JPuckettPhoto
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Received my Z6III last week, thought I'd write up some impressions. I've had a Z6 since launch and am just a hobbyist, so I'm not an expert and don't take thousands upon thousands of photos. Here lately I've almost exclusively been using my camera to shoot youth soccer, specifically my daughters' teams. This past weekend saw my two daughters play a total of 5 games, I ended up taking over 500+ total photos at 3 of them and came away with over 150 shots that I kept.
First impressions of holding the body, while it's not much bigger than the Z6, I actually was surprised that it was slightly noticeable. It feels more substantial in the hand, but not terribly so. I can tell it's bigger (even before attaching the cage), but that's fine with me since I'm a bigger/taller guy with what I assume are larger hands. I'm the type of person whose pinky finger hangs off the bottom of the grip of the Z6 (and the Z6III). I have a Smallrig L-bracket on the Z6, which I really appreciated for ergonomics, so I also ordered the Smallrig "night eagle" cage for the Z6III for the same purpose (the added height is much more comfortable for me and gives my pinky somewhere to rest).
Continuing with the ergonomics, one thing I found odd is that all of a sudden, the palm of my right hand keeps inadvertently pushing the playback button as well as the right-side of the circle, causing my focal point to move off to the right. I don't recall ever having a problem with this on the Z6. Comparing the two, it does feel like the controls of the Z6III are a bit more far to the right than the Z6, but I didn't break out the digital caliper to confirm. I got better with my grip as the weekend wore on and I'm not sure I accidentally hit any buttons by the 3rd game. It also could be attributed to the cage I'm using, since it adds a bit of girth to the grip, unlike the L-bracket I used previously, so my palm may be rotated around more than what it used to be.
And speaking of the playback button, we all know it was moved to the lower-right...I think I really like it there and I took to the movement quickly. When using my 180-600, I had to map the lens button to be playback so I could spot-check images, otherwise I had to let that heavy lens hang off the body. Going into playback with my right hand is easier/safer and I can repurpose that lens button for something else now. One thing I did find odd, though, is that on my Z6, the lens button would take me into and out of playback, but on the Z6III, it only takes me into playback but won't take me back out.
Random other thoughts....I think the swivel screen is a good addition, I like being able to close it for storage/transport. I feel like it's more versatile than the tilt-only screen on the Z6. I've read a lot of hate for it but for my use-case, it's fine. The EVF upgrade was immediately noticeable, and I love it. I've even left the brightness on auto and every time I'd look through the EVF, especially at those sunny soccer games, it was great to immediately be reminded of the new tech. Is it worth upgrading the entire body for? Of course not, but it's nice to have for sure.
As stated, I shot 3 youth soccer games over the weekend. I'm not much of a burst shooter (dipping my toes into it, though), so the vast majority of these are single shots, which is fine with players at these age ranges. I always had my Z6 set to a 5-minute sleep timer because it was so slow to wake up, so that's what I've set my Z6III to. With that said, with one fully charged battery, I was able to shoot two games. In total about 350 shots, with the camera staying on and hanging around my neck for a lot of that. I also preview photos from time to time to verify exposure, especially with one game where it was early morning and the sun topped the tree line at halftime, so had to adjust some settings. So one battery got down to the last bar; took 350'ish shots, body powered on for what I'll guess was about 60-90 minutes total.
As far as image quality, it looks the same as my Z6. I don't pixel peep, what I see is what I see. I don't think I'd be able to tell a difference between the two in a blind test. Although, during the early morning frost game, I did have to shoot at ISO 3200 and was really pleased with the lack of discernable noise at normal viewing. I didn't compare directly to the Z6 but the Z6III image looked more clear than what I would've expected before. Hard to compare without having both bodies present, though. All shots taken over the weekend were with the 180-600 and the camera handled very well.
Regarding the auto-focus capabilities, which I know is a big point for this body, I have to admit that I never really had much trouble with the AF on the Z6. For youth soccer, I'd use AF-C and Wide-L and it always just worked for me. Again, we're talking U10 and U12 soccer here, so not the fastest athletes out there, but these settings worked well enough to where most of my AF misses were due to other players in the way or due to my own lack of quickness getting focus. With the Z6III, I'm using the same settings, but have decided to throw in subject detection (set specifically to people, not auto), which I used the entire weekend. I'm honestly not sure it really helped all that much, but it is soccer and lots of movement. I was impressed with its ability to continue tracking a person constantly changing direction though, seeing their eye, then the back of their head, then their eye again and they got spun around. These are all shots I felt I would be getting anyway. What I really need to do, though, is start testing the 3d-tracking during games, maybe next week.
All in all, I'm super happy with the new body. I look forward to using the Z6III for the next few years.
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