We already have the first Nikon Zf camera price drop in the UK:
WEX Photo and Park Cameras:
Currently, in the US, you can only get a small discount for Nikon Zf accessories kits.
30 days with the Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S lens by Bill Ferris – a wildlife/bird photographer in northern Arizona who recently upgraded from a Nikon D500/Nikkor 200-500 combo to a Nikon Z9/Nikkor 800mm PF system:
A coyote and newborn elk calf face off in a northern Arizona meadow on a summer’s day. (Nikon Z9 with 800mm PF at f/6.3, 1/800, ISO 320)
OK, full disclosure…it’s not been exactly 30 days. Federal Express delivered the camera, lens and accessories on May 7. Today’s date is June 10 and my most recent shoot with the new kit was yesterday, June 9. But what’s a couple of days amongst friends?
Before getting into my early impressions, I want to share the backstory on the photography I do and what led me to purchasing this system. I’m a wildlife and bird photographer living in Flagstaff, Arizona. Phoenix and Tucson are farther south in the desert where the high will be about 110 °F (43 °C) today. Flagstaff is on the Colorado Plateau at 7,000 feet (2133 meters) elevation. A typical June day has a high in the mid-eighties.
I’m also a long time Nikon user. Since 2018, I have been shooting with a Nikon D500 and Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E VR. I’m on my second copy of the 200-500. Nikon replaced the first under warranty, due to multiple service trips to repair a failed zoom mechanism.
That combo has served me, well. The D500 has the DX version of the D5’s 20 MP sensor and autofocus system, a 10 fps burst rate, an effectively bottomless buffer, professional build quality and controls. The 200-500 is a consumer zoom lens. It was released in the fall of 2015 as Nikon’s response to the Tamron and Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 zoom lenses that were popular with a growing segment who enjoy nature and wildlife photography.
Being a photographer, I naturally found shortcomings in my gear. The first to emerge was the marginal low-light performance of the kit. With a maximum aperture of f/5.6, the 200-500 was affordable, sharp wide open but challenged in the light-gathering department. Exotic prime and zoom lenses in the same focal length range are all at least a full stop faster. The D500 was equally challenged in that area. It’s APS-C sensor captures one-stop less light than a full-frame body working with the same exposure.
I could navigate around these issues. I worked hard at improving my field craft and getting closer to subjects without being a disturbance to them. The closer you are, the better an animal fills the frame and the more light your camera captures from them. I invested in a quality Benro tripod and gimbal head system. Combined with the 200-500’s excellent vibration reduction (VR), I was able to use shutter speeds as slow as 1/30-second and still freeze the movement of grazing animals in early morning twilight. Wide open at 1/30 is a recipe for sucking as much available light as possible from an early morning scene.
A dew-soaked coyote pauses briefly at the edge of the Grass Flat Tank meadow. (Nikon D500 w/ Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E at 500mm, f/5.6, 1/30, ISO 1600)
Nikon Z6 III sensor readout speed measurements by horshack:
Nikon Z6 III sensor readout speed measurements
My name is Adam and go by “horshack” on dpreview. This year I started a crowd-source project on GitHub for measuring the sensor readout speeds for as many cameras as possible. The methodology involves custom firmware running on an inexpensive Arduino board that flashes its built-in LED at a known frequency, which is then photographed and videoed in each of the camera’s photo and video modes to calculate the readout speed from the number of bands that appear in the captured image. The GitHub repository includes a deep dive into how rolling shutters work, plus instructions and source code you can use to perform your own measurements.
The project’s home page is at:
https://github.com/horshack-dpreview/RollingShutter
The live results page for the project is at:
https://horshack-dpreview.github.io/RollingShutter/
For example, here are the different camera sensor readout speeds combined results (full-sensor, milliseconds):
See Adam’s previous Z6 III videos here or on his YouTube channel:
Nikon 2 (by RC Jenkins)
Occasionally, I bring up a hypothetical system I’d like to see from Nikon.
It won’t happen; but this is more of a thought experiment for a discussion to get the creative juices flowing for people who think creatively and to get the defensive juices flowing for people who don’t. So get ready to pick your side and dig in. Because honestly, who really needs to hear anything at all from anyone else before just arbitrarily picking the side you already wanted to be on anyway? Here we go (again)…
The system is called Nikon 2; and Nikon 2 is the spiritual successor to Nikon 1. If you’re really good at counting, you’ll note that it’s also the numerical successor to Nikon 1. hmmm…what did that “1” stand for again…? Wasn’t it the number of units they sold? Or something like that.
Nikon 2:
So here is one example of a Nikon 2 camera’s specifications:
Why is it so cheap? Not only does it lack a mechanical shutter; but the sensors are far cheaper than either full-frame or APS-C. In just one simple example, suppose they use a 12″ wafer for sensors. They might be able to make 64 full frame sensors from this; but they might be able to make 240 Nikon 2 sensors from the same sized wafer. When accounting for defective sensors, each Nikon 2 sensor might be 4x (or more) cheaper, depending on the technology. For example, stacked sensors might have a higher / compounded defect rate. Here it is visualized:
After years of finding interesting information on upcoming cameras and lenses in the latest design patents, Nikon finally found a solution by filing “secret” patents. This probably explains why we have seen only a few Nikon patents in the past few years. Currently, there are four new Nikon design patents that are marked as “secret” and cannot be accessed (in fact, the last ten patents filed by Nikon are also ” secret”):
Together with the Z6 III camera, Nikon also introduced a new cloud service called Nikon Imaging Cloud, similar to the old Nikon Image Space:
The Nikon Imaging Cloud can be used in a web browser or smart device, and it will provide the following services:
The new site (not yet active) is located at https://ment.imagingcloud.nikon.com/.
Additional information collected from various Nikon sources:
When Nikon started their Self Service Repair program, it had only one lens and one rangefinder. Later, the Nikon Z6 III camera was added.
Nikon has now expanded their Self Service Repair program to include several cameras, lenses, and accessories:
A reader created two videos comparing the dynamic range and high ISO of the new Nikon Z6 III camera with the Nikon Z6:
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