Nikon Mount "No Set Date" - Jarred

[Steve Wake]

Found this buried and thought more folks would be interested.

Nikon mount is taking a backseat right now... We ( as you can see ) need to do some catching up on everything else, and the Nikon mount has proven to be a magnitude more complicated than any other mount we have engineered.

Nikon, god bless them, tried to keep the F mount alive for 50 years but recent changes with the AF-D and the G has created a bit of a cluster... protocols are all tangled up.. different amount of pins for electronics... Add to that requiring an actual mechanical actuator inside the lens to control the iris on some ( of course the good ones ) lenses, and then that actuator gets in the way of other lenses.

If you are hoping for an even swap/exchange for a canon mount it is unrealistic.. the Nikon mount , as it sits, is going to be more expensive.

It will till come.. but I can officially tell you there is no set date right now as the last round of prototypes and the ones that have been out in testing have proven not to be the final design.

There's some followup discussion on that thread about nikon --> canon adapters, and more discussion in this thread:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...apter-Question

[jimhare]

Thanks for posting Steve. Can't ask for a more reasonable explanation than that! Reality is reality. The OptiTek Prolock Nikon mount is a great solution until the Red mount comes out. I've been using on my Epic and love it. Swaps from PL in about 3 minutes.

[Rob Castiglione]

Thanks Steve. Naturally a bit disappointing but good to know. I will make some contingency plans...

[Randall Brown]

Wow. Good find. Just got more G lenses in anticipation of "December" shipping of the mount.

[jaadgy akanni]

Now we know the hell Erik Widding went through trying to design a Nikon mount, which , by the way, never came to fruition. But Jarred is a man of his word, and he promised they'd get it right, so let's have faith. I wonder what additional challenges 3rd party F mount lenses will present. Tamron and Tokina have some good alternatives that I actually prefer over the Nikon counterparts, like for example: Tamron 90 f/2.8, 180mm, and the 70-300mm f/4-5.6, Sigma 8-16mm, and the Tokina 11-16mm of course.

[Petri Teittinen]

Found this buried and thought more folks would be interested.

Good find, thanks.

[Peter Lyons Collister, ASC]

It will happen folks. A smart mount is not an easy thing to design. It isn't just a mount but changes to software. Why do you think Canon didn't make their Canon mount smart for the 300?

I would rather Jarred and gang get it right and take another year than just come out with something that isn't quite right.

[PatrickW]

Nikon solutions already exist, so it isn't the end of the world to wait for the Red mount....

Now I just need to focus on buying EF glass :) for now....

[Johnny Friday]

For this very reason the OptiTek mount is a great solution....been using it on my R1 for many years and have had COMPLETE success. That said, the new EPIC/Scarlet Nikon mount made by OptiTek has also proven to be a workhorse. At $950, it's a deal and will prove to be a workhorse for many many more months to come. Indeed RED has their work cut out to come up with a smart & manual mount that will work on all Nikon glass and i look forward to that day, but that day may be a long time coming. So yes, there is a solution for Nikon users with Scarlet/Epic. Works on G glass as well.....and it is manual which is fantastic.

[Steve Wake]

It will happen folks. A smart mount is not an easy thing to design. It isn't just a mount but changes to software. Why do you think Canon didn't make their Canon mount smart for the 300?

I would rather Jarred and gang get it right and take another year than just come out with something that isn't quite right.

Totally agree. And I'm sure reverse-engineering a labyrinth of firmware that took several generations of secretive Nikon engineers decades to build is not easy. Not to mention building a revolutionary aperture motor for the lever actuator that AFAIK, no one has ever successfully built. Personally, I never expected it to sell for the same price as the Canon mount. In fact, I think it would be dangerous to plan on it ever being built with all the capabilities and 100% lens compatibilities. Pins having different functions/protocols in different lenses is just one layer of the nightmare. Screw-drive autofocus ? - too much to squeeze in there for sure. Camera-driven electronic aperture controls for the PC-E T/S lenses? - maybe. I think 99% of Nikon glass users would be happy if it worked with AIS and the current G-lenses and skip everything in-between.

I only own older AIS glass anyway (including some Zeiss ZF and Cosina Voigtlander). I rent the other stuff. And maybe I'll end up renting some Canon L glass (ugh, did I really say that? Please forgive me, kami-nikon).