The new Nikon Z6 and Z7 mirrorless cameras

Elja Trum wrote on Thursday 23 August 2018 at 20:02  | reply

Indeed smart to wait for the real reviews for a little while longer, but perhaps you can already start warming up the financial director...

Elja Trum wrote on Friday 24 August 2018 at 08:41  | reply

@Erik; Yes, a good point. The battery life does indeed seem to be 330 shots. That's on the low side, somewhat comparable to Sony's previous a7 models.

Not really a problem in itself, as long as you always have two extra charged batteries with you.

These currently seem to be the two main drawbacks of the system: limited battery life and the lack of a second memory card slot.

@Rick; Thanks, I corrected the mistake.

@Mac; The lenses that have been released now do seem somewhat more compact to me. But it's a bit difficult to compare without also looking at quality. Nikon says the quality is better and seems to achieve that with smaller lenses.

The 24-70 f/4 is, for example, much smaller than Sony's 24-70 f/4. But if that smaller size results in poorer performance, photographers won't quickly see it as an advantage.

I do expect that you will get at least the same quality you're used to in a much more compact body/lens combination. There were also some photographers walking around at the event with (professional) Nikons and those things really looked enormous compared to the Nikon Z-series models.

Elja Trum wrote on Friday 24 August 2018 at 10:02  | reply

@Mac; Handy site for a comparison indeed!
Still, the difference feels bigger in practice than it appears here at the moment. I would especially recommend experiencing it in practice in the store (or perhaps at the Photokina fair beforehand).

But, as you can also see in the photo in the article, a Sony a7 is clearly still a lot more compact, especially if you put a compact lens on it (Sony also has large lenses for the E-mount).

Elja Trum wrote on Tuesday 28 August 2018 at 13:02  | reply

@Beno; The main advantage in my view is that you can see exactly what the photo will look like directly through the viewfinder. At least, usually. Only in exceptional cases (such as long shutter speeds and flash photography) not.

This removes a step that can currently take a lot of time. With a DSLR, you take the photo, briefly check on the display whether it turned out well and possibly adjust settings to achieve the desired effect.

With an electronic viewfinder, before taking the photo you can see exactly the image you are going to get: the depth of field you have set and the exposure.

This helps you -in my opinion- enormously to photograph more creatively. You have direct feedback about the camera settings, meaning you also have to spend much less time thinking about them. That gives you time to pay more attention to your composition and, for example, interaction with your subject.

Elja Trum wrote on Wednesday 29 August 2018 at 09:18  | reply

@Peter; If it's (still) not for you, then that's of course completely fine too. It's also not the case that something is suddenly wrong with a DSLR now.

The mirrorless camera has, however, now matured and there are virtually no practical reasons left why you would still choose a DSLR over a mirrorless camera.

I would even say that the tipping point has been reached and that a mirrorless camera now offers more advantages than a DSLR. That doesn't make the DSLR worse, but it does make the mirrorless camera an interesting option.

Every mirrorless camera has an option that allows you to use it perfectly well in a studio. You then no longer see the real-time image you would get with the selected camera settings, but simply a 'general' image. Assign this setting to a function button and you can switch effortlessly to the studio setup.

24 megapixels is fine, until you've worked with 47 megapixels for a few weeks. When you go back, you soon miss details when post-processing. Editing a photo is simply more enjoyable when you have more image information.

@Eric; Nikon has not yet released a direct 'Sony killer', at least. If you have Sony now, then there is no reason at all to switch. If you currently have everything from Nikon, then I think the Z6 and Z7 are more interesting options than switching to Sony now. The specs differ minimally in that respect.

In practice, the Z6's battery also turns out to last for 750 photos, for example.

Elja Trum wrote on Wednesday 29 August 2018 at 15:11  | reply

@Michel; Good question. I haven't seen the answer to that anywhere yet either. But there will surely be people who are going to try that in the short term.

@Guy; Perhaps this article about the advantages of a full-frame camera will be of some use to you.