So what is it we really wish the Nikon engineering team would spend time on? The usual Internet way of doing this is “wish lists.” I’ve had and constantly updated a feature wish list on this site since the first Z cameras came out.
Wish lists tend to get too deep into the individual user expectation: their particular camera use would benefit from a very particular feature or performance change. Many of those changes come in niche categories (wildlife, sports, astro, landscape, etc.).
But if you haven’t caught on yet, I’m all about best all-around camera, not best-for-X-niche camera. So are the camera companies, actually, because the unit volume has gotten small enough that any new camera has to appeal to a broad range of users and uses.
So what generalized issues are problematic on current Nikon Z System cameras?
Not surprisingly, the same things I’ve been complaining about since 2007 ;~). The same things I presented in detail, with examples, to Nikon executives in Tokyo in 2011. The same things I’ve been writing about again and again on my Web sites.
Let’s get started:
Programmable
Some will refer to this as simply customization, but I use this specific word because many of the things we can’t do easily with our current cameras involve sequences of settings/actions. Customization to me, is a subset of programmability.
Still, let’s start with customization and see where that leads us ;~).
- Nikon doesn’t allow all functions to be assigned to all controls. The Z8 and Z9 are far less restrictive at this than the other cameras, but there’s still a paternal “no, we’re not going to let that button do that” thing that permeates Nikon engineering think. Nikon used to be best at button customization, now they’re second best (Sony is best).
- Banks and User Settings are rampant with issues. You can’t switch both banks (Shooting and Custom Settings) together (which is a sequence issue, thus a programmability one). The still and video banks are linked. Banks can’t be locked. Banks have tons of kludges to make them work at all (Extended menu banks, copying banks, etc.). Banks and User Settings can’t be individually saved and retrieved. To wit:
- Save camera settings is a joke. Most of the Nikon cameras have a monolithic Save settings function in the SETUP menu. Let’s see, the name for the Z9 file that is saved is…wait for it...NCSET010.BIN. Sure, waste five of the eight characters, then don’t let the last three match the camera in use; that makes total sense (to no one). Only one file. Only in primary slot. Not useable between cameras, even ones with near identical functions. Programming interns can do a better job than this.
- Interoperability is a joke. That NCSET010.BIN file from a Z9 can’t be loaded into a Z8, which is a mini-Z9, after all. Which means you have to save a separate NCSET012.BIN [sic] file, even if you’re using the same exact configuration settings.
Right off the bat, we have this issue of getting our cameras configured exactly how we’d like, preserving those settings, and then switching them reliably in one action. Of all the things that might be wrong in the Nikon digital “build a camera” plans, this is arguably the one that frustrates the most users the most. Sony now does customization better (though they, too, have some silly issues of their own).
Customization tends to stop at “get the camera set to the way the user wants it and allow them to switch one thing easily when the need arises.”
To look at how customization applies to programmability, you have to look at the monolithic functions within the Z bodies: HDR, Time-lapse, Multiple exposure, Focus shift shooting. Each of these functions are “a program.” Which relies upon customization within a particular menu item.
And we’re back to paternalism: Nikon is the only one that can create these programs, they do it how they feel like doing it (and change them from camera to camera!), and they never go far enough. These days, Nikon doesn’t even always build the final result, you have to do that in post processing (e.g. Focus shift shooting).
In essence, each of these particular functions are just a form of “take more than one photo with these actions.” Hmm, just like bracketing.
I’d be happy if Nikon’s first true foray into true user programming was simply just “sequence and bracket anything”: a user-defined set of steps to do in a sequence with potentially multiple user-defined actions at each step. Add in “and then do this with the results” and you have ALL of the current functions that take up multiple menu items now in the hands of the user instead of a camera designer who probably doesn’t even do that type of photography in the first place.
I could go further with programmability, but as you probably noticed, Nikon isn’t even getting the first necessary component, customization, right. Baby steps, Nikon salarymen, baby steps.
Communicating
Your car communicates, your computer communicates, your phone communicates; virtually every 21st century device of importance communicates. Heck, my house now communicates. Moreover, they all communicate often, reliably, and well.
Your camera? Not so much. As much as SnapBridge has improved over the years, it’s still a mess, and the number one complaint about it is that it stopped communicating for some unknown reason ;~).
I was just in one of United Airlines new Max 9’s and got to see how they handled bluetooth for their new entertainment system. Congratulations, Nikon, you are no longer last in making and keeping a bluetooth connection! (United’s new entertainment system is built on Android, and it’s a mess when it comes to establishing a bluetooth connection; I watched as it variously tried to connect via MAC address, then recognized the device name, then forgot that and tried to ID by a bluetooth identifier. No sound got to the headphones, but the system thought it was connected to something ;~). No, bluetooth is not easy, but it’s also not rocket science. Apparently for United, it isn’t plane science, either ;~).
Being next to last is not something to be proud of, though. Moreover, if you fail at communicating, you may also fail at programmability ;~). Witness Fujifilm’s new X-App for mobile devices: you can now save and restore camera settings on your smartphone. Someone at Fujifilm got my message. Nikon? Nikon? Hello?
To Nikon’s credit, it has been trying to serve the pro market with communication on the top cameras for awhile now. Nikon was one of the first to put an FTP server in the camera (yes, a full on processor, memory, and associated support running its own program). They’ve now extended this in a number of ways. So, if you’re techie in nature and have the wired connectivity necessary, you can blow the images out of your camera to your remote lair, where your henchmen can do something with them.
But here’s the thing: what’s the one thing we all do with images? That’s right, we show them to others (communicate). One thing. And it’s not front and center in the design of modern Nikon cameras. Why would you not prioritize the one thing that someone wants to do with the product you make? It’s as if you built a car but didn’t pay any attention as to how to drive it (and another Tesla drives into a fire truck ;~).
SnapBridge and Nikon Image Space may have been partly defined based upon things I was telling Nikon directly in the 2007-2011 period. But they don’t go far enough. Again using the auto metaphor: they look like cars where the designer didn’t know much (if anything) about roads and destinations.
Modularity
Long-time readers knew this was coming (my original article in 2007 outlined Communicating, Programmable, and Modular, or CP/M, a nod to my first book).
But in terms of the Z System, it isn’t that I need modular cameras so much as I need modules for cameras.
On my bookshelves I have all the old Nikon product catalogs. Each had hundreds of “system” components that could be added or modify your camera. Today, just for the fun of it, I went to the NikonUSA page for the Z8. Nikon lists a bunch of “accessories” for the Z8:
- Body cap
- Battery, charger
- Camera strap
- Eye cup
- Hot shoe cover
- HDMI/USB cable clip
- USB cable (A to C)
- Charging adapters
- USB cable (C to C)
- MB-N12 grip
- EH-5b and EP-5B AC power
- FTZ adapter
- Memory card
- MC-N10 remote grip
- WR-1 and WR-11a wireless transmitters
- Six wired remotes
The first seven of those are supplied with the camera. Other than the two grips, the rest of those are established accessories that have somehow managed to stick around long past retirement age.
Nikon represents the Z8 as a Hybrid camera, a “powerhouse for video.” I see one useful video accessory in that list (MC-N10 grip). Giving credit, Nikon does include some menu support for Atomos video recording products.
Japan likes to call interchangeable lens cameras “systems cameras.” But where’s the system, Nikon? Indeed, where are the flash units? We’re down to the SB-500, SB-700 (not compatible with the Z8’s Flash control menu), and SB-5000, and those were out of stock for a long time.
Nikon used to put a Systems Chart in their reference manual that looked a bit like this (Z9 one shown):
For some reason, this chart is no longer in the reference manuals. Of particular interest is the gray boxes in that chart: those are things that Nikon doesn’t supply (e.g. headphone). Thus, when it comes down to it, that “system” that Nikon provides is camera, lens(es), flash(es), charger/AC power, grips, and a bunch of miscellaneous parts such as eyecups and cables. Everything else to Nikon is a gray box ;~).
All of which makes the current cameras feel a lot less like a system than a camera Nikon wants to sell you. So much for legacy.
Conclusion
I first outlined these things in late 2007. I repeated them several times in 2008-2010. I built a full presentation with supporting detail in 2011. I’ve kept mining these three things for further articles in the last decade. And yet, almost nothing has changed. Our cameras haven’t caught up to the reality I could see back in 2007.
I’ve written it before: the camera companies wonder why volume is so far down (rather than flat) from peak. It’s simple, they didn’t do a convincing job showing how those boxes they were shipping fit into the 21st century, nor how they become a part of a both their own ecosystem but also the customer’s ecosystem. It’s called relevance. If you don’t design to be relevant to customer need, you become irrelevant.
Nikon is overdue in addressing these issues. I’ll keep harping on them until they do.
