Sorry Nikon - This is where you lost me...

[MissionMan]

I'm going to be honest and say I wasn't an unhappy Nikon user. My D750 was great, the lenses were great, and the system was great. But I wanted a second body and I wanted that body to be mirrorless. I would have been great to have a mirrorless body coming from the same system as my DSLR but after waiting and hoping for Photokina, that didn't happen, so I had to question how important DSLR or full frame was for me. The more I compared, the more I really that there was no longer a loss of performance moving to mirrorless, at least not for what I was doing.

I always said that when mirrorless offered a viable alternative, I'd consider switching. Sadly for Nikon, mirrorless now offers a viable alternative, but Nikon isn't close. The race started 5 minutes ago, and the problem isn't that Nikon started late, they're still in bed sleeping.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Family/Family-shots/i-ktsMmrs/0/X2/AJSH2207%206000%20x%204000-X2.jpg

Their last announcement at Photokina was more than just a little disappointing, and I wasn't the only one. I don't think I saw many positive comments at all. For those who missed it, Nikon seemed to indicate they might consider, thinking about contemplating, potentially, maybe looking at mirrorless and they would continue to monitor it. Gee, thanks. I'm glad you're monitoring it, but if I'm going to continue to invest in a system, I want to know they are doing more than just watching this space. I can watch this space and I don't even manufacture camera's.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Reviews/Photography/Fuji-Camera-and-Lenses/i-fMTR5X7/0/X2/AJSH3365-X2.jpg

So where did Nikon go wrong? Well, for starters, if your customers are waiting for you to produce a mirrorless, and we know there are a lot of them out there waiting for this, if you are actually developing a mirrorless, you may want to mention it. I know what you're thinking...maybe they wanted to keep it quiet so the market doesn't know what theyre doing for competitive reasons. No, 10 years ago if Nikon was doing it, it might have been a secret. Now the market actually thinks you an idiot if you're not doing it. And if you're doing it and not mentioning it, they think your marketing department are idiots.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Sports/12-Nov-2016-Skateboarding/i-XNJjSHp/0/X2/AJSH3320-2-X2.jpg

In the last 12 months, I've seen 5 Nikon amateurs/enthusiasts switch to mirrorless. They probably would have stuck with Nikon if they knew there was a mirrorless coming. Sure, we're not professional sports photographers bu we're not spending small sums of money either. We may not be buying 400 f/2.8's but we are buying D810's, D750's and pro glass like 24-70's, 70-200's and 14-24's. To put that into perspective, when these photographers go out and buy into another brand, they're spending $5,000 - $10,000 to start with along with a another $5,000 - $10,000 over the next year or two. Maybe that's not much to Nikon, but it should be, because when enough people start doing that, the numbers and up. This is the next generation of photographers that influence the youth who are buying and right now, we're telling them not to buy into Nikon and Canon, because mirrorless is where the future is at, and Nikon and Canon aren't the future.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Reviews/Photography/Fuji-Camera-and-Lenses/i-MDXBLRg/0/X2/AJSH2527-X2.jpg

The reality is that Nikon should have been developing mirrorless a long time ago, they should have been there first. Journalists have been saying this for ages. The average mirrorless user at the moment doesn't want the Nikon 1. They want something which is DX or FX with good glass, and while you may have the FX glass covered, you haven't produced a decent set of glass specifically for DX in ages. In conjunction to this, you're still missing a big piece of the puzzle...a decent mirrorless camera. Remember Nokia? That's where you are going to be headed at a rapid rate of you don't do something soon.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Reviews/Photography/Fuji-Camera-and-Lenses/i-C59gTnS/0/X2/AJSH0663-X2.jpg

So Nikon, if your mirrorless project exists and marketing team is telling you to keep your mythical project secret, fire them, because you've probably lost a lot of business as a result of them. And if you aren't developing a DX or FX mirrorless camera yet, fire your strategy team as well. They may have got you this far, but they're out of their depth right now.

So where to for me? I sold my gear, at least Nikon still carries its resale value. Then I went out and got myself an XT-2, 16-55 f/2.8, 50-140 f/2.8, 23 f/2, 35 f/2, 90 f/2 and I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Reviews/Photography/Fuji-Camera-and-Lenses/i-z3qx6NP/0/X2/AJSH1337-X2.jpg

[juju12jjj]

Well....now that's food for thought. Thanks for your insights...

[Brian500au]

This has been a good read for me.

I recently had a 5DsR water damaged and hopefully it will be covered by insurance. The repair bill from Canon is close on 3.5K so I am given the choice to repair the existing 5DsR, add another $500 and replace it with a 5D IV or take the plunge and look at the XT-2. I have so much invested in Canon and my prime interest is wild life photography so I cannot see myself totally divesting myself of all my canon equipment, but maybe now is the time to seriously consider the alternative. Given the quality of the photos you have shown above I am very tempted.

[feathers]

Interesting read. No doubt you looked at sony mirrorless as well There's some well known nikon uses gone to their camp. What made you go with fuji over sony?....

[MissionMan]

This has been a good read for me.

I recently had a 5DsR water damaged and hopefully it will be covered by insurance. The repair bill from Canon is close on 3.5K so I am given the choice to repair the existing 5DsR, add another $500 and replace it with a 5D IV or take the plunge and look at the XT-2. I have so much invested in Canon and my prime interest is wild life photography so I cannot see myself totally divesting myself of all my canon equipment, but maybe now is the time to seriously consider the alternative. Given the quality of the photos you have shown above I am very tempted.

They have a cashback special on which is what pushed me to do it now. I sold my gear for $6500, it cost me $7500 for the new gear and I got $1000 cashback so it cost me nothing to move from a mix of 4 and 2yr old gear to brand new gear.


Interesting read. No doubt you looked at sony mirrorless as well There's some well known nikon uses gone to their camp. What made you go with fuji over sony?....

I think if I was looking at FF in mirrorless, I probably would have gone down the Sony path but the choice related to size, cost (cash back special), post processing (the Fuji profiles virtually match the jpgs perfectly so the amount of post processing is very low - the meerkat picture is an straight out of the camera jpg with a small crop as an example).

There are some other major benefits to Sony which were not critical for me now, strobe lighting has more support (ttl, hss etc) where Fuji will only get support from Profoto and likes next year.

[MissionMan]

BTW, Brian, if you do look at gear, digidirect (one of the AP sponsors - unfortunately I didn't know at the time when I ordered) put together a really good deal for me. I was planning to ask them to price match, but when I walked in with the $6500 in cash and asked them what they could do, they knew I was serious so they put together something that was much better than any of the price matching options I could find. I think I also saved about $500+ (on top of the cash back) on the best prices I could find on the web for local suppliers. I saved $200 on the XT-2 alone. I wouldn't normally walk around with that sort of cash, but the guy who bought my Nikon gear paid in cash. The only things I was missing compared to my old gear was my battery grip (my wife has already bought it for my birthday in a couple of days time) and flashes. I could have kept my old flashes but I ended up buying a cheap Yongnuo and trigger for under $200 and I'll get some decent TTL/HSS strobes when someone releases it. It's not a massive priority so the single flash and trigger is all I need for now and I'm not too bothered by the manual side.

If I had to complain about anything on the fuji side, it's their dismal lighting support. They are just about to release a decent HSS/TTL flash and they put in Optical wireless. That's a big ### moment. Optical at $600?? I think their design engineers got confused when they went for a retro design and put in retro 1980 technology. It wasn't a show stopper for me because companies like Yongnuo offer a cheap alternative with a wireless trigger which allows you to adjust the flash from the trigger but I think I may consider a decent setup of battery strobes when the HSS support comes out.

The one thing I will say (which I mentioned in my reply to feathers) is how mind blowing the Fuji profiles are in Lightroom. I don't know whether Nikon and Canon don't share their IP with Adobe, but Fuji gives you the film profiles in lightroom and they are almost flawless when it comes to matching their jpg's and trust me when I say the Fuji jpg's are mind blowing. There is a reason people refer to Fuji colours. I reckon the amount of post processing time is a quarter with Fuji over Nikon, and from what I heard Canon is the same. I don't think its a case that you can produce better results out of Fuji, it's simply easier to produce the same result. When you apply the profile, the picture looks almost identical to the JPG where Nikon you had to do about 20 things to get it looking half decent. It doesn't suit every scenario but if you want to do quick edits, it's very impressive to be able to produce a working result in so little time. I think this is one of the main reasons why so many wedding photographers like Fuji because when you have such a large volume of photos to process, Fuji is that much easier.

I don't know what the wildlife gear is like, or what their 100-400 is like. My longest is the 50-140 but I may consider the 100-400 in future.

[feathers]

Thanks for the reply Mission Man:) I did a sony vs fuji thingy after reading your post, and the two appeared to be neck and neck for quality, but fuji seems to come out tops for camera design and ease of use. The images you posted with this post are excellent by the way:th3: At the moment l have a sony cyber shot RX100 1V for street photography, and l'm very impressed with the images it produces:nod:
Love my nikon D810, and hopefully nikon will listen and bring out a good quality mirrorless for those wanting all the advantages this system brings. Cheers.

[MissionMan]

Thanks Feathers. Haven't actually had much time to take photos so I probably need to get out a little to get some decent photos, but so far, with what it has provided, it's matched my DSLR. I think the comments about the XT-2 eclipsing the D500 are a load of crap (though the source of that wasn't credible). It's better than the D750 in some areas and worse in others, so I would say it's on a par. Video is way better though because the AF in mirrorless is better than the live view af on DSLR's.

I'll post a review when I get time. This lens is a revelation. Amazing piece of glass. Soft butter backgrounds and unlike some of the Nikon primes, it's AF is lightening fast.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Reviews/Photography/Fuji-Camera-and-Lenses/i-2hzGxvv/0/X2/AJSH3454-X2.jpg

[sanger]

Good stuff MM.
Given money wasn't your motivation, I'm curious what finally tipped you towards the new stuff and leave the FF behind.
Any idea what these things are like for landscapes and in particular sunsets/sunrises.

[MissionMan]

I'd say in part, money wasn't my primary motivation but that said, good glass from Fuji is substantially cheaper because it's built for APSC. Nikon don't do much Pro level glass for APSC so you have to pay a premium for full frame glass. It also helped the business case with my wife being able to get all new gear at no cost.

I don't do many landscapes but do a search for Photo Rangers in Phillip Island. He's an exclusive Fuji landscape photographer and his stuff is incredible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[swifty]

Thanks for your viewpoint MM.
I've been on the hunt for a suitable mirrorless system for some time and have always kept a keen eye on Fuji although I'm only looking for an adjunct system rather than a switchover.
It's interesting you started out looking for a second body but decided to do a complete changeover in the end.
I've tended to see APS-C being quite close to FF and may not offer enough size differentiation but having said that, the Fuji system probably offers the best sensor size:system size ratio out of the many competing formats.
If I was looking for a single system as a replacement, then APS-C (and specifically Fuji) would offer a compelling argument. Right now, I haven't ruled it out but am still leaning towards the m43 system that I've tried previously but I have to admit a very large part of it has to do with their IBIS system as their higher end lenses, although very good are not particularly small comparatively.

[MissionMan]

Thanks for your viewpoint MM.
I've been on the hunt for a suitable mirrorless system for some time and have always kept a keen eye on Fuji although I'm only looking for an adjunct system rather than a switchover.
It's interesting you started out looking for a second body but decided to do a complete changeover in the end.
I've tended to see APS-C being quite close to FF and may not offer enough size differentiation but having said that, the Fuji system probably offers the best sensor size:system size ratio out of the many competing formats.
If I was looking for a single system as a replacement, then APS-C (and specifically Fuji) would offer a compelling argument. Right now, I haven't ruled it out but am still leaning towards the m43 system that I've tried previously but I have to admit a very large part of it has to do with their IBIS system as their higher end lenses, although very good are not particularly small comparatively.

I was originally looking at mirrorless as a supporting body for street, as the major concern I have always had was the AF. When Nikon failed dismally at Photokina, I re-evaluated why I needed DSLR. With mirrorless cameras (Olympus/Fuji) released this year, the AF has essentially caught up enough to resolve the concerns and the noise quality on APSC is on a par with my D750 which is about as far as I need it. I'm not worried about 30-40MP sensors, they aren't a big priority for me. When I say the AF on the D750 has caught up, it's on a par with the D750 which again, it's better in some areas, worse in others, but overall meets the requirements enough for me not to worry about AF quality. It hasn't matched the D500 but then again, who other than dedicated sports photographers would really "need" the D500 AF. The cash back offer from Fuji made it a very palatable option. Some of their lenses had $300 off.

I think both the 4/3 and APSC offerings are good though. I think Olympus has the edge on lens selection whereas Fuji has the edge on image quality. I think either way, there isn't much of a difference in quality between the mirrorless options and FF and even the noise levels are marginal unless you go to the high end D5's or have a requirement for high MP.

[Steve Axford]

I've gone Sony, which is IMO better at the FF, high end, but I don't know for the APSC. The Sony and Zeiss lenses have been a revelation to me with the downside being that they don't cover the range that Nikon and Canon do, yet. But the best of them are superior to the Canon lenses (I never used Nikon so I can only go on reviews). I have the Sony 90mm macro G OSS and the Zeiss 21mm loxia, which are both superb lenses and better than anything I have used before. I would get the Sony Zeiss 50mm f1.4 lens if it wasn't so heavy as it sounds like one of the best 50mm lenses ever made, and there are some very good ones. I may get the Sony 70-200mm when it becomes available as I need a good telephoto and it is reported to be better than the Canon 70-200, but I'll try one first as it ain't cheap, particularly with the 2x extender. I like the Sony, because it produces better pictures than the Canon did and it is quite a bit smaller. I suspect that the top end Sony cameras will get a bit bigger as more stuff is added, but I don't miss that large clunkiness of the FF DSLRs.
It seems to me that both Canon and Nikon will continue to sell a lot of cameras, but their dominance is likely to be much diluted, and I suspect that Nikon is under more threat than Canon, mainly because of Canon's corporate power. The low end of the market is vanishing as mobile phones fill that space, and new technologies are starting to drive the high end. Mirrorless is the obvious new technology and it has some very clear advantages over SLR technology (size, simplicity), but focusing sytems on the old DSLR's is still generally better, though they do need to be tuned for each camera/lens combo and that advantage won't last as the main reason for it is development experience.
I'm a little surprised that Olympus hasn't figured in this thread as they seem to have some very good APSC offerings.

[MissionMan]

They've been mentioned, or 4/3 specifically.

[Hamster]

Interesting, it sounds like you've made a great move for your needs. Personally I'm waiting for a decent leap up in resolution without having to get a behemoth of a body (i.e. Pentax 645Z or Phase). So I'm after a mirrorless medium format, and there's not much choice at the moment :o.

BTW, you need to update your sig :)

[swifty]

So I'm after a mirrorless medium format, and there's not much choice at the moment :o.


Fuji GFX
Hasselblad X1D

[MissionMan]

Ah, yeah, thanks. Forgot about that.

Yeah, mirrorless MF is getting better though it wouldn't surprise me if 5 years down the line we have 50MP APSC, 100MP FF and 150MP MF. Going to make post processing an interesting experience :D

As it is, everytime you upgrade to a larger MP sensor you have to upgrade your computer to handle it.

[Steve Axford]

They've been mentioned, or 4/3 specifically.

I missed that. What was your opinion of Olympus. I've
all camera, but too low res for me.

- - - Updated - - -


Ah, yeah, thanks. Forgot about that.

Yeah, mirrorless MF is getting better though it wouldn't surprise me if 5 years down the line we have 50MP APSC, 100MP FF and 150MP MF. Going to make post processing an interesting experience :D

As it is, everytime you upgrade to a larger MP sensor you have to upgrade your computer to handle it.

We've had a bit of a pause in processor power as the software catches up, but something like a 64 processors on a chip should do the trick, for a while. I push the limits a bit with processing 4k video from maybe 2000 42MP images. It takes a while, but single images are ok.

[MissionMan]

I missed that. What was your opinion of Olympus. I've
all camera, but too low res for me.

I don't think there is that much in the difference between the two, a little like comparing Canon and Nikon, with pros and cons in either option. Fuji probably has the edge with high ISO, Olly has better frame rates and pixel shift, but at the time I purchased, there were better deals available on the Fuji (cash back and cheaper body) and the Olly wasn't available so that made the choice easier. I found a buyer quicker than expected for my Nikon gear so I needed to get something without having to wait a month for a camera I may or may not like. I do like the olympus lens hoods though, the Fuji ones are terrible.

[Steve Axford]

Must say I haven't noticed much difference in lens hoods, cept that replacements are expensive for Zeiss lenses.

[MissionMan]

Must say I haven't noticed much difference in lens hoods, cept that replacements are expensive for Zeiss lenses.

Olly have that nice hood that slides up and down instead of having to reverse it. It's a really simple clever idea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT5HHrndVQ0

[Steve Axford]

What a good idea. I rarely reverse my lens hoods, except for air travel, so probably not a big selling point for me. But, most of the innovation seems to be coming from Olympus, Fuji, Sony etc, with Canon and Nikon bringing up the rear.

[Hamster]

Fuji GFX
Hasselblad X1D

Yes, things are getting exciting with those two coming out. It's early stages though (I.e. Neither are available) so it would be good to see a bit of competition in the area. Especially given the price of x series 'blad lenses [emoji50].
I wouldn't mind a play with an X1D, but I suspect it'll be pretty basic on features.

[swifty]

Oly hoods vary from lens to lens. The retractable ones are on the longer teles PRO lens such as the 40-150/f2.8 and 300/f4.
Some like the 12-40/2.8 has reversible bayonets.
And some like the 75/1.8 has a dreaded side locking screw... urghh.