nhmorgan
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I can speak to this a little. I bought a z8 at launch and sold it for 3k a few months ago when I picked up a Z9. There is a lot I prefer about the Z9, the two CF cards, GPS (minor but nice), and most of all the battery life. With the Z9, I don't ever have to worry about battery. For example, I shot an event a couple of weeks ago that was a trail ultramarathon from 7am until 6pm and about 8k shots before culling. I never once had to think about putting in the backup battery. I also love the security of shooting two CF cards at once and never worrying about a bottleneck or losing shots if one goes bad. I never had to put in new cards either.
However, the size and weight of the Z9 is just too much, especially when I have to hike to a lot of the places I shoot these days as I do more trail events. I just repurchased a Z8 and plan to sell the Z9 as I can't justify both. The Z8 performs as well as the Z9 in every regard. The downsides are the SD card backup, the stupid card door that doesn't lock an pops open all the time, the missing extra function buttons, and the battery life, which in my experience, sucks. But that form factor is big. I'm flying to an event this weekend and the z9 is just too big and heavy to be convenient for my needs. The Z8 does a lot for it's form factor, but even then, I miss the size of my old a1, which was such a powerhouse for the size. For my needs, I just much prefer to have 95% of the z9 in the smaller z8. I also don't miss the vertical grip as these days I find myself shooting from the LCD screen, because that works much better for low angles, which I never thought I would have 2-3 years ago. For LCD shooting, even for portrait orientations, I prefer the standard grip. For landscape orientation, the vertical grip being on the bottom of the Z9 sometimes prevents being able to get the right angle from the ground. I will deal with having to carry a few extra batteries. They are quick to change out (much faster than when we had to change rolls of film!).
I do think there is some truth to the recalls hurting sales, but I wouldn't hesitate to buy a used z8 that had been subject to recall, in some ways its a benefit if done recently because Nikon also did a CLA with those when they fixed them, but the recalls definitely hurt the perception of those cameras. The recalls were a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things. That's really minor compared to the number of A1s you hear about having motherboard failures. The initial batch of Z9s had a more significant issue that Nikon addressed more quietly with many of them needing the sensor shield replaced because they would get a "press shutter to release error" during shooting.
The fact is that bodies are a poor investment these days because they all depreciate so much faster than they used to. The youtube review culture has created an arms races for what are in reality minor upgrades. Truth is that if someone told me that I could only shoot with a z7 (which are now under 1k used) for the rest of my days, I could take almost all of the shots I can now with one and be just fine. This is true for all platforms, not just Nikon. Even lenses are depreciating more. You can buy 50mm 1.2s all day for around $1400-$1500 or 70-200 2.8s for $1750. I've even seen 14-24 2.8s going for as low as $1350.
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