mvjasper
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 p.31 #19 · Alt forum Nikon Z resource, discussion and image thread | |
I have had a Z6 for about a month and use it primarily with the following manual focus lenses - Zeiss 15/2.8 Classic, Zeiss 50/1.4 Milvus, Zeiss 85/1.4 Otus, Voigtlander 40/2, and Voigtlander 58/1.4. I have also used the following Nikon lenses - 28/1.4E, 105/1.4E, 300/4E PF, but for only about 15% of all shots taken with the body. The Z6 has provided me more creative satisfaction than any other camera I have owned. I accept that there are cameras that can do specific things better, but no camera I have ever owned gives me the combined flexibility the Z6 does when it comes to handling (weight, functionality, and compactness), overall IQ but specifically its abilities handheld in low-light, and being a longtime Nikon owner (though off and on over the years), the Nikon native and made for Nikon glass. I haven’t used lenses with other mounts adapted to this body, don’t have any, and don’t think I’ll go down that path any time soon. There are other lenses I plan to purchase, but which and when are still being decided.
I just returned from two weeks in Thailand and am more pleased than I ever thought I’d be with a new body, though there are some things I still want that the Z6 doesn’t have. For example, the trip reignited my desire for more pixels, in part for added cropping flexibility. I would prefer to not have an AA filter, and would like a lower native base ISO. I wouldn’t take the Z7 over the Z6 right now, but do want a second body and will purchase a Z7 successor or some other high pixel count FF body (pro or whatever Nikon wants to call it) when it comes out.
General thoughts:
I went with the Z6 over the Z7 for its low-light ability and am quite pleased with its performance in that area. I always preferred two card slots and went into this system thinking one will be fine. Then one day a distraction and hasty departure from the hotel led to half a day without a card in the body and none in the bag. From that moment on I made it a point to keep an extra card in my bag (though changing bags sometimes left me without this backup) and more importantly, after each import into C1 Pro I immediately put the card back in the body, religiously. On a couple occasions in the past I have forgotten to replace an SD card after an import, but the populated second card saved the day. I have never gone out without at least one SD card in the body, but it happened this trip.This is the primary reason why I will not purchase a Z7 for a second body.
10+ hours a day on my feet:
I ventured out most days with the Voigtlander 40 out front while using a Peak Design CL-3 hand strap and it worked out very well. On occasion the Voigtlander 58 took it’s place for general carry around. Both make for a wonderfully capable and compact combination with the Z6. I didn’t use a neck strap the entire trip. The Outs 85 is about the limit in terms of weight (2.51 lbs or 1140 g) I feel comfortable carrying by hand this way, though I often supported the lens with my other hand while walking around for extended periods of time. Page 458 of the reference manual says the limit using the adapter is 1300 g (2 lb 13.9 oz) or you risk damage to the mount. I didn’t find this in the reference manual until my return, so it’s good to know my sense of what’s appropriate was within the suggested limits. I’m looking at the Milvus 25 (under the limit) and the Otus 28 (over the limit by 50 g), so that may factor into my decision.
Somewhat coincidently I brought three Think Tank bags on the trip, a Streetwalker V2 to carry the gear to Thailand and their Retrospective 5 & 7 for daily carry. I can provide thoughts on how this worked out if anyone is interested (I was pleased, for the most part).
EVF, Focus points, and LCD:
I read somewhere that folks thought Nikon should have had more focus points in the Z6, somehow noting the 273 it has as a shortcoming. I was absolutely pleased with the quantity of focus points and that they covered the full frame. For anyone not familiar, when you press an EVF zoom button it zooms in on the area of the frame where you have the focus point. I don’t know if more focus points would be a net plus in that it would allow for more precise placement or a net negative because it would take longer to move the focus points to the desired location. I’ll make that determination when I get my second Z body somewhere down the road. For now, I’m absolutely satisfied with the arrangement and quantity of focus points, and everything else about the EVF. I often reviewed images via the EVF rather than the LCD.
A couple annoying things happened from time to time, the odd frame shot unintentionally (I assume from tapping the LCD) and the focus point moved quite regularly. I turned off touch controls (middle of the setup menu) and all it better. I rarely used the touch screen, but did add touch controls to MY MENU to facilitate turning it on if needed.
Manual focus:
I started out a big fan of peaking but now find that I rarely rely on it as a primary focus aid, though it is nice to have if the zoomed in image is contrasty enough. I have my AF-ON button set to zoom 200% (only while using MF lenses), and almost exclusively use this for focus. I’m not as fast manual focusing as I used to be and would like to be, but that has already improved some and will improve more in time with more familiarity and confidence. I found that to shorten my time-to-execute I compose and rough focus, move a focus point, zoom, fine focus, and press the shutter. This works well for me and is the method I use at least 50% of the time. My nailed focus rate on this trip must have been in the 80% to 90% range. Focusing with the D750 (I know, horrible body for MF comparison) was nowhere near as reliable.
The Otus 85 has been my most challenging lens to use hand held, but I never could have imagined how much more enjoyable a different body could make the experience. It only got challenging while taking impromptu street shots in portrait and waiting for things to move into place while the viewfinder was held at my eye. I’m a fairly strong guy but the weight induces movement after a short while. Still, once I started carrying it around (rather than change to the Otus to get a shot) I really liked it and carried it more and more. It’s also nice when you get back to a computer, look at your shots, and they’re almost all focused as planned.
Since even hard core MF fans will likely use the odd AF lens, I’ll add a few brief thoughts on my experiences. The 105 worked great at a school event and when used one day of the Thailand trip. Because I don’t use AF often I haven’t spent much time getting familiar with the various AF options, and there seem to be a lot. I used Wide-area AF (S) most of the time and found it worked well. At one time with the 28 I noticed it would lock onto the frame of my daughter’s glasses rather than her eye. I don’t know if some other focus mode would have focused on her eye better. I guess I will do some testing some day. In that instance, I zoomed to 200% and used the manual focus ring and nailed focus. She taught it was cool that you could see only her eyelashes in focus. Aside from that, the 28 was equally pleasurable to use with the Z6, though I have only take a couple dozen shots with it.
The 300PF is the lens that really showed a noticeable improvement with the Z6, and I’m certain it has to do with the IBIS. I have only used it at a school event, with poor lighting, but to know you have the flexibility of catching slow (non) moving objects/people well below 1/100 sec is quite nice (I think I nailed a slow-moving pillow at 1/15 sec). You still need a steady trigger finger, but if your technique is good the results are amazing. I don’t recall all I read about IBIS and VR on lenses, but my experience was if I turned VR off on the lens IBIS was turned off with no option to turn it on. Perhaps by design they work well together, I don’t know, but it works.
A quick note on flash use. I have always liked to carry and use a flash during the day and did so extensively (possibly every day) on this recent trip. I started out with the SB-400, but ended up bringing the SB-5000 to benefit from high-speed sync. I had great results with the camera set to A (aperture priority) and the flash in TTL mode. I mostly use Manual mode on the camera and will have to experiment a little to see how to improve my flash results when shooting manual. For the most part, A worked fine for my family shots.
One big gripe. I had high hopes for the U1, U2, and U3 controls, and will certainly use them in the future, but unless I’ve overlooked something, they sacrifice flexibility for convenience. If you save a setting while in Manual exposure mode, once you select Ux you can’t change to Aperture priority (to use a flash, as I just mentioned). I was quite unhappy with this and thought for sure there must be a way to recall settings through the menu. I eventually found a save/load settings option, that allows you to save current settings to your memory card and then recall them. Brilliant me thought I could use this by entering Ux mode, save the settings, move back to Manual (or Aperture) and load the settings. Not ideal but acceptable, I thought. Unfortunately, save/load settings isn’t an option while in Ux mode. If anyone can help out with this, please do!!! I have so many settings different between MF and AF, not to mention I’ll probably have a couple different AF preferences once I get more familiar with it. Changing all these settings each time I change from AF to MF is a real pain, and being locked into Manual or Aperture isn’t to my liking.
In conclusion, I have no reason to take my D750 out again (I’ll keep it as a backup body) and though I was close to purchasing a D850, that is now completely off the table. I might have to pickup a 24-120 or 28-300 and let my wife use the D750. I’m all in on mirrorless and see no need, for my preferred shooting style/needs, for a mirror in my camera any longer. I will say that I don’t see myself buying any more F-mount AF lenses (though I was close to pulling the trigger on a couple of those when I was itching for the D850) unless Nikon decides to make a mirrorless F-mount body, which I would love to see but I imagine is unlikely.
I've included a shot from each lens taken on the trip (except the 28). I have about a thousand to sort through and process but these were fun shots the family and I enjoyed and that came to mind.
V
Zeiss Classic 15/2.8 @ Wat Arun
Voigtlander 40/2 @ Golden Mountain Temple
Voigtlander 58/1.4 @ Ayutthaya Wat Chaiwatthanaram (c1630)
Zeiss Otus 85/1.4 @ Ayutthaya Wat Mahathat (c14th century)
Nikon 105E/1.4 @ Lumpini Park - Monitor Lizard
Edited on Jan 06, 2019 at 10:23 AM · View previous versions
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. Both fun and challenging to use the camera only in a specific way for a whole session like this.
