Talk:Nikon Z-mount

Internal and external diameter confusion

Supposedly the Z-mount has an external diameter of 49 mm and an inner diameter of 55 mm. Those are sourced within the article. Template:Infobox camera mount appears to be confused as to what "inner_diameter" means, using "?" and "N/A". This article states "Nikon Z-mount has a larger lens mount diameter (55 mm) compared with other comparable lens mounts, being much larger than the F-mount (44 mm), and Sony E (46.1 mm), and slightly larger than Canon EF (54 mm)." However F-mount article's infobox states has "External diameter 44 mm", not internal diameter. So where this article says "Nikon Z-mount has a larger lens mount diameter (55 mm) compared with other comparable lens mounts, being much larger than the F-mount (44 mm)", is comparing one's inner diameter with the other's external diameter.

Apart from the F-mount, articles on those other mounts do not use Infobox camera mount, which could have been a hopefully unambiguous means of comparison. Sony E-mount#Comparison with similar lens mounts uses "throat diameter. The lens mount article does not mention the words "internal", "external", "inner" and only once mentions "outer" diameter, instead it uses "throat or thread diameter". The lens adapter article does not mention any of those words. However the lens mount article does say: "NOTE: Some published reviews of 4/3 instead cite the (female) "outside diameter" of the lens or mount as ~50mm (and micro-4/3 as ~44mm),[11] and not the appropriate major diameter (D) ~44mm which is the camera body's female mount inside-diameter and the lens's male mount outside-diameter (micro-4/3 ~38mm)." -Lopifalko (talk) 07:03, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Several sites seem to have picked up on the 49mm figure apparently reported by rumour sites, and corresponding to a patent - this looks like poor journalism rather than official information. Reports suggest that Nikon were deciding between mount options until relatively near the launch date. I'd not be surprised if a crop sensor version of the mount appeared with a 49mm throat, but Nikon's own press releases seem to be clear about the Z mount having a 55mm mount diameter (which is the throat diameter); other sites report 65.4mm for the outside of the mount (if this is how you define "external diameter"). I think the 49mm infobox figure can be discarded as confused (but I won't make the change yet in case others have evidence to disagree). Fluppeteer (talk) 14:04, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Throat size, inner diameter and outer diameter are defined here. I don't know how definitive that is but is seems to make sense. The article includes a table of common mounts, including Nikon F and Z, with the respective throat sizes and internal diameters listed. These are the critical dimensions for mounting a lens on a camera body. The outer diameter plays no part but it must be larger than either of the other two dimensions. A year on from the discussion above, is it time to make the change? 87.75.117.183 (talk) 13:39, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I Think there is no debating that the inner diameter is 55mm, however the external diameter by definition cannot be 49mm, it's simply absurd. I'll remove the "external diamter" measure until a reliable source is found Bubu93 (talk) 21:23, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Explaning Video

The video I linked to the German version seems pretty interesting. --Raumfahrtingenieur (talk) 20:34, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Where do we find that? I can't see it. (de:Nikon Z-mount / de:Nikon Z6 / de:Nikon Z7). -Lopifalko (talk) 21:18, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Navbox - Vertical order: Zf below or above Z6/Z7 line? (Enthusiast/Professional?)

The Z-mount navbox currently has the Z f at the top of the Enthusiast category (below Z6/Z7s, above Z5), while having nearly all of its features outperform those of Z6/Z7s (continuous fps, C30 mode, 8-stop ibis capability with link to focus point, internal 10-bit raw video recording capabilities, Expeed 7, better AF from Z8/Z9, pixel shift etc.). While I get that its retro styled design might potentially make it a very popular camera (and is aimed at casual use as well), but based on its features it is very much a professional camera in my book. If the Z6/Z7 line gets categorized as "Professional" cameras, I think the Z f should get too. Nikon has Z f listed between the Z7 and Z6ii on page https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/mirrorless-cameras/overview.page, I guess based on resolution. Wedging Z f between the Z6 and Z7 line as Nikon did wouldn't look pretty, but if I had to choose between above or below the Z6/Z7 line, I would say it belongs above them.

What do you think? Not sure what's optimal here. If the navbox is already based on some reference categories/list it's okay, please share. :)

(Talk page of the naxbox template redirected here) Mandula (talk) 08:44, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Lens spec table

Thanks for addding this, @Bikeer. I've attempted this before but struggled to find a good solution that fits inside the width of the new Wikipedia layout. I experimented with splitting up Nikon's formal model name across a few sortable columns, see User:Phiarc/zlens. What do you think about this approach? Phiarc (talk) 11:51, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I decided to add this table even it's not perfect, because Canon and Sony have their tables and people often compare/search basic information about lenses directly on the Wikipedia. @Phiarc your table looks really nice - I will add some of my comments there in Talk page. Maybe you or we can combine both tables into one and try to fit inside new Wikipedia layout. Bikeer (talk) 17:28, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

@Bikeer @Olek210 @Mandula Now that we also have a spec table for the 3rd party lenses, I think it would be good to merge both tables and move them to a section with just that master-lens-reference-table. This would allow easily comparing all the available lenses, which seems quite valuable for visitors.

What do you think of this outline?

• Z-mount cameras
• (Nikon) Z-mount lenses
  • Primes
  • Zoom
  • DX
  • Teleconverters
  • Mount adapters
  • Third-party lenses and adapters
• Accessories
• Table of Z-mount lenses (maybe "Table of autofocus Z-mount lenses" or something shorter)

Phiarc (talk) 15:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

That outline seems fine, though unless I misunderstood, I feel like it would be a bit redundant to have a list of 3rd party lenses in the "Third-party lenses and adapters" section, and then repeated again in the bottom master table. I wonder if a separate article for all Z-mount lens specs (both Nikon and 3rd party) would be the better way (but structure not based on Sony's table article, cause that imo looks like a mess)?

P.S. I also maintain a 3rd-party lens spec table over on huwiki, which I started on 25 July 2023 (formatted for the old Wiki theme on 1080px screen width). Hopefully it helps getting the rest of the 3rd party data in here more quickly. Mandula (talk) 20:42, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I think the lists still make sense because it's very messy to put the full branded name in a table, because they're often so long and very inconsistent in style. It's also easier to stuff all the references in the plain list and not put any in the table(s) (- I believe MOS supports doing that, somewhere). Plus commentary and notes like on the built-in TC lenses are easier to put in a list, rather than have additional complexity in a table (especially with sorting in mind). Phiarc (talk) 17:33, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Now that we have a pretty advanced spec table, I just realized that we have no mention whether all those lenses are AF or MF. Especially for 3rd party lenses, we had/we have that list of lenses with a clear designation they are AF lenses ("Autofocus lenses" subsection title) only. Starting to collect all specs of MF 3rd party lenses would be a huge task, but still without them, maybe an AF column for the master table would come handy (and also indicate that Noct is MF). Maybe there is an other, better way of indicating that, up for discussion of course. Mandula (talk) 14:39, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

I added a disclaimer explaining that the table as it is now "only" has Nikon's own plus third-party AF lenses. Phiarc (talk) 10:58, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

A few last things that might be added to the spec table: number of aperture blades, number of separately programmable buttons (L-Fn) and lens hood model names. Data for all three properties are already existing over on huwiki for now (so we can just copy data 1-to-1 if needed), but only for Nikon lenses (since they have consistent specsheets). For 3rd party lenses we would have to do extra research for these (ap. blades are usually in their specsheets, but lens hoods are rare for 3rd party lenses, are they? I don't really know). I have no clue about what's our table width limit, as I'm not familiar with the new wiki theme, so I'm not sure if we have extra space for more columns. For the L-Fn column in the huwiki table, I took it this way: the number of assignable functions to all buttons (so if there's a lens with 4 "L-Fn" buttons on each side and they can only be assigned to the same function, that counts as 1). Of course there are lenses which have distinct L-Fn1 and L-Fn2 buttons, and those are for 2 separate functions (for example 800 mm f/6.3 VR S has 5 overall buttons, of which 1 is L-Fn and 4 are L-Fn2, that's 2 functions overall). I thought it's more important to know the number of distinct assignable functions, than if a lens has a total of 4 buttons for the same exact function scattered around on the body of lens. Of course, this methodology is documented in tooltips to clarify this, for whole column and also for each lens. That's only my take, let me know what you think, or if these columns are needed at all. Mandula (talk) 13:20, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Definitely agree on aperture blades and whether straight/rounded (Roland abbreviates this with e.g. "7" vs. "7r" for rounded, a tooltip to explain should suffice). L-Fn 1/2 also seems quite useful. Maybe a blank cell for none, yellow with "L-Fn" for those with one button, and for the lenses with both sets of buttons green with e.g. "1x L-Fn1<br>4x L-Fn2"? (I'm not actually sure if there are varying numbers of L-Fn2 buttons in the lineup, the lenses that come to mind all have one of the former and four of the latter).

Lens hoods - I think these usually only have separate part numbers with "serious" lens makers. I've never seen one listed with the chinese lenses anyhow. Tamron is particularly easy here, it's just HAxxx for lens Axxx.

There is no width limit for tables per se. They're just cut-off and become horizontally scrollable after some point (which both tables in the article have passed for most mobile devices). I try to order the columns more or less by usefulness for this reason.

As for table size, removing all the US imperial conversions would free up a lot of space. I don't know how useful they are to Americans anyway, are things like "43.9 oz" and "0.39 ft" useful numbers to them? Phiarc (talk) 15:05, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

On the topic of controls, not all lenses have a dedicated control ring. The older f/1.8 S primes have one ring which iirc is primarily a focus ring, the newer primes have two rings, one of which is the main control ring and the larger is the focus ring. Zooms also differ here. I think this could be subsumed in a single "this lens has a dedicated control ring" column? Phiarc (talk) 15:07, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the imperial conversions do take a lot of space, but I can't really comment on whether they are useful to Americans (for me, they are not). +1 for the control ring data, it could be useful as a "customizable and/or dedicated control ring" column, even with a Y/N checkmark/cross. Mandula (talk) 20:24, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

I added the L-Fn column. I'm not sure about the Tamron lenses. Tamron is quite poor about documenting their lenses. From a review of the 90mm I garnered that at least on that lens it actually _isn't_ an L-Fn button, but has a fixed function that can be adjusted with the Tamron dock and some proprietary software. I couldn't figure out whether this applies to the other lenses as well. The 7Artisans 16mm just seems to be regular L-Fn + L-Fn2, just positioned in a non-Nikon way.

I also thought about adding an "OLED" column but honestly I've used Nikon lenses with that and it seems like a total gimmick of no consequence to me. The reviewers seem to agree, for what it's worth. So I didn't add it.

For unit conversions, I don't understand at all why Wikipedia doesn't have something like a "unit selector" (example implementation: https://www.hammfg.com/electronics/small-case/chassis/1441#product-tables "Units shown: inch. Switch units to: mm", this could be done with just some CSS classes and the tiniest bit of javascript). There are so many tables like this one all over Wikipedia cluttered with {{cvt}} output. But this isn't something we can solve, unfortunately. Phiarc (talk) 13:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)