Nikon go Mirrorless, pt 2 (Thom Hogan)

[astroNikon]

I was shooting a soccer game this past summer with my D750. Pulled a few images during a quick break to my iPhone and posted on facebook for the families. From way up in the stand, full size field, d750 w/150-600 (images you can't do with an iPhone). A few quick iPhone adjustments and right to facebook. Pretty neat. I have to test the new d500 interface. It was still a PITA though. If I had an assistant there to pull the photos and post, I could shoot and someone else could post while sitting right next to me without pausing shooting.

 

[runnah]

My niece works as a field reporter in the Monterey, CA area for a network TV station there...yeah...I know what you mean, there's now a big emphasis on Facebook Live streams, throughout the day, and pre-event, and they are also shooting regular news assignments on smartphones, little Panasonics, little Canon's, little Nikons, and slapping video pieces together on their own MacBookPro unit.

In today's news business, she tells me that this is called, "One-Man Banding". Budgets for a camera guy, a sound guy, and a producer?? Pfffft....long gone.

Talk about missing the boat. Youtubers with a single camera and no script can get viewing numbers that news stations would kill for.

I hope that this trend (raw-look video) will die off within a few years. I expect it will. Things are cyclical. I think the window of opportunity, and I mean REAL, significant, long-term opportunity for mirrorless cameras was totally MISSED by Canon and Nikon. And now? Good, really GOOD smartphone cameras exist, and they suit what people want, right now. Small.Thin, Affordable. CONNECTED to Facebook and the 'net, with roaming data upload, WiFi,BlueTooth, Near Field Communication, and most critically---easy sharing of still images and video.

I think it will, most youtubers are slowly upping their production quality but its not a requirement for popularity. If Canon or Nikon were to make a "vlogging" specific camera they would clean house.

And that is the one area Thom Hogan justifiably beats Nikon up for: they have done a terrible job on keeping up with the real issue: how to get images to the web, or Facebook, or YouTube very FAST, and reliably, and with dumb-as-a-post-user interfaces. My God...I bought a cheap Android three weeks ago...I am now Bluetooth sharing, and uploading, INSTANTLY. I do not own a Nikon that can do that. I can WATCH TV on this phone!! And I DO! WTF do I want a mirrorless camera for?

All of the camera makers need to work on this and hire some true UI designers. People want instant sharing. Heck I've often wished I could just post to instagram from my canon. This needs to be a feature that both manufacturers take seriously because it's what their customers want.

 

[runnah]

I was shooting a soccer game this past summer with my D750. Pulled a few images during a quick break to my iPhone and posted on facebook for the families. From way up in the stand, full size field, d750 w/150-600 (images you can't do with an iPhone). A few quick iPhone adjustments and right to facebook. Pretty neat. I have to test the new d500 interface. It was still a PITA though. If I had an assistant there to pull the photos and post, I could shoot and someone else could post while sitting right next to me without pausing shooting.

and this is unacceptable these days. It shouldn't be that hard to pair a camera with your phone or even use you phone as a hot spot and upload directly from your camera.

 

[astroNikon]

I was shooting a soccer game this past summer with my D750. Pulled a few images during a quick break to my iPhone and posted on facebook for the families. From way up in the stand, full size field, d750 w/150-600 (images you can't do with an iPhone). A few quick iPhone adjustments and right to facebook. Pretty neat. I have to test the new d500 interface. It was still a PITA though. If I had an assistant there to pull the photos and post, I could shoot and someone else could post while sitting right next to me without pausing shooting.

and this is unacceptable these days. It shouldn't be that hard to pair a camera with your phone or even use you phone as a hot spot and upload directly from your camera.

the biggest problem is the jpeg file transferred over is only of VGA quality. Not the RAW nor Large Fine JPEG the camera can save.

 

[Braineack]

and this is unacceptable these days. It shouldn't be that hard to pair a camera with your phone or even use you phone as a hot spot and upload directly from your camera.

you can even set a shutter speed longer than 30sec on a Nikon, so don't hold your breathe that they'll do any firmware improvements for usability. The menus look exactly like they did when the first DSLR came out, full of confusing worthless options.

 

[astroNikon]

and this is unacceptable these days. It shouldn't be that hard to pair a camera with your phone or even use you phone as a hot spot and upload directly from your camera.

you can even set a shutter speed longer than 30sec on a Nikon, so don't hold your breathe that they'll do any firmware improvements for usability. The menus look exactly like they did when the first DSLR came out, full of confusing worthless options.

I do like the worthless option of if you USB connect your percolating coffee maker to the camera that it will take a picture of the coffee maker for each perculation.
It's really buried in the options of the D5/D500 though.

 

[robbins.photo]

and this is unacceptable these days. It shouldn't be that hard to pair a camera with your phone or even use you phone as a hot spot and upload directly from your camera.

you can even set a shutter speed longer than 30sec on a Nikon, so don't hold your breathe that they'll do any firmware improvements for usability. The menus look exactly like they did when the first DSLR came out, full of confusing worthless options.

I do like the worthless option of if you USB connect your percolating coffee maker to the camera that it will take a picture of the coffee maker for each perculation.
It's really buried in the options of the D5/D500 though.

I wonder if pixmedic solved that problem with his new Nikon d 1/5th design...

Sent from my N9518 using Tapatalk

 

[pixmedic]

and this is unacceptable these days. It shouldn't be that hard to pair a camera with your phone or even use you phone as a hot spot and upload directly from your camera.

you can even set a shutter speed longer than 30sec on a Nikon, so don't hold your breathe that they'll do any firmware improvements for usability. The menus look exactly like they did when the first DSLR came out, full of confusing worthless options.

I do like the worthless option of if you USB connect your percolating coffee maker to the camera that it will take a picture of the coffee maker for each perculation.
It's really buried in the options of the D5/D500 though.

I wonder if pixmedic solved that problem with his new Nikon d 1/5th design...

Sent from my N9518 using Tapatalk

I also integrated amazons Alexa into my modded D100 and tweaked it's upload speed to a terabyte per second.
I just tell it whst to do and the camera does it

 

[robbins.photo]

I also integrated amazons Alexa into my modded D100 and tweaked it's upload speed to a terabyte per second.
I just tell it whst to do and the camera does it

So your D100 has become Skynet?

Great...

 

[Derrel]

The menus look exactly like they did when the first DSLR came out, full of confusing worthless options.

No, not quite right, and yet...

My Nikon D1 had 28 or 29 custom functions. ALL OF THEM were alpha numeric, with NO WORDS whatsoever. Custom Settings were 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and so on, and they all had A,B or A-B-C choices. You needed the manual, or a cheat-sheet to know what was what. WB was WB, and numbers. ISO was ISO, but the menus were 100% alpha numeric. HORRIBLE system.

My D3x has 167 different Custom Functons I can set. And all are in English. So....the menus have become deeper, and yet, much, much easier to understand.

But at the same time, there are too many fields, and too many options, and we have Custom Function AND the pro cams have "banks", so, jeez...

 

[pixmedic]

I also integrated amazons Alexa into my modded D100 and tweaked it's upload speed to a terabyte per second.
I just tell it whst to do and the camera does it

So your D100 has become Skynet?

Great...

It just asked me if I want to play a game.
Should I be concerned?

 

[robbins.photo]

It just asked me if I want to play a game.
Should I be concerned?

I think we should all be concerned. However, if you do start global thermonuclear war that might just be enough to cause Nikon to actually go out of business.

Then the few scattered, blinded survivors picking their way through the rubble can turn to each other and finally be able to say, hey, you know what, I guess Thom might have been right afterall...

So ya, there is that.

 

[Derrel]

I've looked at mirrorless...for me, I wanna go CHEAP....Olympus is rumored to have a dreadful menu system, but I think I could handle it, and I want that 2x crop factor becasue I like telephoto work, so I've looked at a couple older Oly's...for me, the 4/3 ASPECT RATIO is appealing...I'm more interested in how people look in a 4 to 3 frame than in the almost-accidental, early Leica-inspired, 3:2 aspect ratio image.

Nikon's 1 system was...a joke to me...the first iteration was sold off at firesale prices thru big box retailers. had some neat lenses, like 10-100mm zoom, small, etc.. next iteration was wayyyyyy over-priced. I laughed at it.

What about Nikon going in with the former 4/3 Consortium manufacturer's group or industry group?

 

[pixmedic]

I've looked at mirrorless...for me, I wanna go CHEAP....Olympus is rumored to have a dreadful menu system, but I think I could handle it, and I want that 2x crop factor becasue I like telephoto work, so I've looked at a couple older Oly's...for me, the 4/3 ASPECT RATIO is appealing...I'm more interested in how people look in a 4 to 3 frame than in the almost-accidental, early Leica-inspired, 3:2 aspect ratio image.

Nikon's 1 system was...a joke to me...the first iteration was sold off at firesale prices thru big box retailers. had some neat lenses, like 10-100mm zoom, small, etc.. next iteration was wayyyyyy over-priced. I laughed at it.

What about Nikon going in with the former 4/3 Consortium manufacturer's group or industry group?

having owned a few nikon 1's, i can honestly say the system had a few things in its favor.
very compact, yet sported a 1" sensor. something you dont get until you fork out the cash for sony's rx100.
it had a really great AF system. it would focus fast.

the biggest killer to me was a lack of fast lenses. they never made any "pro" lenses for it, and i think that in itself took it right off a lot of enthusiasts lists.
the 10-100 lens was a great addition, giving people an "all in one" option, but there really wasnt much done after that.

I absolutely hated the menu system in my olympus. maybe it was just that I got the cheaper en-pl5 PEN camera instead of a higher end model, but the controls felt very clunky, and i got a lot of noise starting around ISO800.

 

[cgw]

I fell for the Fuji X100T. Its fixed lens cut GAS off at the knees, apart from the wide+tele conversion lenses. Not for all tastes and not cheap(though the X100F might change that)but so sweet as a street/candid shooter. Not sure Nikon should go that direction but a DX MILC with all the goodness of the D7200 and a killer EVF at a fair price might atone for recent stumbles and bring back a little fun to Nikon ownership. If Fuji can do it, why not Nikon?