Nikon Is Making a Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera

[Megalith]

Nikon has just seemingly confirmed that its upcoming mirrorless camera will contain a full-frame sensor: in an interview with Chinese website Xitek, Nikon Imaging Product R&D General Manager Tetsuro Goto calls full frame “the trend” and says that “if Nikon will go mirrorless, it must be full frame.”

New patent filings by Nikon also confirm this direction. Earlier this month, we shared two Nikon patents that showed 52mm f/0.9 and 36mm f/1.2 lenses for a full frame mirrorless camera. In the same Xitek interview, Goto also states that Nikon’s development of its mirrorless camera will be different from Sony because of the difference in the two companies’ histories and customer bases. “Nikon customer base is very broad, from novice to enthusiasts to prosumer to professional, that’s Nikon’s advantage,” Goto says. “Olympus, Sony, and Fujifilm can only cover a small part of that. So far there is no professional using their products.”

 

[Disco_Stu_04]

Canon really needs to get on board. They seems to always be trailing the competition by a generation e.g. lagging behind in high bit photos, mirrorless bodies, high dynamic range in a single frame/sensor and also native HDR integration. I'm a long time Canon user and feel stuck having to wait for them to catch up due to the money I've invested into the glass.

Honestly mirrorless is great, when I'm afforded the time I'll either focus with the viewfinder or AF and then switch to the LCD and digitally zoom down to the pixel and fine tune the focus. It's a huge advantage in getting really sharp photos.

 

[M76]

why would you need different lenses for a mirrorless camera? If I can't use my older lenses with a new camera then what's the point?

 

[SixFootDuo]

Wonder if they will adopt the Micro Four Thirds standard? That would be awesome.

Just bought a Panasonic Lumix GX85 "Mirrorless" M4T / M43 and love it. Amazing amazing camera for the money. Exceptional 4K video.

 

[Twisted Kidney]

As powerful as processors and displays are these days the mirrors is pretty pointless.

Getting 60-120+fps on a small display for sighting shouldn't be an issue.

If the camera can shoot 60fps at 4k the mirror is just an unnecessary collection of moving parts.

why would you need different lenses for a mirrorless camera? If I can't use my older lenses with a new camera then what's the point?

It might throw the autofocus off. Don't quote me on that.

 

[dvsman]

I'm a Canon DSLR shooter myself, but I also tried out a few of their M series. First was the original M1 then I imported the M3 from Japan. Now it's up to M5 or 6 I think (and M10 on the cheaper "no EVF" version) but all of them are crop sensor cameras. Canon knows they can just keep popping out 5D mark ... and 1D mark ... cameras and people will still buy them, so they haven't really been motivated to actually do anything radically new. Just incremental upgrades here and there.

Personally, after seeing a buddy's Sony A 9 ... I realized what the future of cameras is really going to look like. Who wouldn't want full frame performance in a smaller package??? About the only downside I could find is that the smaller batteries = less runtime.

 

[SixFootDuo]

Im still a novice at shooting but i've owned several nice bodies. Rebel T3i Rebel T6i, GH3, GX1, GF3, GF5 and now a GX85. I saw they make a "speedbooster" or something that gives you full frame? Or greater light to your lens.

Feel like I'm talking out ass but I think I can add full frame to my GX85?

 

[Chaos Machine]

Im still a novice at shooting but i've owned several nice bodies. Rebel T3i Rebel T6i, GH3, GX1, GF3, GF5 and now a GX85. I saw they make a "speedbooster" or something that gives you full frame? Or greater light to your lens.

Feel like I'm talking out ass but I think I can add full frame to my GX85?

Physics would dictate that in order to add more light to the sensor you would need to use a focal reducer, this would reduce magnification. You would never be adding full frame because full frame is a reference to the surface area of the sensor. One of the benefits of full frame is that the pixels in the sensor are physically larger than smaller form factors so they can gather more light(unless it is a super high megapixel sensor in which case the added resolution negates the added noise anyway).

 

[nilepez]

Canon really needs to get on board. They seems to always be trailing the competition by a generation e.g. lagging behind in high bit photos, mirrorless bodies, high dynamic range in a single frame/sensor and also native HDR integration. I'm a long time Canon user and feel stuck having to wait for them to catch up due to the money I've invested into the glass.

Honestly mirrorless is great, when I'm afforded the time I'll either focus with the viewfinder or AF and then switch to the LCD and digitally zoom down to the pixel and fine tune the focus. It's a huge advantage in getting really sharp photos.

IDK, Nikon is really REALLY far behind on mirrorless. I know one thing, when it comes out, they have to nail it, or they're fucked.

 

[Iratus]

I'm guessing that mirrorless is easier to focus across a wide area. It's surprising though as the inability of the Nikon to do the very large apertures has been down to the f mount, it's smaller the Canon's mount.

If it doesn't keep the f mount and makes my lenses useless then it's pointless. Might have to read up on it, as a landscape photographer mirrorless does interest me. Not going through a system change again though.

 

[ChristianVirtual]

f/0.9 glass -> that sounds not cheap

 

[toast0]

Wonder if they will adopt the Micro Four Thirds standard? That would be awesome.

Just bought a Panasonic Lumix GX85 "Mirrorless" M4T / M43 and love it. Amazing amazing camera for the money. Exceptional 4K video.

Micro Four Thirds is a mounting standard, but also a sensor size standard. Nikon already has the CX / Nikon 1 which is similar but a smaller sensor than micro four thirds. This announcement would be for something much larger, and probably more expensive. It would be great if it could reuse some existing body of lenses, probably the F mount used for their SLR/DSLRs since forever; but that will require the distance from the back of the lens to the sensor be about the same as current DSLRs which would make the body much larger than most mirrorless cameras. (This length is 17 mm for CX, 19.25 mm for Micro Four Thirds, and 46.5 mm for Nikon F)

 

[CharonPDX]

Damn you, Nikon. I bought in to your Nikon 1 series because improvements in technology had allows its small sensor to be nearly as good as Micro Four Thirds, while being far more compact, with insanely fast autofocusing. I have two Nikon 1 cameras, and most of the lenses that were made available.

Then Nikon stopped releasing new 1-series hardware. One camera in the last 3 years. No new lenses.

Please, for the love of keeping a customer base, release new NIkon 1 cameras (say, with 4K/60 video support,) release new lenses (a cheaper superzoom would be nice for 'rough and tumble' use, as would some new much-higher-end primes.)