Nikon’s new Z mount explained by a Nikon engineer

There’s been quite a lot of discussion regarding Nikon’s new Z mount ever since the patent was first spotted. Nikon, too, has made quite the fuss over it in the recent Nikon Z6 & Z7 mirrorless camera announcements. Now, it seems that we have Atsushi Suzuki, an actual Nikon optical engineer, to explain it to us.

So, why did Nikon introduce a new mount for their mirrorless cameras? Well, in the video, Atsushi goes into quite some technical detail. But to really know what’s going on, it helps to understand this stuff.

Well, for a start it allows them to break out of the 59 year old F-Mount. This means that they no longer really need to worry about backwards compatibility. So they can start to develop lenses that take more advantage of newer technology.

Nikon is well known for great lensess – our company vision is to “unlock the future with the power of light”

We believe this new mount will help us acheive that vision. The itnroduction of the Z-Mount is very special because it combines so much experience and knowledge from many engineers and designers over the last 100 years.

The new Z-Mount was developed for the new Nikon mirrorless cameras and lenses, and it possesses huge potential in optical design.

– Atsushi Suzuki, Nikon Optical Engineer

Nikon have gone from having one of the longest flange distances of any camera manufacturer, at 46.5mm with the F Mount to the shortest. The Z-Mount is only 16mm away from the sensor. This helps to minimise distortion from the rear element projecting the image onto the sensor. It also allows Nikon to produce the thinnest mirrorless cameras possible.

Side note: It also has the added benefit of allowing you to adapt many different types of lenses to fit & focus on the new Z model mirrorless cameras without corrective diopters that can degrade the image – anybody who’s ever tried to use an M42 lens on Nikon knows what I’m talking about.

The larger diameter of the Z Mount also allows Nikon to produce lenses with much wider apertures. Atsushi demonstrates how a larger lens mount helps with this, and explains that Nikon could have gone even larger, but it would have resulted in a larger camera. The Z Mount’s 55mm diameter was the best balance of size and quality.

Atsushi talks about a few more technical details of the lens, why certain decisions were made, and other benefits that the new mount offers over the F Mount.

Overall, it’s a very interesting video if you like getting more into the technical side of how these things work.