The reason Nikon is moving to E?

[stenrasmussen]

Had a chat with my dealer (Pro) and we briefly discussed the E-lenses. He said that the D4 has been plagued with the aperture lever being "worn out". I guess this is almost to be expected given the high frame rates these cameras can do.
Any thoughts/experiences out there?

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Well, provided you accept some noise during the stop-down operation, it is unlikely the camera wears out the stopping-down lever on its own. The problem is more of accuracy and precision, which for an AI lens is acceptable no matter what wear the lever sees, but can be more troublesome for G-type lenses mainly due to timing issues. The E technology puts the critical step inside the lens aperture, but as the spring force acting on the blades there is very strong and blades are very thin and light-weight, timing issues should be greatly reduced. 'E' is also beneficial for any design with long pathways between aperture unit and the camera, such as long telephoto lenses.

[Jan Anne]

I for one am very glad with the move to E, should make an electronic Nikon to Sony adapter so much easier without worrying about working the aperture lever.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

It is true going to 'E' makes life easier for Nikon - in some areas. However, there are massive compatibility issues, camera will need to deliver power to the lens otherwise it will be defunct, and a lot of the not-so-usual-ways of putting lenses to their capturing tasks will be impossible or at least quite difficult. So no free lunch.

[stenrasmussen]

Compatibility considerations do keep Nikon on a tighter leash than the rest of the industry. But new is not always better...I am in the process of comparing the new 35/1.8G FX to the 35/1.4 Ai-S and at equal f-stops there is not much of a difference IQ wise. In fact I dare say the old one beats the new one in central sharpness. Adavantage to the G seems to be AF only.

[Akira]

I for one am very glad with the move to E, should make an electronic Nikon to Sony adapter so much easier without worrying about working the aperture lever.

I would think that one reason for the success of Canon EOS lens to Sony E body adapter is that both control systems are based on the same protocoll like RS232.  Nikon may make it proprietary.

If M and A modes are enough, the pure mechanical aperture ring on the adapter would be the safest solution.

[pw-pix]

Another big reason for the change to electronic actuation of the aperture is to ensure consistency of operation (and therefore exposure) at high frame rates.
With the mechanical lever system the moving mass and linkages can cause uneven operation (and therefore exposure) when shooting bursts with high frame rates.

[jhinkey]

I would think that the E lenses would be:

 - Easier to design since the mechanical linkage does not need to be in the lens and the electro-mechanical actuator can be at the aperture location
 - Better exposure control as already stated
 - Eventually bodies will not have an aperture actuation mechanism, thus reducing their size
 - Pave the way for a mirrorless FX body

As Bjorn pointed out there will be some upsides and downsides for us users.  Hopefully one upside will be that someone can make a fully-compatible Sony E to Nikon F mount adapter that will support AF and aperture control.

We will see how this new piece of in-lens electronics will last - this along with the AFS motors will likely be a limiting factor for lens longevity years down the road, but that's a problem for the next generation of Nikon users.

I still prefer to use an aperture ring for what I do . . . .

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Without the aperture control mechanical arm from the body, most Nikkors (apart from E and PC and some special cases) would have no open aperture viewing without explicitly turning the aperture ring to open up the aperture and closing it prior to taking the shot. Essentially the operation would be far more primitive than with the Nikon F which introduced automatic aperture opening and closing to SLR cameras. So there is basically no chance for Nikon to ever leave the mechanical system behind since anything other would leave users with practically no lenses to work with in any realistic way (except E lenses which are few and far between). 

E is for specific lenses that benefit from it, at least for now.

[Akira]

For the easiness of lens design would be one of the big reasons, but another big reason should be the aperture control during the video shooting which is too crude or simply impossible on the current Nikon bodies.

One concern is that the frame rate of Canon is known to slow down when aperture is stopped down quite far, owing to the speed of the electric aperture actuator, especially on the big telephoto lenses and fast lenses, because the aperture blades have to travel longer.

That said, you rarely stop down to, say, f16 to shoot sports or birds.  And Nikon should already have solved this technical problem, which may be why they finally went for "E" on the super teles.

[jhinkey]

Without the aperture control mechanical arm from the body, most Nikkors (apart from E and PC and some special cases) would have no open aperture viewing without explicitly turning the aperture ring to open up the aperture and closing it prior to taking the shot. Essentially the operation would be far more primitive than with the Nikon F which introduced automatic aperture opening and closing to SLR cameras. So there is basically no chance for Nikon to ever leave the mechanical system behind since anything other would leave users with practically no lenses to work with in any realistic way (except E lenses which are few and far between). 

E is for specific lenses that benefit from it, at least for now.

Like I said - eventually.  Nikon could go with a mirrorless, short registration distance non-F-mount body that could have an adapter (quite expensive I would assume) that would be able to stop down AIS, D, and G lenses (and E lenses).  Who knows . . .

[Bjørn Rørslett]

There are 95 million Nikkors that scream 'no' ...

[Ilkka Nissilä]

The FT1 already exists for 1 series mirrorless and while it is not cheap, it's not really all that expensive either (but there are significant limitations with AF and some vignetting with some large aperture lenses etc.) Without full support of F mount lenses (optical as well as full AF performance) a large sensor mirrorless is likely a road Nikon can't travel because they'd have no lens lineup to start with (whereas other manufacturers have quite a lot of lenses already). They would risk losing their existing F mount business as some people would assume it is a dead end and stop investing new money into it, and have no significant presence in the large sensor mirrorless market because of being too late into that game (if they make such a product). So, Nikon is likely to focus on F mount DSLRs instead, which I think is a very good thing.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

I don't disagree entirely with your analysis. Just like to point out that none of the new systems had a long lens line-up at the initial launch. In fact, some still haven't much to boast of after years of production.