The Lens Adapter Nikon REFUSED to Build

[Les Olson]

I am certainly not disagreeing that there are people who have perfectly good reasons to want an FTZ with AF-D support. All I am objecting to is the idea that Nikon's failure to provide one is (a) commercial folly, and/or (b) a ploy to force people to buy Z mount lenses they wouldn't need if there was an FTZ with AF-D support.

If you look at Roland Vink's camera database, in the US the D200 sold 233K in less than two years (all of these numbers are US only because I am not going to add up sales for all regions), the D300 sold 196K over two years, the D300S sold 175K over six years and the D500 sold 68K from 2016 to now. The D600/610 sold 270K, roughly twice D300s/D500 sales over about the same period, despite being more expensive and less capable. So, yes, the D500 sold relatively well, but the comparison with low-end FX, and the slope of the trend line for high-end DX are what is significant when considering how many of the people asking for a Z mount D500 would actually buy one in preference to a similarly-priced Z6III. Similar things happen all the time: everyone says Nikon must make DX wide primes, but when it comes to putting down the money, they buy zooms. Even someone as thoughtful as Thom Hogan does it: when he is talking about what Nikon needs to make, DX primes are on the list, but when he is suggesting appropriate lens kits, it is zooms. I don't think you can blame Nikon for paying more attention to what people actually buy than what they say they would like to be able to buy.

Nikon has sold 800K FTZ/FTZII, and about that many Z cameras every year, so the great majority of Z camera buyers do not buy a (Nikon) FTZ - ie, they use only Z lenses. The rate of FTZ sales is falling: in the three years from 2018, 445K FTZ were sold = 148K a year, while since the FTZII was introduced in late 2021 sales have been 89K a year. Some of that may be because if you bought an FTZ with the Z6 you don't buy another one with the Z6II or III, but it may also be because as more Z lenses appear and their overall superiority is generally accepted first -time camera buyers see less need for adapted lenses. I am only guessing, but maybe, when it was thinking about an AF-D capable FTZ, Nikon noticed which way the trend line for FTZ sales is pointing.   

Who would buy an FTZ with AF-D support? Anyone with an AF-D lens? No. Only people with special AF-D lenses are candidates - no one is going to fork out the cost of a Z 50/1.8 to use a 50/1.8D on a Z camera. The 70-180 macro sold 18K, so people wanting to use that on a Z camera are not a significant market. The 105/2 DC and the 135/2 DC both sold 33K, which is not a lot, and another often mentioned lens, the 85/1.4 AF-D, sold 103K, and there may be other candidate special lenses. Taking all the special AF-D lenses together there might be a market approaching 200K total sales for an AF-D capable FTZ. But what is the evidence that many owners of those lenses are deeply attached to them? In particular, the AF-S 85/1.4 sold 120K, and those people had no reason relating to camera compatibility to prefer it to the 85/1.4 AF-D (it seems unlikely many were D3xxx users). The Z 85/1.8 has sold 106K, and the Z 85/1.2 and the 135/1.8 have both sold 19K, and the 85/1.4 AF-S owners weren't coerced into buying Z mount lenses, so a lot of the high-end portrait crowd seem to be OK with not using the 85/1.4 AF-D.

AF-D sales being less than half of AF-S plus Z sales is the pattern across focal lengths - eg, the 50/1.4 AF-D sold 545K, the 50/1.4 AF-S sold 725K and the Z 50/1.8 has sold 210K.  Ai and Ai-S sales of 50/1.4 were 1.7M (!), so the overall proportion of 50/1.4 lenses sold able to use the FTZ/FTZII is 80%. If Nikon wanted to force people to buy Z mount lenses they didn't need why would they confine the coercion to the smallest element of the potential market?

[Bruno Schroder]

Convincing numbers, Les.
On the D500, off topic though, the comparison with a similarly-priced Z6II is not the right one, I think. When the D500 was released, it was 20.9MP while the norm on FX was 24MP. It is the combination of an action camera with a higher pixel density than FX that made it for me and many other nature photographers. A true D500 equivalent today would be a 40MP DX camera with Z8 capabilities, and personally, I would preorder it, even at Z8 pricing. That said, I agree the numbers are unfortunately not high enough for Nikon for prioritize it against other bodies with a much larger sales potential.

[Hugh_3170]

Yes, I can see where Les is heading and agree with his numbers based analysis.

However the numbers for an FTZ adapter with an aperture follower, but no screw driver autofocus, would have probably stacked up.

So in setting the architecture and direction for their Z cameras, Nikon have clearly taken a position of providing a minimal solution to provide just a little bit more than their competitors in the support of legacy lenses - but only just!  That said, support for AFS and G and E type F-Series lenses is pretty seamless.

In any event, I concede that smarter firmware and just the current FTZ and FTZ II adapters could I am sure still do more with manual focus lenses - that is for both AI and AiS lenses.

In the meantime,  Voigtlaender have gone ahead and successfully built lenses with aperture rings and Z mount electronic connections. 

In another five or so years, I suspect that mainstream Nikon users will be firmly wedded to Z-lenses and only old guys such as myself will be pondering what might have been!   
 

Convincing numbers, Les.
On the D500, off topic though, the comparison with a similarly-priced Z6II is not the right one, I think. When the D500 was released, it was 20.9MP while the norm on FX was 24MP. It is the combination of an action camera with a higher pixel density than FX that made it for me and many other nature photographers. A true D500 equivalent today would be a 40MP DX camera with Z8 capabilities, and personally, I would preorder it, even at Z8 pricing. That said, I agree the numbers are unfortunately not high enough for Nikon for prioritize it against other bodies with a much larger sales potential.

[MILLIREHM]

I understand Les Olsons point in relationship with detailed sales numbers I am not aware of. But from a pure sales logic there never  should be lenses like The Plena or the Z-Noct. As Hugh was saying Nikon provided a minimal solution and I think (though I still wish Nikon would provide an Adapter like this) the time window is closing or had closed already. They  should have released this together with the Zf (which is by itself a classical design lacking the final consequences in some annoying aspects). And I see it by myself that a growing number of Z-Lenses in my arsenal reduces the usage of F-mount lenses with adapter.
So for our screwdrivers matured third party adapter appear to be the last hope.

[Les Olson]

But from a pure sales logic there never  should be lenses like The Plena or the Z-Noct.

One of the best decisions Nikon ever made was to take the opportunity of the shift to mirrorless cameras to design a new mount. The large diameter and short flange focal distance of the Z mount gives lens designers opportunities they did not have in F mount. As a result, the Z mount lenses are consistently better than their F mount predecessors - but "consistently better" doesn't make headlines. The Noct and the Plena were intended to make headlines. Nikon said that the Noct "serves as the symbol of the superior optical performance achieved with NIKKOR Z lenses. It takes advantage of the superior design flexibility made possible by the combination of the large-diameter (inner diameter of 55 mm) Z mount and 16 mm flange focal distance to realize an f/0.95 maximum aperture, the fastest in Nikon history".

Nikon also has a track record of making lenses and cameras just for engineering reasons. The Nikon Camera Chronicles FM3 story makes it very clear that the camera was made because the engineers wanted to have one more try at making the perfect manual film camera before the digital tsunami swept both the market and the engineering expertise away. The Z6 was made to see how good an electronic SLR could be. They didn't expect to sell a lot of either camera, because they made no attempt to manufacture a lot. Having made the decision to structure the Z system around optical design they were always going to see what the engineering limits were, even if the result didn't sell a lot.   

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Making products to please people who would like to see them in the catalogue, but have no intention of buying them, is not good business. Nikon has been burnt before making things people said they wanted, but then didn't buy (the FM3, Nikon 1, D500, eg). A good used D610 already costs less than the FTZ2, and an FTZ3 with AF-D support would be more expensive still. Why would someone who likes older lens personalities not use them on a digital or film SLR, when it is cheaper and for the uses for which those lens personalities were defined works just as well? For example, it is perfectly reasonable to prefer the personality of the 85/1.4D for studio portraits, but for studio portraits how is a Z9 is superior to a D850? Maybe there are killer ideas to marry the personalities of older lenses with the capabilities of the Z cameras, but in seven years no one has suggested any.

Certainly the Z8/Z9 have superior autofocus on the human eye compared to the D850. Studio portraits are typically taken with flash at mid-to-small apertures while a lens like the 85/1.4 is more for available light conditions where the wide aperture makes sense in a cluttered environment. In a studio, the background is typically 100% controlled so there are no distractions to blur, and most studio lights won't even let you shoot at f/1.4 because their minimum flash energy setting wouldn't make it possible. The sweet spot apertures for the 85/1.4D are on both sides of f/2.8 I would say, and while one can of course shoot it at f/11, I wouldn't necessarily choose to do so in a studio environment with that lens. Of course if the studio lights are LEDs and not flashes, then an 85 mm f/1.4 makes sense to use, but LEDs are super limiting in the context of what has been the traditional framework of studio photography, where everything from light to environment is controlled.

Personally I use F-mount lenses on both F-mount and Z-mount cameras but it is a hassle compared to having just one mount. I bought into the Z system because it enabled silent photography which is in some situations preferable to a loud clunk from the mirror/shutter (often it doesn't matter, but sometimes does).

I would buy a Nikon-made F to Z adapter that supports autofocus with AF Nikkors because it would let me use DC Nikkors and the 200/4D Micro with AF. I've found AF with the 200 mm to be useful e.g. when photographing frogs, and also for quick acquisition of focus on static close-up subjects before making slight refinements manually. I haven't had the A/M switch break on my 200 mm. However, I can understand why Nikon would not do it even though the D780 illustrates that autofocus in LV mode (or in a mirrorless camera) is perfectly feasible with AF Nikkors even if not as sophisticated as with modern Z lenses. They often break compatibility in subtle ways to push people into buying newer gear, even though they have deceptively advertised compatibility as a major feature for many decades. It's always been a spotty record of compatibility across generations of products. It's better than nothing but if we all have to buy into the new system anyway eventually, why then make the impression that compatibility is a priority for Nikon? Either it is or is not, if compatibility is not guaranteed then advertising it can lead people to make incorrect purchase decisions that hurt them later on.

[Les Olson]

They often break compatibility in subtle ways to push people into buying newer gear, even though they have deceptively advertised compatibility as a major feature for many decades. It's always been a spotty record of compatibility across generations of products. It's better than nothing but if we all have to buy into the new system anyway eventually, why then make the impression that compatibility is a priority for Nikon? Either it is or is not, if compatibility is not guaranteed then advertising it can lead people to make incorrect purchase decisions that hurt them later on.

Nikon's reputation for backward compatibility rests on a single decision in the mid-80s when AF appeared and a lot more electronic communication was needed, and Nikon decided not to do what Canon did in 1987 and change its mount. Whether Nikon's was a choice to favour backward compatibility over electronics or backward compatibility was invented retrospectively as the excuse for a dumb mistake I don't know, but I suspect the latter is more likely. 

I have never seen Nikon advertising that made or implied a guarantee of backward compatibility. In the 1990s, soon after Canon had spectacularly trashed backward compatibility, Nikon advertising made a point of saying that any F mount camera could use any Nikon lens made after 1977. But it was and has never been a major selling point because then, as now, it was innovation and new features that sold. Nikon's Press Release for the D1, eg, has 500 words on sensor, exposure, 4.5 fps etc, etc, and 13 on backward compatibility:  "Its innate flexibility allows D1 to accept more than 80 Nikon F-mount lenses"; in the D3 press release there is not a word about backward compatibility; in the Z system press release all it says is "the new mount adapter will enable compatibility with NIKKOR F mount lenses".

In the digital era backward compatibility has been the exception rather than the rule. The vast majority of the dSLRs Nikon sold - D5600, D5500, D5300, D5200, D5100, D5000, D3500, D3400, D3300, D3200, D3100, D3000, D80, D70, D60, D40, and D40X - are not AF-D compatible. On the same list of cameras, Ai lenses can be used but exposure is manual only. Backward incompatibility of new lenses with cameras even a few years old was usual, even at the high-end: E diaphragm lenses, introduced from 2014, won't work on a D1, D2, D100 or D200, made until 2007; AF-P lenses, introduced in 2016, do not AF on F6, D1 series, D2 series, D40 series, D50, D60, D70 series, D80, D90, D100, D200, in the case of the DX lenses D300 series (made until 2012), D700, D3000, D3100, D3200, D5000, D5100.

[David H. Hartman]

I started in serious photography in 1971 with a Nikkormat FTN and 55mm f/3.5 Micro-NIKKOR-P and I do remember Nikon advertising that they would never abandon the F-mount. I have a vintage 1964~1966, 50mm f/1.4 NIKKOR-S and a 135mm f/3.5 NIKKOR-Q 1969~1973 with official Nikon AI conversion aperture rings so I can directly mount those legacy Nikkor lenses on my D850 and with an FTZ adapter I can mount those lenses on my Nikon Z8 and even get IBS. That's pretty good compatibility. It's not perfect but realistically it can't be.

I'm disappointed that the FTZ II and FTZ do not support AF with screwdriver AF and AF-D Nikkor but I don't think it's financially feasible for Nikon to offer an F to Z adapter with that functionality. I do think a firmware tweak could add a red to green single point focus indicator for legacy manual focus Nikkor lenses. One can hope for the latter.

So the 1959 F-mount has not been abandoned but perfect compatibility is not possible.

Dave

[Les Olson]

Pentax introduced the K mount in 197something, and it has retained backward and forward compatibility right up to now. And much good it did them.

When the F mount was introduced in 1959, and for years after, all it had to do was make a stable, light-tight connection between the camera and the lens. What was there to change? Of course, 44mm diameter is too small for film with a diameter of 43mm, but no one who cared about image corners used 35mm. In 1977 Nikon introduced Ai lenses, and although it was all still F mount, so what they said in 1971 was true, backward compatibility was cracked, if not broken. Notably, although Nikon made it easy and relatively inexpensive to convert most pre-Ai lenses to Ai there were pre-Ai lenses that Nikon would not convert to Ai. 

SLR sales were strong in the 1970s. In particular, Canon sold a million (literally) of the AE-1, marketed with the slogan "About all you do is focus and shoot" - this was the first SLR with full auto-exposure - but manual focus turned out not to be as easy as Canon made it sound (which is why you can go to KEH today and find plenty of AE-1s in mint condition) and after AF compact cameras appeared in 1977 the SLR market tanked. Compact cameras went from 43% of the market in 1977 to 81% in 1987. In March 1983, Nikon introduced the L35AF "Pikaichi" and in 1984 its sales exceeded sales of all seven Nikon's SLRs - F3, FA, FE2, FM2, FG, FG-20 and EM - put together.

Obviously, the solution was to make SLRs with AF, but the first AF cameras failed (the F3AF, eg), because the cameras were much more expensive than the MF versions, you had to buy new AF lenses, and the AF was not very good. Then in 1985 Minolta introduced the 7000 (Maxxum in the US) with a new A (later Sony Alpha) mount that trashed backward compatibility but had AF that worked. It turned out nobody minded buying new lenses if you got good AF, and in 1986 Minolta was the SLR market leader, with more than 50% of sales. Canon decided it couldn't do competitive AF with the FD mount, and in 1987 introduced the EOS 650 with the larger and fully electronic EF mount, completely trashing backward compatibility. By 1989, 90% of SLRs sold had AF, Canon was market leader and Nikon, the only one who had not trashed backward compatibility, was in third place. 

Apparently, backward compatibility hasn't always been what it is now.