Nikon goes Medium Format?

[duydaniel]

Nikon release patents of MF lens
http://nikonrumors.com/2013/09/10/the-latest-nikon-patents-100mm-f2-5-medium-format-lens-rgbw-ae-array.aspx/#comments

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Times are sad for Nikon, their Mirrorless camera has lost them huge amounts of money, their P&S sales like everyone's is tanking, their DSLR sales is better but not wonderful.


Like everyone else, they are casting around for something to bring in more $$$, but MF is not it. The economy is the root of the camera sales issues, along with the camera phones. The solution they should be looking at is to concentrate on their core competency, improve customer service, and keep loyal customers coming back.

I really hope that their sales pickup.

 

[Aglet]

I feel like I did MY part for Nikon over the last year+; 5 bodies, some flashes and a pile of glass.
If they bring out an MF digital I will consider it.
And I likely WILL wait to see how it'll compare to an MF Canon and maybe even Pentax will get around to updating the 645D in the next year or 2.
Affordable MF will be great if there's more to choose from.
But.. I'm pretty sure I don't NEED an MF system at this time, d800 was a huge leap in the right direction for some of my shooting.

 

[Rienzphotoz]

Interesting ... thanks for sharing

 

[paul13walnut5]

Didn't Nikon make lenses for early Bronicas and a folding MF camera too at one point?

 

[AmbientLight]

Oh, this is getting rather interesting.

Based on rumors it may look like both Nikon and Canon are kind of retreating from the shrinking point-and-shoot market towards medium format. Could this be a deliberate move to distance themselves from the smart phone camera market?

 

[MrFotoFool]

If the patent is only for a lens (and no cameras), maybe they will start making lenses for existing MF systems. As someone mentioned above, they used to make some for Bronica. Considering the huge investment, I would be very surprised if they came up with an all new MF system. Remember, the Canon MF rumors are that they will buy an existing company.

 

[LewisShermer]

Jaguar Landrover basically survived by cutting out the bottom end of the market totally and only catering for the Luxury market. It's the way forward.

 

[AmbientLight]

Jaguar Landrover basically survived by cutting out the bottom end of the market totally and only catering for the Luxury market. It's the way forward.

That's a pretty good example. I believe this is what will happen in a similar way to the photography market. The only way forward is for Canon and Nikon to put some serious distance between themselves and smart phone vendors catering to the mass market. Basically the traditional vendors need to give up on the point-and-shoot consumer market, which promises only minimum margins in sales revenue. Even in the mirrorless market net margins in sales are not counting so much toward profitability as the fate of Nikon's 1 system has shown in a pretty ghastly picture. Nikon calculated with higher prices to get back their investment in R&D, but now the system has failed, so they go down to low prices to cut their losses. Canon can look forward to a brighter future with their EOS-M-system, at least after their success with the 70D's autofocus.

 

[LewisShermer]

If DSLR's started at the prosumer level of the XXD and £1500 / $1999 then it'd sort the men from the boys so to speak. because they cost more they'd have better technology in them, less complaints about something like a 500D not being as good as a 5Diii and therefore the company has deliberately crippled them.

for cannon the entry level may be a APS-H 7Dii and the 70D would be the last in the APS-C cameras.

do away with the manufacture of EF-s Lenses

You'd have the XD range of full frame sensors from £2500 / $3000 (6D / 5D / 1Dx ranges)

Then on top of that would be the high end medium format camera with a fitting much like the EF-s where (lets call the new range of super lenses S-EF) they're not forward only backward compatible. you can use the S-EF on an EF mount but not the EF on an S-EF mount. It'd probably take a couple of years but Jaguar didn't do it in one day. Jaguar are now one of the largest manufacturing successes during the economic downturn.

All this would also bring a much needed affluence back into the pro-photographic world.

you either then have your smartphone or a high-end DSLR leaving a much bigger gap for people to aspire to. you'll still have all your old XXXXD XXXD XXD knocking around for years and they'll do as great a job as they've always done. but the 1Dx won't be the be all and end all of this side of the market.

I'm sure Mr. Nikon and Mr. Canon have had this discussion on their weekly meet up to discuss what their plans for the future are. Do you think they flip a coin to see who can have the better sensor / higher frame rate for the coming generation of cameras or they just take it in turns?

 

[Sith Zombie]

The race is on! I doubt the MF market could support 2 new players, so it would be a question of who provides first. I'm still unsure on wether it's a good market to get into anyway, sure you can sell the gear for a premium but how many are buying? Some MF shooters might even consider 'downgrading' to FF once we start seeing 50+ mp?

 

[Don Haines]

The photography world is not going to abandon FF for MF. Yes, bigger sensor makes for better quality images, but the size of everything grows to the point where it becomes unwieldy for many uses. Studio work... Yes. Weddings.... Yes. Architecture and landscape, yes. But for wildlife photography, sports, and anything else requiring long lenses, forget it.

MF is probably a viable market... FF will remain a viable market... But APSC? Right now, APSC offers two advantages, price and reach. As ability to make larger sensors at a reasonable price improves, the cost advantage disappears. As pixel counts grow, FF. sensors could put the same number of pixels on target as a crop camera, and destroy the reach advantage. I thing they will be around for several more years, but ten years down the road Many FF shooters will be MF, rebels will be FF, and there will still be high end FF cameras.

 

[sdsr]

If DSLR's started at the prosumer level of the XXD and £1500 / $1999 then it'd sort the men from the boys so to speak. because they cost more they'd have better technology in them, less complaints about something like a 500D not being as good as a 5Diii and therefore the company has deliberately crippled them.

for cannon the entry level may be a APS-H 7Dii and the 70D would be the last in the APS-C cameras.

do away with the manufacture of EF-s Lenses

You'd have the XD range of full frame sensors from £2500 / $3000 (6D / 5D / 1Dx ranges)

Then on top of that would be the high end medium format camera with a fitting much like the EF-s where (lets call the new range of super lenses S-EF) they're not forward only backward compatible. you can use the S-EF on an EF mount but not the EF on an S-EF mount. It'd probably take a couple of years but Jaguar didn't do it in one day. Jaguar are now one of the largest manufacturing successes during the economic downturn.

All this would also bring a much needed affluence back into the pro-photographic world.

I think "invite, with fingers crossed" might be more accurate than "bring". Shades of Gourmet Night at Fawlty Towers - "No riff-raff"....

 

[Chris Jankowski]

MF is probably a viable market... FF will remain a viable market... But APSC? Right now, APSC offers two advantages, price and reach. As ability to make larger sensors at a reasonable price improves, the cost advantage disappears. As pixel counts grow, FF. sensors could put the same number of pixels on target as a crop camera, and destroy the reach advantage. I thing they will be around for several more years, but ten years down the road Many FF shooters will be MF, rebels will be FF, and there will still be high end FF cameras.

I think that with enough volume, there is space in the market for a continuum of sensor sizes. From MF, through FF, APS-C, MFT, to 1 inch. Anything that is larger than sensor in mobile phones. Also, we'll see new unusual form factors example of which is Sony QX10 and QX100, which use mobile phone as a viewfinder. personally, if not for my intense dislike of EVF, I would be quite tempted with MFT cameras due to availability of excellent and very light and small lenses for these cameras.

Specifically for MF, I would see it as niche market for fashion, product and landscape photography. For these applications a classical DSLR design is not necessary. External computer or tablet may be used as a viewfinder. This would make these cameras cheaper to manufacture. The old lenses from Hasselblad, Bronica etc. would be able to be reused through an adapter, as the new mount would have much shorter flange distance. This will allow plenty of time to develop new lenses for the new MF mount.

 

[9VIII]

The photography world is not going to abandon FF for MF. Yes, bigger sensor makes for better quality images, but the size of everything grows to the point where it becomes unwieldy for many uses. Studio work... Yes. Weddings.... Yes. Architecture and landscape, yes. But for wildlife photography, sports, and anything else requiring long lenses, forget it.

MF is probably a viable market... FF will remain a viable market... But APSC? Right now, APSC offers two advantages, price and reach. As ability to make larger sensors at a reasonable price improves, the cost advantage disappears. As pixel counts grow, FF. sensors could put the same number of pixels on target as a crop camera, and destroy the reach advantage. I thing they will be around for several more years, but ten years down the road Many FF shooters will be MF, rebels will be FF, and there will still be high end FF cameras.

I hope they make the new MF cameras mirrorless. If they were you would have no size increase from current SLR cameras, and using on-sensor focusing would get rid of faulty AF issues, and it would mean wide angle lenses wouldn't need to be retrofocusing.
It would be cool to see if they started with both SLR and mirrorless cameras and an equal set of lenses for both, then the market could decide which system is better.

 

[Chuck Alaimo]

Jaguar Landrover basically survived by cutting out the bottom end of the market totally and only catering for the Luxury market. It's the way forward.

That's a pretty good example. I believe this is what will happen in a similar way to the photography market. The only way forward is for Canon and Nikon to put some serious distance between themselves and smart phone vendors catering to the mass market. Basically the traditional vendors need to give up on the point-and-shoot consumer market, which promises only minimum margins in sales revenue. Even in the mirrorless market net margins in sales are not counting so much toward profitability as the fate of Nikon's 1 system has shown in a pretty ghastly picture. Nikon calculated with higher prices to get back their investment in R&D, but now the system has failed, so they go down to low prices to cut their losses. Canon can look forward to a brighter future with their EOS-M-system, at least after their success with the 70D's autofocus.

agreed....cell phones are for sure killing the P&S markets. And to make a P&S that really stands out from cell phones, one that people would buy and remember to take with them when they go out...it's too much R&D for a product that can charge at max $500 for. I would have no issues with both Canon and Nikon phasing out the bulk of the P&S lines and pushing those resources to 35mm...i guess MF is alright too, but unless they are going to put out a pentaxlike MF rig, the price point will be too high for most of us....

 

[LewisShermer]

The photography world is not going to abandon FF for MF. Yes, bigger sensor makes for better quality images, but the size of everything grows to the point where it becomes unwieldy for many uses. Studio work... Yes. Weddings.... Yes. Architecture and landscape, yes. But for wildlife photography, sports, and anything else requiring long lenses, forget it.

MF is probably a viable market... FF will remain a viable market... But APSC? Right now, APSC offers two advantages, price and reach. As ability to make larger sensors at a reasonable price improves, the cost advantage disappears. As pixel counts grow, FF. sensors could put the same number of pixels on target as a crop camera, and destroy the reach advantage. I thing they will be around for several more years, but ten years down the road Many FF shooters will be MF, rebels will be FF, and there will still be high end FF cameras.

I hope they make the new MF cameras mirrorless. If they were you would have no size increase from current SLR cameras, and using on-sensor focusing would get rid of faulty AF issues, and it would mean wide angle lenses wouldn't need to be retrofocusing.
It would be cool to see if they started with both SLR and mirrorless cameras and an equal set of lenses for both, then the market could decide which system is better.

Do I have to point out that the whole point of a DSLR is the mirror?? You don't deserve MF if you haven't got a clue what it's for. The whole point it's for a professional market. Not a mirrorless market & not a rebel market...

"oh no, Canon/Nikon are abandoning me and I've invested all my money.." $500 in a rebel and $150 in a lens isn't investment, it's a plaything.
"ohhh, i don't want a big camera like a 5D because of my weak weedy arms..." the 5D is quite a small camera if you've ever used a Cambo 5x4 on a job. more so if you've shot 10x8.

some folk seem to not understand which side of the fence they fall. FF (as was 35mm) is a compromise on MF (Mamiya/hasselblad) but because of the ridiculous price of the hasselblad system it renders the 1Dx as what is perceived as the top end of the market. It's no where near. Sure I love my 5Diii and the IQ it gives me but imagine that tech (or the 1Dx) in medium format with more amazing glass? and if it comes in at half the price of a hasselblad it'd be brilliant news for the industry. not for the hasselblad users though. Hasselbladrumours.com will be up in arms

 

[AmbientLight]

Do I have to point out that the whole point of a DSLR is the mirror??

;D ;D ;D This is really funny. As if you would suddenly get better image quality with smaller sensors and possibly without optical viewfinders.

No wild marketing claims please regarding the mirrorless future displacing DSLRs. If you take a look at mirrorless sales volumes you will find that's just a dead horse to ride on:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/08/09/weak-demand-for-mirrorless-cameras-hurting-manufacturers

What this market development shows pretty clearly is that moving upwards from producing point-and-shoot cameras to producing mirrorless cameras didn't really work out for many vendors.

The best mirrorless options are those providing image quality similar to a DSLR such as the EOS-M or large format sensor SONY and Fuji models. Their advantage is size, not better image quality. The idea is to have similar/almost equal to a DSLR image quality despite the smaller size.

 

[Chuck Alaimo]

The photography world is not going to abandon FF for MF. Yes, bigger sensor makes for better quality images, but the size of everything grows to the point where it becomes unwieldy for many uses. Studio work... Yes. Weddings.... Yes. Architecture and landscape, yes. But for wildlife photography, sports, and anything else requiring long lenses, forget it.

MF is probably a viable market... FF will remain a viable market... But APSC? Right now, APSC offers two advantages, price and reach. As ability to make larger sensors at a reasonable price improves, the cost advantage disappears. As pixel counts grow, FF. sensors could put the same number of pixels on target as a crop camera, and destroy the reach advantage. I thing they will be around for several more years, but ten years down the road Many FF shooters will be MF, rebels will be FF, and there will still be high end FF cameras.

I hope they make the new MF cameras mirrorless. If they were you would have no size increase from current SLR cameras, and using on-sensor focusing would get rid of faulty AF issues, and it would mean wide angle lenses wouldn't need to be retrofocusing.
It would be cool to see if they started with both SLR and mirrorless cameras and an equal set of lenses for both, then the market could decide which system is better.

Others have said other things regarding this, but I will take the other road of --- while the tech surrounding EVF is getting better, it's a night and day difference between OVF. The few mirrorless camera's I have tried out, the EVF is horrid. I would much rather stick with the classic mirror!

size - no way around it, when push comes to shove if you want access to everything, the size will go up. The 6d is a good example of what happens when you cram a large sensor in a small body, you loose a lot of buttons! So, unless you want a gimped body, then the overall size and weight will increase...

The photography world is not going to abandon FF for MF. Yes, bigger sensor makes for better quality images, but the size of everything grows to the point where it becomes unwieldy for many uses. Studio work... Yes. Weddings.... Yes. Architecture and landscape, yes. But for wildlife photography, sports, and anything else requiring long lenses, forget it.

MF is probably a viable market... FF will remain a viable market... But APSC? Right now, APSC offers two advantages, price and reach. As ability to make larger sensors at a reasonable price improves, the cost advantage disappears. As pixel counts grow, FF. sensors could put the same number of pixels on target as a crop camera, and destroy the reach advantage. I thing they will be around for several more years, but ten years down the road Many FF shooters will be MF, rebels will be FF, and there will still be high end FF cameras.

I agree on most points, but, for wedding work, i don't see MF taking off in the wedding world until a few things get retooled:

1) processors need to be faster and more robust - because the current burst rate for MF bodies is like 1 shot every second. With a larger sensor, you get a larger mirror, and I'd say it may be a while before we get full MF with decent MP's that can do any kind of burst mode...

2) related to the above, buffer size. Even if you can squeeze out 2 fps...each image is going to be huge - For a wedding shooter this may be an issue

3) ISO range - most MF rigs cap out at ISO 1600, and most of what I have read says that you really don't want to go past ISO 400. both Canon and Nikon would probably be interested in pushing the ISO's and processors and buffer limits - but I am betting on a slower progression because ---if the quality falls off after iso 800 then wouldn't it just be more sensible to use a 35mm?

summing it up IMO - I can really only see high end wedding photographers snagging a full digital MF rig. Shot in the dark guess at cost would be in the 10-20K range (*and who knows what the cost of the glass would be). All that $$$$ for a body that is pretty much going to sit in the bag for 90% of the day. I think the tech surrounding the sensor has a lot of catching up to do to take on more than the posed formal shots of weddings. For ceremonies, you need more ISO (most ceremony venues don't allow flash, so your depending on aperture and ISO). For receptions, you need more ISO, or, your using way more external light that you should to keep any of the ambient lighting in play. this would just be an unfeasible investment for the majority of wedding photographers. The high end ones, the ones whose packages start at 10K, the ones who draw in clients that want huge canvas prints and are willing to shell out the dough for it --- those guys can justify the cost. If your average wedding is 2k, with maybe $300-600 in print sales, then MF makes absolutely no sense - that $$$ is better spent in advertising, taking courses, etc, etc....

 

[AmbientLight]

Let's assume that sales into the professional market only will not cover R&D investment in new medium format systems.

What I expect instead is that Canon and Nikon might go after hobbyists with some disposable income shooting landscapes or shooting models in studios. This is not a huge market, but it should be highly lucrative. This would imply that sales volumes will be intended to be significantly higher compared to today's rather specialized medium format offerings, resulting in higher price tags compared to full frame photo gear, but lower price tags compared to existing medium format offerings. If this can be combined with offering high quality products showing significant advances in technology, existing medium format vendors not being somehow cooperating with one of the big vendors will suffer.