karno wrote:
Is this going to be the downturn of the f mount for Nikon, or is effort going to be made in development of f mount products ?
Should us dslr users start to make the transition to mirrorless?
I don’t believe this post will answer my questions though as I attempt to work this out in my mind through the next few months my hope is to formulate a plan.
Global shipments of digital cameras (all types, all manufacturers) have declined by more than
70% since 2011.
Put yourself in the CEO of Nikon's shoes. You just doubled the number of lens mounts in production
(from just F to F and Z). Hence you don't just make NIKKOR AF-X 50 mm f/1.8D lens,
you now also make NIKKOR Z 50 mm f/1.8 S -- basically, the same lens -- just two different
final assembly lines, two different boxes, two different catalog entries.
Potentially, you have doubled the number of lenses you must ship and your distributors and
dealers may want to stock. And for any particular lens, volumes will go down because some
will order F-mount, and some will order Z-mount.
What impact do you think this will have on corporate earnings? If you were a Nikon shareholder,
how would you feel about this doubling of products in production in a declining market?
If you were CEO of Nikon, would you continue to support both mounts?
I suggest that the views of Nikon shareholders matter a lot more than the views of UHH members,
Nikon enthusiasts, or Nikon's statements that it will support F-mount until the cows come home.
Business reality suggests that one or the other mount will be dropped. But we shouldn't automatically
assume it will be F-mount.. Whatever happened to the New Coke--or to 110 cartridge film and
Kodak disk film? Where are quadraphonic sounds systems? All were "innovations" -- that failed.
So in the end, it's Nikon customers who will determine what Nikon does. It would prefer to
cancel F-mount, but it will cancel one or the other as soon it feels customers won't revolt.
And to be clear: there is no reason to prefer a flange-to-frame distance of 16 mm (Z-mount) to
46.5 mm (F-mount) when designing a 50 mm or longer lens. There is some small advantage
when designing a wide-angle lens, and considerable advantage for ultra-wide angle lens.
But you're willing to replace all your F-mount cameras and all your F-mount lenses to get a
slightly better ultra-wide angle lens, right? Even if it reduces battery life or you can't
recognize people though the viewfinder.
What's that going to cost you? After to spend all that money, you'll be back where you started
but you get a nice Christmas card from Nikon.
So why is Nikon doing this? It didn't want to -- it's had F-mount since 1958. It dragged its feet and got
criticized by the fanboys on Youtube. But Sony is a marketing beheamoth and has been successful at
convincing Joe Consumer that "mirrorless" is some new innovation (in fact, before 1861 all cameras
were mirrorless). Also, getting rid of the DSLR mirror and associated mechanical linkages greatly
reduces manufacturing costs, particularly assembly labor. And in a shrinking market with most customers
locked into one brand, the only way to increase sales is to force existing customers to replace their grear.
What is new in EVIL/MILC cameras the electronic viewfinder. An EVF offers lower resolution
and lower contrast than an optical viewfinder. However, it can do three things an OVF can't do:
* introduce a time lag
* mess up the color
* drain the battery (an OVF pulls 0 mA)
Now you gotta white balance your sensor and hope your viewfinder (which has a screen) is
white balanced. Otherwe what-you-see isn't what-you-get.
EVIL/MILC could be wonderful if there was a better screen technology and if the mechanical
focal plane shutter could be eliminated. But display technology has been heavily researched by
very large companies for decades, and nothing better than OLED has been found. Shutters have
been researched even longer, and the best optical shutter is an LCD -- much too slow for cameras.
"Global shutter" are probably the biggest R&D area cameras today, but so far no high-end camera
uses one. They still have gaps between the rows of photosensors that reduce resolution, and/or a
slow frame rate, heat problems, and the better ones are very expensive and hard to fabricate in FF.
Business plan:
Step 1. Market the heck out of "mirrorless" (EVIL/MILC). Promise to support F-mount indefinitely.
Step 2. Discontinue F-mount. Drop all support.
Only Nikon customers can prevent this: but not drinking the EVIL/MILC.
Something similar already happened in P&S cameras -- a far larger market than DSLRs or EVIL/MILC.
First some P&S cameas started appearing that had a LCD screen on the back for reviwing photos.
Then some appeared that could use the LCD for live view or viewfinder use. Eventually, all the
manufacturers--from Sony and Samsung to Nikon and Canon--stopped making OVFs P&S cameras--
even though the LCD screen on the back of the camera is unusable in bright sunlight! They didn't
care: it was cheaper to manuacture.
So today, there isn't a Nikon Coolpix or Canon PowerShot camera that is usable in bright sunlight--
unless the customer wants to put a black focusing cloth over his head or shoot blind. That's progress!
No, that's corporate profit motive in action. No matter how dedicated the CEO of a public company
is to photography, he has a legal duty to his shareholders to maximize earnings. So he can force all
existing customers to replace their gear, he has to do so.
Of course, the danger is that people will say "screw this!" and just use their smart phone to take pictures.
70% of digital camera buyers have already made that decision.