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Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

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Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#241

Post by jjav »

KineticLensman wrote: post #155
dsego wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The camera manufacturers seem to be set in their ways. Wouldn't it be cool if you could load a sim card into your smart-camera & use android apps for cool features, like proper HDR (not the manual bracketing stuff), maybe apply some casual third-party filters, or instant streaming and sharing on social platforms. But maybe the target market, the professional photographers, are also the older generation that care more…

This discussion crops up every so often: "Wouldn't it be nice if a camera had a full OS behind it". Personally, I'm very pleased that my camera (a Nikon D850) boots instantly (approx 0.2 seconds) and has a shutter lag of 0.05 seconds (when pre-focused). It essentially never unexpectedly hangs when I need to take a shot. For my preferred subjects (wildlife) a consistently instant response is far more important than ar…

Exactly! Consider how incredibly slow it is to take a photo on a phone. And how short the battery life is. And how few capabilities the phone photo editing has compared to desktop photo processing where CPU, RAM and battery life are not constraints.

Why would I ever want any of that in a DSLR?

A DSLR can go from sitting on the shelf to having taken a focused photo in less than a second. The battery life is measured in weeks (unless using built-in flash). No comparison how much better experience it is.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#242

Post by jasomill »

michaelt wrote: post #187
formerly_proven wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the moment lens prices are pretty bonkers but I think that Canon f/11 lens is a great indicator; it's basically less than 1/10th of the cost of a traditional 800mm lens and does more than enough for most people. But that tradeoff seems hardly new to me. Consumer 70-300 for ~300 $ vs. Pro 70-200 for 2000+ $. The "only" difference is build quality and the pro lens being 2-3 stops brighter. Price difference: ~10x.

> the pro lens being 2-3 stops brighter Is it brighter for the same camera body, aperture and depth of field? If so, what would one look for in a lens's specifications to describe this difference?

Certainly not, unless the consumer lens is covered in mud or made from tinted glass!

As for relative aperture adjusted for actual, measured light transmission, that's a T-stop, but these are typically only marked and specified for cine lenses, e.g.,

https://www.zeiss.com/consumer-products/int/cinematography/m...

(IIRC, the Master Primes are geometrically f/1.2 at T1.3)

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#243

Post by petre »

trm42 wrote: post #231
petre wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from Nikon to Panasonic as well aflet my grip liquified and Nikon service said it's a consumable and not covered by warranty. Panasonic make smaller and lighter cameras, smaller and ligher glass, sometimes better glass due to the fact that aspherical elements are smaller and easier to manufacture, has interoperability with Olympus lenses and also ability to use Leica M43 lenses.

Well, comparing m43 cameras with full frame is like comparing Phase 645 sensor with FF cameras. M43 cameras are really nice and lightweight but have their own limitations. All the Leica m43 glass are so called Pana-Leica glass: Panasonic designed and manufactured but Leica rubber stamped. They still are really nice glass, though :) Disclaimer: used Olympus 4/3 and m43 for reaally long time but the mirrorless full fra…

I agree but do not care nevertheless. Still using a small sensor Ricoh GR Digital III most of the time. If I ever want background separation I just pick up the m43. It's good enough. Most people are happy with a phone camera. All of them have really obvious distortion. It's great that there are so many choices to choose from.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#244

Post by jmarcher »

andi999 wrote: post #239
cactus2093 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re about 2 or 3 years too late with this comment. The switch to mirrorless is already here, Nikon and Canon have the majority of their core lens lineups out already for these platforms so it’s unlikely they’d replace them again for the next decade or longer. And yes, they are mostly better than previous generations across the board. Which is pretty cool, that something based on such a simple idea that’s b…

What is the deal with mirrorless? (no mirror, but why does this improve optics?)

Most mirrorless mounts are significantly wider (diameter wise) and closer to the sensors so they are able to develop new lenses that can take advantage of that.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#245

Post by krooj »

perardi wrote: post #136
Hamuko wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do more boutique camera companies like Leica just survive on their (what I assume to be) large margins?

I imagine so. At the risk of angering Leica fans: they’re shipping not exactly state of the art technology at very high prices, with a lot of the R&D actually being done by Panasonic. (Or, in the case of their Lux compact cameras, they’re literally shipping Panasonic cameras with a different sticker on them.) Look at the Leica Q2: it costs $5000. The Fuji X100V costs $1300. I know there’s a bigger sensor in the Q2, b…

Ehhhh... I've owned a bunch of digital Leica gear, and I'll flatly say that the M lenses produce some of the best images you'll see from a raw optical pipeline. A 50mm APO Summicron is an exceptional lens for its optical characteristics; same goes for most of their 'cron and 'lux models.

By contrast, Leica's digital M bodies have always been at least a generation behind... at their time of release. The way you deal with this is correct exposure discipline, such that there's less to deal with in post. Newer M bodies have gotten much better, however.

The Q is a really interesting line, since I assume it's a collaborative project between Panasonic, Tower Jazz, and Leica. Frankly, the images for both the Q and Q2 are outstanding, and I'd throw down another $5k for a 50mm Q2. If you seriously think an X100V can compete with a Q2 for full pipeline imaging (capture to print), you're nuts. I've personally seen large prints come out of my Epson P800 from an XE-3 + 23/1.4 and my Q2 and the noise reduction artifacts inherent to the X-trans filter are noticeable on paper. If all you're doing is posting to IG or Flickr, Fuji is amazing for the money.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#246

Post by ksk »

mmaunder wrote: post #126
beagle3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional lens manufacturing is likely in its last days (which can easily take a decade or two, but ... the end is visible). Modern lens are made with techniques perfected in semiconductor manufacturing, and use advances in material science (meta materials in particular). I don't know how close this is to mass market, but I've seen superthin flat lens, with a marginal cost of production around ~$2 in a university f…

The cine lens and professional photographer lens market is big and irreplaceable until they figure out how, for example, to make an f4 600mm prime without a 150mm front element. Many problems to solve until we see the last days of optical professional lenses. Price points for these start at $2000, the cine lenses are around $4500 for primes and that 600mm I mentioned is a Canon lens, has a front element grown from fl…

A 600mm F/4 lens gathers a lot of light per-unit sensor-area, and there are many reasons why professional nature photographers have historically needed such a large lens

(1) Older digital sensors weren't good at all with high-iso (high read-noise, low photon-electron conversion efficiency, etc)

(2) An off-sensor DSLR AutoFocus array has a very small effective-aperture, making the lens aperture very important in low-light situations for autofocus (which a lot of nature photography is)

(3) Bokeh - Ofcource nothing beats large aperture bokeh, but this can be tackled perhaps through computation?

For (1) and (2) Modern imaging sensors perform beautifully in high-iso scenarios. Also, with mirrorless, there are cameras that can AF down to F/22 - something unimaginable (and impossible) with DSLRs.

While the demand for 600mm F/4 is there from a professional standpoint, there is an even larger demand for cheaper options - and.. this point is important, you can produce award-worthy images using those cheaper potions. In fact if you look at any nature competition a lot of the awards go to images made with cheap/budget gear.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#247

Post by DeathRay2K »

andi999 wrote: post #239
cactus2093 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re about 2 or 3 years too late with this comment. The switch to mirrorless is already here, Nikon and Canon have the majority of their core lens lineups out already for these platforms so it’s unlikely they’d replace them again for the next decade or longer. And yes, they are mostly better than previous generations across the board. Which is pretty cool, that something based on such a simple idea that’s b…

What is the deal with mirrorless? (no mirror, but why does this improve optics?)

Every element the light interacts before hitting the sensor degrades the quality in some small way. But losing the mirror doesn't really improve optics significantly. It's more about reducing cost and complexity in manufacturing, moving things like autofocus into software. The benefits to the consumer are quieter shooting and a lighter body.

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#248

Post by ksk »

lorenzhs wrote: post #118
criley2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but I've seen superthin flat lens, with a marginal cost of production around ~$2 in a university facility, that work better than some $500 lens -- and the latter are expensive because they are hard to make the traditional way. I find this very fascinating because while I enjoy my ever-increasing smartphone camera and use it as a daily driver, I have a about 13 year old Canon DSLR (one of the first one they made now)…

I can't relate to this at all. I have a Canon EOS 450D (Rebel XSi, 2008 model year) with a few lenses that I used to love, but haven't really used for years now. Its low light performance sucks, it's almost impossible to photograph people at night. My phone does a much better job of that. Yes, the DSLR's optics run circles around any phone, but the sensor really does show its age. And since you specifically mention t…

I strongly suspect you may be putting everything on auto and hoping the camera will focus on the right thing. It wont, because the camera has a very crappy auto-mode. It will, when you learn how to use manual mode and pick your own focus point. I fully accept that this is not something most people are interested in, but that camera can and does take wonderful images. Here are a few samples (randomly picked by flickr - I hope they're good :P ).

https://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/eos_digital_rebel_xsi/

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#249

Post by alacombe »

howtofly wrote: post #47
staticelf wrote: post #34

Where in the world is Sony and Canon cameras produced? I bought a sony android phone (which after a lot of research seems to be produced in Japan) to my father because he refuses to use anything produced in China and I am also very hesitant to buy stuff that is produced in countries that don't generally care about quality, the environment etc. I have thought about buying a Nikon for a long time but this maybe will ma…

LOL Let's guess where your father's mask is made during this pandemic. Given that China has provided 200 billion masks, the answer is almost obvious. Please throw away all your masks made in China, right away! I'm also curious how long it will take you to find a country that is both willing and able to sell you masks during this pandemic.

> Given that China has provided 200 billion masks,

They also provided the pandemic to start with. Great way to do business !

Re: Nikon Is ending 70 years of camera production in Japan

#250

Post by ska »

formerly_proven wrote: post #56
robotmay wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a couple of lens advancements I've seen recently that I found particularly interesting: Canon putting Fresnel elements in their lenses to reduce size/weight: https://kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/400mm-f4-do-is-ii.htm Canon making an f/11 800mm super telephoto lens that can still autofocus thanks to the new mirrorless camera bodies: https://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/eos-r/lenses/800mm.htm I think we'll see a b…

> At the moment lens prices are pretty bonkers but I think that Canon f/11 lens is a great indicator; it's basically less than 1/10th of the cost of a traditional 800mm lens and does more than enough for most people. But that tradeoff seems hardly new to me. Consumer 70-300 for ~300 $ vs. Pro 70-200 for 2000+ $. The "only" difference is build quality and the pro lens being 2-3 stops brighter. Price difference: ~10x.

build quality and f-stops isn't close to all that is different.

Actual light transfer (e.g. t-stops in cine, but less quantitatively in SLRs, say - some lenses are brighter than others), sharpness, chromatic aberration, spatial aberration, focal speed and accuracy (assuming autofocus), consistency across the telephoto range (not for primes, obviously) - some lenses will have not just differet f-stops at different lengths, but really different characteristics. This doesn't even get into the subjective aspects (e.g. "bokeh") that some people care a lot about.

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