Which Sony Mirrorless

[Raymond Lin]

Academic

Canon did change their mount and at the time it did alienate and upset a lot of their users, and since then in those 28 years they have released hundreds of lenses, many many of those are now into their 2nd and 3rd generations. I can't really think of many focal length where they are significantly fall short in such a way with a massive hole that Nikon has the advantage due to their old lenses designed back in 1955 or something that you can buy which are made on the old mount. In fact, I would hazard a guess that there are more AF lenses that Canon makes on the EF which Nikon do not and not the other way round. With regard to EF-S mount, that's not a replacement of the EF mount and EF-S cameras can still use EF lenses, same principle as new Nikon cameras can use old Nikon glass. One can ignore the EF-S lenses entirely and concentrate on the EF lenses.

Back in the real world.

And ask anyone, people will say Canon has more glass to choose from, they base that on the fact that there are more auto focus glass to choose from, all made post 1987. Nobody say Nikon has more glass to choose from and then add the caveat "if you include their old mount". Nobody, except DP. People do not go out of their way in general to seek out glass in the old mount to fill a hole in the focal length. They would rather get an auto focus lens that is perhaps does not have the desired aperture or a lens made by a 3rd party like Sigma to fill to gap rather than go the old mount route. People who seek out old glass like that tends to know the particular lens in question and would go out of their way to do that because they want to experiment with that particular glass, not as a solution for the focal length.

 

[D.P.]

Back in the real world, who goes out of their way and use 50year old manual lenses on their new cameras.

Just because you can, doesn't mean people do, even if it's a choice.

That is irrelevant to the question in hand, which is whether Nikon will continue to use the F-mount on a mirrorless camera. You could be 100% correct and not single person on the planet uses an older lenses, but that has nothing to do with the premise that Nikon is more likely than any other company to retain the F-mount, and thus Nikon user's lenses are least liekly to become obsolete.

But you are also wrong, a lot of people use older nikon lenses, some of them are fantastic and simply aren't made anymore. Nikkor 55m f/1.2 Noctor, 300mm f/2.0, Nikon 105mm f2.5 AI-S, Nikon 50mm f/0.95. etc. And then there is the simply fact that not everyone can afford the latest and greatest lenses. A lot of wildlife photographers out there using old super-telephotos form the 80s., and this is especially common in foreign countries with lower incomes. In some countries even the media and photojournalists use manual focus tele lenses..

The entire topic is academic.

Every single one of my canon mount lens will work on the Sony A7Rii via an adaptor and retaining the AF. All I need is they body and an adaptor.

Not starting a brand war but you can't say that about Nikon lenses, sure it's one mount but they are not all made the same.

every single one of my nikon lenses will work on a Sony A7RII via an adapter and retaining AF. All I need is a body and an adapter. But again, this is irrelevant to the question of whether Nikon F-mount lenses will work on a future Nikon mirrorless camera. Nikon is not responsible for making their lenses work on a Sony camera.

You are right that currently there is probably no adapter that can focus the older screw drive lenses, but these haven't been released in 20 years. By your opening opinion, why would people use very old lenses? Furthermore, this is again irrelevant to the topic. If Sony and/or Nikon wanted to make an adapter that can auto-focus old screw-driven lenses they could, there is no fundamental problem with the F-mount that prevents this, its just market economics, the last thing Nikon wants to do is make it easy for Nikon users to switch to Sony, and Sony wants you to buy Sony lenses, not spend resources developing a solution for very old competitor lenses. So again, Richdog's assertion that "unsuited to being converted to mirrorless systems" is just unsubstantiated.

And lastly, the only reason why all of Canon EF lenses will be AF compatible is Canon ditched the FD mount and thus have already depreciated people's lenses.


And yes, I really don't want to start a brand war, I'm not suggesting Canon or Nikon's approach is superior at all. There are pro and cons to keeping a backwards compatible lens mount. I'm merely pointing out the obvious flaws in Richdog's logic. In summary, there is is absolutely nothing fundamentally stopping Nikon using the F-mount on a mirror-less camera, and secondly, Nikon has the strongest track record of keeping backwards compatibility.
There is no guarantees at all but personally as a Nikon user I'm not worried in the slightest.

 

[D.P.]

Academic

Canon did change their mount and at the time it did alienate and upset a lot of their users, and since then in those 28 years they have released hundreds of lenses, many many of those are now into their 2nd and 3rd generations. I can't really think of many focal length where they are significantly fall short in such a way with a massive hole that Nikon has the advantage due to their old lenses designed back in 1955 or something that you can buy which are made on the old mount. In fact, I would hazard a guess that there are more AF lenses that Canon makes on the EF which Nikon do not and not the other way round. With regard to EF-S mount, that's not a replacement of the EF mount and EF-S cameras can still use EF lenses, same principle as new Nikon cameras can use old Nikon glass. One can ignore the EF-S lenses entirely and concentrate on the EF lenses.

Back in the real world.

And ask anyone, people will say Canon has more glass to choose from, they base that on the fact that there are more auto focus glass to choose from, all made post 1987. Nobody say Nikon has more glass to choose from and then add the caveat "if you include their old mount". Nobody, except DP. People do not go out of their way in general to seek out glass in the old mount to fill a hole in the focal length. They would rather get an auto focus lens that is perhaps does not have the desired aperture or a lens made by a 3rd party like Sigma to fill to gap rather than go the old mount route. People who seek out old glass like that tends to know the particular lens in question and would go out of their way to do that because they want to experiment with that particular glass, not as a solution for the focal length.

I don't disagree with any of that but it doesn't have anything to do with the, already off-topic, topic at hand.

But ona rleated note, as well as the classic Nikkors and cheap MF super teles there are a number of other use cases for old Nikon lenses which makes Nikon popular. Macro work for example is done mostly manually (on macro rails) by professionals. Similarly with landscape work because you want to use hyperfocal focusing, although some people will use liveview. Astrophotogrpahy again will manually set focus to a calibrated infinity. And don't forget video where manual focus lenses rule the roost. And then there are other budget minded people who can pick up older Nikon lenses and get very similar performance to the modern equivalents for a fraction of the price. The nikon DF has attracted lots of hipsters as will as older photographers to get a small setup with the older classic primes like 24mm f/2.8 AF-D etc.



If you spent any time on Nikon forums you would see a lot of people that have picked up old Nikon glass for fun, or to achieve particular background rendering, or just to get a small, light cheap lens for travel etc.

Personalty I don't own any old Nikon glass, however I was given a late 1970s nikon 50mm f/1.8 form my father in Law. Mounted it on my camera and it worked flawlessly. I used it for macro work a little but gave it to my younger sister who was just getting into photography. Now I am a father I want to replicate a photo my father in alw took with the exact same lens of his children so when i get back to the UK next summer I am going to pick up the old 50 and try and replicate some nostalgia. Optically the lens is very sharp, it lacks contrast wide open but at f/2.8 it really sings and has a very interesting Bokeh. It is beautiful made unlike the modern plastic, it is a lump of solid brass but is really tiny and lighter than any modern AF equivalent.

 

[Sig226]

awesome !....another interesting thread derailed by the Canon Vs Nikon eeejiiits

 

[the_director]

A thread about Sony cameras no less!

Interestingly, Sony are the weakest in terms of amount of native lenses available so they avoided getting drawn into that argument by creating amazing Mirrorless cameras and saying: please feel free to mount every lens ever made.

I'm certainly trying.

 

[D.P.]

awesome !....another interesting thread derailed by the Canon Vs Nikon eeejiiits

No one is arguing canon vs Nikon

The debate is primly about whether the nIkon F-mount is "unsuited for mirrorless", which is certainly rubbish. No one has stated if Nikon or canon is better, that is irrelevant to the topic.