This image is not from a Nikon z7. It's from a Lumix S1.
As hard as it might be to believe, I have a friend who is just a few years younger than me who has been in the photography business for a few years longer than me (darn; I spent too much time teaching and in advertising!!!) and who probably buys equipment more frequently and more dramatically than me. I know, after the recent purge that must be hard for sane people to even comprehend...
He's been through more high-end systems than I have at this point having shot professionally with medium format Hasselblad and Leica systems; sometimes even overlapping them. He was an early adopter of the Leica SL system and he's been through most of the Canon and Nikon catalogs. But spend as he might his income from his work keeps surging ahead of his expenses. I tell him that it's not fair, he never had a kid to put through college. He laughs and says that everyone has to live with their choices.
We've known each other for decades and have done some travel assignments together. He might be a bit obsessive about gear but he's a great guy. And a brilliant photographer. When we're both in town we usually meet up for coffee or lunch once or twice a month, a bit more during the holidays. And we're always comparing notes about the state of the health of the professional photography business.
We met for coffee yesterday at Trianon Coffee House which is just around the corner from my stately office. Usually we bring along some interesting new acquisition to share. I figured it was my turn to have the latest and greatest so I brought my Lumix S1R and the 50mm Pro S lens. I showed it off and we talked about the potential of the system, etc. Then he reached into his charcoal grey camera bag and pulled out a smaller and lighter body. It was a Nikon z7, a camera I'd more or less overlooked.
And when I write, "overlooked" what I really mean is that as I got more and more into the Lumix S system I developed more and more tunnel vision. It's a defensive mechanism most people develop when they are in the late stages of decision making. It keeps them from constantly reviewing potential choices in a wider category before finally being overwhelmed by choice and delaying making a decision, or giving up deciding altogether.
He handed the z7 to me, equipped with a new Nikon 50mm f1.8 and I was....impressed. It's half the weight of the S1 and smaller to boot, but it has a nice handgrip and feels very good to hold on to. I like the basic body design very much. I clicked on the power switch and focused on a nearby cup of coffee with the lens set to its widest aperture.
The click of the shutter was aurally beautiful with none of the slappy, tinny, bang-y sound of a mirrored camera. I clicked the shutter a few more times to confirm --- that Nikon finally got the shutter sound and feel just right. The photo (viewing just on the rear screen) was wonderfully smooth and ran from nicely sharp at the point of focus to liquid-y soft as it ran out of focus in the foreground and background. In fact, if the lens were longer and still maintained its look it might be a perfect portrait optic.
While the EVF is not quite as detailed as the one in the S1 it's close enough to be de minimis.
So, what are the main differences between an S1R and a z7? The resolutions are close enough to be meaningless. The z7 would be a much more comfortable (size and weight) all day long street shooting camera. The 50mm 1.8 Nikon lens is about 1/3 (or less) the weight of the Panasonic 50. So, for the most part, where imaging specs are concerned they are on par with each other. But when it comes to comfort the Nikon gets the nod.
The S1 is better for video but the S1R is also equipped with better video specs than the Nikon and two very fast card slots, along with an audio interface unit for professional microphones and a full size HDMI port. But the Nikon is smaller and lighter. (I haven't compared video from the z7!).
If I did not want the higher spec video capabilities, and if one can live with one card slot ( I can) then I think the Nikon might just be the better "fun" all around art camera. But for some reason I'm into the brute force build of the L-mount products. Still, the z7 is much better "in person" than on paper....
Just thought I'd toss a bit of positive non-shade on the Nikon mirrorless stuff. It feels a lot better (menu and operation-wise) than the Sony cameras. But I'm optimistic, some day Sony will hire a haptics engineering team from Pentax or some other traditional camera company and they'll finally catch up and make a nice-to-use camera. They did it once before with the Sony a900 and a850 cameras but they must have early retired the team they must have inherited from their Minolta acquisition.
Now I can't make unequivocal statements about which mirrorless FF camera is the best. I'm split.
Kirk, just for the record, I have shot the Z6 for about a year now and I love it. I now have almost all the S lens including the wonderful 24-70 f2.8. I still have my Fuji system with an XT 3 and way too many lenses. But I am slowing moving back to Nikon. Full disclosure I have shot Nikon as well for 30 plus years and consider myself a Nikon guy. I am only a hobbyist but I spend a lot of time with photography. Happy Thanksgiving Eric
ReplyDeleteI've shot a friends Z7, he loves it and I've rented a Z6 which right now is $1695 at B&H WITH the lens adapter I'd need. I like both cameras very much. The bodies are about the same size as an X-H1 without the grip.
ReplyDeleteThe Nikon Z 50mm is very very good and my friend has tired the 85 1.8 and says it is even better than the 50.
It is stuff to look at
Neil
I've got a buddy who is well know and you would recognize his name if I mentioned it. Does all kinds of Ted talks and is known for his cutting edge documentary work. He used Panasonic for quite awhile but recently got woo'd by Nikon. They gave him both of their top mirrorless cameras and a full compliment of lenses. For Free! He's what they call an ambassador now. Tell you what, he hates the Nikons! Wishes he had his old Panasonics back!
ReplyDeleteSo don't feel bad Kirk. You are not missing anything.
Eric
I picked up a Z6 and a 50 two months ago and really like it. It's nice to have a mirrorless body which feels like a real camera.
ReplyDeletekeep the s1/r, but get a z6 w/ the normal f4 zoom for your walks!
ReplyDeleteI have a Z6 and use it alongside my XT3s. The XT3s are my primary video cameras, but the Z6 is a terrific camera for landscape photography and travel. I also love making time lapse videos. The 24-70 f4 is incredibly sharp as is the 14-30 f4. And the entire package is about the same size as the XT3 with the 16-55 f2.8, and actually somewhat lighter. The grip is about perfect, and because I have large hands I actually use a Smalrig l bracket to give my pinky finger somewhere to hold. With this the ergonomics are about perfect, but still an incredibly light package.
ReplyDeleteI bought a Z7 over a year ago followed by the 35, 50 and 85 S lenses. The 35 easily bested the Sigma Art which I sold as a result, the 50 surplanted an Otus 55. The Otus was a touch better in rendering but it's a pig to haul around and no sharper than the Nikkor. The 85 is lovely but a bit more clinical than the F-mount 105/1.4 which I still have.
ReplyDeleteLastly I added a Zhongyi 50/0.95 for fun. It sure is pretty but not the sharpest out there.
I dumped my A7II kit and full Olympus OMD kit as part of the deal. No regrets and lots of pleasure! ;-)
I did some gig photography lately, and with all the mixed lightning, it's nearly impossible to get the WB right. I see the same in your theather photos, so I'm not alone ...
ReplyDeleteAlso check out the Nikon Z50, the camera with the 16-50 mm kit lens is amazing. It is the best kit lens I have ever encountered.
ReplyDeleteI guess next week Precision Camera will see a happy z7 buyer. 😁
ReplyDeleteActually, No. I am still more interested in the Lumix stuff. I'm attracted to the $1829 open box price at B&H for a second S1r....
ReplyDeleteWhat will you buy?
I must be a moron, but I just invested in a m43 system yet wouldn't want to buy into the Nikon Z system because handsome and beautiful YouTube rock stars tell me Nikon is doomed. I must admit the darn things feel pretty good in the hand though. At least until you start turning things.
ReplyDeleteI love reading your stuff. Keep up the good work.
Your comment about Nikon getting the shutter sound right is a key factor in getting my attention.
ReplyDeleteI have always been sensitive to the sound of shutters ever since I owned a Leica M4. In the SLR world, Nikon and Leica seemed to have the best combination of shutter/mirror sound.
When mirrorless came along I hoped this would precipitate a wave of whisper quiet shutters but alas, it was not to be.
My first mirrorless camera was the Panasonic GX-7 that, while a great camera overall, has a noisy shutter despite covering a small sensor. The Fuji X-H1 was the first mirrorless that made a sound I would pay money for. The S1 also has a delightful sound.
Sadly, I am up to my eyeballs in Canon gear and the 5D series and the new R all have shutters that seem to have been derived from hedge trimmers. They take great pictures but the pleasure that subjective handling, controls and aural effects are missing.
When I stop needing cameras for my income I will spend a month or two just fondling cameras and listening to the sounds they whisper in my ear.
I have had a Nikon Z6 for just under a year now and like it with certain reservations. Having owned and used Nikons since the late 1970s and having had a few of their DSLRs I had high hopes for the system.
ReplyDeleteFor me, and I know my working style is in a minority, I was surprised that they cut a number of corners that could have made it the best system for working with manual lenses. They still make a number of manual focus lenses and of course there are hundreds of thousands of them out in photographers’ hands.
I was impressed with their efforts with their DSLRs to make older lenses usable. And in the mirrorless system they could have made that usability even better, since checking actual focus from the sensor with magnified view allows much more precise focus than any previous system. One can check focus on their DSLRs with live-view, but that is slow and cumbersome enough that I just grab my Sony A7 instead. I need a quick and accurate check and mirrorless is just better than SLR.
So Nikon could have made a system that improved on the Sony by coupling the manual focus lenses to the Z series, but they just didn’t bother. They made it worse instead.
Just like Sony and unlike their DSLRs they leave manual lenses stopped down, and their native lenses are stopped down to 5.6, not that the manual focus on those lenses is usable. Like most electronic focus I have used, you can get close, but never perfect focus manually, and if you let the camera go to sleep, the focus shifts.
And just to make things a little worse, they deactivate the meter read-out in manual exposure mode. The histogram is still there, but the meter read-out is gone. No reason for this, they were just lazy. And while they were at it, they managed to make the image magnification functionality much less usable than the Sony. As a result when I am doing serious work I use my older Sony.
I did keep the Nikon, it’s quick and handy and the 24-70 f4 is better than the Sony equivalent. I will not be buying any more of their S-line lenses, just not what I need. No compact lenses and their manual focus is not reliable enough to use. I may well buy a Nikon to Sony adapter so I can use my compact Zony 35mm f 2.8. I use my 40mm Summicron on the Nikon now and then but for quick work AF is often nice.
So my working setup is still a Sony A7, and a 50mm f 1.4 AIS Nikkor on a tilt adapter, with other manual lenses at the ready.
As a walk-around camera for quick or candid work the Nikon is better. The finder is very nice, though not as nice as a Leica SL. You might like it. But for manual lenses you will still be focussing at shooting aperture and that really is not quite optimum.