Re: Why was the larger Z mount necessary, exactly?
Lance B wrote: gear-nut wrote:
The other advantage of a larger diameter mount closer to the sensor, is it allows for easier design of high quality and optically fast glass with less falloff and fewer aberrations.
IMHO it was a great decision by Nikon.
Completely agree. Having a wider mount means that you have more freedom to design a lens that may require angles of light to come from wider from the lens to the sensor. It also means that this will assist in possibly making the lens sharper edge to edge and have less CA. The mount face being closer to the sensor allows freedom of design for better wide angle lenses, reducing size and weight due to less glass required. The only reason for the F mount to sensor distance was due to the flapping mirror and as this is no longer required it frees up that factor as a constraint to lens design.
My understanding is that the closer the mount face is to the plane of the sensor the higher the angle of incidence will be at the edges. So this actually works against fidelity at the edges. So, a wider mount helps mitigate this higher angle.
There are other engineering methods of mitigating this high angle of incidence. Leica has a small mount, that is also close to the plane of the sensor. Leica mitigates this in their lens designs, and also in their sensor designs. Leica sensors have a thinner glass layer for this reason. They also design asymmetric microlenses on the sensor glass. This has produced excellent optical results. There are excellent discussions of this technology on line if you are interested in the details.
Once again Nikon choosing a wider mount was the way the Nikon engineers decided to approach their optics. It was not necessary, but is a good approach as demonstrated by the excellent optical performance of the Z mount lens system.
Re: Why was the larger Z mount necessary, exactly?
Lance B wrote: gear-nut wrote:
The other advantage of a larger diameter mount closer to the sensor, is it allows for easier design of high quality and optically fast glass with less falloff and fewer aberrations.
IMHO it was a great decision by Nikon.
Completely agree. Having a wider mount means that you have more freedom to design a lens that may require angles of light to come from wider from the lens to the sensor. It also means that this will assist in possibly making the lens sharper edge to edge and have less CA. The mount face being closer to the sensor allows freedom of design for better wide angle lenses, reducing size and weight due to less glass required. The only reason for the F mount to sensor distance was due to the flapping mirror and as this is no longer required it frees up that factor as a constraint to lens design.
My understanding is that the closer the mount face is to the plane of the sensor the higher the angle of incidence will be at the edges. So this actually works against fidelity at the edges. So, a wider mount helps mitigate this higher angle.
There are other engineering methods of mitigating this high angle of incidence. Leica has a small mount, that is also close to the plane of the sensor. Leiga mitigates this in their lens designs, and also in their sensor designs. Leica sensors have a thinner glass layer for this reason. They also design asymmetric microlenses on the sensor glass. This has produced excellent optical results. There are excellent discussions of this technology on line if you are interested in the details.
Once again Nikon choosing a wider mount was the way the Nikon engineers decided to approach their optics. It was not necessary, but is a good approach as demonstrated by the excellent optical performance of the Z mount lens system.
Aug 21, 2023 at 08:06 PM
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