The Z7 presented Nikon with a stiff challenge: how to build a mirrorless camera that measures up to its own DSLRs and can deliver a familiar experience to Nikon users. Chris and Jordan have been using the camera for a couple months for everything from landscapes to a studio shoot with portrait photographer Nathan Elson. Find out whether they think Nikon succeeded. Editor’s note: In order to fully cover the Z7’s new video capabilities, we will be publishing a separate video focused entirely on the camera’s video features and performance.
The Z6 and a7 III are taking different approaches to their oversampled 4K output with the Sony doing a better job capturing fine detail. The Z6 on the other hand looks to be using larger-radius sharpening (by default) which results in a punchier look out of camera. As expected, the Z6’s full-frame 4K looks better than the Z7’s full-frame 4K, which doesn’t use all its pixel rows, reducing both resolution and low-light performance.
The Z6’s cropped 4K also appears to use larger-radius sharpening than the Sony’s and looks similar (but still slightly better) when compared to the Z7’s. Interestingly the Z6’s 4K full-frame footage looks very similar to its 4K APS-C cropped footage. There may be a bit of a noise penalty using the later, but detail is broadly similar.
• Fixed an issue that caused the display to flicker if pictures were scrolled during playback zoom after the user had taken pictures using the viewfinder with Prioritize viewfinder selected for monitor mode and then removed his or her eye from the viewfinder before starting playback.
• Fixed an issue that caused Capture NX-D or ViewNX-i to crash when displaying NEF (RAW) pictures taken with the following options selected for HDR (high dynamic range) in the PHOTO SHOOTING MENU:
– HDR mode: On (series) or On (single photo)
– Save individual images (NEF): On
• Fixed an issue that allowed the camera to exceed the value chosen for ISO sensitivity settings > Maximum sensitivity in the MOVIE SHOOTING MENU if it was from ISO 200 to 20,000 and On was selected for MOVIE SHOOTING MENU > Electronic VR.
The folks from Dpreview had a chat with Nikon and they made quite a bold statement:
“Our goal is to become number one in the full-frame market. We believe that we can achieve the number one position maybe quite soon”
This means Nikon is sure that after decades of Canon dominance they can finally overthrow them. What could sound even more “arrogant?” is that they believe this will happen “quite soon”. The history of all companies is full of such bold statements. For now let’s hope Nikon brings out new Z glass soon!
This is the camera test of the Nikon Z. There are two thing we will look at in this video first is the High ISO Performance going from 100 ISO to 25,600 ISO and the second is an exposure recovery test. This consists of overexposing and underexposing the image +/- 5 Stops and then trying to recover it in post-production. This can be an important part of dealing with the footage in case you make a mistake on set if you can recover that in post it might not be a totally lost shot.
