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 Re: The new Nikon Z8 vs the Sony A7RV and potential A9III | |
TT1000 wrote:
Yep, except what will be a 3+ year old camera design that doesn’t get firmware updates is not the camera I want.  I want what Nikon now offers. All of its latest tech in its latest camera for $4,000.  The now 2+ year old Sony “flagship” camera doesn’t even have all the AF and other improvements in its current “lower model” R5, and which by the time the A1M2 is released may be at the Z8 price point but 3-4 years old tech.
Why is it controversial on this board to acknowledge that Nikon knocked it out of the ballpark with the Z8 and Sony has nothing close to competing at a similar price point?
I am not sure what latest tech the Z9/8 have that the A1 doesn't. Certainly it is not hardware. I would like to see you enumerate some since you say it exists. I will take a shot at this at the bottom of this post.
The new AI driven AF like in the A7RV that you are talking about is hardware enabled, not firmware. So that innovation will not make it into the current A1 no matter what Sony's update policy is. It will also never make it into the Z8/9 because although just released, they also lack the required hardware. Understand also that the AI in this new hardware draws heavily from work Sony has done in advanced gaming platforms, motion research for military and automobile products, and its huge World leading work in smartphone imaging technology. These are areas that Nikon has no real presence in so will not ever be able to leverage into their cameras unless they are able to license it from somewhere else. Interestingly the most likely place for this is actually Sony.
But let's look at this from a perspective that is more to the point of what you want. The 21/2 year old A1 technology is still the benchmark that all the other brands are being compared to. It is still competitive in all areas of AF and speed. In fact, many (most?) reviewers still give the A1 the edge in AF over the Z9/Z8. As far as speed goes the A1 does 30fps, while the Z8/9 only does 20 fps. We can go on but the salient point is that the Sony A1 technology is at least on parity with the Z8/9 technology on pretty much every metric I can think of. I honestly don't think any Nikon firmware updates will significantly change this. But hey, that is unknow future stuff, and anything is possible.
It should also be noted that the Z8/Z9 also lack the hardware to compete with the AI based AF in the A7RV in the same way as the A1. The Z8 is based directly hardware wise entirely on the 11/2 year old Z9. There are some downgrades as far as heat management, batteries, and things like that go. It seems to me that although the Z8 is just being released, technology and performance wise it is not ahead of the A1. With such parity, if priced closely to each other they would represent a similar value. This is not likely to change.
The elephant in the room is that currently the A1 and Z8 are not priced closely at list price. They are much closer at street price, and in some markets about the same. I was able to buy my US model A1 new from a store at about the same price as the Z8. That was 2 1/2 years ago as well. It don't think it is controversial to say that Nikon has hit it out of the park with the Z8 and its pricing. It is a fantastic camera, that at current list market pricing I feel represent the best value in a high performance FF camera available. No hesitation in saying that at all. That being said, we are only talking about a body in that analysis. Depending on photographic genre, and lenses needed, the calculations regarding a full system are more complicated. The best value in a system might be different from individual to individual.
So back to your first statement, what latest tech in the Z8 is missing from the A1.
It is not in AF., showing up most in acquisition speed, work flow, and tracking effectiveness.
It is not in FPS speed 30 vs 20
It is not in EVF, the A1 has much higher resolution,
It is not in card technology (price yes). In fact if you want to back up images to a second card on Z8 you limit the speed, and buffer of the Z8 drastically. At full performance the Z8 is a single card camera. Not so in the A1.
It is not in configurability. A1 leads by a lot here
It is not in battery life. A1 has close to 50% more battery life.
It is not in Image quality (parity here)
It is not in flexibility to handle all lighting conditions, and strobe work. No mechanical shutter on Z8 ensures that won't get fixed. Both A1, and Z8 have dust protection shutters, and equal electronic shutters.
The Z8 does have a more flexible rear screen mechanism
The Z8 does have more video features.
So what feature that Sony could upgrade would make a big technology difference in the A1. From my perspective there are a couple of convivence items that would be nice to have. But no core technology items are missing.
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