Digital RF

[rbsinto]

Agreed. Digital Nikon RF not gonna happen. In any lens mount. Ever.

I would love a black digital SP though :bang:

Maybe, and maybe not.
I cannot speak with the same authority as you, Jon, and a few others here who have stated that it will absolutely never happen.
Best I can say is, first we'll see. And then we'll know.

 

[jtm6]

When I saw the D600 I shouted a loud "Almost !" but to promptly discover that the D600 casting was made of polycarbonate, so the breaking risk while using my 180/2.8 ED is not nil (I'd even say, high). 😡

Some polycarbonates are more durable than metals. I read something years ago about how camera makers had to keep using metals in high end camera bodies because the customer's perception that polycarbonate is just another fragile plastic or simply just cheap, even though polycarbonate was superior in almost every way. For example, the impact and warp resistance is much higher while weight is much lower. While a lens mount ring is metal, the materials around it can benefit from being polycarbonate because it can take a whack and not throw the entire mount out of alignment. (That's an extreme case, which only shows that the materials don't always matter.)

 

[micromontenegro]

I hope a digital Nikon Rf never comes to happen. Cause if it does, after all my years of hoping and waiting, after I had to eat all my words, swallow my pride, etc. and go Leica, I am positive that I'd go into conniptions.

BTW, I may have "gone Leica" with the body, but I take pleasure in defacing it every day by using it with a Nikkor S lens. Ha! God bless Amedeo!

 

[Highway 61]

Well the lens mount will be directly screwed on some plastic :

"The front of the D600 is made of plastic" :

http://d600.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/nikon-d600-body-shell-magnesium-plastic.jpg

Hmmm. So the plastic/poly definitely is on some stress areas like the lens mount... I am still very doubtful about how that camera could securely hold the heavy Ai-S 180/2.8 ED over time.

Of course while using that kind of lens you always have to handle the combo by gripping the lens not the camera, but nasty things can happen.

I once mounted that lens on a similarly built plastic camera and I could immediatly feel the mechanical stress under the lens mount - no joke.

Yes polycarbonate is superior to metal when it comes to facing whacks and bumps, but not for flexibility and resistance to weight and torsion. It can suddenly break without any warning.

What a shame to screw a FF DSLR lens mount onto a plastic chassis - really. Yes that's an entry-level DSLR (sort of) but...

 

[btgc]

Some polycarbonates are more durable than metals. I read something years ago about how camera makers had to keep using metals in high end camera bodies because the customer's perception that polycarbonate is just another fragile plastic or simply just cheap, even though polycarbonate was superior in almost every way. For example, the impact and warp resistance is much higher while weight is much lower. While a lens mount ring is metal, the materials around it can benefit from being polycarbonate because it can take a whack and not throw the entire mount out of alignment. (That's an extreme case, which only shows that the materials don't always matter.)

Exactly. Some people even believe 20 years old cars are more safe in case of crash just because outer panels were made from thicker metal sheets. This isn't even funny anymore.

 

[rxmd]

Hmmm. So the plastic/poly definitely is on some stress areas like the lens mount... I am still very doubtful about how that camera could securely hold the heavy Ai-S 180/2.8 ED over time. [...]

Of course while using that kind of lens you always have to handle the combo by gripping the lens not the camera, but nasty things can happen.

I once mounted that lens on a similarly built plastic camera and I could immediatly feel the mechanical stress under the lens mount - no joke.

Yes polycarbonate is superior to metal when it comes to facing whacks and bumps, but not for flexibility and resistance to weight and torsion. It can suddenly break without any warning.

"Similarly built" is of course making a lot of big implicit assumptions, you don't know how the D600 is built in practice and not all plastic cameras are built alike.

And the idea that you're insinuating that a medium-heavy lens will spontaneously "suddenly break [off] without any warning" is way over the top. If you start doing stupid things with it, such as putting a heavy lens on the camera, the camera on a heavy tripod, carrying the combination by the tripod over your shoulder and smacking the lens against an obstacle, you might end up in trouble, but that's not the cleverest thing to do with any camera. On the other hand, if you can show me an example where a 180/f2.8 lens "suddenly broke" off a medium-end plastic Nikon body that would be an interesting story.

 

[philosomatographer]

...you would've probably been saying, "The Leica is a fad! A fad, I tell you! NOTHING will take the place of the view camera!"

Nothing HAS taken the place of the view camera. What crap are you guys shooting?

 

[Highway 61]

If you start doing stupid things with it, such as putting a heavy lens on the camera, the camera on a heavy tripod, carrying the combination by the tripod over your shoulder and smacking the lens against an obstacle, you might end up in trouble, but that's not the cleverest thing to do with any camera.

This is exactly what I intented to do with my D600, and what I've been doing for now 38 years of regular photography.

Thank you for this very valuable warning.

I don't know how the D600 is built but I can look at the photos Nikon themselves uploaded online, and I can read what Nikon themselves have written about what the camera is made of and at which points it is, and I can see that the lens mount is screwed on a plastic casting.

And I don't like it. I don't like it because the camera price would have deserved a better build quality level, at least where you attach the lens to the camera body.

And I don't care if you like - or not - that I don't like it.

If the way the D600 is built is so close to the perfection, why the hell would Nikon care with making all-metal cameras then ?

You probably have a very valuable explanation.

I'm not performing any bashing whatsoever here - I am just writing what I am thinking of a certain aspect of a certain camera which, by other respects, looks extremely tempting in that it's very close to what I was waiting Nikon to make at last.

The camera body retail price will fetch 1950€ so in my opinion, at that price - which isn't on the cheap side, sorry - we could legitly expect an all-metal camera shell.

Punkt, and have a pleasant day.

 

[rxmd]

And the idea that you're insinuating that a medium-heavy lens will spontaneously "suddenly break [off] without any warning" is way over the top. If you start doing stupid things with it, such as putting a heavy lens on the camera, the camera on a heavy tripod, carrying the combination by the tripod over your shoulder and smacking the lens against an obstacle, you might end up in trouble, but that's not the cleverest thing to do with any camera.

This is exactly what I intented to do with my D600, and what I've been doing for now 38 years of regular photography.

Thank you for this very valuable warning.

You're welcome... but then I'm sure you haven't been habitually smacking your lenses into obstacles for 38 years, and if you have, then the lens mount is probably the least of your worries. I'd worry about the lens first and the mount a distant second.

On a side note - carrying a heavy camera-lens combination by the tripod is IMHO a Bad Idea that does not go very well with being worried about one's equipment, as I'm sure you know. You can read enough horror stories about quick release plates and ball head connections (many more, I'd suspect, than about lenses with their mounts spontaneously breaking off the polycarbonate fronts of suddenly disintegrating cameras).

I don't know how the D600 is built but I can look at the photos Nikon themselves uploaded online, and I can read what Nikon themselves have written about what the camera is made of and at which points it is, and I can see that the lens mount is screwed on a plastic casting.

Yeah, but we all don't know what that means in practice on this particular camera. Not all thicknesses or all materials are the same, and consequently a D600 may well be significantly better built than, say, a F55. I don't know what plastic camera you mounted your 180/f2.8 on, but the experience may well not be all that transferable... I see your point about metal being better at all, but it may all well be a bit less dramatic 🙂