[davidmanze]

I think the word "lead" does not apply to both Nikon and Canon in this market segment. Both are distant followers at best.

Canon has high-end lenses but no camera to match. There are no affordable ultra-wide nor tele lenses (Ok, there's the Samyang 14 if you like to collect breadcrumbs).

Nikon is not too bad from my perspective actually but the question remains why bothering with a secondary platform in the first place.

Of course, the die-hards will buy them anyway but that's more an emotional decision than anything else. Of course, there's nothing wrong with emotional purchases. That's the business model of many brands.

Mr. Schroiff knows how to provoke answers

I'd say, buying a camera is mostly an emotional decision - no one needs one and the few pros are benefiting of some millions of amateurs who keep the manufacturers of pro cameras alive. All what we read about cameras is not much more than "facts tickling the guts" but also subjective impressions of testers. As we also come to an emotional impression when we touch the tool to create pictures - or simply to snap some memories.

I totally agree, the leadership doesn't belong to CaNikon, they were late to the party.

I disagree on "Of course, the die-hards will buy them anyway...." - these "die-hards" are glued to their DSLR with apparently gazillion years of learning how to work around the systematic weaknesses of these tools. If you like to know about them die-hards just mention EVF...

I don't consider myself a die-hard. I was just tired of endless sessions of at least check the cooperation between lens and AF-system and trying to improve them. Getting a slightly better guess-rate out of this system consumed hours.

I dipped my toe into ML waters long before Nikon came out with Z, then Canon with R and regretfully the latest to the party, the L-mount guys. But talking about FF alone would be missing the point. There's much more DNA in Nikon's 1 system in the Z than the average reviewer tells us, as most of the average reviewers never cared about this system. "Care" like as in "using it on a daily basis". It was as easy to judge it as "too small" as it is to judge Sony's menus as "cluttered" or Canon's sensor as "dated". Common sense" can also mean "common misunderstandings".

Now, I'm interested how long Sony will keep up their leadership in FF mirrorless bodies, how long they will look at customers buying their bodies but ignoring most of their lenses? A friend of "mine" got two of these bodies. From the beginning he went for Tamron, Voigtländer and Laowa lenses. The only Sony lens he acquired later, the incredibly cool 200-600.

A decision for a (and against "the others") camera system is always a gut based one. We collect facts to make us look like rational people, but who buys a superior camera with an ugly design and a lousy grip?

Quote:

"I'd say, buying a camera is mostly an emotional decision"

   So is getting married ...... however ....  

    Many of these so called Die-hards of Canon and Nikon have "died-hard" already  ..... going to Sony especially ........ or just lost once and for all to the smart phone market.
 
...... Pentaxians are probably the best example of die-hards ..... and I don't think many would bet their shirt on their survival .....

   I just hope for Nikon's sake they are burning the midnight oil designing and manufacturing the Z8/Z9, with all the wherewithal to match and improve over Sony's example (at least technically).