I must say, so far I’m impressed. I’d expected them to be good of course, but I’d not expected them to be such a leap up in both functionality and image quality. And I’m especially impressed with the price, I’d have thought twice the price to be reasonable, but don’t tell Nikon.
See article and video here.
And an early review on image quality and lenses.
For many years, digital cameras did not have dynamic range (contrast coverage) equal to film. But recently they have surpassed it, and this has fifteen stops of it, which is awesome.
It also has eye-following (of the subject) autofocus, which was the killer app of the recent Sony cameras.
And of course in-camera stabilization, a huge advantage of some mirrorless camera over DSLRs.
I think the naming though, Z6 and Z7, is not of the same high standard! They are obviously at total effect of Sony here, naming the cameras practically the same as the Sonys which have been eating into their marketshare. Also, why still the taste-free names? Why not. Uhm, “Nikon Killroy 1” or “Nikon Calypso Dancemaster” or “Nikon Taserface K”, just to go wide.
As old readers know well, being mainly a street photographer, I’m a big fan of compact cameras, and for years I’ve thought that full-frame cameras are just too big and heavy. Well this is still so, even though the body in the new Nikon Z system is much smaller. But: for special projects demanding extreme image quality, I could actually imagine myself using this system.
As I’d predicted here, they have indeed made a brand new mount (for the first time ever! Due to Nikon’s same-mount promise), and an adapter for legacy lenses. But I thought it could really not be any different, they could not take advantage of mirrorless design without getting a shorter lens-to-sensor distance, or faster lenses without the bigger mouth. They have great flexibility for the future with this new mount.
I hope they will go beyond the current fetish for big and heavy “ultimate” lenses, and also make some compact ones. Leica M lenses have always been amazing, and are also very small, so surely it can be done now with computer design.
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| Look at this dynamic range! Copyright Ross Harvey, see article |
Looks (not seen any comparisons) BIG, as in DSLR size, compared to the Sony / Olympus sizes?
ReplyDeleteThere's a size comparison with Sony here
ReplyDeletehttp://sonyaddict.com/2018/08/23/size-comparison-sony-a7-vs-nikon-z/
Olympus isn't really relevant as it's 1/4 the sensor area.
The Z7 is much smaller than the D850, see https://mirrorlesscomparison.com/preview/nikon-z7-vs-d850/
Yes, it is comparable to the Sony full-frame cameras in size.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am sure that’s about as small as a pro ff camera can get now. The sensor is much larger compared to the body than is the case with many Micro Four Thirds cameras, particularly some of the Panasonics. In fact I’m a bit disaffected with that, compactness was one of the major promises for Micro Four Thirds.
But as have been pointed out to me on Facebook today, when people see a small camera, they *can’t* see it as a professional camera, and so the companies *can’t* charge good money for it, so they don’t tend to go there! It’s a grave pity. And a poor follow-up to the amazing Olympus OM system, which was both professional and amazingly compact. But then I guess few real pros used the OM system...
I’m just a little sad that I can’t get a camera the size of Olympus Pen Lite E-M7, but with the current best sensor and autofocus.
And in fact it seems that the MFT sensors are just well behind the Sony FF sensors in terms of sensitivity, even adjusted to size. I hope this changes, for I love the size of the MFT sensor, it’s Goldilocks.
I expanded the post with this:
ReplyDeleteAs I’d predicted here, they have indeed made a brand new mount (for the first time ever! Due to Nikon’s same-mount promise), and an adapter for legacy lenses. But I thought it could really not be any different, they could not take advantage of mirrorless design without getting a shorter lens-to-sensor distance, or faster lenses without the bigger mouth. They have great flexibility for the future with this new mount.
I hope they will go beyond the current fetish for big and heavy “ultimate” lenses, and also make some compact ones. Leica M lenses have always been amazing, and are also very small, so surely it can be done now with computer design.
It’s slightly bigger than the Sonys, but they seem to have better ergonomics, from what I hear.
ReplyDeleteSize wise, IMHO the Fuji mirrorless has it, with good weight and ergonomics.
ReplyDeleteSadly the lack the stablisation from other 4/3 makes.
I agree that IBIS is essential.
ReplyDeleteI actually think the newest Fuji X has it.
But I think the MFT sensor is a better sensor size, for the next decade. After that I suspect you can get supree quality from any sensor size! Only DoF matters. (But even that can be faked perfectly by then I’m sure.)
Look at how tiny the sensor is inside this huge beast! Ridic.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.fujirumors.com/now-panasonic-explains-whats-not-good-ibis-looking-forward-fujifilm-x-h1-ibis-anyway/
Yuge lens:
ReplyDeletehttps://camerasize.com/compact/#724.580,794.786,ha,t
Very helpful information.!Thank you so much for the detailed article
ReplyDelete