If anybody wanted a new camera, now's the time!

[boBQuincy]

You gotta wonder if the camera companies sit around, chuckling with evil glee, as they come up with some new design factor.

But like the vultures in Splash Mountain say (kind of): " How come they aren't laughing now?". Sales are down and likely to continue that way. Nikon and Canon's late shift to mirrorless came at the wrong time.

 

[jec6613]

But like the vultures in Splash Mountain say (kind of): " How come they aren't laughing now?". Sales are down and likely to continue that way. Nikon and Canon's late shift to mirrorless came at the wrong time.

Well, maybe, but Nikon's been making mirrorless since 2011, and Canon since 2012. Most people seem to forget that Z and R are their second mirrorless lens mounts so far, and the EF-M has been quietly taking over the Rebel space for some time.

Besides knowing that Nikon and Canon both micromanage their product lines to an extreme degree, and have had full frame mirrorless in the works for some time, I find it very interesting which cameras have been released so far. It shows how they themselves view the cameras, and gives us a good idea what's coming down the pipeline.

To back things up a bit though, historically, Nikon has made 3 cameras and Canon has made 3 cameras. Sure, there were lots of models, but there have only been that many body designs for quite a while. Skipping past the 1980's where things got really confusing, Canon and Nikon hired actual product designers to sort out their product lines and interfaces, and it became simple: Nikon made the pro bodies (F5, F100), prosumer (N80) and low level consumer (N55-N75), each one with a different interface, and that has continued on to this day. Canon did almost exactly the same thing with a darn similar design philosophy, with the Rebel/KISS, Prosumer, then true professional EOS-1. Across Canikon, you can see design similarities between each level - they finally found where the spaghetti stuck feature-wise and keep it up to this day.

Minolta, who sold far fewer cameras, only made 2 bodies: the 5 consumer camera, and the 7 and 9 share much the same prosumer design and interface. And do you remember the old joke about how do you double the amount of metal in a Minolta camera? Load the film. At this point, Minolta (and now Sonly) made/make no cameras similar to the F5 or EOS-1. Any camera like the A9 where I can make the lens to go out of alignment by holding it wrong isn't a professional camera, IMHO. Technical tour de force though it is, the build quality and user experience is prosumer at best by Nikon/Canon standards; though fortunately, its price reflects this. Sony's lineup is very much like the old Minoltas in this regard.

So when we look at the recent and current mirrorless and DSLR products and line them up based on the manufacturer's suggested use case, where are the missing products, then? Ideally you'd have an equivalent product across both mirrorless and DSLR - Sony does this very nicely at the moment, and I'm sure that's where Canikon are going.

For Nikon:

• No crop sensor mirrorless at all, so D3500, D5600 (consumer), D7500 (prosumer) and D500 (professional) stand without a mirrorless model.
• The Z6 prosumer body equates nicely to the D610 and D750
• The Z7 prosumer body has no DSLR equivalent.
• The D850 and D5 (professional) have no mirrorless equivalents.

For Canon:

• The Rebel/KISS lineup is equivalent to the EOS-M lineup.
• The 80D and 7D (prosumer crop) have no mirrorless equivalent
• The EOS R and EOS RP line up to the 6D
• The 5D (prosumer full frame) and 1D (professional) have no mirrorless equivalent

By a quick count, that's 4 Canon bodies and 6 Nikon bodies with no direct mirrorless equivalent, and 1 Nikon mirrorless without a DSLR equivalent. That's a heck of a lot of holes to plug in their lineup, but notice that there are no true professional mirrorless bodies from anybody, and no consumer bodies from Nikon. And there's a serious lack of good glass as well that will take a long time to fill, with some lenses from both that are over 30 years old still in current production that will need to be updated. Those are big holes that need to be plugged, but I expect not to see a true professional camera from Canikon until at least 2022 at the earliest, and more likely 2023 for the Olympics as per tradition, and even then the lens lineup won't be fully filled out.

And what about the fourth SLR mount, the Pentax K? Well, do you like pancakes?

 

[bob100]

But like the vultures in Splash Mountain say (kind of): " How come they aren't laughing now?". Sales are down and likely to continue that way. Nikon and Canon's late shift to mirrorless came at the wrong time.

Late to the party ......... but the party ain't over!

yes, they were slow to recognize the advantages of mirrorless but now it's competitive at least for those who appreciate inter-changeable lens cameras.
And there is a selection of different models which can easily use the older DSLR lens so mirrorless cameras should appeal to almost everyone (except maybe for the hardcore sports professional who's earnings have also plummeted!)

www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless

 

[jec6613]

For those curious about full frame SLR to mirrorless lens support, here's a handy chart of the way things stand right now with the best adapters available (this includes a $400 F to FE adapter). This may change even by next week, but the Sony FE should give some idea of how things will shake out once the third parties reverse engineer the R and Z mounts. Crop sensors not included, and remember if you have a Nikon F or PK mount you have to check all of the lines for your lens, because there may be several, especially for PC-E.

Some other issues you can run into: cheaper adapters need a lens that can focus past infinity because the flange focal distance isn't as precise as it needs to be to support lenses with hard infinity focus stops, and the mechanical load from some exotics gives big trouble when using third party adapters leading to focus plane misalignment. Also, vignetting is an issue with some faster glass (f/1.2, some f/1.4 EF, FD and F) on Sony FE since the FE mount interferes with the incident angle. Finally, Canon and Nikon glass doesn't AF as fast on Sony bodies as it does on their own brand's bodies, due to a lack of firmware lens parameters.

 

[bob100]

For those curious about full frame SLR to mirrorless lens support, here's a handy chart of the way things stand right now with the best adapters available (this includes a $400 F to FE adapter). This may change even by next week, but the Sony FE should give some idea of how things will shake out once the third parties reverse engineer the R and Z mounts. Crop sensors not included, and remember if you have a Nikon F or PK mount you have to check all of the lines for your lens, because there may be several, especially for PC-E.

Some other issues you can run into: cheaper adapters need a lens that can focus past infinity because the flange focal distance isn't as precise as it needs to be to support lenses with hard infinity focus stops, and the mechanical load from some exotics gives big trouble when using third party adapters leading to focus plane misalignment. Also, vignetting is an issue with some faster glass (f/1.2, some f/1.4 EF, FD and F) on Sony FE since the FE mount interferes with the incident angle. Finally, Canon and Nikon glass doesn't AF as fast on Sony bodies as it does on their own brand's bodies, due to a lack of firmware lens parameters.

View attachment 398246

I use a $25 adapter with "full support" with a Canon mirrorless with Canon EF and EFS lenses

www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless

Untitled by c w, on Flickr

 

[havoc315]

Excellent analysis but I'm going to disagree a bit... in terms of "equivalence" and the categories currently covered by each.
For example, in functional use by photographers, the D850 and A7riii are definitely equivalent, with users preferring 1 over the other for whatever reasons. (valuing the small size, live view, etc, of the A7riii... valuing the deeper grip and better weather sealing of the D850, etc)

We can roughly break things down into 3 categories that the camera makers use to differentiate their cameras:
Image quality
Performance
Build

We can roughly break those 3 down further into low/medium/high

Image quality:
Low -- the ubiquitous 24mp-ish aps-c sensors
Medium -- the 24mp-ish full frame sensors
High -- high resolution full frame sensors

Performance: This is the quality of the AF system, the burst rate, the buffer depth... etc
Low: think Canon T7 -- 9 AK points, 3 fps, 6 image buffer
Medium: more advanced AF systems, 7-10 fps systems, with adequate buffers for casual sports but not necessarily hardcore..
High: 12-20 fps, flagship af systems, buffers made for hard core sports professions

Body:
Low: Plastic, light weight, small viewfinders, in mirrorless -- low resolution EVFs with slow refresh, or no EVF, no weather sealing, often smaller batteries and poor battery life
Medium: good access to manual controls, weather sealing, higher quality VF's, etc
High: Top quality VFs, often with battery grips, best weather sealing, best connectivity, dual card slots with faster media cards

Now, in the body especially.... there are a lot of in between levels.. there are lots of mid/high... low/mid... Especially when you throw in mirrorless which just somewhat prioritizes different things about the body. And of course, there is a lot of subjectivity in body preferences-- different people just like the feel of different cameras. But there are still objective measures as well.

Now, if we look at the dSLRs and mirrorless equivalents:

Truly low:
Low IQ + Low performance + low body
Canon T7 and Canon M100
Nikon D3500 and no current mirrorless
Sony A5100 and maybe A6000 at this point

Next tier.. here, we mix it up a bit.. They are all still "low IQ" -- 24mp aps-c sensors.. but there is variety in build and performance
Generally: Low IQ + medium body + medium performance
Canon Rebels, Canon 80D --> M50 (and M5.. but it's kinda an odd duck, surpassed by the cheaper bodel)
Nikon D7500 --> no mirrorless yet
Sony A6000, maybe A6300/6400/6500

The Sony's may be in their own class... at least the A6400/A6500: Low IQ, low-mid body and HIGH performance... but that brings me to..

The typical high tier of aps-c:
Low IQ (still 24mp aps-c), high performance + high body
Canon 7dii --> no mirrorless equivalent.. but even the dSLR is old.. are they ending this type of camera?
Nikon D500 --> no mirrorless

The Sony A6400 and A6500 fit in this category in terms of performance, but not in terms of build.

Now, we have far more FF categories as the market had shifted to FF:
Full frame starts differently, there really aren't any completely low end bodies in full frame.. the camera makers always stick at least a half-decent body on their FF cameras.

So the basic full frame:
Mid IQ (24mp FF sensor, more or less), medium body, low performance
Canon 6Dii ---> Canon Rp
Nikon D610, maybe D750 (just because of their age at this point) ---> No mirrorless equivalent
Sony A7ii (filling this category with older models)

Next we get the plethura of $2000-$2500 FF cameras... they are basically all:
Mid IQ (still 24mp-ish sensors), medium body, medium performance
Canon -- the 5Div is at the high end of this category..... the Canon R is the "equivalent" but it's more the low end of this category. They are aimed at a similar market, the 5Div is just a step above
Nikon -- in dSLR, this market is currently empty, but the D750 sat in this market (with the progress of technology... it was "medium performance" in 2014 but today would be considered lower than average performance, with an aged AF system, terrible live view AF, 6.5 fps is no longer above average). In mirrorless, this is the Z6.
Sony: A7iii basically defines the category

Now things get different...
High IQ, medium body, medium performance:
Canon -- Nothing in this space currently. They have the 5Ds models, but those are low performance.
Nikon: D850 (but both body and performance would rate more as mid/high than dead middle). ----> Z7. Yes, Nikon intends for them to be near-equivalent. The D850 is better in most measurable ways: dual card slots, better AF system... but the Z7 has some advantages including smaller size and better video features. They are 2 options with different pros and cons, but filling a similar segment. Partially, it's just that Nikon's mirrorless technology is still not fully mature.
Sony A7riii -- High IQ, medium body (large high quality EVF, dual card slots, uhs-ii support, weather sealed even if not as well sealed as some others), lots of direct control functionality (even if not designed the best). And medium/high performance (10 fps, excellent AF system, etc)

For the most part, any of these cameras can be, and are, used by professionals. Not sports pros -- But wedding pros, landscape pros, portrait pros, etc.

Then we get into what has traditionally be defined as the "sports flagship"
This is typically medium IQ (not the priority for sports flasgships), HIGH performance and HIGH end body
Canon 1Dxii -- No mirrorless equivalent
Nikon D5 -- No mirrorless equivalent

Then the Sony A9 with footnotes: It generally nails or surpasses in "performance" areas (ahead in some areas, behind in a couple, but overall equivalent)
Body.... harder to assess in the same terms, there is a design choice to go smaller, and not have a battery grip built in. Has the dual card slots, high quality VF -- the only blackout free VF. It has some advanced connectivity like FTP but not as much connectivity as the traditional flagships, doesn't have illuminated buttons. And in a real error, only has 1 fast media slot with the other media slot being slower. It's not a low end body... not a medium end body. I would call it a high end body, but not nearly as high as the 1Dxii and 5D. Like comparing a multi-millionaire to a billionaire -- they are both rich but the billionaire is in a different stratosphere. (which is also why the A9 is half the price of those other models).

But my buying advice would depend totally on how one intends to use the camera, as well as whether they need to buy now or wait.
If you're already invested in a mount, there is rarely a reason to switch.

For those that are really mount agnostic, no investment in any mount...

If you're true entry level looking for the cheapest camera -- doesn't really matter whether you go dSLR or mirrorless, and there are lots of options

For those medium enthusiasts, who want a capable camera beyond the barebones, but don't want to spend thousands.... I'd tell these people to skip Canon and Nikon for now. It doesn't make sense to start investing in a dSLR mount right now. The future of the Canon M is kinda unknown. Nikon's mirrorless aps-c future is unknown. This is the key market for some of the Sony and Fuji cameras right now.

For the really high end aps-c.... apc-s wildlife shooters and sports shooters... The Nikon D500 is still an excellent contender and there may not be a Nikon mirrorless equivalent for a while. Canon users should probably wait.. the 7Dii is old and there is no mirrorless equivalent. Sony users may want to wait to see if the A9 and A6400 AF system gets put into a better aps-c body. So this category is just basically under-served right now.

Casual consumer FF: Consumers with budgets that can get into FF.... lots of options and you can't go wrong. Can stick to traditional dSLRs like the 6Dii, D750, can go mirrorless with the Canon Rp, Sony A7ii, or expand budget into the A7iii/Nikon Z6/Canon R

For prosumer cameras... that can handle demanding amateurs but also most types of professional shooting....
Here there are lots of options but tradeoffs -- the D850 excels in this category, but the consumer has to ask themself if they want to invest in dSLR tech as we transition. Z6 and Z7 are options and would work for some types of shooters, but without dual card slots, with a somewhat lesser AF system, may not be up to the demands of this type of photographer. But, it will likely be 2+ more years before those cameras get an upgrade.
Canon users could be perfectly content with the 5Div but again, is now the time to invest in dSLR tech? and lots of issues with the Canon R and Rp make it difficult to really take those cameras too seriously in this category.
The Sony A7iii, A7riii and A9 can all fulfill these users right now.

And the sports flagship market...... here things get...... different...
The sports pro market will be the last to switch to mirrorless.
There is no reason to wait for Nikon/Canon to do sports mirrorless cameras -- because all the pro-sports lenses will continue to be dSLR lenses for the foreseeable future. Eventually that will change, but not for at least 3-5 years, minimum.
The A9 is indeed an option for this market -- but with caveats that it's a different style of body than such users are used to, and the native sports lens options are limited (a great 400/2.8, teleconverter options, a variable aperture but excellent 100-400, and a 70-200/2.8). So those might be enough lenses for many sports shooters, but fewer options than they can get in other mounts.

So right now... a buyer is in limbo in many ways.

Fuji does some great mirrorless cameras -- but they are aps-c only (and medium format).
Canon and Nikon are starting their transition to mirrorless.... but the aps-c mirrorless plans are currently unclear/unfilled. The full frame lineup has gaps, and the filled mirrorless slots have performance issues compared to their dslr models.
Sony is "mirrorless ready" -- sure, like all cameras, they have some cons. But they have mature AF systems, they have all the slots basically filled. You don't need to "wait for a Sony with good autofocus" --
So if someone was totally mount agnostic, I might recommend 1 of the Sony cameras.... but if they are already invested in F-mount or EF-mount... won't typically make sense to change.

Well, maybe, but Nikon's been making mirrorless since 2011, and Canon since 2012. Most people seem to forget that Z and R are their second mirrorless lens mounts so far, and the EF-M has been quietly taking over the Rebel space for some time.

Besides knowing that Nikon and Canon both micromanage their product lines to an extreme degree, and have had full frame mirrorless in the works for some time, I find it very interesting which cameras have been released so far. It shows how they themselves view the cameras, and gives us a good idea what's coming down the pipeline.

To back things up a bit though, historically, Nikon has made 3 cameras and Canon has made 3 cameras. Sure, there were lots of models, but there have only been that many body designs for quite a while. Skipping past the 1980's where things got really confusing, Canon and Nikon hired actual product designers to sort out their product lines and interfaces, and it became simple: Nikon made the pro bodies (F5, F100), prosumer (N80) and low level consumer (N55-N75), each one with a different interface, and that has continued on to this day. Canon did almost exactly the same thing with a darn similar design philosophy, with the Rebel/KISS, Prosumer, then true professional EOS-1. Across Canikon, you can see design similarities between each level - they finally found where the spaghetti stuck feature-wise and keep it up to this day.

Minolta, who sold far fewer cameras, only made 2 bodies: the 5 consumer camera, and the 7 and 9 share much the same prosumer design and interface. And do you remember the old joke about how do you double the amount of metal in a Minolta camera? Load the film. At this point, Minolta (and now Sonly) made/make no cameras similar to the F5 or EOS-1. Any camera like the A9 where I can make the lens to go out of alignment by holding it wrong isn't a professional camera, IMHO. Technical tour de force though it is, the build quality and user experience is prosumer at best by Nikon/Canon standards; though fortunately, its price reflects this. Sony's lineup is very much like the old Minoltas in this regard.

So when we look at the recent and current mirrorless and DSLR products and line them up based on the manufacturer's suggested use case, where are the missing products, then? Ideally you'd have an equivalent product across both mirrorless and DSLR - Sony does this very nicely at the moment, and I'm sure that's where Canikon are going.

For Nikon:

• No crop sensor mirrorless at all, so D3500, D5600 (consumer), D7500 (prosumer) and D500 (professional) stand without a mirrorless model.
• The Z6 prosumer body equates nicely to the D610 and D750
• The Z7 prosumer body has no DSLR equivalent.
• The D850 and D5 (professional) have no mirrorless equivalents.

For Canon:

• The Rebel/KISS lineup is equivalent to the EOS-M lineup.
• The 80D and 7D (prosumer crop) have no mirrorless equivalent
• The EOS R and EOS RP line up to the 6D
• The 5D (prosumer full frame) and 1D (professional) have no mirrorless equivalent

By a quick count, that's 4 Canon bodies and 6 Nikon bodies with no direct mirrorless equivalent, and 1 Nikon mirrorless without a DSLR equivalent. That's a heck of a lot of holes to plug in their lineup, but notice that there are no true professional mirrorless bodies from anybody, and no consumer bodies from Nikon. And there's a serious lack of good glass as well that will take a long time to fill, with some lenses from both that are over 30 years old still in current production that will need to be updated. Those are big holes that need to be plugged, but I expect not to see a true professional camera from Canikon until at least 2022 at the earliest, and more likely 2023 for the Olympics as per tradition, and even then the lens lineup won't be fully filled out.

And what about the fourth SLR mount, the Pentax K? Well, do you like pancakes?

 

[jec6613]

The thing you're really missing out on is the body controls and programmability, and overall responsiveness. The 7D and 5D are mostly programable with nearly instant response, the 1D fully programable, while the D200, D300, D500, D700, D800 series, and D# are fully programable with instant response.

Aside: as old as the 51 point AF system in the D750 and D7500 are, it's pretty much on par with most of the Canon AF systems, which are also getting older, and they couple with the metering sensor properly for tracking, so performance is anything but slow. The D7500 uses full face (and at close range, eye detect) AF with its 51 point sensor, for instance. The D600/D610 and D7000/D5200+ 39 point AF system has other issues such as coverage area, of course, and they're paired with more simplistic metering systems that don't couple to the AF sensor. The D610 and D750 probably hasn't been replaced mostly because there's not enough new technology to stick into it - the 24 MP sensor is still state of the art in IQ and their mechanical shutter rates both exceed mirrorless (using electronic shutters brings DR reduction and banding issues).

Also Nikon definitely does not see the D850 and Z7 as direct competitors, as they both fill different needs despite sharing almost the same image sensor and IQ. Mostly in that the D850 is a much more responsive and programable camera, with a mechanical shutter it has the mirror back down for the next shot before the Z7 has its first curtain opened. And I think this is a good thing - many people were buying into the D800 series who didn't need a true professional body, and for landscape work the Z7 is a heck of a lot easier to hike 20 miles with than the D850.

The A9 I almost want to lump in with the Df, because they're both odd ducks, though very, very different ducks. Neither is truly professional nor prosumer. Both offer very fast response times and exceptional image quality, with a good build quality in a small package. And they graft on parts of a professional interface, but don't go whole hog, and both have significant drawbacks. The Sony A99 is definitely what Sony sees as the, "More professional," camera, at least from a design perspective compared to the A9. It's all very odd - but I suppose that's the point of both of them is to fill a niche: the Df is to provide excellent legacy glass support (the 16 MP sensor in it is modified for the incident angle of a lot of the weird old glass) with a really nice experience to go with it, and a lot of N70/N80/FM3a users came over to DSLR because of it and its halo effect (lots of D610 and D750 users moved from film); while the A9 is designed to show of what mirrorless is capable of and get people to try out the Sony system at a low-ish cost entry point and create a halo around Sony products.

As for the D500 and 7D Mk II updates … that's a good question. Mirrorless isn't ready to take over here, and tops out at 5.5 FPS with a mechanical shutter while both of those do 10 FPS, and with APS-C you really need the mechanical shutter to get best results since any electronic shutter banding because a much larger issue much more quickly (also, under gym lights, you need to go mechanical). And the performance even today is excellent on both, without questions. But they also didn't sell terribly well, with some 50k D500 in the US and 100k 7D Mark II, each just about doubling the sales of the D5 and 1DX over the same time periods. I think that a lot of the problem was that while they are excellent cameras, many amateurs and even wedding pros went with the D750 and 6D instead for not a much higher price, since the build quality, full programmability, and responsiveness wasn't really necessary. At least IMHO that's why they sold so much worse than the D300(s) and 7D. On the flipside, National Geographic and similar wildlife pros are heavy users of the D500 and somewhat lesser the 7D (Nat Geo is a more Nikon shop than Canon), and before the D500 they used the D7200.

And to put that sales in perspective per unit time (using Nikon because their numbers are more available): the 7D Mark II sold about half as well as the D850 despite supply constraints, and the D500 about 1/3 as well. While the D750 and Z6 are about matched for sales rate, and the Z7 about matches the D610. The Z bodies are moving like hotcakes, that's for sure.

As for investing in a DSLR mount … IMHO, I've always considered the bodies more or less disposable, and they only last me a couple of years before I wear them out - part of the reason upgrading to a true pro body was attractive to me. The lenses, on the other hand, can last much longer, and I have several which are older than I am, and several do not adapt well at all to mirrorless (different microlenses).

Though big note: telephoto lenses adapt almost perfectly, once you're past about 100mm the lenses, with compatibility notes I've already posted, and there's not really a performance or size benefit to a native mirrorless telephoto lenses, so I expect the long primes to all remain EF and F mount for the foreseeable future. Both because of the D#/1D users as well as technical reasons. This is mostly because the light coming out of the back of a telephoto is nicely columnated well ahead of the flange distance, and most designs have their rear element far ahead of where it needs to be for mirror clearance, so the shorter/wider flange just doesn't matter; while for size and weight it's dominated by the front element which must always be at least focal length/f-number in size (so a 400 f/2.8 has a minimum front element size of 143mm).

 

[havoc315]

You make a lot of good points... but you’re also stuck in defining cameras from an older dslr perspective.

Having switch from Nikon D750, trying the d850 and moving to the a9/a7riii... I can tell you they are just as customizable and programmable as the Nikon counterparts. And overall, they match or surpass the responsiveness except in 1 way that is always going to be true of mirrorless — the camera takes a second to turn on. That time may be reduced moving forward, but a mirrorless will never turn on as instantly as a dslr. But users will/do adapt to this caveat. As other limitations have always been adapted to.

The a9 and Df really aren’t similar in any way. The a9 is truly a prosumer and professional camera. It might not have the body you see in a 1dxii or 5d... but it beats them both in many parameters.
The df was a 1-off retro body design combining parts of other cameras... the sensor from the d4, which wasn’t Nikon’s best IQ sensor... the af from, IIRC, the d810....
thus, it was a mishmash of parts and not really the best at anything.
The a9 is the class leader on many fronts. With the newest firmware, it’s probably the best AF system on the market. (I did a side by side with the old firmware and d5... d5 was slightly better. But the new AF firmware changes things quite a bit).
Now does the a9 have some cons compared to the 1dxii and 5d? Absolutely yes. But none of those cons are disqualifying.

And having different pros and cons doesn’t mean cameras don’t compete with each other. As demonstrated by sharing the same PRICE as well as sensor, the z7 and d850 are absolutely aimed at the same segment... but with different pros and cons to attract different subsegments.
If you’re a d800 owner looking to upgrade, you could easily be torn between the 2 cameras.
What holds the z7 back partially, is just that the autofocus isn’t completely “there” yet. If it had Sony AF, it would be a fiercer competitor to the d850.
But as it stands, if you need the better performance, dual card slots, etc... the d850 calls your name. If you prefer to save weight, want better live view, maybe want IBIS, you’ll be attracted to the z7.
But they are both general purpose high resolution high performance $3000 cameras.

As to need for a mechanical shutter — for action, yes and no. If the electronic shutter can read out quickly enough, you don’t need a mechanical shutter. Right now, the a9 is the only FF camera for which that’s true. But that will change quickly —- and it’s easier to get a faster readout on a smaller sensor size. There have been well placed rumors that Nikon is considering a solely electronic shutter for aps-c mirrorless.
I suspect you’ll see more electronic shutters that can fully handle action and artificial lights coming within the very near future (0-3 years).

Finally, I can assure you, Sony doesn’t see the a99ii as their professionally designed camera. Far from it, they see it as spare parts thrown together as 1 last bone to their a-mount owners. Slow media cards, tiny buffer, a half baked subpar AF system. They stuck it in the old shell of their 2012 a99.
They basically took their old a99 (which was their flag ship in 2012), stuck the a7rii sensor inside and tried to hybridize the AF system between the a77ii and a7rii.
But even as examples of the design choice for intended audience: a9 has an Ethernet port, a99ii doesn’t.
No.... the a9 was clearly intended as Sony’s entry into the professional sports market (hit some marks, missed some marks). The a99ii is just cobbled together old technology meant to extend the life of the a-mount for a couple more years. (Sony’s professional services have literally told me that almost none of their members are shooting the a99ii.... meanwhile, among young new professional photographers, the Sony mirrorless are actually beating Nikon and Canon in sales)

 

[bob100]

You make a lot of good points... but you’re also stuck in defining cameras from an older dslr perspective.

Having switch from Nikon D750, trying the d850 and moving to the a9/a7riii... I can tell you they are just as customizable and programmable as the Nikon counterparts. And overall, they match or surpass the responsiveness except in 1 way that is always going to be true of mirrorless — the camera takes a second to turn on. That time may be reduced moving forward, but a mirrorless will never turn on as instantly as a dslr. But users will/do adapt to this caveat. As other limitations have always been adapted to.

The a9 and Df really aren’t similar in any way. The a9 is truly a prosumer and professional camera. It might not have the body you see in a 1dxii or 5d... but it beats them both in many parameters.
The df was a 1-off retro body design combining parts of other cameras... the sensor from the d4, which wasn’t Nikon’s best IQ sensor... the af from, IIRC, the d810....
thus, it was a mishmash of parts and not really the best at anything.
The a9 is the class leader on many fronts. With the newest firmware, it’s probably the best AF system on the market. (I did a side by side with the old firmware and d5... d5 was slightly better. But the new AF firmware changes things quite a bit).
Now does the a9 have some cons compared to the 1dxii and 5d? Absolutely yes. But none of those cons are disqualifying.

And having different pros and cons doesn’t mean cameras don’t compete with each other. As demonstrated by sharing the same PRICE as well as sensor, the z7 and d850 are absolutely aimed at the same segment... but with different pros and cons to attract different subsegments.
If you’re a d800 owner looking to upgrade, you could easily be torn between the 2 cameras.
What holds the z7 back partially, is just that the autofocus isn’t completely “there” yet. If it had Sony AF, it would be a fiercer competitor to the d850.
But as it stands, if you need the better performance, dual card slots, etc... the d850 calls your name. If you prefer to save weight, want better live view, maybe want IBIS, you’ll be attracted to the z7.
But they are both general purpose high resolution high performance $3000 cameras.
As to need for a mechanical shutter — for action, yes and no. If the electronic shutter can read out quickly enough, you don’t need a mechanical shutter. Right now, the a9 is the only FF camera for which that’s true. But that will change quickly —- and it’s easier to get a faster readout on a smaller sensor size. There have been well placed rumors that Nikon is considering a solely electronic shutter for aps-c mirrorless.
I suspect you’ll see more electronic shutters that can fully handle action and artificial lights coming within the very near future (0-3 years).

Finally, I can assure you, Sony doesn’t see the a99ii as their professionally designed camera. Far from it, they see it as spare parts thrown together as 1 last bone to their a-mount owners. Slow media cards, tiny buffer, a half baked subpar AF system. They stuck it in the old shell of their 2012 a99.
They basically took their old a99 (which was their flag ship in 2012), stuck the a7rii sensor inside and tried to hybridize the AF system between the a77ii and a7rii.
But even as examples of the design choice for intended audience: a9 has an Ethernet port, a99ii doesn’t.
No.... the a9 was clearly intended as Sony’s entry into the professional sports market (hit some marks, missed some marks). The a99ii is just cobbled together old technology meant to extend the life of the a-mount for a couple more years. (Sony’s professional services have literally told me that almost none of their members are shooting the a99ii.... meanwhile, among young new professional photographers, the Sony mirrorless are actually beating Nikon and Canon in sales)

true, people still using DSLR cameras certainly have an "older" perspective.
when mirrorless cameras have a fast electronic shutter then I might never upgrade ... a camera manufacturer's nightmare !
www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless

 

[jec6613]

Big Wall of Text I'm not going to quote but am responding to.

See, to me, the D750 and D850 are not even in the same class to program. One uses U1/U2, the other uses settings banks and has dozens of more customizable controls, and the later is much more useful. As an example:

Bank A: Events/People: Sets card slot 2 to backup, sets the Cl speed to 6 FPS, sets RAW to 14 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to include shutter release, sets joystick click to Group AF mode, sets AF-S, changes flash mode to balanced fill, sets metering mode to spot, and puts into Aperture Priority.
Bank B: Sports: Disables AF-S, sets available AF modes to 3D, D72, and Group, sets RAW to 12 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to button only, sets joystick click to AF mode select, sets Card Slot 2 to JPEG, sets PC to a custom PC, sets metering mode to matrix.
Bank C: Wildlife: Disables AF-S, sets available AF modes to D72, D21, and Group, sets RAW to 12 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to button only, sets joystick click to AF mode select, sets Card Slot 2 to overflow, sets meter to center weighted and changes point size to be smaller and track the AF point.
Bank D: Static subject: Sets card slot 2 to backup , sets CL speed to 4 FPS, sets RAW to 14 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On button only, disables retaining AF point with orientation change.

And in each one of these modes the dozen or so programmable buttons can be completely different, I can tag each photo with different file names and number sequences and drop them into different folders on the same cards, pretty much everything can change. I can change to an entirely different camera in the blink of an eye, and keep my settings on a spare card to drop onto an extra camera that I rent for an event - for example, if I were shooting a track & field event, I could have a second and third rented body set up identically to my first, and then link them so that when one fires it also fires the other bodies remotely at fixed points (say, one at the hurdles and one at the finish line). I can also program them so that a bank of cameras can fire synchronized even if they're different models, so a faster D5 would wait for a slower D500 so the shutter always fires at exactly the same time, and I can do it all either wirelessly or with physical cables. At a wedding, you could have a camera set up in the choir loft on a tripod that fires slaved to the main bodies you're holding, with it slaved to multiple bodies, and even mix and match across seven generations of cameras (F5-D5). And that's not even starting on features like automated upload and trap focus - a pair of pro bodies can be set up so that one trap focuses at a finish line and fires, and another fires the instant the first does, perhaps in a 100 image burst at 14 FPS, and send the images to a judges box in seconds. The list of combinations just goes on and on.

By the by, Disney uses Nikon pro bodies (originally Nikon pro bodies modified by Kodak with a digital back) for a number of automated systems on rides and the like, starting with Splash Mountain. The fancy 7DMT ride videos are actually the only Nikon 1 professional bodies in existence, custom made in Sendai as part of the sponsorship agreement.

How often is all this useful? Well, to an amateur, or even most working pros, not very often, but to certain working pros, very much so. The government contract photographers that represent around 30% of 1D and D5 customers in the US (NASA, Northup Grumman, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, all seven uniformed services) rely on these features, as do the top end sports and news photographers that make up about half of the remaining 1D/D5 business in the latest generation. Heck, NASA and the US Army still use the F5 and F6 for working pro cameras for certain situations where they need true panchromatics, and they happily link to the D5.

That's a level of programmability and customizability that the D750, and any Sony camera, doesn't have. But the A99 weirdly does have most of it and is even more weirdly the first A mount camera to have it, and the A9 and Df have about half of it. I never said the A9 and Df filled the same market niche, I even said they fill very, very different ones, but they do both fill niche markets and make many similar interface choices to get there.

Oh, the Df uses the 39 point Multi-CAM4800 AF module out of the D600 series, D7000, and D5200-D5600, because it provides higher discrimination for the MF rangefinder than the 51 point Multi-CAM3500 that the D3, D4, D300, D700, D800 series, and D7100-D7500 uses; but as the Multi-CAM4800 has more CCD sensors and fewer points, the higher discrimination also means slower readout, so it's not meter coupled for 3D scene recognition and face/eye detection like the Multi-CAM3500 and Multi-CAM20k. It also has a slower focus screen to provide a better MF experience, as opposed to most that use faster Fresnel lens screens only resolving down to f/2.8 or f/4. The IQ on it is interesting, because it does fabulously in low light thanks to being lifted from the D4, and with oddball lenses due to additional micro lens customization, but it's lower resolution than any other current full frame camera. Very suitable for some tasks, but not nearly as general purpose as one of the 24MP bodies. It's a camera I want, especially for WDW with a few primes, but can't justify owning.

As for the electronic shutter issues, currently only the m4/3 Olympus OM-D E-M1X has it up to 10 FPS with a mechanical shutter, and even its electronic shutter isn't fast enough to avoid rolling shutter. The A9's flash sync is still 1/60 of a second and the sensor only polls at 120 Hz, to reach parity with current vertical focal plane shutters it would need to poll at 600 Hz according to the Nyquist theorem, and we're at least several years away from that. To add in flicker detection like the current DSLRs have, a mirrorless camera would need to poll even faster (ideally at 4x the sync speed for full performance parity) or would have to have a secondary external sensor, a job currently performed by the metering sensor in DSLRs. Of course, somebody could pull out the old leaf shutter trick that's been used with some success, for instance in the Coolpix A that can sync at 1/2000, but currently that's been limited to fixed lens compacts so far.

 

[bob100]

See, to me, the D750 and D850 are not even in the same class to program. One uses U1/U2, the other uses settings banks and has dozens of more customizable controls, and the later is much more useful. As an example:
Bank A: Events/People: Sets card slot 2 to backup, sets the Cl speed to 6 FPS, sets RAW to 14 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to include shutter release, sets joystick click to Group AF mode, sets AF-S, changes flash mode to balanced fill, sets metering mode to spot, and puts into Aperture Priority.
Bank B: Sports: Disables AF-S, sets available AF modes to 3D, D72, and Group, sets RAW to 12 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to button only, sets joystick click to AF mode select, sets Card Slot 2 to JPEG, sets PC to a custom PC, sets metering mode to matrix.
Bank C: Wildlife: Disables AF-S, sets available AF modes to D72, D21, and Group, sets RAW to 12 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to button only, sets joystick click to AF mode select, sets Card Slot 2 to overflow, sets meter to center weighted and changes point size to be smaller and track the AF point.
Bank D: Static subject: Sets card slot 2 to backup , sets CL speed to 4 FPS, sets RAW to 14 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On button only, disables retaining AF point with orientation change.
And in each one of these modes the dozen or so programmable buttons can be completely different, I can tag each photo with different file names and number sequences and drop them into different folders on the same cards, pretty much everything can change. I can change to an entirely different camera in the blink of an eye, and keep my settings on a spare card to drop onto an extra camera that I rent for an event - for example, if I were shooting a track & field event, I could have a second and third rented body set up identically to my first, and then link them so that when one fires it also fires the other bodies remotely at fixed points (say, one at the hurdles and one at the finish line). I can also program them so that a bank of cameras can fire synchronized even if they're different models, so a faster D5 would wait for a slower D500 so the shutter always fires at exactly the same time, and I can do it all either wirelessly or with physical cables. At a wedding, you could have a camera set up in the choir loft on a tripod that fires slaved to the main bodies you're holding, with it slaved to multiple bodies, and even mix and match across seven generations of cameras (F5-D5). And that's not even starting on features like automated upload and trap focus - a pair of pro bodies can be set up so that one trap focuses at a finish line and fires, and another fires the instant the first does, perhaps in a 100 image burst at 14 FPS, and send the images to a judges box in seconds. The list of combinations just goes on and on.
By the by, Disney uses Nikon pro bodies (originally Nikon pro bodies modified by Kodak with a digital back) for a number of automated systems on rides and the like, starting with Splash Mountain. The fancy 7DMT ride videos are actually the only Nikon 1 professional bodies in existence, custom made in Sendai as part of the sponsorship agreement.
How often is all this useful? Well, to an amateur, or even most working pros, not very often, but to certain working pros, very much so. The government contract photographers that represent around 30% of 1D and D5 customers in the US (NASA, Northup Grumman, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, all seven uniformed services) rely on these features, as do the top end sports and news photographers that make up about half of the remaining 1D/D5 business in the latest generation. Heck, NASA and the US Army still use the F5 and F6 for working pro cameras for certain situations where they need true panchromatics, and they happily link to the D5.
That's a level of programmability and customizability that the D750, and any Sony camera, doesn't have. But the A99 weirdly does have most of it and is even more weirdly the first A mount camera to have it, and the A9 and Df have about half of it. I never said the A9 and Df filled the same market niche, I even said they fill very, very different ones, but they do both fill niche markets and make many similar interface choices to get there.
Oh, the Df uses the 39 point Multi-CAM4800 AF module out of the D600 series, D7000, and D5200-D5600, because it provides higher discrimination for the MF rangefinder than the 51 point Multi-CAM3500 that the D3, D4, D300, D700, D800 series, and D7100-D7500 uses; but as the Multi-CAM4800 has more CCD sensors and fewer points, the higher discrimination also means slower readout, so it's not meter coupled for 3D scene recognition and face/eye detection like the Multi-CAM3500 and Multi-CAM20k. It also has a slower focus screen to provide a better MF experience, as opposed to most that use faster Fresnel lens screens only resolving down to f/2.8 or f/4. The IQ on it is interesting, because it does fabulously in low light thanks to being lifted from the D4, and with oddball lenses due to additional micro lens customization, but it's lower resolution than any other current full frame camera. Very suitable for some tasks, but not nearly as general purpose as one of the 24MP bodies. It's a camera I want, especially for WDW with a few primes, but can't justify owning.
As for the electronic shutter issues, currently only the m4/3 Olympus OM-D E-M1X has it up to 10 FPS with a mechanical shutter, and even its electronic shutter isn't fast enough to avoid rolling shutter. The A9's flash sync is still 1/60 of a second and the sensor only polls at 120 Hz, to reach parity with current vertical focal plane shutters it would need to poll at 600 Hz according to the Nyquist theorem, and we're at least several years away from that. To add in flicker detection like the current DSLRs have, a mirrorless camera would need to poll even faster (ideally at 4x the sync speed for full performance parity) or would have to have a secondary external sensor, a job currently performed by the metering sensor in DSLRs. Of course, somebody could pull out the old leaf shutter trick that's been used with some success, for instance in the Coolpix A that can sync at 1/2000, but currently that's been limited to fixed lens compacts so far.

LOL !
The "working pros" are a rapidly diminishing species thanks to cell phones
screen grabs of video has replaced many sports shooters ... if they even bother to show up

As for the "hobbyist enthusiast" -- small mirrorless cameras are rapidly replacing the big DSLR's.

www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless

 

[havoc315]

You're overstating the importance of a single feature... I certainly won't dispute that programmable "banks" have value for some photographers. But saying a camera can't be professional without banks is like saying that a camera can't be professional if it doesn't shoot 20 fps. Where a great deal of programmabilty comes into the A9 is with registered custom shooting. With the touch of a button, can switch the shoot mode, drive mode, focus mode, metering mode, ISO mode, etc. It's a little different than the Nikon "banks" but it's far more customizability than you get with a D750, for example.

And I've known some professional Nikon shooters who prefer the U type memory recalls of the consumer models to the "banks." (and some who prefer the banks).

The Sony A9, at 120hz electronic shutter, is completely able to avoid rolling shutter for daily professional sports activity.
Some good examples of the A9 in various sports situations:

And not sure where you're getting that mirrorless cameras don't have flicker detection -- the Sony full frame models do.


I do agree that the A9 is a niche camera -- in the same sense that the D850, D5 and 1Dxii are niche cameras. But the niche for the A9 is probably a little bigger than the niche for the D5 and 1Dxii (due to smaller size and half the price). While I know a few wedding photographers who will use a D5/1Dxii for their work, most stick to a D850/D750/5D model among Canon/Nikon. And you certainly don't see many amateurs with a D5/1Dxii, or anyone using it for travel. Those cameras are limited to the very narrow niche of professional sports photography. On the other hand, I've seen the A9 adapted more across the board, from amateurs with healthy budgets (A7iii with a far superior AF system, superior LCD/EVF) to travel photographers to sports photographers to wedding photographers to photojournalists (who can value the compactness and silent shutter).. (having shot weddings with several different dSLRs and mirrorless myself, the A9 is actually my ideal camera for wedding photography). So any $3000+ camera is going to be a niche camera, but the A9 actually covers a fairly broad cross section of niches.

As I said, each camera has different pros and cons. They each may have some feature missing in some competitor. I'm not about to get into a debate about which camera is best, or better than some other camera. I'm only saying that the lack of banks or the lack of a built-in battery grip doesn't disqualify the A9 as a professional camera anymore than the lack of 20 fps disqualifies the D5 and 1Dxii. (Though if I was Sony, I would include a built-in battery grip in an A9ii).

See, to me, the D750 and D850 are not even in the same class to program. One uses U1/U2, the other uses settings banks and has dozens of more customizable controls, and the later is much more useful. As an example:

Bank A: Events/People: Sets card slot 2 to backup, sets the Cl speed to 6 FPS, sets RAW to 14 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to include shutter release, sets joystick click to Group AF mode, sets AF-S, changes flash mode to balanced fill, sets metering mode to spot, and puts into Aperture Priority.
Bank B: Sports: Disables AF-S, sets available AF modes to 3D, D72, and Group, sets RAW to 12 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to button only, sets joystick click to AF mode select, sets Card Slot 2 to JPEG, sets PC to a custom PC, sets metering mode to matrix.
Bank C: Wildlife: Disables AF-S, sets available AF modes to D72, D21, and Group, sets RAW to 12 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On to button only, sets joystick click to AF mode select, sets Card Slot 2 to overflow, sets meter to center weighted and changes point size to be smaller and track the AF point.
Bank D: Static subject: Sets card slot 2 to backup , sets CL speed to 4 FPS, sets RAW to 14 bit lossless NEF, sets AF-On button only, disables retaining AF point with orientation change.

And in each one of these modes the dozen or so programmable buttons can be completely different, I can tag each photo with different file names and number sequences and drop them into different folders on the same cards, pretty much everything can change. I can change to an entirely different camera in the blink of an eye, and keep my settings on a spare card to drop onto an extra camera that I rent for an event - for example, if I were shooting a track & field event, I could have a second and third rented body set up identically to my first, and then link them so that when one fires it also fires the other bodies remotely at fixed points (say, one at the hurdles and one at the finish line). I can also program them so that a bank of cameras can fire synchronized even if they're different models, so a faster D5 would wait for a slower D500 so the shutter always fires at exactly the same time, and I can do it all either wirelessly or with physical cables. At a wedding, you could have a camera set up in the choir loft on a tripod that fires slaved to the main bodies you're holding, with it slaved to multiple bodies, and even mix and match across seven generations of cameras (F5-D5). And that's not even starting on features like automated upload and trap focus - a pair of pro bodies can be set up so that one trap focuses at a finish line and fires, and another fires the instant the first does, perhaps in a 100 image burst at 14 FPS, and send the images to a judges box in seconds. The list of combinations just goes on and on.

By the by, Disney uses Nikon pro bodies (originally Nikon pro bodies modified by Kodak with a digital back) for a number of automated systems on rides and the like, starting with Splash Mountain. The fancy 7DMT ride videos are actually the only Nikon 1 professional bodies in existence, custom made in Sendai as part of the sponsorship agreement.

How often is all this useful? Well, to an amateur, or even most working pros, not very often, but to certain working pros, very much so. The government contract photographers that represent around 30% of 1D and D5 customers in the US (NASA, Northup Grumman, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, United Technologies, all seven uniformed services) rely on these features, as do the top end sports and news photographers that make up about half of the remaining 1D/D5 business in the latest generation. Heck, NASA and the US Army still use the F5 and F6 for working pro cameras for certain situations where they need true panchromatics, and they happily link to the D5.

That's a level of programmability and customizability that the D750, and any Sony camera, doesn't have. But the A99 weirdly does have most of it and is even more weirdly the first A mount camera to have it, and the A9 and Df have about half of it. I never said the A9 and Df filled the same market niche, I even said they fill very, very different ones, but they do both fill niche markets and make many similar interface choices to get there.

Oh, the Df uses the 39 point Multi-CAM4800 AF module out of the D600 series, D7000, and D5200-D5600, because it provides higher discrimination for the MF rangefinder than the 51 point Multi-CAM3500 that the D3, D4, D300, D700, D800 series, and D7100-D7500 uses; but as the Multi-CAM4800 has more CCD sensors and fewer points, the higher discrimination also means slower readout, so it's not meter coupled for 3D scene recognition and face/eye detection like the Multi-CAM3500 and Multi-CAM20k. It also has a slower focus screen to provide a better MF experience, as opposed to most that use faster Fresnel lens screens only resolving down to f/2.8 or f/4. The IQ on it is interesting, because it does fabulously in low light thanks to being lifted from the D4, and with oddball lenses due to additional micro lens customization, but it's lower resolution than any other current full frame camera. Very suitable for some tasks, but not nearly as general purpose as one of the 24MP bodies. It's a camera I want, especially for WDW with a few primes, but can't justify owning.

As for the electronic shutter issues, currently only the m4/3 Olympus OM-D E-M1X has it up to 10 FPS with a mechanical shutter, and even its electronic shutter isn't fast enough to avoid rolling shutter. The A9's flash sync is still 1/60 of a second and the sensor only polls at 120 Hz, to reach parity with current vertical focal plane shutters it would need to poll at 600 Hz according to the Nyquist theorem, and we're at least several years away from that. To add in flicker detection like the current DSLRs have, a mirrorless camera would need to poll even faster (ideally at 4x the sync speed for full performance parity) or would have to have a secondary external sensor, a job currently performed by the metering sensor in DSLRs. Of course, somebody could pull out the old leaf shutter trick that's been used with some success, for instance in the Coolpix A that can sync at 1/2000, but currently that's been limited to fixed lens compacts so far.

 

[zackiedawg]

As for the D500 and 7D Mk II updates … that's a good question. Mirrorless isn't ready to take over here, and tops out at 5.5 FPS with a mechanical shutter while both of those do 10 FPS, and with APS-C you really need the mechanical shutter to get best results since any electronic shutter banding because a much larger issue much more quickly (also, under gym lights, you need to go mechanical).

I'm curious where you're getting the idea that mirrorless cameras are limited to a maximum of 5.5fps with mechanical shutter? I'm not sure if you're thinking of a particular model, but there are mirrorless cameras that shoot with continuous focus at up to 11fps using mechanical shutter, with APS-C sensors, using nearly 100% frame coverage and over 400 focus points. At least 5 models I know of so far in APS-C are rated at this level.

 

[bob100]

I'm curious where you're getting the idea that mirrorless cameras are limited to a maximum of 5.5fps with mechanical shutter? I'm not sure if you're thinking of a particular model, but there are mirrorless cameras that shoot with continuous focus at up to 11fps using mechanical shutter, with APS-C sensors, using nearly 100% frame coverage and over 400 focus points. At least 5 models I know of so far in APS-C are rated at this level.

right, my 'old' Canon M5 mirrorless shoots 7 fps and 9 fps with exposure lock, the newer models probably have a higher "frames per second"
www.flickr.com/photos/mmirrorless


Untitled by c w, on Flickr

 

[KVH]

So when you see an article like this, you have to wonder what kind of an impact that makes on manufacturers. Does it actually influence future R&D budgets or just short term Sales and Marketing teams? Based on this thread, individuals (in the know) don't necessarily look at the market the same way or define things the same. But this is the .01% of the 1%, everyone else is (was, really) buying a Rebel. At least in the U.S. I doubt Joe Average here will seriously consider an a7III in comparison to a sub-$500 DSLR. So there's also a geo perspective here.

 

[havoc315]

So when you see an article like this, you have to wonder what kind of an impact that makes on manufacturers. Does it actually influence future R&D budgets or just short term Sales and Marketing teams? Based on this thread, individuals (in the know) don't necessarily look at the market the same way or define things the same. But this is the .01% of the 1%, everyone else is (was, really) buying a Rebel. At least in the U.S. I doubt Joe Average here will seriously consider an a7III in comparison to a sub-$500 DSLR. So there's also a geo perspective here.

Here is what you have to remember:
The Canon Rebel was introduced in 2003 for $899 body price. In 2019, that’s $1300 —— the same price as the Canon Rp, more than the Sony a7ii.

So yes.... in the early 2000’s, Joe Average was indeed spending about $1300 on camera bodies. Tech got cheaper, so that NOW you can get the cheap models for $500... but the market for those cheap models has disappeared.
The full frame market isn’t the top 1%... it’s about the top 30%. It used to be a much smaller percentage but the entry level market is disappearing. It’s probably dropped over 50% from its peak (possibly much more than 50%).
The buyers that are left are the more serious shooters—- the ones that were willing to spend $899 on a Rebel in 2003 can spend $1300 on a Rp in 2019.
The type of buyer who spent $1399 on the 8 megapixel Canon 30d in 2006 has no objection to $2000 for a Sony a7iii. (In 2006, the 30d was entry/mid level)

And I can vouch that the a7iii has been a massive seller. Commissions from sales of Sony a7iii’s have made my blog very profitable. Though sales are starting to slow — not surprising, it’s been on the market for over a year without a price cut. My guess is that it will get a price cut at some point this year down to $1700-$1800 range. 2020, it will fall into the $1500 ballpark. 2021, it will be replaced by a $1900 a7iv.

 

[topdog]

I am still shooting with my Nikon D700 from 9 years ago. Maybe it is time to think about to get a D850.

 

[KVH]

Are you sure about the 30% for FF? I don't disbelieve you but that does seem high. Anyway.

So some aspect of Moore's Law is technically is full swing here. Conversely, prices are being adjusted on the high side (tight margins is assumption here) even though you now bet more for your money. But after reviewing all the info here, my best best is to replace my 1Dx with the same thing (100K last month). That IS a little frustrating that I don't get any new bells and whistles.

 

[havoc315]

Are you sure about the 30% for FF? I don't disbelieve you but that does seem high. Anyway.

So some aspect of Moore's Law is technically is full swing here. Conversely, prices are being adjusted on the high side (tight margins is assumption here) even though you now bet more for your money. But after reviewing all the info here, my best best is to replace my 1Dx with the same thing (100K last month). That IS a little frustrating that I don't get any new bells and whistles.

Used to be a much smaller percentage but my understanding is it’s now about a third.

That’s why all the action has been full frame.

Among Sony, Canon and Nikon over the last 18 months or so:
Full frame:
Sony a7riii
Sony a7iii
Nikon d850 (just slightly more than 18 months)
Nikon Z6
Nikon Z7
Canon R
Canon Rp

7 models.

Aps-c over the last 18 months
Sony A6400 (priced $900... they currently sell the full frame a7ii for about the same price)
Nikon d3500 (which has almost no changes from the d3400)
Canon t7
Canon sl3

Just 4 models.

Aps-c models used to vastly outnumber full frame models.

Aps-c might be on the way out — a temporary fad when early sensor technology was super expensive.

As Canon and Nikon enter the mirrorless fray —- note that Nikon hasn’t even launched an aps-c camera at all (but they have hinted they will eventually). And Canon left their aps-c mirrorless mount in limbo.... no new cameras in 2 years and not even clear if they are going to continue the mount.

The behavior confirms that full frame is driving the market. Profitability is margin X volume. When aps-c was 95% of the volume, it could drive profits even at low margins. But with the collapse of the aps-c market, their profit is on the higher margin cameras. The reason FF is getting all the attention is because it’s becoming a much bigger share of the market. (Bigger share of a much smaller market).

Anyway... there should be a Canon 1dxiii in the next 6-9 months.

 

[KVH]

Thanks, havoc. That last piece makes a lot more sense. And helps confirm some things (I've been telling people not to buy EF-M). Maybe I can pick up a MarkII on the downside after Christmas.