cope07 wrote:
Now with the intro of the Z6iii I am trying to figure out if the Z7iii is a likelihood (probably late this year or next spring)
Arguments for:
-with the Zf and Z6iii it seems that Nikon is ok having cameras priced with $500 gaps. So a Z7iii could come in at $3k-3.4kish and still maintain price gaps with the Z6 and Z8
-Nikon has a long history of high image quality, high res, 'landscape' oriented cameras and hasn't really addresses this in the current models. Nikon hasn't really done an Image Quality first camera in a while.
-After designing 4 new camera body designs (Z9,Z8, Zf, Z6iii), do I really think that Nikon is going to use the Z6 body for just one camera?
-The Zf shows, to me, that they can put out competent AF in a camera without a stacked sensor (which you would likely not have in a higher MP camera)
-There is a good chunk of the market that wants higher than 24mp and the Z8 is just too big/heavy for them (it is the biggest/heaviest non-grip mirrorless not the market, barring only the heavyweight Panasonic S1)
Arguments against:
-the z6ii was $2,000 and the z7ii was $3,300 (I think), so add $500 for inflation, etc and we're basically at today's prices for the Z6iii and Z8, pointing to no model in between
-I don't see Nikon putting the z6iii flippy screen on the Z7iii so they'd, at a minimum, have to redesign that part of the camera. Leading to yet another camera body style, which doesn't seem to be Nikon's favorite thing to do.
-the Z8 is the Z7iii
-The Z7/ii sharing the body of the z6 was only done as a shortcut to get these cameras to the market, and they'd rather segment the body styles (like they did with the D600/750 and D850)
-There is no market left for a high MP, not video centric, non stacked camera
-Does Nikon believe that stacked sensor tech is important enough in their high end cameras that they are waiting until they can make a higher res stacked camera (seems unlikely ($$$) to me)
-If they were going to make it, it would come out with the Z6iii
Neutral:
-what sensor? I don't think Nikon is going to use the Sony 60mp sensor (biases a bit as I dont love that sensor, especially not more than the z7ii sensor)
NB: I think a revision of the Z5 is more important camera for Nikon to make first.
I'm definitely not a Nikon rumor guru but I just don't see the point of a camera that close to the Z8 in price unless it has good af and I'm not sure that makes sense, either. Maybe if it has 60mp which doesn't sound like much resolution gain currently all there is though
Nikon isn't going to magically improve the crappy readout speed of the Sony 61mp sensor. They'll need to bring way more than that to the table for a $3000+ camera with the Z8 nipping on its heels.
RoamingScott wrote:
Asking Nikon to consider medium format when we already know Z lenses can't be used on such a mount despite their very large mount diameter means Nikon would also need to launch a line of MF lenses. Have fun waiting around for THAT to happen.
You can buy a GFX 100S for under $3000 regularly now. If you really want a better "slow" camera, there's no reason to wait, and it will outperform from an IQ perspective whatever a Z7iii turns out to be.
My guess is you'll be able to get a 100S II for about $4000 by time any Z7iii turns up. That would be an interesting comparison. ...Show more →
@ilkka_nissila was referring to the end user making the choice of MF, not Nikon producing one.
I think there is room for a Z7iii just right below the Z8 in pricing, as long as it is solving obviously different problems. Think 80meg and a full added stop of DR as a starting point. Market it to landscape, portrait and wedding shooters. The only issue is not price, but market size. While the Fuji MF can be had affordably, that's just for the body, and you need a bag of lenses after the body purchase. So near MF resolution in a body that has a bunch of lenses, could sell more than you'd think.
They need to develop a medium format camera and a line of medium format lenses. Is all that for the purpose of reducing noise?
DXO PL, Topaz
I've been wondering why Nikon didn't consider a wider area of coverage when designing the wider Z mount and the new lens designs. I think it was an error to design a new mount and series of lenses that don't have enough coverage to be adequate for medium format. You can only push a 24x36 sensor so far.
coralnut wrote:
I've been wondering about whether the wider Z mount and the new lens designs will have enough coverage for Nikon to make an entry into medium format.
Wow, you responded before I finished editing my post! I've read those threads about vignetting when adapting to the Fuji cameras. Sometimes it takes a couple of revisions before I finish my post.
I agree with the previous post that Nikon missed an opportunity by not considering medium format when designing the new mount as larger sensors seem to be the future. If Nikon did decide to go that route I'd be a definite buyer.
SCoombs wrote:
I guess I will never understand why so many people (I don't know if it's a majority, but it's enough to notice on the internet, anyways) have such strong feelings opposed to something Z8 sized. To me - and I know it's not just me because I see a lot of other people say the same thing - the z6 and z7 were just way too small to feel comfortable while the z8 feels just about right, and apart from the ergonomics of it the size of the z8 feels much more robust and professional to me. I know it's a personal thing for me and there's no offense intended to anyone else, but I could never feel comfortable showing up to do some kind of paid photography with something the size of the z6... it would just make me feel self-conscious that the client would be looking at me and thinking they'd gone and hired an amateur. ...Show more →
I agree. Get shoes that fit your feet and the camera that fits your hand. The very small bodies are just not comfortable for me to use. The Z6 is the smallest I like to go personally. But lots of folk have smaller hands or have physical limitations and not to forget that half of all photographers are women and they mostly prefer the smaller lighter options. It is great to have something for everyone.
A key consideration of the 7III are its video specs. The 6III gives us a 6k/60 12 bit internal with minimal rolling shutter at $2.5k which is great value and easily surpasses the competition, at least for now. Nikon may try to deliver a one two punch with 8.3k/60 12 bit internal in a $3.5k camera. Another rehash of the old 45mp sensor, partially stacked would do it.
Personally I have no interest in a camera the size of the Z8. It gives me things I don’t need while adding bulk that I also don’t need.
I have even less interest in a MF camera, especially when factoring in lens size (worse still any functional telephoto options, which for me at least I consider critical for landscape work if you don’t want to be just churning the same boring compositions).
So I at least would really like to see a Z7III. I’d like it to have not so much speed, but the convenience features of recent cameras (e.g. less stupid AF interfaces, but not necessarily super fast). A resolution boost to 60MP or higher is definitely useful to me because the optics clearly support it and more pixels on a crop is useful.
I’m personally not very price sensitive, more size and functionality sensitive. I don’t care much about speed so slower high resolution sensors are OK for me.
But that’s just me, while the real question is what is a sustainable market niche?
So long term I think Nikon does need a high resolution Z6/Z7 body and that “the Z8 is the new Z7” is suboptimal. But I also think quite possibly in the short term there just isn’t the right mix of sensor availability to produce a camera that Nikon thinks will be competitive enough to recoup costs. They clearly waited until they felt everything was right to release the Z9 and Z8. I could imagine right now the Z7III is in a similar state of waiting. As already pointed out by others striking the right balance in sensor implementation and how that fits into the market and future product lines is a critical decision.
I’ll add that functionally for me a high res Zf would probably meet my desires quite well, but I’m not sure market wise that would be better or worse for Nikon than a Z7 format body.
Eric214 wrote:
But that's going to take a year IF they drop the price of the Z6III and at that point what's the point of a a Z7III? I don't think there will be a Z7III. It just has no place. That is what Nikon is saying when they say they are evaluating the market. Sounds like they are saying not likely but will monitor the market and see if anything changes
Oh it'll drop by Christmas. The Z8 dropped by $300 for Christmas last year. Give the Z6iii 3 to 6 months and street prices will go down gradually and then stabilize at maybe $300~$500 off MSRP by the year. Cameras don't have yearly refresh cycles like phones and don't get bought in volumes like phones. The discounts will kick in soon after the initial rush is over and production catches up and start filling up storage space.
It's not that the Z7iii doesn't have it's place. You have the pockets of users who want more than 24MP but don't want to spend $3.5k on a Z8 or $4k+ on a Z8ii when it gets released. There's your market. When Nikon says they're evaluating the market, they could be just trying to ascertain that it's not a matter of "correlation doesn't mean causation". And again, the Z7 and Z7ii sales gave them cold feet. It will take a while for those feet to get warm again.
Alistair1 wrote:
A key consideration of the 7III are its video specs. The 6III gives us a 6k/60 12 bit internal with minimal rolling shutter at $2.5k which is great value and easily surpasses the competition, at least for now. Nikon may try to deliver a one two punch with 8.3k/60 12 bit internal in a $3.5k camera. Another rehash of the old 45mp sensor, partially stacked would do it.
The Z7 has till now been a A7R line competitor focused on landscapes and portraits not really speed. I dont know if sony has anything else than the 61mp sensor for this available at the moment and that is probably not enough of a step up from current Z7 or Z8/9 that it makes sense now. Theyre probably waiting for something like a 80MP sensor becoming available, doubt it will be particularly fast as the Z6, 8 and 9 provides that already.
ingekj wrote:
The Z7 has till now been a A7R line competitor focused on landscapes and portraits not really speed. I dont know if sony has anything else than the 61mp sensor for this available at the moment and that is probably not enough of a step up from current Z7 or Z8/9 that it makes sense now. Theyre probably waiting for something like a 80MP sensor becoming available, doubt it will be particularly fast as the Z6, 8 and 9 provides that already.
Yes. The reason for the Z7 series is to have a high-res sensor in a camera that doesn't require all of the raw speed processing power of the cameras that are designed for fast-moving objects. I think there will always be room for a camera that uses the top resolution sensor, but doesn't require all of the state of the art electronics for processing fast action scenes. Those electronics are a lot of what differentiates the Z7 from the Z8/9 series.
IMO an upgrade to the Z7ii will really need a significant resolution upgrade, as high resolution is it's reason for being. There's not much to be gained by moving from a 45MP to a 60MP sensor because Sony has already occupied that space for a long time. If Nikon wants to deliver a camera that will set the bar in it's market niche, it will need to beat Sony's 60MP offerings; just matching Sony's 60MP is not a recipe for beating the competition. A Z7iii needs to have more than 60MP or it's not worth the trouble for Nikin to design it and not worth the money for customers to upgrade.
80-100MP would be an outstanding upgrade. 80MP might be do-able but 100MP seems like hoping for too much.
Sure I wouldn't mind seeing a Z7III at 60MP+, but I feel like for Nikon to complete their lineup they need another FF camera with 45MP+. Realistically that probably means a Z7III, possibly they could do a ZFR. I would even take a Z7III with the Z7II 45MP sensor, if it came with all the improvements the Z line has gotten since such as Expeed 7, faster turn on time, better IBIS, better body build, and better EVF. The Z7II is showing it's age now.
Personally I am in a spot where the Z8 hits all the right spots as my action body, but to fully make the transition to a Z kit I need a landscape body too. Technically I could get a second Z8, but so far I have never had two of the same bodies in my kit as having two different bodies usually gets you a wide capability set then two of the same exact bodies.
When it comes to a 'landscape body' I don't think of needing all of the bells and whistles that the Z line has recently obtained, like 'xpeed 7, faster turn on time, better IBIS... and better EVF.' To me those are fast-action requirements that aren't really necessary for landscape use; when I think 'landscape' I think mostly about resolution because I'll be shooting at a relaxed pace on a tripod and EVF blackout won't be an issue.
As the cameras continue to deliver increasing resolution we're going into run into a problem when DLA begins to rear it's ugly head. From a functional standpoint, the diffraction limited aperture of the sensors keeps forcing us to use larger apertures as the pixel size becomes smaller. At 45MP we're already at a point where DLA effects begin to limit our use of small apertures beyond f/7.1, or f/6.2 for the Sony 62MP sensor. The only cure for that is to employ high resolution with larger pixels, which forces us into medium format.
If you believe the math, it tells us that the pursuit of increasing resolution in the 24x36 format is a bit of a fool's errand unless we're willing to rely on large apertures. To maintain the smaller apertures the size of the sensor die needs to increase without the pixels getting smaller. The best results will come from large format digital photography with a higher pixel count comprised of larger pixels than those commonly in use today. The challenge will then change from packing as many pixels as possible into the same senor size, to making the actual sensors much larger.
cope07 wrote:
Now with the intro of the Z6iii I am trying to figure out if the Z7iii is a likelihood (probably late this year or next spring)
Arguments for:
-with the Zf and Z6iii it seems that Nikon is ok having cameras priced with $500 gaps. So a Z7iii could come in at $3k-3.4kish and still maintain price gaps with the Z6 and Z8
-Nikon has a long history of high image quality, high res, 'landscape' oriented cameras and hasn't really addresses this in the current models. Nikon hasn't really done an Image Quality first camera in a while.
-After designing 4 new camera body designs (Z9,Z8, Zf, Z6iii), do I really think that Nikon is going to use the Z6 body for just one camera?
-The Zf shows, to me, that they can put out competent AF in a camera without a stacked sensor (which you would likely not have in a higher MP camera)
-There is a good chunk of the market that wants higher than 24mp and the Z8 is just too big/heavy for them (it is the biggest/heaviest non-grip mirrorless not the market, barring only the heavyweight Panasonic S1)
Arguments against:
-the z6ii was $2,000 and the z7ii was $3,300 (I think), so add $500 for inflation, etc and we're basically at today's prices for the Z6iii and Z8, pointing to no model in between
-I don't see Nikon putting the z6iii flippy screen on the Z7iii so they'd, at a minimum, have to redesign that part of the camera. Leading to yet another camera body style, which doesn't seem to be Nikon's favorite thing to do.
-the Z8 is the Z7iii
-The Z7/ii sharing the body of the z6 was only done as a shortcut to get these cameras to the market, and they'd rather segment the body styles (like they did with the D600/750 and D850)
-There is no market left for a high MP, not video centric, non stacked camera
-Does Nikon believe that stacked sensor tech is important enough in their high end cameras that they are waiting until they can make a higher res stacked camera (seems unlikely ($$$) to me)
-If they were going to make it, it would come out with the Z6iii
Neutral:
-what sensor? I don't think Nikon is going to use the Sony 60mp sensor (biases a bit as I dont love that sensor, especially not more than the z7ii sensor)
NB: I think a revision of the Z5 is more important camera for Nikon to make first.
The Sony A7r V seems to sell well. I think the Z7 III could be a lot like the Sony camera with perhaps the same sensor (it is a good sensor) with Nikon tweaks, and the Sony has a flippy screen that I was surprised that I actually liked. Unlike you I do like the 60MP Sony sensor for IQ and I even like it slightly better than the 45MP sensor in my Z7, and I think a 60MP sensor with Nikon tweaks would be fantastic. So I see a Z6 III body, with ZF AF, and a Nikon tweaked 60MP Sony sensor as a pretty compelling Z7 III and I think Nikon could do well selling that in the $3,250 price range.
Also if Nikon did put out a camera in the 65MP + range they could, at least for a while, claim they have the highest resolution FF camera. Which could be a fairly powerful marketing tool. While we know there is more to sensors then just resolution, at the end of the day many people buy on specs alone.
coralnut wrote:
As the cameras continue to deliver increasing resolution we're going into run into a problem when DLA begins to rear it's ugly head. From a functional standpoint, the diffraction limited aperture of the sensors keeps forcing us to use larger apertures as the pixel size becomes smaller. At 45MP we're already at a point where DLA effects begin to limit our use of small apertures beyond f/7.1, or f/6.2 for the Sony 62MP sensor. The only cure for that is to employ high resolution with larger pixels, which forces us into medium format.
We would need to get upwards of 200mp for refraction to start to set in at f4. This make me think that realistically we can 2-4x resolution of FF cameras before this really becomes a problem.
Lens design also keeps improving, for example most mirrorless lenses already have higher IQ at faster apertures, than the previous DSLR lenses. There already are some lenses that are pretty much hitting there peak IQ around f4 - f5.6. This makes me think that we will be able to design lenses that can take advantage of higher resolution sensors, even if we have to use faster apertures. Sure an f2.8 zoom will be bigger than an f5.6 zoom to carry around but so is MF gear over FF gear. The only thing we can't really accommodate for optically is the shallower DOF, but software improvements over time will probably make DOF stacking more practical.
