p.41 #1 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
Why not just shoot JPEG then?
AcuteShadows wrote:
Interesting video. I agree with some observations (Lightroom button suggestion etc.). However, the reviewer doesn't really grasp what is the point of the camera when he says he does not want to edit his high quality images on the small screen. This camera is for people who don't want to look at big screens and consider such activity manual work.
p.41 #4 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
Dave Sanders wrote:
Get. It. To. A. Phone. That's what young people use to interact with the world, not clunky $6k niche cameras. It's a symptom of what ails the industry, not a rebellious challenge against it.
Exactly this^. The outright lunacy displayed by Zeiss is totally indicative of how useless the traditional camera industry is and why it is dying every single year. There will be less traditional cameras sold next year than this year, bank on it. The Zeiss ZX1 is not going to change that one bit.
Camera sales are in total free fall. The oblivious among us here at FM said we were merely returning to a more normal level of sales after the digital explosion. Laughable. We crashed through that level years ago and have fallen nearly 50% since peak film camera sales.
Yet somehow being able to edit photos on a 6 inch, color inaccurate screen is going to save the traditional camera makers!! Yes, it is true!! Just bring your 6,000 bucks to the part to get your DOA camera from Zeiss.
p.41 #5 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
nhsonyshooter wrote:
Personally it brings into question where Zeiss is as a company in 2020 that they could even release something like this. It certainly explains why they didn't send out units for review ahead of time. It's been such an iconic name in photography for so long it's amazing how fast a company can lose their way.
Well noted. This is a Kodak moment from Zeiss. They are a profoundly lost company, unworthy of their vast legacy. This pathetic camera should be truly embarrassing to anyone who had a hand in its design and release. A more appalling effort is hard to imagine.
p.41 #6 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
teddoman wrote:
This camera does seem to have roused the passions. Imho, I think a lot of the passion is driven by the $6K price. There is no "good" or "bad" product. All products are a value proposition relative to the cost. If the majority of the value proposition for a premium camera is the brand of the premium lens manufacturer that put the fixed lens on the camera, then you wouldn't expect the rest of the camera to deliver $6K of value. But my sense is that people are looking at the camera itself like it's a cheap commodity and then thinking this Android GUI + LR is outrageous for $6K. If you look at the underlying camera as fairly priced at $4500-$5500 as a premium Zeiss product, I think you can have a fair debate about the Android GUI + LR component, and some may still think that part isn't $500-1500 in value but maybe it wouldn't arouse the same passions....Show more →
The review show this camera isnt worth $2,000, much less $4500. Another poster has listed the ridiculous things missing or not working with this supposedly premium camera. Paying $4500 for this hot mess is hilarious.
p.41 #7 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
rattymouse wrote:
The review show this camera isnt worth $2,000, much less $4500. Another poster has listed the ridiculous things missing or not working with this supposedly premium camera. Paying $4500 for this hot mess is hilarious.
A camera is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it, maybe the sole value proposition is the Zeiss branding. I also don't understand why people are so riled up about the camera. Sure, it may not be for you (or me!), but I'm sure they'll find a buyer or two. My guess is that Zeiss probably doesn't even care how many it sells though I bet they care about the negative sentiment/acclaim.
nhsonyshooter wrote:
Personally it brings into question where Zeiss is as a company in 2020 that they could even release something like this.
rattymouse wrote:
Well noted. This is a Kodak moment from Zeiss. They are a profoundly lost company, unworthy of their vast legacy. This pathetic camera should be truly embarrassing to anyone who had a hand in its design and release. A more appalling effort is hard to imagine.
Maybe Fuji is more of an apt comparison - they diversified away from film/photography and expanded into cosmetics and nano-tech and films for LCD production. Although Fuji's cameras might be more liked.
Sorry to keep banging on about this - but Zeiss has moved on and is no longer a photography company. They're mostly an optics and semiconductor manufacturing supplier - 80+% of their earnings are from semiconductor, industrial optics, medical and vision products. I once guesstimated that less than 2% of revenue was from photography but someone on FM with a Zeiss connection mentioned it was more than that.
The photography biz is in a dire situation. Canon's profits e.g. have been shrinking the last couple years (up to 50% p.a.), whereas Zeiss is +40% and -17% 2017/2018/2019 from taking a quick glance at recent financial disclosures. Zeiss has about half the profits of Canon, selling like 1000 lenses and 2 cameras a year - j/k but Canon probably outsells them 10,000:1.
I'd not pay $6000 for this camera and I would never use this as a main camera (you'd be better of with a Fuji X100*). But there's something interesting about it and different enough that I would love to use it for fun despite its flaws. I will hopefully buy it some day when/if prices come down to < $2000, even if lightroom stops working.
At the end of the day, the camera is worth what people are willing to pay for it, flaws or not. If Leica is premium, this might be luxury. I'm sure there'll be a buyer or two and a couple collectors buying it at the current price.
p.41 #8 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
Please enlighten us to the point of this $6000 with its single back button that can only be customized 3 ways. Manny knows what he’s talking about, and if the point of this cam is to appeal to “mobile” editors, they need to understand they are marketing to zoomers and millennials that already have a phone with a larger screen and better CPU/GPU. A zoomer or millennial isn’t buying this abortion of a device, ever.
AcuteShadows wrote:
Interesting video. I agree with some observations (Lightroom button suggestion etc.). However, the reviewer doesn't really grasp what is the point of the camera when he says he does not want to edit his high quality images on the small screen. This camera is for people who don't want to look at big screens and consider such activity manual work.
p.41 #9 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
High noise at moderate iso values, only 1/1000th of a second shutter speed, poor auto focus (static images are a challenge FFS!!), a whopping 3 frames per second, an LCD screen with visibly poor color accuracy, a body with poor ergonomics, a 20 second start up speed, all this can be YOURS for just $6,000! Order yours today.
p.41 #10 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
We see the dumbing down trend - sad to say joined by Sony in the a7c - to omit critical controls like custom buttons and in this CZ unit, an exposure control dial. Unfortunately, less is less and form follows function, not the other way around as their design staff obviously believe. They might be able to bribe Hollywood directors to product place them.
It's an eerie re-run of the Hasselblad Sony. That European maker was on the way down when the medium format film market evaporated. They set up a design unit in Italy to come up with a fashion statement that also offered camera operability. They asked $5000 for a worked over NEX-7. It sank without trace.
One look at it tells you why. Zeiss are in a similar situation. A great company with a great history, with top tier expertise in optical design but piecemeal recent small camera lens range development (ZM-Batis-Loxia). Like with sports stars, comebacks often fail. You are on the side lines getting flabby while the competition grows ever stronger and better and market-aware.
So it was ALL fading from view as their new age management focused on alternative profit centres, not forgetting the ill-conceived 1200 gram black tube Milvuses. Time for something revolutionary! Two years pass by and crickets .. then they go ahead with it, but now phones are much stronger and the 800 gram fixed lens computer is a misfit in today's much more competitive and capable mirrorless market. They timed its release to perfection for maximum embarrassment and redundancy, if not outright obsolescence.
PS It's not passion or hatred that observers feel, quite the opposite. They are simply discussing why this camera won't work and won't sell. You cannot out-phone a modern phone. People can express differences of opinion, because we are not quite at peak George Orwell just yet.
p.41 #11 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
philip_pj wrote:
They timed its release to perfection for maximum embarrassment and redundancy, if not outright obsolescence.
Quoted for emphasis. 100% spot on. Well said.
philip_pj wrote:
PS It's not passion or hatred that observers feel, quite the opposite. They are simply discussing why this camera won't work and won't sell. You cannot out-phone a modern phone. People can express differences of opinion, because we are not quite at peak George Orwell just yet.
p.41 #12 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
philip_pj wrote:
PS It's not passion or hatred that observers feel, quite the opposite. They are simply discussing why this camera won't work and won't sell. You cannot out-phone a modern phone. People can express differences of opinion, because we are not quite at peak George Orwell just yet.
I think you and most "observers" talking about this are the wrong audience for this because we are willing to deal with a whole set of inconveniences to get our images the way we want them. This includes the workflow of plugging your camera into a computer, copying the files over to Lightroom, editing them, processing them, and then putting them into a cloud-based photo album for sharing out to sources via Instagram, Facebook, printing, or keeping personal.
I've tried introducing photography with real cameras to a couple of family members (young and old) and my observation is that they go back to the iPhone once they realize how bad the workflow is for a dedicated digital camera. The initial draw is always better image quality than what a phone can produce but the inconvenience of having to edit your images on your computer and deal with raw files vs. point and shoot on an iPhone with a good but not great auto exposure is hard to beat.
I think the killer workflow for this is to take a picture with this, have it copied over to Lightroom immediately, do a quick basic auto edit on the device in Lightroom, share out to instagram if appropriate, and then revisit later if appropriate to optimize on a larger screen device (it'll be on your desktop since Lightroom CC cloud syncs everything). I think this is a workable flow for an advanced mobile photographer without having to deal with all the hassles of raw editing every photo.
The $6k price range is out there but it's a good proof of concept device similar to the original RX1 (plenty of flaws there but laid down the blueprints including UI for all Sony cameras to date) that could be a starting point for a broader platform. The real value is connectivity to the cloud for raw files via Lightroom that is quite inconvenient to deal with especially when traveling vs. sitting at home. If Zeiss fails to build a camera system around this, I hope they license out the software to others since it's much better than what Sony is producing on the connectivity front for its latest cameras.
p.41 #13 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
tzhang4284 wrote:
The real value is connectivity to the cloud for raw files via Lightroom that is quite inconvenient to deal with especially when traveling vs. sitting at home. If Zeiss fails to build a camera system around this, I hope they license out the software to others since it's much better than what Sony is producing on the connectivity front for its latest cameras.
The ZX1 is not connected the the cloud. So no value there from Zeiss.
Same with the software. It's Android and Adobe. There's nothing for Zeiss to license to anyone.
p.41 #14 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
rattymouse wrote:
The ZX1 is not connected the the cloud. So no value there from Zeiss.
Same with the software. It's Android and Adobe. There's nothing for Zeiss to license to anyone.
In Manny's first look, you can clearly see at 2:40 that it is connected to his wifi connection and "the cloud". As long as it's connected to wifi, it should be able to relatively seamlessly transfer photos like pretty much every android device.
Plenty for Zeiss to license - if it were that easy to build an Android-based camera, every other manufacturer would've done it. As bad as the ZX1 interface is, every other camera interface is that much worse - too many menu pages, poor touch implementation, proprietary in nature (basic features don't update across generations), poor connectivity (does anyone actually want to use a garbage smartphone app to connect to their camera?) - true across the board for all camera manufacturers.
p.41 #15 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
tzhang4284 wrote:
I think you and most "observers" talking about this are the wrong audience for this because we are willing to deal with a whole set of inconveniences to get our images the way we want them. This includes the workflow of plugging your camera into a computer, copying the files over to Lightroom, editing them, processing them, and then putting them into a cloud-based photo album for sharing out to sources via Instagram, Facebook, printing, or keeping personal.
I've tried introducing photography with real cameras to a couple of family members (young and old) and my observation is that they go back to the iPhone once they realize how bad the workflow is for a dedicated digital camera. The initial draw is always better image quality than what a phone can produce but the inconvenience of having to edit your images on your computer and deal with raw files vs. point and shoot on an iPhone with a good but not great auto exposure is hard to beat.
I think the killer workflow for this is to take a picture with this, have it copied over to Lightroom immediately, do a quick basic auto edit on the device in Lightroom, share out to instagram if appropriate, and then revisit later if appropriate to optimize on a larger screen device (it'll be on your desktop since Lightroom CC cloud syncs everything). I think this is a workable flow for an advanced mobile photographer without having to deal with all the hassles of raw editing every photo.
The $6k price range is out there but it's a good proof of concept device similar to the original RX1 (plenty of flaws there but laid down the blueprints including UI for all Sony cameras to date) that could be a starting point for a broader platform. The real value is connectivity to the cloud for raw files via Lightroom that is quite inconvenient to deal with especially when traveling vs. sitting at home. If Zeiss fails to build a camera system around this, I hope they license out the software to others since it's much better than what Sony is producing on the connectivity front for its latest cameras....Show more →
Why are you forcing your family to go from iPhone photography to processing RAW?? No wonder they hate it. I tap my phone to my Sony and get a high quality JPEG that obliterates the IQ from an iPhone and that I can then share to any platform from my device, the same way I always do. Your approach is all wrong...as is Zeiss'. You think, somehow, forcing your family and friends to edit RAW on a worse device is going to make it better?? The ZX1 is about editing RAW, not seamless transfer and upload of images. Most cameras can already do that.
p.41 #17 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
RoamingScott wrote:
Please enlighten us to the point of this $6000 with its single back button that can only be customized 3 ways. Manny knows what he’s talking about, and if the point of this cam is to appeal to “mobile” editors, they need to understand they are marketing to zoomers and millennials that already have a phone with a larger screen and better CPU/GPU. A zoomer or millennial isn’t buying this abortion of a device, ever.
p.41 #19 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
rattymouse wrote:
Exactly this^. The outright lunacy displayed by Zeiss is totally indicative of how useless the traditional camera industry is and why it is dying every single year. There will be less traditional cameras sold next year than this year, bank on it. The Zeiss ZX1 is not going to change that one bit.
Camera sales fell this year because people were locked into their homes and in many areas could not go physically to work let alone travel or exercise their usual hobbies, and because of the risks assocaited with people working with people, also many subfields of professional photography disappeared (events in particular). Thus it is understandable that since people can't go to events and they can't travel, there would be little motivation to buy a new camera. Many people lost their jobs and along with it their ability to purchase anything. Thus it is a little premature to suggest that this change is permanent. 2021 might not be a normal year but I'd guess things to improve from late 2021 to 2022, provided that people's finances allow it. After most people are vaccinated, probably travel will return and with it, the desire to make images of one's experiences and adventures.
The oblivious among us here at FM said we were merely returning to a more normal level of sales after the digital explosion.
I haven't checked the numbers recently but when I did, the number of cameras sold was indeed below peak film era sales but the value of the camera and value and quantity of lens sales were slightly higher than in the film era. Anyway, if we include compact camera sales, then smartphone camera sales figures should also be included since those fill similar functions.
Yet somehow being able to edit photos on a 6 inch, color inaccurate screen is going to save the traditional camera makers!!
I don't believe anyone has suggested that this camera would do that. Integrating Lightroom into the camera is, however, a significant step and eventually I would expect the editing workflow of cameras to support collaboration and sharing in close to real time. When it's possible to have 1-sec startup time in a camera with LR cloud version functionality then I would imagine many cameras to have that in their feature set. Unfortunately it seems to take quite some time to boot up an Android device. I'm surprised it has to be booted up, why don't they store the OS and memory's last state in flash memory and when the camera is restarted, continue from where it left when the camera was turned off?
The decline of traditional camera sales is in part due to the smartphone being a necessary device in today's society. It is pocketable and serving a multitude of functions apart from being a rudimentary camera. The decline in printed workflow and photography's move online has also meant that very little in terms of quality is required of the camera, as people mostly view photos on a screen much smaller than what used to be called small prints. Only a few per cent of the original image's detail (taken with a dedicated camera) is shown on such screens and since the screen is so small probably 1% is more realistic to be actually seen by the viewer, thus most of the capability of dedicated cameras is wasted. The large quantity of images presented online also means that people don't have as much time to view an individual image, no matter how great.
The decline in tradition camera sales is also because the digital camera is no longer a novelty. In the early 2000's digital cameras were the new devices that everyone talked about, and so many cameras were sold to people who had exhibited no prior interest in photography. After a while many people realized they were (still) not interested in photography and stopped practising it. Thus digital camera sales was never going to stay at 2012 levels, and I think camera manufacturers probably knew that and expected a decline would happen.
The decline in sales isn't really because of the lack of functional and easy-to-use communication features or Lightroom, though the camera manufacturers' lack of attention to the shift from printed image to online display may have accelerated it. It's because most people are just not interested in putting the time into photography to learn it properly and continue a lifelong learning experience in it, and they do not need to buy new cameras to accomplish what they need from a camera; the camera that they already have is fine. However, there are people who are excited by photography and continue it enthusiastically through their lives, and that's the customer base that camera manufacturers will need to tap into.
p.41 #20 · In-Stock: 37MP Zeiss ZX1 full frame camera
rattymouse wrote:
The iPhone can now shoot RAW photos now anyway, further eliminating the supposed advantage of the ZX1.
This is not at all how it works. RAW images captured using a large sensor and a high-quality lens contain much more information than RAW images captured by a very small sensor and a lens of very modest quality.
Manny knows what he’s talking about, and if the point of this cam is to appeal to “mobile” editors, they need to understand they are marketing to zoomers and millennials that already have a phone with a larger screen and better CPU/GPU. A zoomer or millennial isn’t buying this abortion of a device, ever. 
