At this point of shooting, it was extremely dark and a security guy walking around me was very annoying, kind of nosy asking me about many questions while I was framing or setting up my tripod here.
As I first wrote about the new Panasonic FF rumor in 2016, and I suggested Panasonic should do it, many people especially Nikon fans complained about the accuracy of the rumor and many said even if that would be really true, they would not be able to compete with the traditional camera companies like Nikon, Canon and Olympus.
Many of these people just condescendingly criticized Panasonic and its camera products unreliable or not durable enough(although they have never used any of Panasonic cameras). They said they would not trust Panasonic or Sony cameras as they feel so cheap, unreliable or probably not durable enough for serious field work even though most of those people had no real life experience with any of Panasonic camera products or Sony's.
Many traditional camera company fanboys try to tell us Sony or Panasonic cameras are much less reliable than traditional camera branded cameras.......and therefore they will never trust Pana Sony Samsung kind.. It is fine that they do not like Panasonic Sony or Samsung cameras, they do not want to use these, but please do not mislead the public.
I find the Panasonic cameras extremely durable and very incredibly reliable in real world use.
And their cameras have exceptional heat dissipation system and incredibly efficient power management system that allows the system run much cooler than the Nikon, Canon equivalents.
So even after 8 hours of a long video work session, they've never overheated, just worked and worked flawlessly.
Maybe surprisingly to some, but it has been the big name traditional camera brands - Olympus, Nikon , Canon and Fuji that have needed warranty support. New blow-ins to the camera world - Sony and Panasonic - those companies that've come from an electronic goods background are probably more sensitive to the costs of providing regular warranty care and do their utmost to make gear that outlasts their normal working life and not just the warranty period. I have appreciated this.
And therefore, I trust Panasonic cameras much more than anything from Nikon or Canon world, I have never had any Panasonic cameras that broke on me in the middle of a very important shooting session. And all my Sony A7RX cameras even the very original one from 2013 still work flawlessly.
I think those electronics camera companies' cameras are much more reliable than those from Nikon, Canon or Olympus. After all, all digital cameras are just pure computers with a shutter unit. But the global shutter tech will eventually eliminate the mechanical shutter too.
So no CN advantage over the rest and I think actually the electronics giants like Sony and Pana have the huge edge over them.
I think it is m43 and here is why--Why m43 is so doomed now 27(updated11):
Now m43 sells has plummeted by 30 percent or so from its peak time in 2012, just before the A7 series launch. And even many of diehard fans of that system is questioning about relevance meaning of the system in the current market.
Let's be honest even Sigma's CEO Yamaki admits that many young people see bulky DSLR's in particular as a vestige of the past and wouldn't be caught dead with one, the fad having lost its "coolness factor" some 8 or so years back. I , for one, always feel -DSLR odd whenever I try to shoot my D-SLR again. It feels so anachronistic.
But Yamaki also said:
"Mirrorless might be the future, but the tiny sensored system does not deserve much attention from the lens makers since the future set and lens set for each system will become almost identical, then the smaller the sensor the more difficult to compete in the sheer IQ and quality race. In addition, many crop sensor users do not spend much money on lenses, so it is quite difficult for our company(any other major lens makers) to justify designing many unique lenses for m43 system. We just don't see a big profit there".
This is a huge issue for m43 , it is simply always viewed this way, he is not alone.
A few years back Zeiss also said something very similar to what Mr. Yamaki of Sigma said above. And a few years back, for the same reason, Schneider decided to cancel development of a few planned m43 dedicated lenses they once announced at 2013 Photokina.
When m43 had the feature set and lens line up advantage over the rest, they could compete. But now, almost every system has an identical feature set, and a similar lens line up......and m43 has even lost the size advantage that it held long time over the APS-C and FF, many of major lens makers are wondering if it still worth investing more into this system that even Zeiss and Sigma decided to shun........
So we must ask : Is the m43 perceived any cooler than the D-SLR by the young?
I think no, all the Cool Kids take photos with their iPhones or Google Pixel phones. I don't know of any type of stand-alone camera that would qualify as cool. If there was or is such a camera system, it would have to be the One sensor compact such as Sony RX-100M5 or RX10MK4. Even my self seriously considering the RX10MK4 to replace my A6500 and A600 plus a few lenses although I will always keep my main camera system A7RX with Loxia lenses intact.
If someone doesn't want an DSLR or A7RX line camera because it's "not cool" they aren't getting a m43 or a Fuji X ,either. To normal people they are not really small or discrete at all.
Normal people may get a 1" compact, or simply use their phone. Majority of NORMAL people never care about long zooms or super wide or a set of super fast primes, or do not even understand why they might need any of those.
Actually, no camera forum denizens realize this , but we have to face the fact that all ILC cameras are big to most of NORMAL non-photographer people, and they are very intimidating to most of NORMAL people(I mean regardless of mount type or sensor size).
I never realized it before but walking around down town Fukuoka with one of my younger non-photog friends here forced me to understand it. He told me that he thinks all interchangeable lens cameras are huge and intimidating to most of average people regardless of sensor size or format, it's just simply annoying! He even said it is really pain-in-ass to use any ILC, it does not matter a m43 or a FF, but if he has to use a ILC, he will go all the way up to FF or at least APS-C cause every ILC even m43 or Nikon One feels big to him and most of normal people , anyway, and a huge lens feels extremely annoying to many people including him since it feels as though it is some how intruding into their privacy without their consent or permission. So he and his friends hate to see a big tele photo lens pointed towards them.
I guess a big lens scares or annoys people more than a big camera body......I never saw it his way but I got his point and I decided to carry my tiny Sony RX100M3 when I just walk around the city area with other people. If I am alone, then I usually carry my big camera, and I think it does not matter it's a m43, a FF, an APS-C, it is all big to most of NORMAL people, anyway, as my younger friends say............
Honestly, ILC's for the most part are a pain in the ass to use and annoying and quirky that deprives away our freedom of choice of our tourist activities or at least restrict it. You need to carry a camera bag, usually with at least one or more other lenses, you are switching lenses, and fiddling around with non-phone like ergonomics that only your creepy old boss could love, plus you must change lenses over and over every single block you walk pass by to get at least acceptable focal range like in the zoom on the RX100M5..
So normal people never buy ILC cameras, or if they buy they get a FF or APS-C.....because their friends tell them the sensor quality is everything and so go big with sensor size.
When I went down to city hall area, I saw many young people shooting their big cameras.
To my surprise, a huge group of twenty-something guys and girls, all with tripods, down at the city hall park, taking night shots of the fountain or cityscape using high end dSLRs mostly Canon 5DMK4 or 5DS-R, a few had the D850 and a few had the Sony A7X cameras. They seemed to come from a near by university photography club and they seemed to know their cameras very well since all of them had a serious dedicated cable release.
Contrary to the common forum belief many women photogs I know in real life use a big D-SLR or at least A7 or Fuji X, no one uses a m43 or Nikon One, and they tell me why.
Because to occupy a good shooting spot, they need the biggest camera and tallest tripod they can handle ..........or they'd be looked down cause Photographic world is dominated by older males who look down on young and women.......
Sad, but I think it is the reality. When I shoot paid events with D-SLRs or the A7RX, the cops or the security guys never bother me. But when I have a tiny compact camera or NEX type of mirrorless, many cops bother me. Many Westerners do not understand how look of our camera changes the way people perceive us in the public in East Asia especially in city area. It is a huge issue for us in most part of East Asia. If you are a girl not a boy, you really need a big serious looking camera to get the best position you want to get for any event you shoot here.
In China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, etc, public perception is very important, and the ignorant public usually thinks the bigger the more serious camera, or the people with a big serious looking(just looking) camera are always perceived as a serious photog or get more respect.............it is why m43 is not taken seriously in the nations with relatively tiny people such as Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Korea, Laos,etc. If you want to be taken seriously but hate a D-SLR like me, you need a highend Sony or a highend Fuji here in Japan and in most part of Asia.
A few weeks back, when I was shooting a big piano concert with my A7R2(because it had silent shooting feature unlike my Nikon d750 or Sony A7R), an old guy with Nikon D3400 told me not use a TOY for a serious event shooting...........Surprising but even old guys with Rebels or Nikon D3XXX think my Sony A7R or A7R2 a toy.........laughable but true, average people are that ignorant and proud of being ignorant.......I know many old guys think mirrorless as just a new type of point and shoot and mock it.
So public perception of cameras is very important here.
More over, often times young and trendy mom's who want the next best thing to a point and shoot shooting their kids in an event do select mirrorless, but I've never seen one with a m43 has, a flash, or a tripod. That's based on dozen of events around the world, from Hong Kong to Bangkok to Tokyo to Taipei. And I study what the crowd is doing as much as I do my own work there. Maybe , I am more interested in studying about others' choices than my own photography. It is very fun to me, observing and studying other people is really interesting some times.
Not specifically related to market share, etc.,but if you haven't read it already , NYTimes predicted which camera companies will survive and die in the next few years.
They guessed the m43 duo and the Pentax would definitely die in the next 5 years and the article was published in 2015, so they think m43 may die in the next 2 years time, just before the Tokyo 2020 thing.
Obviously, in the dawn of mirrorless era, the m43 was a very popular system, if not the most popular mirrorless system. And they obviously had feature set advantage and definitely had lens selection advantage over the Sony and Fuji.
But over the last few years time, Sony and Fuji have caught up with the m43 duo in the lens and feature set departments. And now, the m43 system has lost the size and cost advantage to the E mount and the X mount and definitely to the EOS M.
The EOS M is cheaper and smaller as a system than the m43 and most of poor students or young people just get started this hobby would buy or try the EOS M.
The m43 duo has lost a big portion of the newbie market to Canon and Sony, a big portion of the highend gear head or serious shooter market to Sony and Fuji, to a lesser extent to DSLR.
It is a huge loss to them.
Finally, contrary to the common forum belief, the younger photogs the more into heavy gear serious-looking gear, this is glaring especially in Asia.
I think it is a simple psychology case, they just want to be taken seriously.
Those do not care about how they perceived usually just use their iPhone or Google Phone, or one of the One sensored cameras, and nothing wrong with that.
So it will be a very tough fight for micro43, especially in the higher end of camera market despite of their recent excellent cameras such as G9 , GH5s and G5.
They are just too expensive and huge for the small sensor based body and as a system it is not even cheap or any cheaper than a decent FF system after normalizing the DOF or light gathering power. The 4 times smaller sensor requires at least 2 times better lens to match a even a cheap FF based system. This is why a cheap(but good) Nikon AF-S24m f1.8G on a D750 easily beat the Panasonic 12mm f1.4 or Olympus version of it on a G9(the current best m43 cam to date)...
UPDATE:I was looking for my lost coin case, it was really impossible to see anything clearly here at this point of this day. It is getting whiteout completely. I was really beautiful but I could not even tell how exactly I was framing this since the EVF of my A7R2 and R3 had really limited DR that did not show enough details of minor white like colors but not exactly white or blue here. I know Fuji and some Panasonic use a Epson EVF and it seems a bit better than these Sony ones in the A7X with respect to DR and color balance.
I know the Leica SL also houses the most expensive EPSON EVF. Many Sony fanboys claim the in-house techs of Sony is the biggest advantage of Sony but I think it is the biggest disadvantage of Sony since Sony must use their own EVF's and sensors even when there is clearly much better options out there than their own.......I much prefer the EPSON produced EVF's in many Panasonics and Leicas.
Sony must use Sony sensors even though some one else comes up with much better ones. I think that will happen they will left out with the old in house tech while all the rest will be using a better Samsung, or Canon or maybe a TPSCo chip.
The DPR fanboys may say it is impossible Canon beats Sony in CMOS tech........well , it is really complicated but I believe Canon will surpass Sony in sensor tech quite soon as they are working with NHK and Mitsubishi for next gen 8k organic sensor. The more money you have the easier it is for you to win the race, and Canon team has more money than Sony and Pany combined plus they are close to Mitsubishi now which is the biggest bank of Japan. Plus, there is Samsung who is the most formidable enemy of Sony.
Just like in the TV industry Samsung will beat Sony in the sensor race too for smaller than the One sensor market.
And Canon will beat Sony in the bigger than One sensor market. So the biggest problem for Sony will be they are and will always be forced to use their mediocre sensors unless the CEO decides to sell the sensor company of it.
Even now the noise and DR advantage of Sony sensors over the latest Canon chips is greatly exaggerated by those fanboys and recent switchers. But the reality is the 5D4 sensor is already quite good and they will always move upwards from it. And many big automobile companies like Honda dislike Sony sensors and Sony itself, so Honda will choose someone else and most likely they will get Canon or maybe TowerJazz chips as they both started selling those tiny automobile image sensors.
And for Sony the loss of Nikon as their long time customer is a huge loss. Nikon has clearly stated they will work with Tower Jazz, and this means the D850 sensor was/is the last Sony designed Sony sensor for Nikon FX line.
UPDATE7: Now we know the actual sells numbers for this month and the last month at our shops and the rival shops here and the results are really surprising.
The no1 selling camera now is the D750 especially after the price for the Z7 announced. And the A7MK3 is selling better than before too, maybe because people got hugely disappointed with the new Nikon pricing strategy?
Another important trend I have write about here is that we have got so many A7R3 and A7R2 cheap from the people moving back to Canon or Nikon mirrorless for D-SLR system.
Also, now at the discounted price, the 5DMK4 is also doing very well. So actually after the series of FF mirrorless announcements in last month, the D-SLRs seem to be able to be selling better.
Many confused DPR and LL DR obsessed Sony fanboys are really making silly mistake of thinking Sony sensor company as a division of Sony. Yeah it used to be like that, but now it is an independent company. Therefore , for them Nikon is/ has been a more important customer than Sony imaging company.
Why ? because Nikon engineers help them to set up cheap but still great conditioned used steppers for LCD's and sensors for Sony Semi. And Nikon has paid more R&D money for bigger than APS-C sensor projects than Sony DI as Nikon's market share is about two times more than that of Sony DI.
But as I said it clearly, Sony has lost the important partner.
So may be Sony is the most doomed one , maybe even more doomed than m43 since their new CEO does not want to keep any of their unprofitable businesses running intact.
UPDATE2:Now, Nikon has announced development plan of their new Z mount system and I think it would be a boring me-too system, just too similar to the already existing Sony E. It seems really like a very similar system to the Sony E, with just much bigger(not necessarily better) mount throat design. It shoots very fast and AF is quite good for sure, but it will not be as artifact- free as the PDAF sensor-less Panasonic DFD system or the Canon DP-AF system.
It will definitely have the same on sensor PDAF related IQ degradation issue as the Sony A7MK3.
It will not be fully connectable or programmable , either.
And it will not have any sort of a new 21st century minded touch based U.I. system. unlike the Hasselbald X1D or the Leica SL whose menu system is the cleanest of all.
It will still have the dated Nikon 80's U.I. design, with the very 90's style menu system.
So I think it will fail, it has no native lenses, yet Nikon does not have the courage to open the mount architecture to the major thirdparties like Sony did.
But I am sure the Nikon fanatics will comfortably forget how unfairly critical they were to Sony system when it was just launched, and if anyone criticizes the lack of any decent native lens issue of the new Nikon, they will just tell him /her that they will just adapt the F mount lenses.
Now, I think Olympus and Panasonic should go FF and beat the Nikon Z, they can do it as I wrote about it in detail in my recently article called,"why m43 is doomed 31"....
Just create a super tough hybrid FF mirrorless system with a new mount that will also take the current m43 lenses in crop mode. They will also need a Leica SL type new menu system , 21st century minded touch based new U.I. Then , they will be fine at least they will beat Nikon whose R and D money is much smaller than that of Panasonic and Olympus.
They do not need to go head to head with Sony, Fuji or Canon but try to take on the Nikon Z. It will be a quite easy task to beat it.
After all, Nikon is a about 3 times smaller company than Olympus and about 12 times smaller than Pana.
UPDATE3: Now Nikon launched the Z system and the lens lineup at least roadmap is kind of interesting.
They would launch a 14-30mm f4 zoom and if that get much better corrected optically (lesser distortion than most of Sony FE wide zooms), I may consider adding the Nikon for my wide angle stuffs.
I tried the 35mm f1.8 S lens and I must admit it is a really sharp lens across the frame and definitely one of the best middle class primes ever made.
Next week, we will have some opportunities to try out the new Nikon 50mmf1.8S, and I expect it to blow my FE55mm f1.8 fake Zeiss out of the water.
The 35mm f1.8s was that good, but unfortunately only one superb lens is not complete enough to call it a good SYSTEM.
UPDATE4: the poor battery life of the Z7 even with the D-SLR sized big battery clearly shows us how inefficient Nikon power management system really is, it's embarrassing.
Many D-SLR guys mocked Sony A7R3 for that, but even a smaller battery the A7R3 lasts much longer than the Z7.
The Z7 sensor and ergonomics are very attractive to some of us but it as a whole system seems to be much less attractive than the A7R3 system with 40+ lens to back it up.
UPDATE5: As Nikon decided to force all thirdparties out of the Z mount system, it will take a lot longer than Sony or m43 or Fuji to develop a decent lens line, and this will be the biggest con of the system. There will be no Batis, no Sigma Art, no AF Samyang,etc. This also means the average cost of the Z mount system will be significantly higher that of the Sony A7R3 based system.
UPDATE6: Nikon seems to make D-SLR users a second class citizen lowered than the Z mount users. I think this really silly marketing will piss a million those F mount guys who cannot afford to make the switch due to the crazy lens price of the Z mount lenses.
According to a few Japanese sites they said they would announce some sort of entry level FF mirrorless cheaper than the Z6 but still it will be more expensive than the A7MK3.
I think Nikon Z system will be a very niche high end system fight for a small tiny piece of the already tiny FF market.
Nikon decidedly ignores the DX market with this system and it will really hurt Nikon since about 83 percent of ILC camera sells is DX or APS-C(not so called FF).
UPDATE7: Now we know the actual sells numbers for this month and the last month at our shops and the rival shops here and the results are really surprising.
The no1 selling camera now is the D750 especially after the price for the Z7 announced. And the A7MK3 is selling better than before too, maybe because people got hugely disappointed with the new Nikon pricing strategy?
Another important trend I have write about here is that we have got so many A7R3 and A7R2 cheap from the people moving back to Canon or Nikon mirrorless for D-SLR system.
Also, now at the discounted price, the 5DMK4 is also doing very well.
After the last series of FF mirrorless announcements in last month, actually DSLR sells seems to be increasing quite a bit, and I think this is a sign of many people thought the Nikon Z7 and Canon R were a huge disappointment.
I do not think the camera itself was so bad , actually good, but the lens lineup is really lousy. And the Z7 is really overpriced. It is about 500 US more than the D850, and it has only 3 lenses currently. And the biggest issue with the Z7 as a system is the new adapter does not work well with many F mount lenses.
So how can Nikon expect to sell that body?
UPDATE8:Today I retested the Nikon Z7. This was my first time to try the Z24-70mmf4S lens with the latest FW installed both on the body and the lens.
The AF speed was impressive, I'd say a tiny bit more sure and reliable than my A7R3 and A7R2. It is just as fast as the A7MK3 we compared to it. The lowlight focusing ability was a bit better than my A7R3 and the A7MK3 we compared to it.
The buffer clearing time was also very fast, much better than that of my A7R3, no comparison to my A7R2.
So over all the AF seems to be at least as good or a bit better than the A7R3 and probably as good as the A7MK3, which is a bit faster and better than the A7R3 in action AF and overall speed.
The flash unit I used to day with the Z7 was the old SB710 but it worked as well as it did with any Nikon D-SLR body.
The Z7 body feels much more solid than my A7R3 and a bit heavier than my own camera. But the lens mounted on it is smaller and lighter lens than my own lens I mounted on my A7R3 , so the kit is indeed a bit lighter than my A7R3 plus FE24-70mmf2.8GM kit.
The Nikon Z24-70mmf4S is optically an excellent lens, maybe even better than my FE24-70mmf2.8GM or from 35mm and on, but the build feels really cheap like a cheap kit lens.
I have shot a short video of a cat dancing and a few hundred images with it in just my 45 minutes of test time there.
But the battery seems to last much longer than many YouTube morons seem to believe it does, I think they do use the camera with the mount adapter, which actually uses up a lot of extra battery power according to a Nikon rep I talked with about it today.
The camera becomes quite a bit slower with the mount adapter and a F mount lens , the AF with a F mount lens is noticeably slower and worse than with a native lens.
It was extremely fast with the 50mm f1.8S lens(prototype) and the 35mm f1.8S lens.
I may get the body plus the 24-70mmf4S and 35mm f1.8S plus the mount adapter but I am not sure I will use the adapter since it slows down the camera quite significantly...
The video file seems to be good but still have no time to grade it yet, the file is huge and it requires a lot of time to edit it. One thing I dislike about the Z24-70mmf4S is that it extends two times when you actually use it. You must turn it to extend it to actual usable state(24mm wide end ) then again you need to zoom it in to the exact focal range you want. So I think it sucks a lot of dust and the sensor gets quite dirty very soon.
I think Canon was smarter in this regard, their zooms do not extend two times, also the EOS R has lens shutter cover which closes to protect the shutter unit and sensor itself when the camera turned off.
The Z24-70mmf4S feels very cheap but optically a sharp lens across the frame throughout the range. It was very sharp even at 70mm f4 setting. I have no issues with its optical quality or performance, but I do not think its build warrants its over 1k US price. It really feels like the cheap Sony FE28-70mm kit lens, which I had only 4 days on my first A7R.
UPDATE9: Today I tried the EOS R on the latest (probably the final FW), it was a fast, very solid camera. For my hand, the EOSR feels a bit better than the Nikon Z7(I could not try the Z6 yet). The Canon mount seems much stronger than that Nikon Z mount since the Canon R has a bit thicker body due to its a bit longer registration distance of 20mm vs 16mm of Nikon.
The Nikon Z7 felt a bit heavier than the EOS R, but the R seemed a bit bigger. The RF24-105mmf4 L lens feels much more solid and durable(I do not know it is actually more durable than the Nikon) than the Nikon Z24-70mmf4S kit lens.
But I think the Nikon is a bit better lens optically, or I have to say I believe it is the best optically corrected std zoom ever made for any 135mm format camera system.
The Canon RF35mm f1.8 macro is a interesting lens and this lens alone really makes me want a EOS R body. The RF35mm f1.8 Macro IS is the lens I have been long waiting for from Sony or Zeiss or Tamron or anyone for my A7RX.
The Canon EOS R focuses really fast, and the new DPAF seems more reliable than the AF of my Sony A7R3 and R2(of course), it seems to be a much better improved version of the DPAF of the EOSM50, which I was always interested and may get as a travel light camera down the road.
In video mode, the Z7 is definitely better producing much more durable files, with a bit color science than both the Canon R and the Sony A7R3.
But the Nikon Z7 AF is useless for video, the Canon AF is really good for video by comparison. So maybe run and gun style documentary, the EOS R may be a bit better choice...if we need the reliable AF.
According to Canon's Canon has designed and developed the RF mount for the best balance between extreme optical design freedom and the best mount reliability ( physical strength).. If it is for just simple optical freedom, then they could have made it even shallower like the Nikon, but they feel it would not be reliable , durable enough for their pro use standard. So they made it a bit thicker.
I do not know if Canon is telling us the truth but I feel it may be the case since the R feels a bit more solid than the Nikon Z7 body.
I think the EVF of the Z7 is better than that of the R or the A7R3...especially in low light places.
The main differences of the two that I feel very important to note here are:
1 the R focuses much better in lowlight.
2 the R focuses much more reliably with an adapted lens.
I think the 2 is a very huge thing since all of those cameras require adapting their respective old mount lenses.
The Z7's biggest issue (at least for me) is the AF really slows down with an adapted F mount lens.....its AF is excellent with a native Z mount lens, though.
So for now, as we need many EF or F mount lenses still, the R may be a more solid offering. But in the long run, I think the Z7 may be a better choice since its sensor is a bit better, the Z mount lenses seem excellent optically.
But for my personal needs, as it will be my sub system (or second system or even third if I were really honest) , I cannot justify the price of the Z7. So I would love to try the Z6 soon, but it is not available till November.
And the current selection of lenses for the Z7/6 might be too limited as the F mount lenses do not work very well on it(the EF mount lenses work very well on my A7R3 R2 and of course on the new Canon too).
Another huge downer of the Z system is the XQD card, it makes the system much more expensive than my Sony system or the new Canon R system. If I get the R, I can share my over 200 plus SD cards across all my systems including the Canon M , the Sony E, FE, the Panasonic G and the new R.
But if I get the Nikon I need a few new XQD cards and they are very expensive every where.
I mean I can get a super fast UHS2 64GB SD card for just 32 USD or so here, but I'd have to pay more than 130 USD for a decent high quality 64GB XQD card. And one card is not enough, I might have to buy at least 7 or 8 of these with the Z7 or the Z6.....that is expensive.
UPDATE10: Now we all know Thom Hogan is actually a avid Nikon fanboy at his heart. He seems to be strongly biased towards Nikon, I think his new articled called, 'The FF lens race' has just proved that.
In that article , he says Sony has just 26lenses and their lens lineup will grow to about 60 by 2021 or so, and it is including Zeiss Batis and Loxia line. In comparison he says Nikon will have the total 18 and they have the F mount catalog of total over 60 lenses that will work flawlessly on the Z. It is a huge lie, and not very fair to fair to Sony , Pana and Canon. Since the FTZ adapter does not work as well as Sigma or Metabones plus Canon EF on Sony. Or Canon's own ETR adapter, which really works well without any issue with their EF lens lineup, plus it has a drop-in filter.
He also says Canon will have 12 lenses or so by 2021, and it is what he is guessing. I think if Nikon can crank out an incredible set of 18 lenses in just a matter of a couple of years , then Canon will make more lenses than that since Canon is about 13 times larger than Nikon.
If anyone thinks otherwise, I think he/she cannot deny he is a Nikon fanboy, or fangirl, at least as with many famous camera commentators, he/she is strongly biased towards Nikon.
In addition to that, Mr. Hogan also says both the Canon R and the Nikon Z can just use their respective old mount existing lenses flawlessly.......it is not true.
Canon can do that, but Nikon Z needs new more sophisticated Sony A to E type adapter with SLT tech or something similar to fully utilize all the past Nikkor lenses with mechanical aperture lever in the mount.
And he really underestimates Panasonic Leica team, and he definitely thinks they will be a less interesting or less influential mount system than the Nikon Z.
I do not agree with him on that at all, the Panasonic has tremendous potential with the new organic sensor, which will come in their Pro body sometime in 2019 or 2020.
Plus, unlike Nikon, they have global shutter and 8k tech in- house and it is a huge edge over Nikon since Nikon is the only one in the FF mirrorless players not have it or have no access to it.
Global shutter is the next biggest thing in FF mirrorless game and Sony , Pana and Canon all have it in-house and Nikon does not. If he is honest, he should not call CN or CaNikon since Nikon is just too small to call a rival of Canon now.
If his 'the lens race' article had been written in the early 2009 or so, I would have understood why he used the term,'CN'.
Nikon was huge at in late 2009. But they have failed to keep that huge 32 percent market share they got with the D700/D7000 duo.
I mean Nikon's ILC share is just 23 percent globally today and Canon over 49.3, and they are about 13 times larger than Nikon in terms of revenue.
This CN or CaNikon notion Nikon fanboys push through over a decade or so is really an outdated term and should not use the term any more. It is now Sony vs Canon vs Panasonic L mount alliance, and it is really difficult for Nikon to compete well with those much bigger companies than they are.
Any even a bit rational person can see it. Of course, Thom knows it, he is not stupid. But he has chosen to dismiss it because most of his readers are Nikon fans and so is he himself.
When Sony was the only one in the game, he said no adapters or adapted lens solution would not do anything for any serious work, and all the adapted lens solutions for the E mount system. But now he is saying the Nikon Z already has over 60 plus lenses(at the very launch of it) because it can take all Nikkor S and E lenses. Isn't this logic very contradicting to what he has been preaching about Sony lens lineup? He has said, "Any one buying into the E mount eco system should focus on the native lenses, any adapted lens solution is just a temporal thing." But prizing the Nikon Z for its easy adaptability of the Nikkor legacy lenses.
If Sony or Canon or any one needs an adapter solution, he trashes it. But if it is a Nikon, then forgiven or even prized for it. It is really amazing how contradicting he has become and some other Nikon fanboy reviewers like Lloyd Chamber has also saying similar things over and over again.
They should try to be at least consistent.