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Archive 2018 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion

  
 
1bwana1
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p.11 #1 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


I got a call from my local dealer today confirming that my camera was in. Since 4 of my core Nikon kit lenses are Tamrons, my deal with the store was that I would come in and test to make sure they worked with the Z7 with the FTZ adapter.

We did three hours of testing. We tested each of the 4 lenses, and their closest Nikon and Sigma counter parts. Below are the results.

All of the Nikon lenses worked well. That being said, the Z7 shows noticeable degradation even with F Mount lenses in low light situations compared to the Nikon DSLR cameras. The face tracking in AF-C was pretty unreliable in all light conditions.
In general, if shot like a DSLR with no face detect, I think most will be very happy with the Z7 with Nikon lenses and the adapter. But low light may be an issue for some.

Every Sigma lens we tested work pretty much as well as the Nikon lenses. Sigma has issued a statement that all of their Nikon F mount lenses will work without degradation on the Z7. My limited tests confirmed that. If you have Sigma lenses you will likely be very happy with their performance on the Z7, except in low light same as the Nikon. Well done Sigma.

Tamron lenses were more problematic. Surprisingly, none of the Tamron G2 lenses worked with the adapted Z7. The camera just showed a lens error message, and would not work.

The Tamron G1 lenses results were mixed, but none of them performed as well as the Nikon or Sigma lenses.

The G1 24-70 f2.8 vr worked the best. But still it was slow, hunted, and made weird noises at times.

The G1 70-200 f2.8 vr worked, but was slow and unreliable at times similar to the Tamron 24-70. The lense locked up twice during testing, and we had to re-boot the camera to get it going again.

The Tamron 28-300mm PZD worked sort of, but was very sluggish and produced unreliable results.

The G1 150-600mm did not give error messages like the G1 version, but would not even try to auto focus. Total fail.

If Tamron lenses are central to your kit, you will not be able to use the Z7 FTZ adapter solution with good results at this point. I wish Tamron would make some sort of statement on if they plan to correct this somehow, some time.

So, for me that meant that 3 of my most important lenses, and 1 walk around lense, were a no go with the Z7. Unfortunately, I had to pass, and let the dealer sell my camera to the next person on the list.

At this point, I am basically left with three choices.

Do nothing, and stay with my D810 Nikon DSLR and current lenses. No question this is a good choice as this kit produces excellent results. There is also hope that Tamron will do some sort of fix soon as well.

Buy the Z7 and sell my four Tamron lenses, replacing them with a mix of Nikon and Sigma lenses. With the loss on the selling, and buying, plus the Z7 kit costs, this would be an expensive proposition.

Sell all my Nikon kit, move to the Sony A7R III, and buy a very select collection of native lenses. Of my 15 lens Nikon kit, I would probably only re-buy 7 of them. The rest are just not used enough to justify. This would be my least expensive path to mirrorless. As much as I love the Nikon Z7 body and ergonomics, feature and capability wise, the Sony is a bit ahead of the Z7. At the moment I am leaning this way because I really like the mirrorless shooting experience.

Tough choices, that will take a little time to resolve.

I am very jealous of those of you who are getting the Z7. I wish I were one of you. But, this is a first World kind of problem to have. None of these are bad choices.

I hope the test results I posted will be of use to some on this thread. I will continue to follow the Z7 threads with great interest, but will not have much to contribute unless I get one.

Good luck to all!!!!

Steve




Edited on Sep 28, 2018 at 10:52 PM · View previous versions



Sep 28, 2018 at 10:41 PM
J.Marcus Photo
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p.11 #2 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


The z7 was fun today... it’s definitely not as great at tracking as the D850 , I missed 6 of 8 shots with subject walking towards me using face detect. I set the af speed to fast and the tracking to fast. Not sure what else to try.
It is amazing for non moving portraits though.



Sep 28, 2018 at 10:41 PM
charles.K
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p.11 #3 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


I have a dilemma. I have been offered a great price for the D850 and do I go alone with the Z7 for now with the FTZ adapter. In the past I have found the longer you wait the less you get so this maybe a good opportunity. My gut feeling is the Z7 will more than suit for my style of photography


Sep 28, 2018 at 10:55 PM
nuclearjock
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p.11 #4 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


charles.K wrote:
I have a dilemma. I have been offered a great price for the D850 and do I go alone with the Z7 for now with the FTZ adapter. In the past I have found the longer you wait the less you get so this maybe a good opportunity. My gut feeling is the Z7 will more than suit for my style of photography


You'll be sorry.



Sep 28, 2018 at 11:05 PM
whoiscliffwang
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p.11 #5 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


My Z7 kit + FTZ shipped today from Allens Camera.. NPS order.

I think they said they had a couple in stock when I spoke with them late this afternoon.. Just a heads up.



Sep 29, 2018 at 12:04 AM
davewolfs
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p.11 #6 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


You seem to enjoy your D850 a lot. Z7 still risky IMHO.

Looking forward to your feedback on it.

charles.K wrote:
I have a dilemma. I have been offered a great price for the D850 and do I go alone with the Z7 for now with the FTZ adapter. In the past I have found the longer you wait the less you get so this maybe a good opportunity. My gut feeling is the Z7 will more than suit for my style of photography




Sep 29, 2018 at 12:17 AM
zhangyue
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p.11 #7 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


I have Z7 now, only a few hours. But I am an experienced Nikon user so setup is straight forward. I’d say it doesn’t beat my expectation. It handle actually very similar to A7RII I had, with a little better hold-ability for sure, at least my pinky is on the grip. but back side is almost like a Sony clone. This is a disappointing actually to me. I wish they can make it slightly taller with slightly better button feel, but I guess I should have know that based on available information before.

The control is still Nikon. Nikon user will feel right home though all different AF option again remind me of Sony. Not a compliment. Please disregard what I said if you like Sony’s implementation. I understand perfectly but I want to be honest to myself.

Top screen is right home for Nikon user. i button is very useful to access landscape setting quick such as exposure delay, EFC, silent shutter, multiple exposure, bracket etc alone with image format, raw size.

Viewfinder is way better than A7RII I had, not only better resolution and clarity but also Flickr free somehow. In the afternoon, under good harsh light, I hit focus 100% with 55mm OTUS use VF when subject was within 3M.

However, I could not found set effect on or off (Sony has it) anywhere so you can only mess up with viewing experience if you want exposure differently under high DR situation. The button on side of viewfinder is super useful. I set it monitor only and VF priority and disable all rest function choice. I am right home here just like shooting SLR. Sony’s poor implementation drive me crazy in field. I don’t know how Sony behave now.

I can’t make “in focus indicator” work with manual lens like leitaxed Leica R or ZF.2 OTUS as well. The confirmation dot seems works for all my G and E and native S glass works fine AND ONLY FINE in AF-s, single point AF. I don’t understand the logic that is not usable for manual glass but AF glass here though. I hope this is just firmware glitch. Otherwise, this could be a deal breaker. Confirmation accuracy is no better than D850. I can’t tell if it is worse though, need more careful setup, but definitely no better so I believe it is PDAF only.

The 24-70S lens is a great performer. I did the aperture series test with 24-70g but haven’t go through the images yet. Based on viewing in LCD, it beat 24-70g hand down. And it’s manual focus have better accuracy than G lens actually.

I haven’t test AFC myself, it will be difficult test I know. I personally don’t really care it’s AFC performance but AFS seems super fast and accurate. For landscape it did as good as I carefully 200% zoom manual focus if not better. Focus behavior is wider than F5.6, it focus at shooting aperture, after that it focus at f5.6. I prefer SLR type focus and think this is decent implementation for landscape shots that I can still select my DOF by focusing at f5.6 shoot at f11.

Handling wise, there is no comparison, D850 won hand down at least for me, I don’t get it to replace my D850 but as a light high performance travel kit or digital back for my other manual glass and as a back up for D850.

The real selling point of Z is small size , best FF IQ, and video and really high performance glass. Don’t forget EVF abased shooting if you like that. The lens really set the tone for this system. Don’t know other brand but based on what I see with 24-70, this is indeed in another level of performance. This is a promising Mount.

Overall, it meet my personal expectation for what I use it for, but I will only give it a B to B plus if D850 is a solid A IMHO.

Please don't feel offended if I use Sony as a reference, I might have strong personal bias over SLR type shooting and Sony is the only EVF based camera I used. I have to say, other than Nikon UI, the overall experience between Z and A will be very similar. I wish Nikon can do some out of box thinking. They indeed make a 70~80%
Sony clone with their sauce, that is can be good for some and bad for others.

Not a rave review for sure, but a few road trip may totally change the tone

Edited on Sep 29, 2018 at 01:16 AM · View previous versions



Sep 29, 2018 at 12:42 AM
rico
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p.11 #8 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


Thanks, Michael, for an excellent report. How do you find cold boot time (from battery insert), and from warm start up? I'm interested in control responsiveness, and whether "shooting priority" works as with any DSLR (an alien concept on Sony Alpha 7).


Sep 29, 2018 at 01:11 AM
rico
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p.11 #9 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


charles.K wrote:
I have a dilemma. I have been offered a great price for the D850 and do I go alone with the Z7 for now with the FTZ adapter. In the past I have found the longer you wait the less you get so this maybe a good opportunity. My gut feeling is the Z7 will more than suit for my style of photography

Nothing is worth dumping the D850.



Sep 29, 2018 at 01:14 AM
zhangyue
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p.11 #10 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


rico wrote:
Thanks, Michael, for an excellent report. How do you find cold boot time (from battery insert), and from warm start up? I'm interested in control responsiveness, and whether "shooting priority" works as with any DSLR (an alien concept on Sony Alpha 7).


I don't feel there is difference between cold or warm start up. either way, you can hear the wake up, it definitely take longer than any Nikon SLR users use to but seems slightly faster than other MILC I used before.

One more annoy thing is during LV shooting, if you manual focus, the camera seems unaware of your action during focusing, it will go to sleep. Hope firmware can solve it.



Sep 29, 2018 at 01:21 AM
sunilthakkar
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p.11 #11 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


I tried out the z7 and the z6 at the local demo session for photographers in Mumbai... The cameras are great... very comfortable to hold and focus is fast. I was amazed at the sharpness of the 35mm lens at 1.8 even towards the edges... face detection works great too with the focus on the eyes... however low light autofocus was a bit slow... this is expected I guess from a mirrorless.

The evf is amazing and the controls while looking into it very easy to reach and change... if you are used to Nikon DSLRs it’s very smooth to just pick up the camera and shoot.

One big disappointment was that the FTZ adapter didn’t work with my Tamron 35mm f/1.8 VC lens... I suspect it might not work with Tamron in general as other online reports have suggested. I use the Tamron 15-35 f/2.8 a lot and it probably won’t work. The lenses do work in manual focus, but when autofocus is on it makes weird sounds... a bit scary to try it as it sounds like the motors are not turning and are stuck...

The camera worked well with the Nikon AF-S lenses that I had with me... but I still feel the z mount lenses are really special and in the long run using them on the system will be the most ideal thing to do... the mount is an interim solution. However it’s also important to note that the mount doesn’t add too much bulk as I thought it would with the images I saw online. It’s solid but light weight and it’s comfortable to hold the camera when mounted.

One great advantage for video is that the lens control ring has a stepping motor so if you set it to control aperture for example it’s seamless (stepless) smooth transitions that you get. Great plus for video... also if you use face detect in video it’s so easy to jump from one face to another...



Sep 29, 2018 at 01:28 AM
suteetat
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p.11 #12 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


charles.K wrote:
Yes I was surprised too Lr is on subscription so it is the latest version. Just the profiles you need to adjust to suit. I also have C1 Pro which for volume work I find slows me down and not as intuitive. The latest version of Lr is very different compared to 2 or 3 versions before. The sharpening is set at a different default and the color profiles for Adobe Color are excellent for most images. For Nikon NEF images the latest version of Lr is great! Whereas for Fuji XTrans files I needed intermediary process steps.

If you
...Show more

There was a big update in LR, PS, ACR, about 3 nights about 5 nights ago. I assume that all the Z7 supports came out at that time. PS supports Z7 NEF now as well.
I really like C1 default color output very much but got annoyed that I bought a version for Sony A7r and suddenly one day, it stopped working and I had to buy a new version according to C1 even though at the time I did not upgrade a camera or anything else. Also C1 did not support GFX which was annoying as I could not then use one program for all my cameras so I stopped looking C1 for now.
May be when it supports all the cameras that I have, I will look at it again.




Sep 29, 2018 at 01:52 AM
suteetat
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p.11 #13 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


charles.K wrote:
I have a dilemma. I have been offered a great price for the D850 and do I go alone with the Z7 for now with the FTZ adapter. In the past I have found the longer you wait the less you get so this maybe a good opportunity. My gut feeling is the Z7 will more than suit for my style of photography


I would be very nervous about getting rid off my D850 at the moment but then I do some wild life as well.
For street, travel, landscape, I could see Z7 doing the majority of my photography already though.
But if I need tracking for anything, D850 would be my go to camera rather than Z7 for now.




Sep 29, 2018 at 01:55 AM
suteetat
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p.11 #14 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


For all the manual focus lens user, Novoflex already have a whole bunch of adapters listed on their website for Z mount already.

https://www.novoflex.de/en/products-637/lens-adapters//adapterfinder-products/camera/nikon-z-mirrorless.html

bummer, I am leaving for France early next week so I could not order M to Z mount adapter in time. Does anyone know if Paris, Geneva or Vienna might have a
camera stores that usually stock this sort of things?



Sep 29, 2018 at 01:58 AM
charles.K
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p.11 #15 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


rico wrote:
Nothing is worth dumping the D850.


I have decided to keep the D850 for now



Sep 29, 2018 at 02:10 AM
charles.K
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p.11 #16 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


suteetat wrote:
I would be very nervous about getting rid off my D850 at the moment but then I do some wild life as well.
For street, travel, landscape, I could see Z7 doing the majority of my photography already though.
But if I need tracking for anything, D850 would be my go to camera rather than Z7 for now.



Yes I do agree for tracking and fast dynamic AF the D850 is superb. I have decided to keep the D850 for now as it is still early days. It is a difficult decision when you are offered an excellent price for the D850.



Sep 29, 2018 at 02:17 AM
charles.K
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p.11 #17 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


zhangyue wrote:
I have Z7 now, only a few hours. But I am an experienced Nikon user so setup is straight forward. I’d say it doesn’t beat my expectation. It handle actually very similar to A7RII I had, with a little better hold-ability for sure, at least my pinky is on the grip. but back side is almost like a Sony clone. This is a disappointing actually to me. I wish they can make it slightly taller with slightly better button feel, but I guess I should have know that based on available information before.

The control is still Nikon. Nikon user
...Show more

Excellent review Michael I agree the Z7 is complementary to the D850 and for this reason I will keep my D850. Both have their strengths and should be viewed appropriately.



Sep 29, 2018 at 02:26 AM
zhangyue
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p.11 #18 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion



You made right choice. It is not about IQ or regular shooting that D850 can do Z7 can’t. (At least based on what I know your shooting style, Z7 might do.) it is all about overall shooting experience, viewing, control and handling.

Only a day with Z7 with those R and ZF, I already miss D850. I hope once Leica M adapter available and after Nikon fix focus confirmation for manual lens, I will like Z7 more for those small RF glass.

BTW, 28E is superb on Z7, so sharp. This is the best Nikon glass I ever used.
charles.K wrote:
Excellent review Michael I agree the Z7 is complementary to the D850 and for this reason I will keep my D850. Both have their strengths and should be viewed appropriately.




Sep 29, 2018 at 02:39 AM
charles.K
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p.11 #19 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


suteetat wrote:
There was a big update in LR, PS, ACR, about 3 nights about 5 nights ago. I assume that all the Z7 supports came out at that time. PS supports Z7 NEF now as well.
I really like C1 default color output very much but got annoyed that I bought a version for Sony A7r and suddenly one day, it stopped working and I had to buy a new version according to C1 even though at the time I did not upgrade a camera or anything else. Also C1 did not support GFX which was annoying as I could not then
...Show more

Yes, the latest Lr does support the Z7 RAW but it does require to select a profile when you first open the image. Also check the sharpening and noise reduction sections as they are non standard.



Edited on Sep 29, 2018 at 03:39 AM · View previous versions



Sep 29, 2018 at 02:42 AM
charles.K
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p.11 #20 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion


Thanks Michael

I did have my D850 last night when I was putting the Z7 through its paces. I tested all the lenses possible, the 35/1.8s and 24-40/4s both superb. I also tested my travel trio, 28E, 105E and 58G and they worked seamlessly with the Z7 with the FTZ adapter.

What I did find was when I picked up my hand the Z7 and 28E/FTZ adapter and D850 and 28E, I preferred the feel of the D850 combo in hand. This may just be that I am very accustomed to using the D850/28E combo now.

The Z7 will make for a superb travel combo. I can see Marisa taking my Z7 from me

zhangyue wrote:
You made right choice. It is not about IQ or regular shooting that D850 can do Z7 can’t. (At least based on what I know your shooting style, Z7 might do.) it is all about overall shooting experience, viewing, control and handling.

Only a day with Z7 with those R and ZF, I already miss D850. I hope once Leica M adapter available and after Nikon fix focus confirmation for manual lens, I will like Z7 more for those small RF glass.

BTW, 28E is superb on Z7, so sharp. This is the best Nikon glass I ever used.






Sep 29, 2018 at 02:53 AM
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