Nikon and Sony Mirrorless Full Frame Sensor Size Comparison

an incorrect size assumption confuses the world…

So Nikon released some teaser images of its new mirrorless camera and ever since people have been going on and on about the potential size of Nikon’s sensor. The comments and nonsense have been endless.

Source: SonyAlphaRumors

While I have no idea what Nikon’s mirrorless full frame sensor size will be, I can tell you right now that the size comparison above is incorrect.

The assumed Nikon sensor placement would mean a huge amount of the sensor is obscured. Notice the light baffle behind the connector pins? The sensor needs to go below / behind that… which will mean that the Nikon sensor is roughly the same size, a bit larger, than Sony’s.

Which makes perfect sense. Nikon said it wanted to do full frame mirrorless right, it wanted to go full on professional, and that probably means an impressive sensor. Imagine 40 megapixel sensor, image stabilization, with slightly larger pixel size than Sony’s A7R series cameras.

It also probably means that the actual mounting has somehow been built with existing lenses in mind (mount built to accept heavier weights, put out more power, etc.) It may even be built with different sensor sizes in mind.

The new Nikon mount could even be universal. It could be built to be able to image in medium format, full frame, and APS-C. Meaning Nikon can change the body the mount is on to fit people’s imaging needs while lenses stay the same.

You could use your new Nikon mount lenses on both your studio’s medium format sensor sized camera body and on you APS-C Nikon camera body out in nature. Not all lenses would / could be universal in a system like that but Nikon wouldn’t care. Just an excuse to charge more for premium lenses.

Ultimately, this is all about the mount size and not the sensor size. The mount seems to be larger overall but that does not mean that the sensor has to fully fill the space the lens mount takes up.

It is not going to be a medium format sized sensor.