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The decline and fall of Reflex.

MakeMineVinyl

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I think you mean Night Sight, but yeah, it's uncanny how it does the exposure and tone mapping. I've been of the opinion that Nikon should license this from Google for their Z series. It probably won't happen though since it's coded to run on ARM chips on the Android OS.
Yes, that is what I meant. My DSLR (Canon 5D mkIII) can't do that!

Really it has come down to that as far as I'm concerned, the only substantive advantage a DSLR has over a cell phone camera is the far better and more versatile lenses available the former. But then the cell phone lens covers the vast majority of my shooting situations when out and about, and now cell phones usually have two or more lens options built in. When I need to take 'serious' pictures, that's where the DSLR shines. There's just serious sweat involved in lugging the thing around. :oops:
 
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JeffS7444

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Sony also seems to have discontinued their SLT-series of cameras, so it would seem that is the end of the Sony A-mount / Minolta Maxxum / Dynax legacy. SLR fans might want to check out Pentax's offerings, as Pentax is the last major manufacturer with a stated commitment to the SLR. Perhaps just as Leica did with the optical rangefinder camera, maybe Pentax can find a niche audience.

Of course F-mount glass will continue to be relevant via adapters, and in particular I think some of the oddball glass will remain very desirable, because who knows if they will reappear in Z-mount versions? I include tilt-shift PC-Nikkors, UV-Nikkor, Defocus Control DC-Nikkor, big apochromatic telephotos etc in this list.

But I figure that change was in the air by 2008 if not earlier when the first mirrorless concept models appeared. The original intent may have been as upscale lifestyle product, but that quickly changed.
Olympus-MicroFT-Model.jpg
 

Chromatischism

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Yes, that is what I meant. My DSLR (Canon 5D mkIII) can't do that!

Really it has come down to that as far as I'm concerned, the only substantive advantage a DSLR has over a cell phone camera is the far better and more versatile lenses available the former. But then the cell phone lens covers the vast majority of my shooting situations when out and about, and now cell phones usually have two or more lens options built in. When I need to take 'serious' pictures, that's where the DSLR shines. There's just serious sweat involved in lugging the thing around. :oops:
Yeah, there's a lot of "quick and dirty" kind of shooting that the cell phone is just fine at. But I'm teaching myself to use the Nikon Z around the house and elsewhere connected to Snapbridge on my phone, so even in those kinds of situations there's still some ease of use to the full-frame camera. I'm a bit OCD though and find myself preferring the quality of the full RAW put on the CFE card, loaded into Capture One, and with a few clicks I have the best IQ I can muster which far surpasses my Pixel 4a.
 

Chromatischism

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Nikon seems to be slower to innovate and react to the market, but exception aside, they get it done right with image quality and ergonomics.

I chose to remain at entry level DX and don't see myself migrating to mirrorless for several years.
I suggest you not try a Z 50 in-store or you might end up spending some money :)

I do recommend playing with a Z 6II though. They are definitely smaller and easier to handle than Nikon FX DSLRs were, and that's where most of the focus is for features and lenses.
 

rdenney

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The mirrorless stuff is seductive, but it holds little appeal for me. I have looked into it on several occasions. But I still use the optical finder and find it much easier to imagine what a large print would look like using it. I can't focus closely enough without a loupe to allow an external screen to appear the way I want a print to appear--with about a 45-degree field of view from the viewer. The EVF's with eye-level optical magnification look better, but I still have to depend on unrealistic software tools to tell me when the subject is focused. With a proper focus screen, I can see it in an instant on actual ground glass.

My small-format DSLR (a Canon 5DII) is now quite old, though it was recently overhauled by Canon with a new shutter and mirror box. My main camera is a Pentax 645z, which is also getting rather old in digital years, but still produces such stunning images that I am nowhere near ready to replace it. And its optical focus screen gives me that sense of looking at a large print from up close. And I don't have to buy multi-thousand-dollar lenses to be able to make prints large enough to encompass the viewer's field of view.

Cell phones, and I use mine a LOT for making photos, work great for merely documentary stuff that will be seen on another cell phone, or at most in a constrained window on a computer monitor. I can't make prints from my iphone 8 any bigger than about 4x6" before I get grumbly.

But then I'm sort-of agnostic to format: Ansel Adams claimed to use the largest camera he could carry. Sometimes that was an 8x10 large-format camera, and sometimes it was a Hasselblad, Zeiss Ikon, or even Leica. I can still hike all day carrying that Pentax, so that's what I do. If I happen to make a worthwhile photo (and it happens once in a while), I know I'll be able to print it very large and still meet my objective of sustaining the illusion of endless detail. In digital, I have everything from a cell phone to the Pentax. In film, I have everything from half-frame to 4x5".

Rick "not the first time market fads have ruined my favored use cases" Denney
 

Chromatischism

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I have a D40 that I really like and keep thinking about upgrading, but the truth is I don't use it enough (though one factor for the past 5 years has been my wife's all time consuming business, put covid may have put paid to that).

I look at the Z50 and think that's small enough to carry around quite often, but I wonder if Nikon are going to stick with it. I don't really understand their reasoning of the smaller sensor behind the Z mount. Doesn't it just mean those people are going to be carrying around a bigger lens than they would otherwise have needed?
There are DX-specific lenses that are smaller so there is some size savings. But you're right, the mount flange is going to be the same, though that is where some of the technical advantages come from. Z DX is really meant to be for a more casual use case, for the person who will only have one or two lenses, not an advanced amateur or semi-pro like they used to have with the D300/500 series. We'll see if they come out with something like that but it looks like they want those people to move to FX.
 

audio2design

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Mirrorless definitely has advantages in manufacturing and optical performance.

Optical performance, but not electro-optical. The necessary live features does carry with it necessary trade-offs that reduce maximum potential performance.
 

audio2design

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Nikon blew it with their backfocus fiasco with the D90. And they blew it again with AF issues with their D800. I finally had enough and dumped my entire Nikon setup and never looked back. Whats the point of sharp glass if your camera can't AF properly?

Meanwhile a Sony mirrorless can lock onto a subject's eye, continuously AF on it, all while firing off at 10 fps. Plus their equivalent lenses have better MTF performance. And their bodies are smaller and lighter. Nikon is the new Kodak.


And yet Nikon has always been the best at extracting performance out of a sensor, even a bit better than Sony, and their UI has always been noticeably better than Canon. The D90 was pretty successful, as is their D3xxx series, D5xxx and D7xxx, but mirrorless will rule the future for packaging alone. I use my Sony mirrorless more simply because it is so much smaller which means there is a bigger chance I will have it. I have a Pixel too. Great for things that don't move. The night sight is good even during the day for improved dynamic range. Still no where near my SLR for most things.
 

audio2design

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Stacked sensor designs show a lot of promise. Sony A9, A1, Nikon Z 9.

Yes, the fill factor is pretty close to 100% without microlenses, thought microlenses may still provide some benefits with non-perpendicular light rays hitting the correct photo site. Jury is out.

We are already really close to the limit in terms of quantum efficiency of the sensor. Gains in the analog channel/ADC noise are going to be slow as well. Reduced process size allows higher paralleling of analog/ADC channels reducing the analog bandwidth and improving SNR. We will need a whole different kind of physics to get around SHOT noise. When you look at sensor performance in the last 5-6 years, there have been improvements, but really they are quite small. Slightly better dynamic range, or a bit better resolution at the same dynamic range. Not much has changed in 4 years since the A7RIII or the A9, and even the 9 year old D800E on raw performance is not hugely far behind. The A9 is a stacked design, but microlenses were already giving most of the benefit to BSI sensors. If you look at the raw image performance at equivalent ISO on DPReview, of the A1 against cameras 4, or even 6-7 years old, there is very marginal improvement. There is far better improvement in JPEG output as the image processing algorithms are much better, but often even better can already be achieved offline using AI based denoising.

I think where stacked sensor could shine is providing frame-rates that will make computational photography viable with this large sensor. Imaging Google Pixel processing with a 50 Mpixel full-frame sensor!
 

Wes

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I moved away from Nikon FF to mirrorless m43 Panasonic/Leica and have not looked back. Just sold my last big Nikon tele and got a 100-400 (200-800 FF equiv.).

I kept a single DX body which has built-in GPS, and a few manual focus lenses with special distortion... oops I mean rendering.
 
OP
Ron Texas

Ron Texas

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Optical performance, but not electro-optical. The necessary live features does carry with it necessary trade-offs that reduce maximum potential performance.

Please elaborate. My comment on optical performance is based on the larger mount flange and shorter distance from the sensor gives lens designers some freedom they did not have before. Are you thinking in terms of autofocus performance?
 

Andysu

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Wanted a DLSR so went for a Canon EOS 750D DLSR thou that is second one out of two Canon and single Fujifilm finepix digital.
I prefer the DLSR and the camera phone is meh, its an okay but doesn't have pro design anywhere in it, its just an okay device. The camera lens is what matters. I mostly use the Canon wide lens. I have the standard lens as well as fish eye lens and tele-lens that I rarely use.

The 750D has stereo mic and input the other one I brought few months before only has mono record in this, day and age?

Picture taken with Canon EOS 2000D using Canon narrow angle standard lens

canon1.jpg


53752151_10156918117945149_6948923589307400192_n.jpg
 

Andysu

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The lens on the fujifilm finpix, makes mobile camera phones look like a caveman lens, the length the finepix has taking picture of the moon day or night clear super zoom, even a 747 at 5 miles above the earth I can clearly tell its a 747 where with naked eye I can only guess.

104425533_10158275667140149_3862052887765574344_n.jpg


104295220_10158275667255149_3601985673370878874_n.jpg



fuji finepix S9000
moon rise south west 21:15 May 27th 2018
Set the AF lower which has made it appear as if its bit later at night but its still light outside slowly going into shadow
Manual mode handheld
ISO 100
AF 7.8
1/125
33745581_10156241228495149_1330061954647064576_n.jpg



2013, with other fuji finepix (later got damage the hand rubber grip came undone slipped 24" onto the floor lens jammed) Took a picture of the moon in the afternoon sky about around 16:15 hours. I used various camera modes I forget which ones? Text mode and shutter ISO mode. If the camera was 100% still and not shaking it would be a lot sharper but never took a picture of the moon before with the camera and its almost about the same (so so) with seeing it though the refractor telescope.

A little while on at around 18:00 hours I took a few more while there was still some blue atmosphere still visible and the zoom and shutter speed I used, maybe text mode I forget which its trail and error to capture and if I had tripod I might spend more time, doing some night photography

860333_10151480322865149_648693802_o.jpg
 
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mhardy6647

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Took this with my trusty (and decidedly entry level) DX-format D5600 DSLR with my trusty (and rather nice) 70-300 VR zoom recently.

DSC_0663 (2) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
Pair of Northern (Baltimore) Orioles.

DSC_0683 (2) by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
Two tom turkeys who apparently haven't gotten the memo reminding them that May is hunting season for toms in New Hampshire ;)
 

Chromatischism

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I think where stacked sensor could shine is providing frame-rates that will make computational photography viable with this large sensor.
Readout speed is what I was getting at, but I'm not hopeful for big advancements in computational photography, even though I think it's what they need to keep up with smartphones. It would require very different processors (size, cost, energy, heat) and potentially different operating systems. Probably best to offload that to Snapbridge.
 

Chromatischism

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Please elaborate. My comment on optical performance is based on the larger mount flange and shorter distance from the sensor gives lens designers some freedom they did not have before. Are you thinking in terms of autofocus performance?
My read of it was he was talking about speed.
 

audio2design

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I was thinking more fill factor which stacked greatly improves already (as do micro lenses effectively).


Snapbridge would not have the data rates needed for good computational photography. You need real time processing on full images at video rates.
 
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