imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Yes, the antiquated mirror has always been a strong detrimental impediment for high quality photography ......

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

I would STRONGLY disagree! In the same vein, I welcome new technology, if it pans out. As an engineer, I like eliminating things mechanical where/when possible. Over the years, I've taken some fantastic sports photos with my non-mirrorless cameras and there are photos produced by others that mine could't hold a candle to. Best of luck.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

It is not impossible to get good quality photos with mirror cameras -IF- you successfully jump thru all the hoops .... - and, I never said it was

User ID

Reason for what ?

Parroting Nikon PR material does
not even pretend to address the
OP's question.

According to YOUR "logic" the new
50/1.8 should be smaller, better,
and cost the same or less than the
old one ... due to the miracle of a
larger lens mount that frees lens
designers from the constraints of
a long flange distance and a tiny
lens mount.

Try reading the OP instead, of just
just Nikon marketing hype. Then
get back to us with an explanation
about the two 50/1.8s for Z and F.

.

User ID

`



So true. But it DID facilitate the great
consumer rush into zoom lenses. RFs
are not very zoom friendly.

.

BebuLamar

I think the flange distance of the 35mm SLR was picked as the optimized distance for the 50mm lens. So having shorter flange distance wouldn't benefit for the 50mm but rather for shorter focal length.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Great! That is good to know. Thank you for posting that and for the photos.

FYI on the D-SLRs you can set them to produce an audible 'beep' when focus is achieved. I suspect there is a similar option on the mirrorless bodies. Naturally there are times when disabling the beep makes sense but it is a good indicator for knowing when focus has been achieved.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful and informative replies.

Special thanks to aflundi for the qualitative description of the differences, and to CO for posting examples.

User ID

`



You might have the answer right there,
when you find it similar to the Tamron
45/1.8 "Super Normal". The old 50/1.8
F-mount is a "normal normal" but the
Tamron is similar to the few gigantic 50
and 55mm extreme designs, except the
Tamron reduced the size and cost a bit
by shaving off a few mm and a 1/2 stop
.... but it is still in the "Super Normal"
family, even if it's the junior member.

======================

Like yourself, I'm one of the few users
of the Tamron 45, a lens which seems
to be a well kept secret. I would NEVER
pay $400 for an ordinary 50/1.8 Nikon
lens. But I wanted a normal with OIS
and Tamron makes the only one. After
seeing what it could do on my Nikon, I
then bought another one, in EF mount,
just cuz it's such a super lens. It most
definitely justifies its size and weight.

Point is, if the new Z lens is very much
like the Tamron 45, it's understandable
why it differs greatly from the F-mount
50mm ordinary normal lens. One thing
that makes super normals bigger than
lesser 50's is their retrofocus designs,
whose benefit is not tied to presence
or absence of a reflex mirror. A digital
sensor like a "long throw", mirror or no
mirror, due to the microlens array on it.

Sooooo ... that might just answer the
OP's question about size. Cost ? I got
no answer, only cynical suspicions ....

Anywho, it works ! Kinda big, but well
worth it, like here:

(Download)

User ID

Close to the fact. The flange distance was basically
dictated by the mirror. It's close to optimum for 50
but is really a bit long. That's why you saw a lot of
55, 57, 58mm normals. 50mm was the established
normal for may RF bodies, and the SLR mirror box
just kinda begged for a bit of extra clearance. It's
all cuz the 50s were fast lenses with deep complex
sets of elements. The little pancake 40 for Canon
is so physically shallow [simple tessar type] that it
does sit almost right on the body flange [Canon EF
depth is about 43mm].

.

aflundi Loc: Albuquerque, NM

There is. I think you'd have a hard time finding a body, whether point&shoot, mirrorless, or dSLR that didn't have a focus confirmation beep feature. The Z bodies certainly do. They also have a fairly typical AF point box that turns green on focus (under AF-S focus mode) as visual confirmation, and focus dot like Nikon dSLRs.

The 50/1.8S focuses fast. It seems almost instantaneous. *Much* faster than the F-mount Nikon 50s.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

JD750 Loc: SoCal

My 50's are pretty fast so that is impressive! Thank you for that info.

CO

I'm sure it must have an audible beep that can be turned on. I didn't look into that when I had it. I did find out other useful things.

1) If you do studio photography with strobes turn off option d8: Apply settings to live view. It will make the viewfinder brighter. I take light meter reading when using studio strobes and enter the light meter readings into the camera with the camera in manual mode. That resulted in a dark viewfinder. Turning off d8: Apply settings to live view brightened the viewfinder.

2) Option d5 is how you switch between electronic and mechanical shutter. To have electronic shutter, silent photography must also be activated.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

ALL focal lengths will benefit from larger rear elements ! Normal and shorter will benefit the most ....