Full frame Nikon DSLR in 20 days

[wang]

Nikon is announcing a new DSLR.

Canon is now leading the market for 35mm DSLR. It is the only company selling the full frame 35X24mm sensor. The sensor is relatively noise free and has superior performance in high ISO settings.

To me, I really hope Nikon will come up with a full frame sensor this time. It will tip the balance and lowers the price of the full frame DSLR.

 

[grumpoid]

Hi, I am no DSLR expert, but I thought that it is impossible for Nikon to produce a full frame one because the 'F' mount is just too small? Cheers Steve.

 

[jsmisc]

To go off at a tangent, what I would like to see is a fullish frame digital Mamiya 7. I wonder if Cosmo (is that the name of the new company?) could produce that.

 

[fotografz]

Anything is possible John, but a 6X7ish sized sensor isn't probable. Neither is a 6X6 sensor.
The cost would be astronomical. One for a speciality camera like the Mamiya 7 is even less probable. Rangefinders present an even more daunting challenge because the lenses sit closer to the sensor surface than with SLR type cameras.

Steve, Kodak produced a full frame DSLR using a Nikon mount. While it was fraught with image issues, it did work.

Software solutions are getting more sophisticated in terms of correcting both lens issues and sensor shortcomings.

 

[grumpoid]

Hi, Marc...you are right of course..I forgot about that. Were any of the kodak's problems to do with the F mount? I also thought the 5D and the other full frame Canon's have light fall of problems at the corners and it can be very bad, although only with certain lenses...would the restrictions of the F mount give Nikon even more headaches with this issue? I am so far not convinced any full frame DSLR's are 'fully sorted' yet. Cheers Steve.

 

[fotografz]

The Kodak full frame camera was also available in Canon EOS mount and suffered the same image issues as the Nikon one did.

LIght fall off is not a serious full frame digital issue in either the Canon 5D nor the 1DsMKII much more than that which would be experienced if shooting chromes in a Canon film camera. What there is of it is either adjusted via firmware or in processing using the vignetting controls in Photoshop.

People moving from film negs to digital are the primary source of this comment from what I can tell. Neg film exhibits less of this fall off (mostly due to wide angle vignetting) because it was corrected during processing. A whole host of issues with digital capture can be traced to the fact that labs were masking performance and user errors during the processing. Exposure errors are the number one flub-up that becomes apparent when some folks move from neg film to digital and shoot jpgs.

 

[jsmisc]

Hi Marc,

Thanks for your response,

Ah well, I love my Mamiya 6 and thought a digital version would be nice along the lines of the proposed digital Leica.I like simple cameras and thought they might do one with rings and knobs rather than buttons and menus. I realize it's probably wishful thinking though.

Thanks again.

John

 

[djg]

Marc, I have a feeling that Kodak probably used the same components in their Canon-mount body as in the Nikon one and did not take advantage of the wider mount. Or did they?

 

[fotografz]

Full frame is full frame DJ. The point was that maybe a wider mount would have improved imagery ... which it didn't.

 

[rfcontax]

I remember reading somewhere that, ironically, Nikkors tended towards a more telecentric design philosophy than Canon lenses....meaning that despite the smaller F mount, and historic usage of APS sized sensors, Nikon lenses and f mount may be "less bad" than Canon when it comes to the problematic wide angle lens and ff sensor compatibility. Of course, an ideal would be a wide throat fitting, and redesigned, telecentric lenses (with likelihood of large front elements etc) for ff compatibility. Oh, I forgot, that was what the Contax N series was all about, and look where that ended up ;-)

 

[wang]

I made some measurments of the inner rim of various mounts.

Canon EOS =54mm
Contax C-Y =48mm
Nikon F =47mm
Leica R =50mm

I also made some measurments of the diameter of area involved in light transmission of the rear lens element of some lenses.

Contax C-Y 85mm 1.2 =34mm
Contax C-Y 21mm 2.8 =21mm
Zeiss Ikon 15mm 2.8 =12mm

Nikon F mount is the smallest because of historic reason. It was designed long time ago when lenses did not have large apertures and electronic contacts. Nikon F mount is fully capable of producing a full frame image as it has been doing so for many years.

For wide angle lenses the area of light transmission of the rear elements is small compared to the size of the mount, so all the mounts are big enough and will cause no restriction to the wide angle lenses.

Contax N system terminated because of poor sale of film equipments, certainly not because of poor design of mount or lenses.

 

[rfcontax]

>>Contax N system terminated because of poor sale of film equipments, certainly not because of poor design of mount or lenses.<<

Exactly. The irony is that the excellent design of the mount, lenses etc with more than a nod to the present demands of digital sensors (ie preference for telecentricity) is now no longer available....and we may yet have to wait some time for any manufacturer to deliver that type of lens again.

 

[rtdash]

Unfortunately betting is against FF new Nikon. Most Nikon forum postings favour a D70 replacement, aimed at the Sony Alpha series.Speculative name is "D80". Only hard info is that it will have 10.2 MP sensor.

I checked the N mount dimensions and seems to be about 65m.m. across mounting ring. I still prefer the N to my Nikons, but it's getting less and less use. Prices are so low 2nd hand that it would be a waste to sell it. There does not seem to me to be a Nikkor in same league as 24-85 V Sonnar; at least, my 24-120 Nikkor isn't. The 18-200 Nikkor is a wonderful everday lens but it's digital only so suffers bad vignetting on a film body.

Regards
Rdash

 

[wang]

Zeiss is now everywhere, like a virus infecting every system.

Zeiss is infecting Canon with the C-Y lenses and later on perhaps ZS lenses, so is Nikon and Sony.

The system which is free from Zeiss is the Hasselblad H system.

I am thinking about the historic switch of Hasselblad fom Zeiss to Fuji in 2001-2002, what happened ? What was causing the switch ?

Before Hassy made the decision of the switch, she has coupled with Zeiss for many years and the success of Hasselblad was very much related to the optical excellence of Zeiss.

The cause of the switch could be related to the Contax 645 system. Some of the lenses of C645 are even better than the Hasselblad Zeiss lenses, ex&les are Contax Apo-makro-planar is well known to be better than the Hasselblad counterpart. Zeiss even came up with an f2 for Contax 80mm lens. C645 system did rock the boat and affect the supremacy of Hassy.

If Hassy were made the decision of using Zeiss again for the H system, it would become the second 645 system in the market with the major competition coming from Contax, both using Zeiss lenses.

Hasselblad has a problem of the ego, she likes everything to be named after her. My Imacon 646 scanner has a big label Hasselblad being put on the top end of the machine, even though I can't see how she was involved in the design and making of this scanner. She were not involed in the design and making of the Fuji lenses, she managed to put her name in all the Fuji lenses of the H system.

Zeiss is definitely different from Fuji that she will never allow her lenses to be named by Hassy. This could be the important reason for the switch from Zeiss to Fuji.

After years of using Fuji lenses, do people miss Zeiss in the H system ? Miss Zeiss bokeh ?

 

[fotografz]

"The system which is free from Zeiss is the Hasselblad H system."

Joseph, this is incorrect.

I use all of my Zeiss 500 series lens on my H camera with a Hasselbad made CF adapter that is quite ingeniously designed and very well built. Unlike other adapters it is fully functional, and the Zeiss lenses operate exactly the way they do on a 500 series camera including use of the leaf shutters and no need for stop down metering ... the exception being that you don't wind the camera (the H is auto wind ), but instead cock the mechanical CF, CFE or CFI lens using a well placed cocking lever on the adapter.

I also use all the HC prime lenses from 35mm through and including 300/4.5. ... many of which are stellar performers. While some are not quite up to some Zeiss offerings such as the 100/3.5 and 180/4, this is mitigated by the use of Flexcolor's virtual APO software corrections when processing, making some of the lenses (especially wide angles) as good as or better than their Zeiss counterparts in some critical areas of lens performance when using Imacon digital backs.

Hasselblad was involved in the design of the H system including the lenses.

"Some of the lenses in the Contax system are well known to be better "

... which really means one lens: the 120/4 macro you cited. The remainder of the Contax 645 lens line-up, while pretty good, were in practice different due to being for a focal plane system thus offering faster apertures, but offering very limited flash sync speeds that many pros need ... which is why the H system with it's 1/800th sync speed is so useful.

The Contax 350/4 APO was a great lens but no Zeiss 350/5.6SA nor anywhere near the TPP FE 300/2.8. The Contax 35/3.5 is also good, but exhibits more distortion than the Zeiss 40/4 CFE IF, and certainly more than the Zeiss 38.

Don't get me wrong here, the differences in some cases are like splitting hairs. But one fact remains, the Contax 645 is a dead end system with no future, and the H system is alive and evolving ... and Hasselblad has done what it can to avoid abandoning it's previous customers of the V system with innovations like the CF adapter, and the more affordable CFV Imacon back that can be used on both the 500 and 200 series cameras.

 

[joshsolson]

is there an adapter which enables c/y lens on nikon d700?