Nikon Z System News and Commentary
It’s a Lensy Day in the Neighborhood, a Lensy Day...
Tamron today announced the 12-20mm f/2.8 lens, giving Z-mount users another option in the wide angle realm that hasn’t really filled out yet. Tamron specifically is touting the lens for astrophotography and interior photography. This is also a relatively small and light lens, a little longer and heavier than Nikon’s 14-30mm f/4, but still pretty sveldt, particularly considering the f/2.8 aperture. Along with the new lens comes new branding that drops all the Di, VXD, and other letters that used to accompany the lens name, plus a different finish. (Someone at B&H didn’t get the memo, as their banner header and intro article calls it the Di III.) At US$1799, it’s one of Tamron’s pricier lenses in the Z-mount.
This brings Tamron’s Z-mount offerings up to a even dozen. It’s nice to see that the Tamron options are still mostly designing in the cracks of Nikon’s own focal length choices, providing some real choices in the mount.
Meanwhile, Viltrox announced a 26mm f/2.8 that appears remarkably similar to Nikon’s pancake. Yes, there’s some slight difference in the optical element arrangement and charted MTFs, but the similarities are pretty much in your face, including aperture diaphragm, focusing distance, size, and even the “whole lens focus” idea (which Viltrox calls “full-group focusing system”). So which is it? Did Viltrox help Nikon produce the original, or is Viltrox basically cloning the idea? Good question.
You Can’t Make This Up
In a near perfect example of irony, the Japanese Intellectual Property High Court last week invalidated one of RED’s key patents.
If you’re forgotten, RED used the threat of legal action to hold off competitors from creating raw video files, claiming patent to the idea. RED sent cease and disist letters and demanded licensing fees from anyone trying to create raw video files.
Nikon was the first major player to reject RED’s patent claims and the two initially brought their disagreement to court. Nikon presented fairly clear evidence of prior work as well as obviousness in their briefs and legal arguments. However, before that case could be heard, Nikon bought RED, and Nikon had the case dismissed.
When the patent that Nikon now held was challenged again in Japan by Panasonic, Nikon reversed position and argued to validate the claims of the (original RED) patent. The Intellectual Property High Court in Japan has now rejected the patent claim, and deemed it invalid.
Site Updating
I’m (almost) back on a regular schedule again, and that means using the summer slow times to go back and work through editing (and sometimes rewriting) sections of the site. This week I’ve been concentrating on the Lenses section. Here are some of the things to look for:
- Updated the use of the word NIKKOR, making it all caps to conform with Nikon’s trademark standards.
- Added recent lenses to the ratings charts, even if they haven’t been reviewed yet.
- Updated the Best Telephoto Options, Second Safari Lenses, and Rational DX articles to match current thoughts.
- Changed quite a bit of wording throughout the section to make it more clear and obvious what I’m saying.
Nikon Out of Sync With Itself
Here we go again.
The latest Nikon camera firmware release (version 1.10 for the Nikon Z50II) has renamed things. This time, it’s “Cloud Picture Control” being renamed to “Imaging Recipe.” Apparently someone at Nikon finally noticed that their naming conventions across their products don’t match. For what it’s worth, both Nikon’s names here are wrong from a sound product marketing management viewpoint. It should be Picture Control Basic, Picture Control Creative, and Picture Control Recipe, not Picture Control, Creative Picture Control, and Imaging Recipe.
The out of sync problem? Well, other Nikon cameras now need a firmware update to update the wording to match.
This is the problem that happens when you rush things and don’t have all parts of the company talking (and agreeing) with one another. From the user perspective, names that are different and keep changing cause cognitive dissonance and confusion about what is what. When you put that naming confusion on top of the unique and strange UI necessary to even connect your camera to Nikon Imaging Cloud (where Recipes mostly come from), you almost certainly get fewer users adapting something you went to great lengths to create. Moreover, that something here (Recipes and Nikon Imaging Cloud) are both unique and useful additions that are getting ignored by most of the Z9-generation users (and if you’re a Z9 user, you’re just SOOL).
If you make it hard to set up or difficult to understand, users don’t use it. When you make it both difficult to set up and hard to understand, users ignore it. So I have to ask: was Nikon Imaging Cloud and Imaging Recipes just make work for Nikon engineering teams, or did they actually expect users to embrace these new functions?
The truly sad aspect of this is that Nikon is probably the closest to any maker that can say “we have a complete range of products from entry (Z50II) to top-end pro (Z9) that operate and are controlled the same way, and really only differ on performance-related items.” Of course, now the Z50II uses different naming than the others, and the Z9 doesn’t even have the function that was renamed. Oops.