A1 or Z9

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The question is now traveling to New Zealand for 3 weeks to holiday in a motor home and casually do some nice street, landscape, and travel photography, do you take a Z9 or D850 on a 28-300 LOL ............or just the I phone 13 pro plus.............as you don't want to lug a bag or gear..........

Street, landscape and travel? I’d go Z7ii, or D850 without grip (unless you need to hammer nails or knock out a bear, then the z9) . And I would throw in a 35mm prime (or nifty fifty, or a 28mm prime) not much weight and great optics to complement the zoom (I love a 28 or 35 prime for street, I rarely use a zoom).
My best street shots were all with a 28mm when I forced myself to get inside the action to fill the frame. Get down low and use the curvature to emphasize the subject.
 
Street, landscape and travel? I’d go Z7ii, or D850 without grip (unless you need to hammer nails or knock out a bear, then the z9) . And I would throw in a 35mm prime (or nifty fifty, or a 28mm prime) not much weight and great optics to complement the zoom (I love a 28 or 35 prime for street, I rarely use a zoom).
My best street shots were all with a 28mm when I forced myself to get inside the action to fill the frame. Get down low and use the curvature to emphasize the subject.

Thankyou
 
Interesting comparison and it will be nice to see the Z9 in the mix in few weeks. Bottom line is the differences between the brands are so little its all about nitpicking some finer aspects. The 50MP of A1 certainly looks amazing whereas Canon R3 seems to have a slight edge on AF and EVF.


I have said all along for a long while now, if i left Nikon it would be for Canon and i feel the R1 will be a a bomb shell.
Focus tracking i see Canon as 9, Sony as 8, Nikon 6 1/2 to 7 on the Z9...............
 
That's great to hear and i can under stand why from what i hear from friends as well, you didn't want to wait for the A2 ?
No. I sold all of my Nikon gear and moved to Sony this year. I only had one body which isn't enough so I needed a second body now. All the other options seemed like a compromise compared to the a1 so I figured why spend $3-4K on a body I won't like shooting as much. If the a1MKII offers something significant than I would likely add it to my kit as body 3.
 
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Ken Rockwell has a pretty detailed break down of the specs, answered some questions, informative, i guess most of it came from the Camera manual..........

https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/z/z9.htm#bad


The question is now traveling to New Zealand for 3 weeks to holiday in a motor home and casually do some nice street, landscape, and travel photography, do you take a Z9 or D850 on a 28-300 LOL ............or just the I phone 13 pro plus.............as you don't want to lug a bag or gear..........
Better solution is an olympus and one of their fantastic zooms.
 
I have said all along for a long while now, if i left Nikon it would be for Canon and i feel the R1 will be a a bomb shell.
Focus tracking i see Canon as 9, Sony as 8, Nikon 6 1/2 to 7 on the Z9...............


I think the final flagship replacement for the 1DXmk 4 is not the R3, i feel the R1 will leap frog the Z9, A1, R3.........
 
I think the final flagship replacement for the 1DXmk 4 is not the R3, i feel the R1 will leap frog the Z9, A1, R3.........
I think when claims like that are made they are short sighted. That’s assuming Sony does no firmware updates to the current a1 and also assumes since Sony a1 will be 2 years old by the time Canon ships their first R1 that Sony won’t have a a1MKII either out or on the way. There is an advantage to be the first and the one to set the bar. I sure wouldn’t bet against Sony one upping the new bodies by Canon and Nikon.
 
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I'm curious what people think "one upping" the a1 or z9 would look like. Ie, what new features, or improvements that are not just incremental improvements.
If I had to guess it’s improved low iso, faster af, MP I think will hold around the 50MP for the next Gen, bigger buffer, adding more af modes like cars, planes and such which is pointless but they will do it to check the box, improved rear lcd, possibly giving the rear lcd more tilt options, they could possibly remove the mechanical shutter but I’d guess that’s more Gen 3, possibly have an option to lock the sensor when not in use.
Those are off the top of my head. I’m sure Sony has some advancements we haven’t even thought about just like Canon and Nikon likely do as well.
 
What do you think the R1 will do that the A1 and Z9 will not?

I feel only an opinion......mind you,

I have always said the game will be played out in late 2022..........for all three.............


Canon has the majority of the pro market and its going to do all it can to protect it at any cost.

Its move into mirror less has been ok so far............but not totally brilliant............or fully there yet.

The R3 is a band aid as was the Z6 Z7 series.

I feel the R1 will be refined in the tracking focusing, exceed in the video area, add more optional resolution levels, with more speed. All this will come with first class connectivity...........this will be complimented with more unique pro glass to compliment video needs.......... things like 120 - 300 Nikon glass etc.......

There has to be a 1dx Mk4 flagship rival, the R3 is not the chosen one...............

Its simple, the technology to produce something say as silly as 200mp at 80 fps full raw with each frame refocused............ exists...............its just a matter of putting in the processing horsepower and means to deliver it at a cost...........regardless of of brand............

I mean we all went nuts over 4 mp 6 mp 8 mp 12 mp and 800 iso 1600 iso 3200 iso when it came, we are now at 50/60 mp and 16,000 iso very usable, whats the common denominator, the industry held the line and used the creep method, or leap frogging method to preserve the collective industry alliance and profitable journey. Together they dominate the world market.

Canon has the capacity to deliver........or it wouldn't have the market share it has.............to date

You have Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, collectively they are all one and the same Japanese industry that dominate the global market.........and they all release new models all the time leapfrogging gently so as to not damage the market...........Same in the camera industry, Canon hasn't replaced its true full pro camera yet but when it dose it will generate a known response from Nikon and Sony as the camera obsolete pile gets bigger and bigger. watch out Panasonic and the interest in the consumer market they are brilliant in video......

One thing for certain is digital products are super expensive and have a massive obsolescence rate...........

Conclusion i feel the R1 will be very interesting and worth watching out for.........as the game of the future is growing more into Video not so much stills.............based on the industry investment and the demands of the internet............if you watch TV you see the eyes are always super clear sharp detailed sometmes ove rth top, why its tracking tecnology in filming................this is also being developed into the Cameras we all buy.why its obvious...........

The R1 what will it be ? who actually knows..............but interesting for certain.............

Why do i bother with all this interest, its better than listening or watching the news and all it pumps downte line.............
 
I think when claims like that are made they are short sighted. That’s assuming Sony does no firmware updates to the current a1 and also assumes since Sony a1 will be 2 years old by the time Canon ships their first R1 that Sony won’t have a a1MKII either out or on the way. There is an advantage to be the first and the one to set the bar. I sure wouldn’t bet against Sony one upping the new bodies by Canon and Nikon.

That's the game all three play, Sony had the drink for the last year or two, now Nikon gets a quick guzzle now, then its Canons turn and she goes around and around LOL
 
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One innovation i would love to have would be voice commands to set AF mode ,shutter speed,aperture & ISO :cool:
Even now i wonder why there is no custom button to set shutter speed while shooting manual or am i missing some thing.
 
I feel the next 1-2 years wil be more of marginal updates and addressing the rough edges on the existing tech. The next big updates should be in the form of Global shutters, using new tech for AF like LIDAR ( I read a patent on this one but unable to find it now). TH also reported a Nikon patent that shows a new tech where the AF will be based on global shutter whereas the actual image capture will resort to normal.

I'm curious what people think "one upping" the a1 or z9 would look like. Ie, what new features, or improvements that are not just incremental improvements.
 
I think what you might want to do is register a group of settings accessible from your shooting mode dial on 1, 2 or 3

Check it out here, way down the page look for Memory Recall "PAL"

There is an even easier way than custom recall dial which is called custom recall “hold”. You can assign a full set of settings into a single button.
When I am doing “mixed shooting” my ael button is actually a custom recall hold which switches to small spot AF, 1/640 shutter speed and drops to 5fps for perched birds. When I get back to AF on, I instantly revert back to 1/3200 and 20fps with tracking zone. It’s like 2 cameras in one with just one button.

The best video on it is Mark Smith’s video for the A9 settings. That’s where I learnt about it.

Now if I do mostly bif then my AEL button is set differently. Those two configurations are stored in dial mode 1 and 2.
 
I'm curious what people think "one upping" the a1 or z9 would look like. Ie, what new features, or improvements that are not just incremental improvements.

my first guess is that there is a lot of room left to improve EVFs. Take the resolution of A1, but keep it constant at all time like z9 without any lag, and with the HDR capability of R3.

i keep expecting voice control with a Bluetooth earpiece but it hasn’t come yet.

Subject recognition as good as it has become is still in its infancy I feel. And as mentioned already, new AF technologies (global shutter for AF acquisition).

We will see processors capable of handling 50mpx at 30fps lossless.

And shutterless is just beginning. Flash sync tops at 1/400s with a shutter and 1/200 shutterless - that gap will get closed and I feel shutter less sensors will eventually synch at even higher speeds as read speeds continue to improve.

Eventually we will see variable exposure on one sensor which will enable DRs that are currently not conceivable. Initially it will come from variable gain at each photosite but eventually I could see variable exposure time at each photosite.

Those are just wild ass guesses - but I feel there is a lot of room left to ”one-up” the current flagships without resorting to a nto so productive resolution race.
 
Have been using the A1 with 200-600 and one con here is the smallest AF area is bigger than Nikon D5 making it difficult to focus on warblers and simillar birds in busy surroundings like shrubs, trees etc.
 
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