(i still think it’s cool, though…)

Of course it all ends up being fake, and the real BIG thing is after all the large-format printer. Blah.

Anyway, I think a lens mount is significant considering camera design, since it is a very important part of a camera system. What is your opinion on the inconsistencies of the lens mount in ad #1?

What Nikon – if they are really planning to build a medium format SLR camera – need to do: They need to design a new lens mount in such a way that it is mechanically impossible to mount a lens, which isn’t suited for medium format.

And that’s why I’m convinced, Nikon will certainly redesign the lens mount. But only if they are going to release a medium format SLR camera, and of course only on that new medium format camera.
In other words: If ‘BIG’ or ‘MX’ or whatever it is called, if this is for real, it’ll be the starting point of a new system alongside the classic F-mount.

I consider all this a technical necessity. It’s just the thinking of an engineer. I don’t know anything about whether Nikon is indeed planning on a medium format. But if they do, that’s how they should do it. And as far as my experience with Nikon goes: they are great engineers, so they will take these things into consideration.

As far as I am concerned: these so called Nikon ads are all fake. But since Leica recently released the S2, I’d consider it a very real possibility, Nikon will create something similar.

If you look closely at the mount in ad #1 you can see a meter coupling lever (upper right hand side – observer’s pov – of the mount just above the screw and to the left of the mounting index mark), just like the one on the D3, D700 and F6 for that matter.

I wouldn’t expect a meter coupling lever on a camera without aperture coupling lever (doesn’t make sense, does it?), because the mount would most likely be completely electric (just like the Canon EF is).
At least I would expect that, since Nikon would most certainly do a complete redesign of the lens mount for this new proposed medium-format-ish camera.

There’s another clue, which makes me believe it is a fake.
The mount looks exactly like the one in the picture of the D3 (except of course the aperture coupling lever and the autofocus drive shaft). The shadow thrown by the lens release pin is exactly the same, and the tiny shadow of the meter coupling lever is exactly the same. Even all of the reflections on the mount itself are exactly the same. Take a look at all the other pictures of the other cameras’ mounts. They look all different, if you care about the reflections. I think the picture of the mount for this new camera has been taken from the picture of the D3, and then modified.
If you erase the aperture coupling lever and the autofocus shaft, you’d get exactly the mount above. And if the erasing isn’t done carefully, you’d lose the third flange on this side as well.

Finally I pray Nikon will not release a sensor with an aspect ratio even wider than 3:2! This would be just silly. Because you couldn’t do any portrait shooting (camera turned upright) with it. A square aspect ratio would make much more sense, especially if you look at all the real medium format cameras.

That’s my two cents. What’s the opinion of the others?

Martin.