Well here we are. Talking about fictitious cameras again… lol.
Of course this is my satire photo I cobbled together for a concept, I kind of like the aesthetic though.
When I heard this rumor I thought about it and dismissed it almost immediately, but then I started thinking about it more and more and came to realize that I would really like a camera like the rumored Nikon Zf mirrorless retro camera. Let’s take a walk down “Wishful Lane” and cobble together the main features I would like to see in such a camera.
David Saylors Nikon Zf Full Frame Rumor Street Photography Camera Livestream
First off we need to establish something, Nikon is no newcomer to the retro camera space, if anything they are a leader in this space in my opinion. You see, they have already tried this several years ago. The Nikon Df was a full frame DSLR retro styled camera that first came out in late 2013. Here is the problem with the Df, it was ahead of its time. The Df came out at the height of the DSLR period in camera history and nobody wanted to go back in time to the cameras that looked like that… yet. To say it simpler, nobody wanted it…
Reference photo scraped from the internet courtesy of B&H Photo.
The Nikon Df was a really cool camera too, sporting a full frame sensor in a stylish retro body. It was simply just too soon. Fast forward to mid 2017 and Fujifilm launches arguably their most important camera to date…the XT3. Sure the XT1 and XT2 had done fairly well, but this camera propelled them into the Street, Reportage, Lifestyle camera space like a rocket. Everybody had an XT3 at one point, shoot I even used one for several years. It is a great camera.
Another image scraped from the internet for reference.
Fuji had been chumming the waters for several years at this point in the street photography niche and a strong marketing campaign combined with a period in time when youtubers were the main game in town for getting the word out and the XT3 took over this game…for a time. The point had been finally made that the photography world was in fact ready for a retro styled camera.
Next in this story came the Zf-c from Nikon, this little power house of a camera was basically a test run, in my opinion, to see if Nikon had enough market segment clout to pull users from Fujifilm, Olympus and Leica over to their court. They even released it with a retro styled 28mm lens to go with it. Pure genious in my opinion as the 28mm f2.8 Ai-s was one of their best lenses ever made. This has to be the most blatant shot across the bow of Fujifilm in the company’s history… Just look at the two cameras in the comparison below.
Sceen capture from Cameradecision.com, a website that will allow you to compare many cameras.
I grabbed this image above from CameraDecision.com as it has the measurements to show how close they actually are in physical size and appearance. Just look at it and then try to tell me with a straight face this wasn’t a test shot at improving Nikon's street photography market share…lol
You know what though, it worked. Zfc sales soared and the cameras flew off the shelves. People loved the tiny little camera but it wasn’t without its shortcomings. These shortcomings will be what is fixed in the Zf if I am right… You see Leica has already figured it out. The dropped the CL from their lineup entirly due to the fact that people that want crop sensor street cameras simply buy the Fujifilm machines. Fujifilm owns this market outright now. It is common knowledge that if you shoot crop sensor street photos it is probably on a Fuji… So Leica simply leaned into their full frame machines and focused on them more, this proved to be the right move for them too. Nikon is also starting to see this in my opinion and the Zf will be the camera that they use to show it.
The things I am lookng for in the Zf that will make me choose it will be:
24Mp full frame, stacked, BSI sensor - Low light is what I am wanting here.
IBIS - slow shutter speeds are so much easier with good stabilization.
The same battery as the other full frame machines.
Dual card slots - not a deal breaker but overflow is nice.
High quality EVF - A hi-res EVF is important to me.
Released with a set of fast primes like 28mm, 35mm, & 50mm.
A tilting screen is a must. A side swinging (flip out) design is not important though.
Shutterless design like the Z8 & Z9
Weather resistant in the rain.
You will notice that video is not on this list. That is because I don’t think this camera will be used by video enthusiasts and good video specs will not really matter. Sure, give it 4K 30p or some such if you want. That way you can capture the occasional B roll clip of shoot off of a tripod or what have you, but 90 percent of the people that will choose this camera will be choosing it for the stills experience.
I think that if they lean into the stills side of the game on this machine and integrate the external controls from something like an F3, that they will have a solid winner on their hands. I know I would love to have one. I bought the XT3 back in the day because Nikon didn’t have what I wanted. The Zfc was a near miss for me, I almost bought one when my buddy Phil Thach did, but I was able to keep my resolve to hold out for the full frame version…lol.
You see, I already have a crop sensor street camera with my Leica CL, so I just didn’t see the point in another crop sensor machine that didn’t have IBIS. If I buy another APS-c camera it will have IBIS. The tech is there, just look at the Fujiifilm XH2 for instance. The IBIS makes a big difference for me in that I like to shoot with fairly slow shutter speeds to capture motion blur and in low light or even at night. This is why I want the 24MP sensor, the larger photo-sites will make noise control a lot easier for the processor. Also killing shadow noise at the same time. Another point that needs expanding is that I like the EVF in my Leica cameras as I use glasses and with the EVF I can see the camera display7 information as well as the scene exposure and I can focus it to be able to not need to use my glasses. This matters in that if I looked through my glasses, I have to press the lens against the rubber eye cup and this usually has skin oils on it which in turn makes my glasses useless… Hence the reason for being able to focus the viewfinder to my un-aided eye. I simply look directly into the EVF and I can see everything, including image review if needed. I have grown to NEED a good EVF at this point instead of wanting it.
What do you think would make the perfect retro styled camera? Let me know in the comments below!