moonhawk Loc: Land of Enchantment

Thank you. I was aware of those but never paid much attention.

IDguy Loc: Idaho

Nikon has a huge line of F mount lenses they want to keep selling. I expect minor DSLR improvements till the Z line of lenses begins to approach the F mount lenses and they change over production lines. But most of their development seems to be for the Z mount.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

The Canon RT was another pellical mirror camera ......8-)

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Which is great as you say.
ALL EF and EFs lenses are 100% compatible unlike Nikon abandoning thousands of F mount AF lenses making them obsolete.
And again the great news the manual FD, FL and R lenses are now completely useable in their manual mode as they always were manual with the advantage of IBIS on the new mirrorless cameras.
Thus making the entire system compatible with the new R cameras and with added features even for the ancient R series lenses (PS, even the old M39 Canon lenses are useable as well and will have IBIS).
Way to go Canon especially in not abandoning the original AF lenses as Nikon did.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

This translucent mirror tech Canon did first in an SLR in 1965 with their Pellix model. The translucent mirror is also known as a "pellicle" mirror, hence the model name that Canon used 56 years ago. In this case, the primary reason such a mirror was used was to allow through-the-lens metering via a sensor placed behind the mirror (which is now common to most DSLR and was found on many later film SLRs, as well). But it also made for a less complex mechanism (no mirror-lifting clockwork), quieter operation, eliminates viewfinder blackout and reduces in-camera vibration. However, because approx. 1/3 of the light was prevented from passing through the mirror (by permanently being redirected to the viewfinder), both more sensitive film (higher "ISO"... actually ASA/DIN in those days) was required and the camera was normally equipped with a more expensive, larger and heavier 50mm f/1.2 lens. The use of a pellicle mirror also makes the viewfinder a bit less bright.

Canon later developed camera models using pellicle mirrors for high frame rate, such as the F-1 High Speed "Olympic" edition in 1972 and the F-1n High Speed in 1984. The latter could achieve 14 frames per second, eating up an entire 36 exposure roll of film in just over 2 seconds! (Might want a 250 exposure "long roll" back for that fast a film camera.) They later also made the EOS RT and EOS 1N RS. The standard EOS 1N without a pellicle mirror could shoot up to 6 frames per second when an accessory Power Booster (PB-E1) was attached and used with a special, rechargeable Ni-Cad battery pack. The EOS 1N RS had a permanently installed Power Booster "grip" and was able to achieve 10 frames per second.

I believe Nikon experimented with and produced a small number of F, F2 and F3 film cameras with pellicle mirrors too. I don't know many details of those other than the F3 High Speed with pellicle was capable of shooting film at up to 13 frames per second.

Sony produced their SLT A-mount digital cameras from 2010 to 2016. I was not aware that this only served autofocus and will need to read up on it. Just recently Sony announced discontinuation of A-mount cameras and lenses.

BebuLamar

They had no choice this time. They didn't abandon the F mount back in the 80's. The latest F mount lens of the E type is 100% functional on the Z with the FTZ adapter but then there are way too many variations of the F mount lenses.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Had Nikon been smart and abandoned the F mount in the 80s as Canon did they might have maintained dominance.
But they clung to an archaic mount and just kept trying to add things to it which were marginal at best.
Thus when absolutely forced to change they had thousands of AF lenses left out from the present where canon lenses from the 80s are all 100% compatible and no loss of function and in fact added functionality with the control adapters and filter adapters.
On top of that now all your M39, R, FL and FD lenses can be easily adapted and used manually as they were designed and no special optics needed to get to infinity.