Something I’ve been thinking about and could never quite figure out until now was, why did Nikon make the Z mount so big? It just always seemed like overkill to go with a 55mm mount.
Like I totally get the obvious reasons from their marketing, for example, it helps when it comes to lens design, and you don’t need as aggressive of a micro-lens design on the sensor, which has actually been helping with adapting third-party and vintage lenses (from my experience). But, it still seems like a 55mm mount was overkill and that Nikon marketing was, you know, doing the marketing thing, stretching the truth.
If it was really going to benefit lens design that much, Leica, Panasonic and Canon would have gone with a bigger lens mount since they all were also starting fresh.
Everything with the way Nikon presented this Z mount smelled a little fishy and there has been this one big question that has always loomed in the back of my mind.
Could Nikon Fit A Medium Format Sensor In The Z Mount?
Today I was messing around in photoshop and I drew out the dimensions of the Z mount which is 55mm and the GFX medium format sensor size which is 44mm x 33mm and put them together. Here is what it looks like.
A GFX Medium Format Sensor In A Z Mount Camera
It’s a little ghetto I know, I don’t have any nice drafting software to do it better, but, it’s a perfect fit!
When I throw it inside the actual camera I do notice that some of the mount hinges do obstruct slightly, but this shouldn’t be an issue considering the Sony FF sensor in their E-mount is pretty heavily obstructed and the Zs 16mm flange distance should give the lenses all the angle they need to reach those corners.
If Nikon could pull this off what would it mean?
This would be super cool. Having a Z mount with a Medium Format sensor would mean you would have one mount that can take APS-C, Full Frame, and Medium Format lenses.
This means that whatever system ends up living or dying in the future, Nikon has its bases covered.
When Will Nikon Make A Medium Format Camera?
This is total speculation but it seems like they need to fill out their Z full-frame and APS-C lens line a little bit more, which will likely take one or two years if they keep up their current pace, which is a bit slow. Right now they have 8 Z-Mount full-frame lenses and 2 Z-Mount APS-C lenses.
They’ll likely need to make some f1.2 and f1.4 primes and fill out their sports lineup a little more. The sports lenses don’t technically need to come until the next Olympics, after the games coming up and they still need a mirrorless sports camera.
If I had to guess, I would say they could do a Medium Format camera by the end of 2021 given their current pace of things.
Could Canon Make A Medium Format RF Camera?
Canon’s RF mount at 54mm is only 1mm smaller than Nikons, however, the Canon RF has a deeper flange distance of 18mm vs Nikons 16mm flange.
Given how Sony fit a full-frame sensor into a much smaller lens mount, then almost certainly Canon could pull this off with their 54mm RF mount and that longer flange distance.
Both Canon and Nikon could potentially have one mount that houses Medium Format, APS-C and Full Frame. Canon will just need to figure out what they’re going to do about their M system which has been incredibly popular. Do they make two different APS-C systems? That would be weird.
| **This website contains affiliate links. We will earn a small commission on purchases made through these links. Some of the links used in these articles will direct you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. |
A GOOD POINT HERE!
The market for cameras (machines to take photographs) has never been greater than now. Yet the destruction of the “amateur DSLR” market sector carries on apace over 2019 – with sales and profits in this market segment being lost to better and better smartphone cameras. As a result camera makers are moving up-market hoping to catch the professional buyers as well as take the richer enthusiast amateurs along with them. That move will leave market sectors, and ultimately camera formats, behind.
So now it is all down to sensor designers: if the tiny sensors in smartphones are good enough for more than 95% of amateur photographers then will developments here render DSLRs and ultimately even “medium format” cameras redundant too? Can a moving-position micro 4/3 20MP sensor fuse several images quick enough to deliver a real 80MP resolution picture in an Olympus OM-DE-M1X? If this isn’t possible in 2020, then what about in 2025?
As you point out – there is a great cost to manufacturers having 3 different ranges of lenses. One “universal” lens mount to stablise the profitability of a manufacturer while the sensor size wars rage is a smart move.
It is useful to think why we had “crop sensor” cameras in the first place. There were only 2 good reasons for micro 4/3 in their inception phase:
[1] Sensors were very expensive in the ealy 2000s, and M4/3 sensors were dramatically cheaper than those for full frame – and were already available in mass production as this was the default sensor size used in industrial process cameras. Olympus and Panasonic could then make cheaper digital cameras than Nikon and Canon – using the cost saving to add features such as live view and EVFs.
[2] Half size sensors meant smaller, lighter lenses and cameras – encouraging photographers to carry a creative camera with them more often and also to be able to caryy more on lightweight accessory lenses in a camera bag.
Olympus always gave us reason number 2 for their dropping full frame and then 4/3 format cameras – but was it really reason number 1, the costs for a small manufacturer fighting for market profitability? In 2020, sensor costs now make up a far smaller proportion of the expense of making a camera compared with 2005. The new Panasomic and Olympus M4/3 cameras are now the size of APS cameras – and nearly the same as a full frame Sony – so the M4/3 size advantage is clearly being squandered ! The same is true for the lenses – look at the great size and weight of recent lenses from Olympus and Panasonic – they completely miss the original unique selling point of crop format cameras to deliver half size and quarter-weight lenses. Furthermore – smaller lenses should mean less distortion and internal reflections coupled with lower design complexity and cost.
So — How long before Panasonic introduce an affordable “amateur spec’ L-Mount full frame camera and drop their micro 4/3 line to leave Olympus hanging on alone? No one told us ahead of time that APS film, 220 or 110 Film would be phased out; 4/3 digital, Pentax-Q and Nikon-1 digital formats came and went in just a few years. Think how many camera makers there were in 1985 that we have lost; now ask – is there sufficient market in 2020 to sustain Canon, Nikon, Sony-Minolta, Pentax-Ricoh, Fuji, Olympus and Panasonic-Leica in 3 diffent common sensor formats…..
So ultimately – what is the market for high resolution 70-100MP images?
And what format is needed to deliver the 6-12 MP images that most of us actually use —- Amateurs and Pro’s printing from 6×4″ to 20×30” or showing pictures on laptops to 4K TV screens need only 6-12MP pictures!
For most photographers – 2020 looks to be a good year to hold onto the camera system you already have and “wait events” with a closed wallet !! For those in doubt, look at the digital images taken back in 2005 and ask – are todays photographs so much better for all that technology? For new photographers – there looks to be a flourishing second had camera market for “obsolete” formats appearing sometime soon!
Best wishes – Paul C
Great thoughts Paul, I have some thoughts on your thoughts. 🙂
I think you’re right about bigger sensors eventually seeing technology like Apples new Deep Fusion with the iphone. Where it blasts out a few exposures extremely fast and can digitally interpolate the detail between images to enhance sharpness. So in that case, one format might be all we need. There will obviously be phones, and then APS-C or something. Since eventually the difference between sensor sizes in terms of detail will no longer be as meaningful. Bigger sensors will always still be needed for low light I would assume, but again I think we will hit a sweet spot. Photons have a limited coherency and there will probably be a limit eventually as to what technology can do to pull information.
I think we will continue to see a rise in MP, not for resolution purposes (like currently being marketed), the sensors would always see diffraction, but it should eliminate the need for AA filters possibly. I hope to eventually see some downsampling of MP that happens in camera that’s digitally 1:1, right now they use less than perfect sampling techniques, but if they could get it perfect, imagine having a 100MP sensor set up to give you amazing 24MP images with sampling and other color filter array configurations and no AA filter, and 2,000,000 phase detection autofocus points like with X-Trans. I think that’s how they’ll take advantage of these massive megapixel configurations. Already the smartphones are doing similar things. I think the Galaxy S11 is suppose to have some 105MP sensor or something, probably not to give you that resolution, but to sample data from.