Richard & Caroline's Blog

Most of us photographers use zooms, for a lot of my professional work I use zooms. When shooting a wedding its generally a 24-70mm f/2.8 on one body and a 70-200mm f/2.8 on another, with a fast 50mm in the bag for when the light levels drop.

Sometimes for personal work I use a simple Leica with either a 35mm f/2 or 50mm f/1.4, I also sometimes adopt that simple approach when using my high resolution Nikon Z7 for portraits, using the Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.2 and Z 35mm f/1.8.

This simple image was just with my Nikon Z7 and a 50mm f/1.2 wide open. A simple but very pleasing portrait.

Sony reached their current status by embracing third parties, it took a while but now we have lens, flashes etc available from a broad range of suppliers.

Sony and Fuji, and the L alliance with Leica, Panasonic together with Olympus have very large well established systems.

Canon and Nikon are the new kids on the block for mirrorless. While both are the joint kings of the SLR realm and have been since the 1960’s, they are new to high end mirrorless and are building their systems quickly. There has been a lot of chat about whether these will remain closed systems or welcome third parties.

Well now it seems we know. Canon have issues legal notices to a number of lens manufacturers to stop them from producing lens for the RF mirrorless mount, while we see the first authorised lens from Tamron for Nikon, and we see Nikon executives, carrying the little Zfc with cute Voigtlander primes on the front.

I feel this is sending the wrong signal from Canon, whilst their high end L glass for the new mount has been good the rest is certainly not near the quality of the Nikon Z S branded glass, or Sony’s G and GM glass. Certainly if I was getting into photography now for full frame I would look at Nikon and Sony not Canon. If you have the budget then go Canon for the rest of us Sony have the bigger range and Nikon are knocking it out of the park with their Z lens. If you are into your cropped sensor then neither Nikon or Canon have much to offer from themselves and you are better off looking at Fuji.

We all see it, people posting videos on YouTube to get views; camera brand A is going under, brand B is being sold, only Sony has a future. There is a toxic attitude around cameras with their fans pushing the idea, their brand is the only one.

We are now seeing camera news sites, picking up these comments and posting them as ‘news’ reinforcing these ideas. It’s a toxic circle and it makes people hold back from their next purchase.

The Japanese government is not going to let a large camera manufacturer fail. Olympus proved that, and they still have a group of loyal fans on the wait list for their latest pro camera.

Despite what us photographers think, traditional photography is on the way out. People are now using phones, and drones. They want simple cameras with video features like the Nikon Z30 and Sony’s ZV-E10.

There is always going to be people like me who want a decent system camera but we are few and far between, and its going to get to be an expensive hobby, but please lets support each other and are choices not talk the industry down.

I was watching a YouTube video the other night where it was commenting about a new firmware update for an old decommissioned camera.

In the comments section people were mentioning that some of the recent Nikon Z lens also had new firmware out. One for my Z 50mm f/1.2 which I had not spotted.

If you have not registered your cameras and lens with the manufacturer its well worth it, if only to get notifications on this kind of thing.

If your an avid watching of YouTube related photography Chanels, you will know that Canon, Nikon and the rest of the major brands have had it; are going bust, and only Sony is worth buying. Now I admit, Sony have been listening and have addresses many of the issues I have with them, but in this summers press awards what were people actually using to take their winning pictures.

Well as can be seen most of the press are sticking with their trusty Canon’s and Nikons, and most of these pictures were also taken with pro DSLRs not mirrorless.

My view from this is despite what your hear, there seems to be a healthy mix of cameras and that is good for photography.

It was good new to see the two new Canon mirrorless cameras released recently. More choice in the market is good. Nikon and Canon owners now have a great selection of mirrorless camera bodies and lens to choose from. Everyone seems to be lacking a high end cropped sensor body and only Nikon have a really pro model but I expect Canon to soon release theirs.

Sony had the mirrorless market to themselves for quite a while, and many Canon and Nikon owners had a mirrorless Sony in their bags or if wanting a cropped sensor a Fuji. Now we have real competition and Nikon owners are dropping their Sony’s to get a mirrorless Nikon and the same with Canon.

Will Sony keep their mirrorless lead, we will see. The brand has certainly listened to their fans and improved massively. The lack of 14 bit, bad menus etc have all been addresses. With Canon and Nikon releasing some stunning new mirrorless lens Sony are releasing new versions of their G Master lens to keep up. We are in exciting times.