Soldato
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Has the mainstream shift to Medium Format begun?
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Caporegime
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http://www.canonrumors.com/category/photography/canon-medium-format/
Probably.
It'll be at least 3 years before we see a camera I expect.
Probably.
It'll be at least 3 years before we see a camera I expect.
Nikon has produced plenty of MF lenses in the past,
Nikkor-D 40mm 1:4
Nikkor-H 50mm 1:3.5
Nikkor-O 50mm 1:2.8
Nikkor-P 75mm 1:2.8
Nikkor-HC 75mm 1:2.8
Nikkor-Q 105mm 1:3.5 LS
Nikkor-Q 135mm 1:3.5
Nikkor-P 200mm 1:4 (two versions)
Nikkor-PC 300mm 1:5.6
Nikkor-Q 400mm 1:4.5
Nikkor-P 600mm 1:5.6
Nikkor-P 800mm 1:8
Nikkor-P 1200mm 1:11
Who knows if they will move to MF. On the one hand they want growth because compacts are vanishing but developing a whole new system will really stretch things. They have a CX format, DX and FX, do they really need MX?
With sensor tech forever improving we can really get away with smaller ad smaller sensor to achieve equal or superior image quality. In terms of DoF, MF cameras tend to have slower aperture lenses so the DoF is unlikely to get shallower, nor the light gathering improve.
The thing is the MF market is also struggling, people are buying D800s instead of digital MF due to the cost so all the MF players are struggling for growth as it is. Is there really demand for new players?
Will Nikon/Canon be able to convince people buying a Phase One to buy a D800 on steroids? Pentax has had an MF camera but that hasn't resulted in much market share.
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There will be demand for cheaper more DSLR like medium format.
Pentax isn't a real medium format camera though (DX medium format), it's still way expensive, and the camera itself sucks.
As I have said for a long time, you could make a mirrorless medium format camera fit in a D800 size body. With a new mount, you can have the lenses sit really close to the sensor rather than having to leave room for a giant mirror. I hear having the lens close to the sensor simplifies lens design and reduces size/cost similar to how Leica lenses are small, fast and optically great (but expensive due to Leica tax).
How cheap do you think a CaNikn MFD would be?
Remember the price of the D3x was £6000.
I would expect a Nikon MFD to be in the £12-15,000
Lenses would be in the £2000-6000 for the standard lengths and at least 2-3x weight of a 35mm lens. You just can't break the rules of physics and economics so easily. Large image circles require a lot of glass, people paying for MF expect extremely high quality,the market is far smaller than DX or FX lenses so due to scales prices will be much higher.
And it is funny you say that the Pentax is not a full MFD. MF covers a wide range of image circles and the Pentax is very much in MF territory. I don't see why you would expect a CaNikon to have a vastly bigger sensor. If the sensor size goes up then the sensor costs go up quadratically at the least and the whole system size will get bigger yet you were wanting a smaller MF body. A sensor closer t the Phase1 will push prices above £20K and make the market smaller.
Remember the price of the D3x was £6000.
I would expect a Nikon MFD to be in the £12-15,000
Lenses would be in the £2000-6000 for the standard lengths and at least 2-3x weight of a 35mm lens. You just can't break the rules of physics and economics so easily. Large image circles require a lot of glass, people paying for MF expect extremely high quality,the market is far smaller than DX or FX lenses so due to scales prices will be much higher.
And it is funny you say that the Pentax is not a full MFD. MF covers a wide range of image circles and the Pentax is very much in MF territory. I don't see why you would expect a CaNikon to have a vastly bigger sensor. If the sensor size goes up then the sensor costs go up quadratically at the least and the whole system size will get bigger yet you were wanting a smaller MF body. A sensor closer t the Phase1 will push prices above £20K and make the market smaller.
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The D3X price was completely artificially inflated. Nikon were just being ****. You could buy a 5Dii for like £1600.
Apparently the cost/yields of 35mm sensors have greatly improved since the days of the 1DS and 5DC. If I remember correctly back then 35mm sensors required 3 different exposures at the fab. Now they can be produced in 1 single exposure.
I expect the manufacturability of MF sensors to be like 35mm sensors were when they were first introduced if they need to be manufactured differently from 35mm. If they can be made in the same way, I would just expect additional costs to come from less die candidates per wafer, and depending on current yields, defective sensor rates may not be much higher.
No more glass than is currently required for a Tilt-Shift lens on a 35mm sensor. (TS image circle covers MF)
Also if it's mirrorless, you need much less glass than traditional MF lenses.
The thing is you are making it sound like a wish based on things that might be possible, not what Canon or Nikon are likely to do. Just because Nikon could make a £6000 MFD the size of a D800 doesn't mean they wont charge north of 10K. If they decide they will try MFD then it is because they are lured by high profit margin low sales. Lowering their profit margin may not really make them many more sales. To put it another way, if the competitors are charging 20K, why would Nikon not charge 12K for an arguably better camera rather than droppong profit to get a price point of 6K?
The D3x price was high but people were willing to pay that amount because it was the single best FF DSLR one could buy and produced images no other DSLR could manage. For professional landscape and studio photographers the price was acceptable. To put things in perspective the D4 has a launch price of £4800. A D4x is rumored to be coming along, I expect a launch price of £5500, maybe more. I see very little reason to expect a MFD to be less than 8-10K minimum and that is assuming that they keep to a conservative sensor size like the Pentax 645D. You claim the pentax 645D is expensive but why do you think a Nikon or Canon would be cheaper considering Pentax DSLRs undercut CaNikon?
And I understand what you mean about improved yields for larger sensors but the relationship of cost to size has remained the same mostly, just the absolute cost of producing a sensor has reduced. Sensor costs still scale quadratically at the best with size, which is the sole reason existing MFD cameras are so expensive (the rest of the camera is very basic) and why you can buy a D7100 with most of the tech form a D4 (metering, ASIC, auto focus, LCD, etc.) for a fraction of the cost BY using a smaller sensor. I've read in several places that the sensor in the D800 costs $1300 to replace out of warranty just for the part shipped from Japan, $1500 for the actual replacement with labour. Even if the sensor might cost $500 to FAB, a sensor 3x the size is going to cost in the order of $4000!
Yes, TS lenses cover a MF image circle. The 85mm f/2.8 PC-E is roughly a normal prime for a FF camera but it cost nearly £1400 and weigh 650g without any Auto focus capability. Meanwhile on FF I can buy a 50mm f/1.8G for a mere £150 that weighs just 185g.
I don't see how a mirrorless design saves any weight of glass except for Ultra Wide angles. The weight comes from the image circle required, the focal length and the aperture creating the front element dimensions. My 300mm F/4 is a really nice example of a simple lens - it is basically a hollow tube with a 77mm front lens element that adds all the weight, plus some correcting and AF elements that will be present in any Medium format design.
Doubling the focal length and maintaining the same aperture requires quadrupling the area of the front element and the mass of glass increases cubically (so factor 8 for a doubling of FL), which is why the super telephotos quickly end up super expensive and super heavy because physics is not on our side. MF suffer the same fate, increasing some linear dimensions a little can have big effects on the size and mass of glass needed to achieve the same kinds of images. The smaller MF lenses end up at f/4 to keep the size down and they just don't even bother going longer than slightly tele.
The D3x price was high but people were willing to pay that amount because it was the single best FF DSLR one could buy and produced images no other DSLR could manage. For professional landscape and studio photographers the price was acceptable. To put things in perspective the D4 has a launch price of £4800. A D4x is rumored to be coming along, I expect a launch price of £5500, maybe more. I see very little reason to expect a MFD to be less than 8-10K minimum and that is assuming that they keep to a conservative sensor size like the Pentax 645D. You claim the pentax 645D is expensive but why do you think a Nikon or Canon would be cheaper considering Pentax DSLRs undercut CaNikon?
And I understand what you mean about improved yields for larger sensors but the relationship of cost to size has remained the same mostly, just the absolute cost of producing a sensor has reduced. Sensor costs still scale quadratically at the best with size, which is the sole reason existing MFD cameras are so expensive (the rest of the camera is very basic) and why you can buy a D7100 with most of the tech form a D4 (metering, ASIC, auto focus, LCD, etc.) for a fraction of the cost BY using a smaller sensor. I've read in several places that the sensor in the D800 costs $1300 to replace out of warranty just for the part shipped from Japan, $1500 for the actual replacement with labour. Even if the sensor might cost $500 to FAB, a sensor 3x the size is going to cost in the order of $4000!
Yes, TS lenses cover a MF image circle. The 85mm f/2.8 PC-E is roughly a normal prime for a FF camera but it cost nearly £1400 and weigh 650g without any Auto focus capability. Meanwhile on FF I can buy a 50mm f/1.8G for a mere £150 that weighs just 185g.
I don't see how a mirrorless design saves any weight of glass except for Ultra Wide angles. The weight comes from the image circle required, the focal length and the aperture creating the front element dimensions. My 300mm F/4 is a really nice example of a simple lens - it is basically a hollow tube with a 77mm front lens element that adds all the weight, plus some correcting and AF elements that will be present in any Medium format design.
Doubling the focal length and maintaining the same aperture requires quadrupling the area of the front element and the mass of glass increases cubically (so factor 8 for a doubling of FL), which is why the super telephotos quickly end up super expensive and super heavy because physics is not on our side. MF suffer the same fate, increasing some linear dimensions a little can have big effects on the size and mass of glass needed to achieve the same kinds of images. The smaller MF lenses end up at f/4 to keep the size down and they just don't even bother going longer than slightly tele.
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They probably said that when Canon released the 1Ds & 5D. Then Nikon haemorrhaged market share because all they had to offer was APSC.
If Canon release a sub 10K MFD then Nikon will surely consider that price point but they may be aiming for a different market segment.
And all my ramblings apply equally to Canon, why and would Canon release a significantly cheaper MFD?
The Canon 1DX is nearly £5K to begin with and they are expected to release a high MP (e.g. 48MP ) to give something to the landscape and studio pro-crowd rather than letting them buy a D800. A 1DXs kind of model may hit 6-7K given previous and recent canon pricing. How would they release an MFD camera for less than 10-12K?
If anyone is going to release a budget MFD it is Sony but you will have a long wait for lenses given Sony's track record. Sony have the sensor technology and fabrication facilities to make a budget offering, and they seem clear to be throwing different camera ideas out left right and center to see what sticks and gains traction.
And the bottom line is that Nikon patent may simply be for a new PC-E lens since they all need updating! No where does it say anything about a ,medium format camera explicitly. If nikon releases patents for an MFD sized sensor with embedded phase detection sensor or some such magic then you can get excited. The last time there were rumors about a Nikon MFD it boil down to the D800 (and the D3x before) competing with MFD in many image quality aspects.