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 p.18 #6 · Official Z Series Camera and Lens Discussion | |
Excuse me, but I may sound a little too enthusiastic, the Z7 is way better than I had ever anticipated and yes, I love it.
I am a birder but love landscapes, street-scapes city-scapes and general travel photography etc. Thus my camera was for use that covered all these genres and why I have the D850 as it is an amazing camera that does pretty much everything and is without peer. I love it. However, as a kit, it is big and heavy and cumbersome when you go on holidays or just want to take it out for some non birding shots.
A bit of back ground so you know where I am coming from and why I really like the Z7. I came from Pentax DSLR's (APS C) and loved their small size, great ergonomics and excellent build quality and their legacy lenses were superb. I swapped to Nikon in 2010 when I got fed up with Pentax's poor QC and they didn't look like they were going forward. They had superb glass back in the day, some of the best you could get from the manual focus era and even their first forays into AF were also excellent. They dropped the ball due to lack of backing and were subsequently bought out by Ricoh and have not really done any decent glass since. Such a pity, Pentax were once a great company with great glass, some of the best.
The move to the Nikon D700 was a revelation as far as high ISO and professional specs, a fantastic camera, but it was bigger as was the glass etc. However, the ease of use and pro specs made for a great system and I have been supremely happy with the Nikon system ever since, but it was all big and expensive. I then got into birding and this is what really drove my purchases and all this equipment was even bigger and needed to be big in order to be able to successfully mount the large lenses. Small cameras and big lenses are not always the best of bed fellows! Over the last year or so, I have been thinking of a smaller kit for my other photography but didn't want to swap systems due to cost and also there really is no equal to Nikon as far as long glass and the system as a whole. Yes there is Canon, but they really didn't have a complementary small system - no mirrorless either. I also don't like Canon ergonomics, menu and UI and Nikon are the class leaders as far as sensors in DSLRs.
I thought about Fuji and almost bought a kit a few months ago for my travelling but then Nikon announced their Z6/7 which made me wait. Not only that, Fuji meant two different systems, more expensive glass to be purchased and the inevitable issue with trying to use two different systems with different menus, ergonomics, button placements etc. I was therefore hoping that the new Nikon mirrorless would be the answer. The big question, how was it going to work with the F mount lenses, how was the EVF (which I am not - sorry, was not, a fan of) and all the other mirrorless drawbacks.
Then I try the Z7 and it reminds me of the Pentax small DSLR's. Small, light but built like brick sh!thouses. This is where I am coming from. A smallish, lightweight camera that can take the superb Nikon glass. In future, the superb Nikon Z mount glass. The D850 is a superb camera, but it is big and the glass is big and you are never discreet carrying that stuff around but you did because the results can be superb. This is the price we pay for our hobby/profession.
First of all, I was very pessimistic about the Z7, mostly about how well the AF would work and especially with the F mount lenses. Well, all I can say is that my concerns were completely unfounded. They all work magnificently. Admittedly, I have had little time to really evaluate them all and with all focusing modes, but so far they seem to work very well. With AF-C and the Single Point AF, it will focus as fast or near to it as the D850 and that is with both the 24-70 f4s and my F mount lenses. I have no delusions as to whether it can track like the D850 as I am sure it won't but I never expected it to and unless I want it to do sports, birding etc I don't need it to. The D850 is just silly good in that respect, but for pretty much all other photography use, the Z7 will be more than adequate. With the little I have been able to do, the 24-70 f2.8E VR, the 70-200 f2.8E FL VR, the 500 f5.6 PF, the 400 f2.8E FL VR are all very, very quick to focus, dare I say as fast as the D850 possibly, certainly no less than the D810 which was more than adequate. The 105 f1.4E is slower but it is slow on the D850 as well. Accuracy is also spot on.
The thing is, the way the AF works will be a huge learning curve for *everyone* as we are all used to DSLR's and phase detect, the new system is different and requires different algorithms and operation which we will all have to come to terms with. We will probably need to reprogram ourselves to get the best out of the way it will need to be set up in order to get the best from it.
Secondly, the EVF is superb. Again, so much better than I was expecting. There is basically no lag, it is clean, clear and BIG with lots of info. Whatever issues that I was scared of with an EVF is now not an issue. Yes, the OVF is still better, but not by much and there are definite advantages to an EVF. If they had been this good from the start, I would never have been concerned. I don't know how Nikon did it, but it is a great EVF, Nikon have done an amazing job here. On card slot is a complete non issue for me, I never used back up anyway and only used the second card slot as overflow and having a 64Gb XQD card it had never filled up anyway!
Button placement is different, yes, but it is still all decidedly Nikon in feel, look and operation. No issue getting used to it. Menus are basically exactly the same and thus you can set it up easily. The 24-70 f4s seems excellent, sharp and well made. Minimum focus is about 300mm and thus you can get very close. As I said, I haven't really had it long enough to make a complete valued judgement and I have only taken about 30 photos all up, mainly just checking AF and close focus etc, no "real" photos as such. It has been raining here in Sydney for the last 3 days and I haven't been able to get out. Not only that, I just returned from China on Wednesday, picked it up Wednesday afternoon and then had to go to work Thursday and Friday to catch up on my work and to top it off, I have picked up some sort of minor stomach bug! Just enough to think twice about going out.
So, it may sound like I am very enthusiastic and you'd be right. I love this little camera and for my use it seems as though it will fulfill it's intended purpose. In other words, it will do pretty much everything I want it for other than my birding, but I am going to give that a go as well! The Z7 is an adjunct to, not a replacement of the brilliant D850.
The only caveat is that I have not really used it long enough to evaluate everything. This will take time, but so far I think it is a gem of a camera.
Edited on Oct 06, 2018 at 10:03 PM · View previous versions
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