced pixelshift mechanism for effectively either much less noisy pics or 'more' pixels?

 

The pixelshifted images I've seen have been very clean.

 

So, a 44mm x 44mm sensor would fit the mount, but maybe not the image circle?

 

Maybe the image circles of current Z-Mount lenses are masked off? Whose got one to look at or indeed project the circle at the Z flange distance?

[Andrew Garrard]

I wondered about extra room for shifting - although if we're talking DX, that's a lot of room. The multi-shot exposures done by recent phones seem generally to be effective, and more immune to interference than some shifting (like stacking star photos lets you avoid the frames where someone turns a light on or you trip over the tripod), although a little jitter (and ability to control moire) has merits.

 

A 44x44 sensor has a 62mm diagonal - so no, it won't fit in the 55mm Z mount. If you want a square sensor, you're looking at a 38mm edge, which if you believe my assertions that most images are best cropped to a non-square aspect ratio would make me dubious about the benefits over FX. The 44x33mm(ish) sensors are probably a bit more plausible, but gaining a stop or so but (maybe) adding a lot of vignetting is a slightly iffy trade-off to me.

 

The Fuji G mount for their 44x33mm bodies has a 65mm throat, FWIW.

[mike_halliwell]

most images are best cropped to a non-square aspect ratio

I quite like square and then crop to taste later rather than rotate the camera at shooting time...;)

 

I was mentally thinking about flange distance, not throat diameter...Doh!

 

Maybe the space is for a fantastic new FX pixel shifting/IBIS control.....:D

 

I always thought the amount of rotation within the lens/flange mount was to allow full rotary connection with the comms pins starting from a clean, full depth entry. Bit like an artillery screw breech.

[BeBu Lamar]

My argument is the lens mount should be optimized for the format. The disadvantage is you will have to have different lens line for each. However, i don't want to use lenses designed for a different format and thus it wouldn't cost any more from a consumer stand point. A lens designed for a larger format should have larger coverage and this cost money yet a lens designed for the smaller format must have higher resolution as they tend to have higher pixel density. So a lens for larger format the cost will go toward coverage and a lens for small format the cost should go to resolution.

[Andrew Garrard]

That's certainly the ideal, BeBu. I think the issue is that lens development takes time, and the more different formats that are required, the longer it'll take for the lenses to exist (and the more they'll cost because the price isn't amortised across formats). Sigma get away with making decent lenses affordably and at a high rate because they can share their research (and to an extent manufacturing) work load across all the formats their lenses support. While there are certainly size and cost advantages to making a DX-specific 35mm lens (for example) I doubt APS-C dSLRs would have got off the ground as quickly as they did if the existing SLR line ups couldn't be used with them - as Nikon are doing with their F-mount adaptor for Z bodies. As a result, there are a lot of zoom DX lenses covering focal lengths which would be hard to do given the coverage of an FX sensor, but also a lot of lenses that have never acquired a DX version. There have, however, been some lenses that nominally have FX coverage but are very compromised outside the DX image circle - the 70-200 mk1 and the pre-Art Sigma 50mm HSM spring to mind.

 

That does raise a different question, though: what priority should be given to aspects of lenses, and how is this affected by sensor technology? Manufacturing tolerance puts an effective limit on the idea of putting an ultra-high pixel density sensor in a body and expecting the lens to resolve to it maximally, although there are many D8x0 users who'd argue that they're still getting useful information above a limit that some commentators have claimed was possible.

 

My understanding is that there's a trade-off between absolute resolution and contrast - that raising the per-pixel contrast for a 6MP sensor, for example, may reduce the contrast at the 36MP limit. That could well be a misconception, and obviously there are many trade-offs involved that make it an oversimplification - and it was probably more true when anti-reflection coatings were less effective and sticking to very simple lens designs was more beneficial. Still, I've often thought that a graph showing the surface of contrast plotted against radius and resolution would be interesting - effectively you could pick a line through it based on the sensor you plan to stick it on (and to an extent what you're planning to do with the image). It might show, for example, that it's not worth upgrading an 18-200mm zoom for a 6MP DX body, but that it's limiting at 24MP - or that my 28-200 was producing good results on the D700, but fell apart somewhere between that and the D8x0 bodies.

 

There are other aspects to lens design too. Reduced contrast is sometimes considered beneficial as a way to reduce the scene's dynamic range (if that's where you're limited); certainly there are lenses with halation or other undercorrected spherical aberrations that have a softening effect that some find flattering (though I'd generally rather have control over that in post-processing). There are lenses that have dispensed with smooth bokeh to achieve sharpness (I'd suggest the 85mm f/1.8 AF-D), but countering that a soft lens with smooth bokeh tends to get outlining on its bokeh the moment you try to sharpen the result. I have a personal dislike of LoCA and, to a lesser extent, cat's-eye mechanical vignetting, and prefer the out-of-focus regions of my images to be as non-distracting as possible; I'd often trade some absolute sharpness for those goals, at least for some images. (On the other hand, I have a Petzval lens when I specifically want interesting bokeh effects.) Nikon tried this with the 58mm f/1.4 AF-S, although personally I'm not all that sold on the benefits in the images and tests I've seen; the same is absolutely true of the DC lenses. I stand by the goal, though. Likewise I love the sharpness of the 14-24, but the field curvature bugs me to the point where I rarely shoot it at f/2.8, so it's effectively an enormous f/7.1 lens for me. Software is at the stage where it ought to be possible for users to have far more direct control of lens features - we really ought to be at the point where someone can go to a lens company and, at least with spherical lenses with limited electronics, say "please grind this formula for me" and have an automated result that's semi-affordable (maybe that happens). Not to say that mass-production doesn't have its merits.

 

Anyway... where I was going with that is to suggest that maybe even with the same aperture and focal length, the "best" lens for (say) a D850 may not be the same as the "best" lens for a D5 - or Df. Falling apart outside the DX circle is one aspect of it (the "best" 50mm for a D7200 may well not be the same as the best for a D850, where retaining resolution over a larger image circle matters), but there are other parameters too. (Probably we should also be considering colour response, light angles and other things that may be affected by the sensor, too. Certainly IR hotspots are an issue in some circumstances, or the reverse if you actively want to block IR from your sensor, and I've seen sites that suggest different lenses for different shooting apertures.) We're lucky that there's a point in the design space where some reasonable number of customers may be reasonably happy under a moderate range of shooting conditions.

 

Lens design is complicated. Now Nikon should make a lot more of them, and cheaper. :-)

[Andrew Garrard]

I quite like square and then crop to taste later rather than rotate the camera at shooting time...;)

 

I'm aware of the argument, and I certainly try to shoot a little wider than I need for later cropping (often not as much as I should). Still, you're paying in image circle and especially sensor area for wanting to do that. Given that sometimes I want less square than 3:2, I'd find somewhere around 4:3 or 3:2 a better trade-off than always starting square - rotating the camera isn't usually too difficult. And there's a recent xkcd which (indirectly) brings up circular sensors...

[mike_halliwell]

brings up circular sensors...

There's still that Nikon patent for curved sensors too...!

[Andrew Garrard]

I'm still unconvinced about curved sensors - is it not the case that you'd need a specific curve for the lens? If you're allowed arbitrary curves, isn't a flat sensor a special case of a curved sensor that corresponds to the inside (or outside) of an infinite sphere?

 

That said, enough people have tried to think about them that I presume there's some merit in the concept that I don't understand.

[Dieter Schaefer]

Without having handled one of the Z bodies, I can't really judge whether Z mount wastes a large amount of space that I'd want back on a DX-coverage lens, or expands the throat enough to limit a DX body.

I did handle a Z7 (if only for a weekend) - the body is slightly smaller than a D7500 (width and height) and weighs some 150g or so less - and given the fact that I had to add a battery grip to the D7100/D7200 when using the 200-500 (for better balance), I am not fond of using a Z6/Z7-size body with large lenses. Even a 70-200/4 attached to a Sony A7II to me requires attaching the battery grip - and there still isn't even one for Nikon's Z cameras. F-mount DX lenses are already larger than they have to be - having to account for the FX-sized flange-to-sensor distance. DX Z-mount lenses at the very least would have to flare out at the mount - or be even larger than their F-mount brethren altogether if the same tendency to larger and heavier lenses to achieve better optical quality also holds for the Z-mount DX system.

 

I strongly doubt that Nikon has the resource to create a Z-mount-based DX lens system; and even less so for one with a smaller mount.

 

I am still flabbergasted why Nikon followed the Sony lead on making the Z-bodies small (though slightly larger than Sony's) - is it because that's the only way to "make good" on the weight-saving promise? I don't know how heavy the mirror box is in a DSLR - but part of the weight saving associated with losing it must be taken up by the inclusion of the IBIS system in the mirrorless bodies.

[orsetto]

I am still flabbergasted why Nikon followed the Sony lead on making the Z-bodies small (though slightly larger than Sony's)

 

^^^^THIS^^^^, absolutely. Given the immediate Z launch game plan (and everything they've hinted at for the near future), the Z system is optimized for premium FX lens quality, size be damned (yeah, the Z zooms are a bit smaller than F-mount but the primes aren't any smaller than Sony's Zeiss lineup). Nikon has hinted at smaller "budget, meh quality" Z lenses in the pipeline for potential future (maybe never) budget Z bodies. But for now, for reals, the emphasis is on premium lenses via larger size. So then why bother slavishly aping the too-small Sony bodies, if the coordinating compact lenses are 3 years away? Who benefits?

 

Sony at least had the motivation of being first out the gate: the small body size cleverly appealed to the predicted then-new breed of adapted lens enthusiasts, particularly Leica (until the variably crap results with anything M below 50mm wiped the bloom off that rose right quick). Nikon has no such aims at broadening near-term body sales by appealing to rangefinder lens fans: Nikon wants to sell new Nikon Z lenses, period. And those new lenses are mostly big, honking "halo" lenses. The mismatch between smallish Z body and large-trending lenses makes no logical sense in terms of Nikon's apparent business plan for the system- they sacrificed battery capacity, heat management and card slots for essentially nothing. Throw in the cringeworthy FTZ mess, and the small introductory Z body size is just a total headscratcher.

 

Re the Pentax "mirrorless mirrorbox" fiasco: Nikon is not Pentax. There are millions of F mount lenses in the world, AF and manual, that would've been nicely hosted by an inventive Nikon version of the failed Pentax concept (say, preserving screw-drive AF and AI coupling in a revised niche mirrorless Df2). The ever-declining market for new cameras means it wouldn't be financially viable today, but in an ideal world we'd get that third option. A midrange F-mount body with EVF would make a great backup for MF glass (and less demanding AF tasks), offering functionality the Z + FTZ solution can't match. But Z6 is what we got, and Z6 is what we shall have. I'll dump my supplementary A7II when second-hand Zs drop in price a bit.

Edited March 6, 2019 by orsetto

[Dieter Schaefer]

I'll dump my supplementary A7II when second-hand Zs drop in price a bit.

I won't - it's trading one sub-optimal camera for another - but the main clincher is lenses. IMHO, Nikon made the mistake of coming out with a 24-70/4 instead of a 24-105/4 (like Canon and Panasonic); at least Nikon's 24-70/4 is optically vastly superior to Sony's Zeiss-branded disaster (Sony released a cheap variable aperture 28-70 at the same time; the lens turns in (predictably) an even worse performance). Sony corrected the mistake with a "as good as it gets" 24-105/4 some 4 years later; I am not sure when (or even if) Nikon will counter (certainly not soon). With the Z6/Z7 as initially released, Nikon focused on things where Sony is weak; only now with the to-be-released firmware update to they take aim at an area where Sony is strong (Eye-AF - though that also took Sony three camera generations). Trading an A7II for a Z6 gives a better handling camera with a better EVF, and a better menu system; I am much more likely to upgrade to an A7III though instead of switching to a Z6. Not doing that though before the next generation Nikon and Sony have been released.

 

they sacrificed battery capacity, heat management and card slots for essentially nothing

Indeed!!! Canon offers some EG-E1 grip extension for the RP - I am wondering why not one manufacturer has gotten the idea of making the battery the (preferably built-in) "grip extension" - imagine the capacity of such a large battery! It was obvious from the get-go that mirrorless camera would use up batteries faster than DSLRs - yet instead of maximizing battery size, the minimized the camera body and then realized that there's not enough space to put in an adequate battery (and again it took three camera generations until Sony (half-) fixed the issue (something they could have done from the start - apparently there was enough space in that small body to accommodate a larger battery and two card slots). Why Nikon, being very late to the party, only half-copied that approach I fail to comprehend.

 

particularly Leica (until the variably crap results with anything M below 50mm wiped the bloom off that rose right quick)

I fell for that one - that was one expensive mistake. Try using the Voigtlander 21/4 on an A7:eek:. Or an Summicron 35/2 ASPH:eek:.

 

inventive Nikon version of the failed Pentax concept

Allegedly, Nikon discussed (and probably tried) many different approaches before finally settling (allegedly after flip-flopping a few times) for the new Z-mount and FX as their "1st" serious commitment (omitting the 1 Series) to mirrorless.

[Andrew Garrard]

So you're in the Panasonic DC-S market? (Bigger, heavier full-frame mirrorless.)

 

I can see the merit in a smaller body for portability - I was mildly advocating for an SLR with a collapsible mirror box at one point, and I was also pushing for a sub-D600 without the aperture ring or AF motor (or pentaprism), which shouldn't be appreciably heavier than a Z-series. I'm not sure the Z series are exactly in the "body in one pocket, lens in another" class that some micro 4/3 bodies aspire to. I'm sympathetic to that being a different product than a replacement for a high-end DSLR, though. (Whether Olympus should have made a huge micro 4/3 body is another matter.)

 

A pentaprism does add a bit to the weight of a camera - as you can tell by the weight of the removable finder on an F5, or by comparing a pentaprism SLR to a pentamirror one (the Eos 620 vs Eos 500 that I own, for example). For the lenses I own, this generally doesn't make a detectable difference to portability and barely to balance, but it may well be different if I started using my 28-80 in anger.

[BeBu Lamar]

I don't care for a small camera unless I can put it in my pocket.

[ilkka_nissila]

I am still flabbergasted why Nikon followed the Sony lead on making the Z-bodies small (though slightly larger than Sony's) - is it because that's the only way to "make good" on the weight-saving promise? I don't know how heavy the mirror box is in a DSLR - but part of the weight saving associated with losing it must be taken up by the inclusion of the IBIS system in the mirrorless bodies.

 

The Z7 is 675g and D850 is 1005g so the weight saving there is very real. I think it's partly because of the lack of the prism and housing, lack of separate AF sensor, lack of separate RGB metering array, lack of separate AF motor, lack of mirror mechanism, and thinner body shell (because the body can be thinner, the magnesium chassis is smaller as well). Yes, if you included a larger battery, dual cards etc. some weight increase would be inevitable, but this is what they came up with. Some people will say it's too small and some that it's too big, so eventually there will be different products on the market to suit different preferences.

 

The IBIS weight is mitigated in that lenses such as 24-70/2.8 lose weight by not having to include the VR system in the lens. And a lot of people like in-body VR. It has the ability to compensate for some movements that in-lens VR cannot, such as when pressing the shutter release, the camera body easily rotates a bit, and it can stabilize smaller lenses that would be otherwise more complicated optically, even manual focus lenses are stabilized. This is a very popular feature. I am not saying about its' importance - personally I don't use VR all that much even when I have it available, preferring fast shutter speeds. But Nikon are a business and the in-body VR has consumer appeal. Furthermore they are spared of the difficulties in designing lenses that can tolerate some groups moving laterally and still produce a decent enough image, so this opens up lens design options that were discouraged in the past two decades because of need to do in-lens VR.

 

To me the Z6 and Z7 are remarkably well-sized and -shaped, although obviously a bit small for use with large and heavy lenses. But who says that this system is for large and heavy lenses? The 24-70/2.8 already lost some weight (just looking at specs, haven't tried it myself) and the 14-30/4 is much smaller and lighter than the 16-35/4. The f/1.8 primes seem to have more complex optical systems than their DSLR equivalents (the 35mm and 50mm that we know about, at least) aiming for a higher image quality but the size and weight are not that much worse, and clearly these are not too large or heavy to be used on the Z6 and Z7 bodies. So, the f/4 zooms and the 24-70/2.8 are smaller and lighter than equivalent (high quality) F mount lenses would be, and the 70-200/2.8 is probably similar to the 70-200/2.8 FL for the F mount, but that already lost weight compared to its predecessor, thanks to the use of FL elements, so the progression towards lighter weight is met in the broader timeline. The f/1.8 S line primes constitute five lenses so far in the roadmap, and presumably they will all be manageable in size and weight. To me it sounds like a very smartly and soundly designed lineup. According to Sony, their E mount camera buyers all pretty much say the same thing: they bought it (over competing products) for the small size and light weight. I think Nikon's Z6 and Z7 body sizes, shapes and weights are very good design, and much nicer to handle than Sony bodies (which have too narrow a gap between camera main grip and lens barrel in some cases, at least for my fingers). So, overall, it seems a good compromise. Panasonic and Canon seem to have made a bit larger bodies, let's see how they sell.

[Andrew Garrard]

In use, I need it to be big enough to hold onto - and if the controls are too crammed, that's a negative. For travel, pocketable is nice, but I'd also take folding flat and fitting in my camera bag wedged between other things, at least in a back-up body. Hence I guess the various collapsible lens designs, but I maintain that a collapsible mirror box and pentamirror, and a grip that folded out through 90 degrees, would give you an essentially flat package (and a small matter of engineering to make the tolerances...tolerable...) - with mirrorless the difficulty is again the grip and the finder complexity.

 

We may be ignoring the half of the population predisposed to smaller hands, so I'm a bit wary of a claim that there's no benefit to a smaller camera body. Nikon pushed the 1 series at women (not with great subtlety); I don't know whether there's any greater uptake of the Z series based on gender compared with the larger dSLRs, although there's infamously the "soccer mom" low-end dSLR crowd (who may be stuck at that point for ergonomics rather than price point, now I think about it). I've got quite large hands, and I'd probably not want to go much bigger than a D5, but then I suppose it's intended to allow shooting with gloves as an option. Or Nikon could sell an accessory.

[ilkka_nissila]

Sony at least had the motivation of being first out the gate: the small body size cleverly appealed to the predicted then-new breed of adapted lens enthusiasts, particularly Leica (until the variably crap results with anything M below 50mm wiped the bloom off that rose right quick).

 

Sony did not plan for this, either, it just happened. Nikon at least use a thinner optics over the sensor so the Leica lenses may work a bit better on the Z cameras.

 

Nikon has no such aims at broadening near-term body sales by appealing to rangefinder lens fans: Nikon wants to sell new Nikon Z lenses, period.

 

Of course, but there are already dozens of adapters available for the Z to take other systems' lenses and more are on the way. Because Nikon have thinner cover glass, adapted lenses will probably have fewer corner issues, and because Nikon have shorter flange back distance, everyone else's lenses can be eventually adapted to Z cameras. So you could argue they made the most flexible mount in that their cameras can take almost any lens.

 

And those new lenses are mostly big, honking "halo" lenses.

 

Not at all, there are two very compact, collapsible f/4 zooms (the 24-70/4 is already very highly regarded in terms of its optics), five f/1.8 primes that are small enough to be very comfortable to use on the Z bodies introduced so far. Because it is intended eventually to appeal to professionals, they also included two fast normal options, and the three f/2.8 zooms, but already we know the 24-70/2.8 saves some length and weight compared to its F mount equivalent. To me the lens line planned seems very well thought out.

 

The mismatch between smallish Z body and large-trending lenses makes no logical sense in terms of Nikon's apparent business plan for the system- they sacrificed battery capacity, heat management and card slots for essentially nothing. Throw in the cringeworthy FTZ mess, and the small introductory Z body size is just a total headscratcher.

 

I haven't heard of overheating Z bodies. Could you point a link of such reports? Thanks.

[orsetto]

I haven't heard of overheating Z bodies. Could you point a link of such reports? Thanks.

 

I was speaking in terms of engineering / feature challenges that would have been eased by a slightly larger body: Nikon is of course skilled enough to not make their new Z bodies overheat at launch. Also agree with all your other points answering mine: perhaps there was a misunderstanding? I wasn't slamming the Z bodies: they're quite nice actually. I intend to eventually trade my Sony A7II for a Z: having both my DSLR and mirrorless bodies output similar files will save me a lot of menu missteps and post headaches.

 

Dieter_Schaefer and I were just debating the finer points of marketing logic: it is a bit odd that Nikon did not try to differentiate at least one of the two Zs from the Sony "too small" paradigm. As we've seen repeatedly in recent years whether a system is DSLR or mirrorless: FX is FX. The best new AF lenses are invariably out of proportion to the somewhat incongruous trend of smallish mirrorless FX bodies. Unless Nikon, Canon or Sony borrows a leaf from Leica and fields a niche FX mirrorless with highly modified sensor optimized for a subset of small rangefinder-sized lenses, the shrunken lightweight bodies are of minimal benefit and unnecessarily constrained in some respects. Otherwise, high resolution FX sensors + primary market being obsessed pixel peepers = large and/or heavy new AF lenses.

[Dieter Schaefer]

A pentaprism does add a bit to the weight of a camera

I think it's partly because of the lack of the prism and housing, lack of separate AF sensor, lack of separate RGB metering array, lack of separate AF motor, lack of mirror mechanism, and thinner body shell (because the body can be thinner, the magnesium chassis is smaller as well).

Yep, I definitely forgot to account for the weight of the pentaprism and forgot to mention the weight savings due to the smaller camera body. I had assumed that the weight of the other missing items would be compensated for by the inclusion of IBIS. Obviously, Nikon makes DSLRs that are lighter than the D8x0 (a D750 is a lot closer in weight to a Z6 than it is to a D8x0; it may not be as rugged as either though).

To me the Z6 and Z7 are remarkably well-sized and -shaped, although obviously a bit small for use with large and heavy lenses.

That's exactly what I wanted to convey. I was fine with the D7100/D7200 and am fine with the A7II and A7RII and small to medium-size lenses; the issue is with larger and heavier ones (and for the Sony bodies that already starts with the 70-200/4 (not exactly what I consider large and heavy). Using the Nikon 70-200/4 on the D7100/D7200 posed no issues - they came up with something more the size and weight of the 80-400. I am working on carrying/supporting more with my left hand - but in particular when panning with larger and heavier lenses, I find it advantageous when I also have a good solid grip on the camera body with my right hand. And as strange as it may sound, there is such a thing as "too light" in that scenario - I was surprised on how much I had to adjust my panning technique when using light lenses like the 300/4E PF VR or the 70-200/4 as opposed to the AF-S 80-400 or the 200-500.

 

Making the Z6/Z7 ever so slightly taller would have made space for the 2nd card slot; camera height wasn't an issue (for me) with the D7100/D7200, camera width was - and here the Z6/Z7 is ever so slightly smaller (and more space is taken up by the increased mount diameter). For me, there was precious little space between my fingers and, for example, the 80-400's tripod ring - so it stands to reason that things aren't better with the Z6/Z7 (unless the mount has been moved farther away from the grip).

 

having both my DSLR and mirrorless bodies output similar files

Based on my short experience with the Z7, that's not at all the case. Adobe now reads the Z6/Z7 camera settings and applies them - so even when shooting RAW a lot more attention has to be paid to the in-camera JPEG settings. With Nikon's DSLRs, Adobe Standard provided a decent-enough starting point that I never really bothered to create my own profile in ACR. What came into ACR per default from the Z7 required extensive modification. Of course, if I had purchased the Z7, I would have made an effort to adjust my JPEG settings in such a way as to give me a better result in ACR; renting the camera over a weekend didn't warrant such an effort. It also appears that the RAW file no longer includes (as it did before) a full-size JPEG - though this might could have been the result of me using software that has been updated to deal with Z6/Z7 files.

 

two Zs from the Sony "too small" paradigm

To Nikon's credit, the Z6 and Z7 are wider and taller than the Sony A7 Series bodies - by 8mm and 5mm, respectively; this is quite noticeable and results in the Z6/Z7 feeling much better in the hand (though dimensions alone don't give the whole picture - grip shape plays a significant role. A D750 is 13mm taller and 6mm wider than a Z6/Z7; making the Z6/Z7 as wide as the D750 and maybe splitting the height difference in half would have made for an even better handling body (not to mention make space for two card slots). Naturally, any change in Z6/Z7 dimension would lead to a different portion of the customers being content (or not).

 

We may be ignoring the half of the population predisposed to smaller hands, so I'm a bit wary of a claim that there's no benefit to a smaller camera body. Nikon pushed the 1 series at women (not with great subtlety); I don't know whether there's any greater uptake of the Z series based on gender compared with the larger dSLRs, although there's infamously the "soccer mom" low-end dSLR crowd (who may be stuck at that point for ergonomics rather than price point, now I think about it).

I was a bit surprised that my wife preferred the D500 over the D7200 simply because of the difference in size and weight. But then she wanted an F5 at one point and only backed off (to an F100) when she was handed the beast in the store!

Edited March 7, 2019 by Dieter Schaefer

[ilkka_nissila]

Making the Z6/Z7 ever so slightly taller would have made space for the 2nd card slot; camera height wasn't an issue (for me) with the D7100/D7200, camera width was - and here the Z6/Z7 is ever so slightly smaller (and more space is taken up by the increased mount diameter). For me, there was precious little space between my fingers and, for example, the 80-400's tripod ring - so it stands to reason that things aren't better with the Z6/Z7 (unless the mount has been moved farther away from the grip).

 

If you are referring to using the 80-400 F mount lens with the Z, since the sensor is so close to the lens mount, and the rest of the distance is made up by the FTZ, you shouldn't really notice the 80-400's thickness compared to any other lens with FTZ in terms of how you can fit your fingers in the gap, since the fingers would go between the grip and FTZ adapter. So for adapted lenses there is enough space, at least for me. I would think that if Nikon make a native 80-400mm, they would design it so that it's narrow enough at the end.

 

To Nikon's credit, the Z6 and Z7 are wider and taller than the Sony A7 Series bodies - by 8mm and 5mm, respectively; this is quite noticeable and results in the Z6/Z7 feeling much better in the hand

 

I agree.

 

Naturally, any change in Z6/Z7 dimension would lead to a different portion of the customers being content (or not).

 

This is very true, and eventually I would expect to see different Z body sizes and shapes to accommodate different customers. But for me the Z7 made a very favourable impression in terms of how it handles.

[ShunCheung]

As a Z6 owner, I think the Z6 and Z7 are too small. I am extremely happy that Nikon uses XQD cards on them, but perhaps the small body size precludes a second memory card slot. To that end I think Panasonic has a better choice of body size and having dual XQD and SD slots. The small size also leads to a smaller set of dedicated buttons. E.g. you need to go to the menu to change metering mode from matrix to spot to center weight, although you can probably program that to a function button. There is also no two-button card format option.

 

Earlier this month I went on a two-week Antarctica cruise with 100 passengers. There was another person with a Z7, and both of our cameras worked perfectly throughout the trip. (I brought 4 Nikon bodies and 7 Nikkor lenses in total. Everything worked just fine in some harsh environment.)

 

There were also a few people with Sony mirrorless cameras and some Fuji and Canon as well. I understand two Sony mirrorless cameras failed on the trip. I discussed with one Sony owner in detail. His camera (A7 II) worked fine in the cold (the temperature was around freezing, such that it was not that cold) as long as he used a small lens, but when he put on his Sony 70-200mm/f2.8, it failed to AF outdoors, but indoors it was fine. He tried a few usual tricks such as switching to a freshly charged battery and keeping his battery in his pocket to keep it warm. It didn't help. He believed that the problem was that the Sony camera was too small and they had to put a very small battery inside, and it didn't provide enough power in the cold. This is probably not a major issue for most, but that Sony owner is from Alaska so that cold-weather performance is important to him, and he thinks he'll switch brands.

 

I also got to check out a Canon R. Canon has a vertical grip for the R and makes the camera much larger and easy to hold vertically.

 

The Z6 and Z7 are merely Nikon's first installment. I am quite sure that larger bodies will be added in the coming years, although not necessarily as large as a D5.

 

Concerning DX mirrorless, I sure hope that Nikon keeps the Z mount so that one set of telephotos can fit both FX and DX bodies. Canon's split between RF (FX) and EOS EF-M mounts for DX is messy. For DSLRs, Canon has been producing EF-S lenses for DX and the wider EF mount hasn't been an issue for Canon DX/APS-C users.

Edited March 8, 2019 by ShunCheung

[Dieter Schaefer]

If you are referring to using the 80-400 F mount lens with the Z, since the sensor is so close to the lens mount, and the rest of the distance is made up by the FTZ, you shouldn't really notice the 80-400's thickness compared to any other lens with FTZ in terms of how you can fit your fingers in the gap, since the fingers would go between the grip and FTZ adapter.

True - since the FTZ has a conical shape and the adapted lens is farther removed from the body than it is on a DSLR (which also has an effect on the balance of the combo) Nonetheless, I do agree with Shun, the Z6/Z7 body is too small (and I don't have large hands). Permanently attaching an L-bracket solves the height issue for me - there's nothing that can be done regarding the too-narrow width.

He believed that the problem was that the Sony camera was too small and they had to put a very small battery inside, and it didn't provide enough power in the cold.

The 3rd generation Sony A7 bodies have the same size as the 1st and 2nd - but Sony managed to squeeze in a larger battery and two card slots. The smaller battery used in the 1st and 2nd generation bodies might have been fine powering Sony's APS-C bodies but was clearly not sufficient on the full frame ones. Sony fixed a lot of handling issues with the 3rd generation - buttons are better placed and feel better - though they aren't a match for Nikon's.

[Andrew Garrard]

My D8x0 bodies have usually lived with an L-plate on them even though I rarely use a tripod (and more rarely with a lens that doesn't have a collar), so I guess I'm used to the weight irrespective of whether I want it. I can certainly feel the battery grip when I put it on my D850, and that's probably a bit more weight than I want - or more specifically more weight at an awkward offset from the normal grip orientation (plus I always end up with crossed straps when I turn the camera to portrait; I should read the thread about straps...) I'm a bit unimpressed at the grip fit on the D850 unless there's a good reason for the lip on it that I'm missing, and generally I've found vertical grips to be a bit shallow anyway. The D700 did feel a bit chunkier in its naked form.

 

I've found lens weight makes more of a difference to me for stability than what the body is doing - I found my 135 DC easier to hold steady than my 28-200 because it was a fairly solid lump of glass, whatever else I thought of it. I maintain that the VR on my 200 f/2 is largely redundant because I have no way to shake a 3kg lens significantly even if I wanted to. I very much rely on supporting the lens with my left hand, though - if I shot single-handed more, the body weight might be more relevant. That said, it's only with my recently-acquired IR D90 that I've really been using a lightweight Nikon (my only film body is an F5, though I make a point of putting lithium AAs in it), and the D90 does feel a bit weird with the 14-24 on it; I may revisit my opinion as I get used to more variety.

 

I've got to say my wife has been perfectly happy with a D500 (when hired for my big US trip) or a D810 (hired for a wedding), and hasn't obviously requested something lighter - although I generally didn't leave her carrying the 200-500 more than necessary. Still, I note a BBC reporter recently complained about the lack of women at the MWC conference, and pointed out to a manager that she really wanted a folding phone that folded down from her current phone size, not up to tablet size - and apparently it had never occurred to the manager that this would be an issue because fitting his man-sized pockets wasn't a problem. (I remember when I used a phone that would fit into the watch pocket of my jeans...) That may be unrepresentative, and certainly the women I know who are into photography have had no problem with 5D-or-larger cameras (including a 5x4, unless you count getting to the top of Angel's Landing and realising you left your film at the bottom as a problem), but I'm a little wary of going too far in projecting my own requirements, however guilty I normally am of it.

[Dieter Schaefer]

To mitigate the issue of insufficient camera (i.e. grip) height Sony offers a Grip Extension SonyGP-X1EM Grip Extension for one small payment of $128! You have to remove it every time you change the battery (aka, often on the 1st and 2nd generation A7 bodies) and it isn't compatible with L-brackets. Third party battery grips cost less than this grip extension. Canon's grip extension costs " for the RP costs "only" $79 - and for the price you don't even get the Arca-Swiss dovetails milled out of it!

[Andrew Garrard]

To be fair, if we're going to pick on people for accessories, the WT-7 is over £1000, and I believe (since I've not spent £1000 to find out) you have to remove it to get at the camera battery - and it isn't compatible with L-brackets (or anything, since it doesn't have a tripod thread on the bottom). I do think the Canon extension is a bit of a waste of space, though - not that it's not useful, but that it could have had a phone battery or something embedded in it to supplement the camera power.