Impressions from the field of the new Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera by Marsel van Oosten (website | facebook | twitter | instagram | flickr | 500px)
See also his previous post on the making of the official Nikon D850 time-lapse ‘Hercules Rising’
Introduction
Earlier this year I got a phone call from Japan asking whether I would be interested in working on yet another important global introduction campaign for a new Nikon product. As I very much enjoyed creating the Hercules Rising night time-lapse for the introduction of the Nikon D850, I said yes. My wife Daniella and I plan our photo tours two years ahead and we travel/shoot nine months a year, so it was a real challenge again to wiggle it into our schedule, but we somehow managed to make it fit. What followed were several secretive Skype calls and emails via encrypted servers in Transylvania, and eventually I found out what the new product was: The Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera. I was instantly excited about this project, knowing how incredibly important this introduction would be and that I would be one of only very few photographers in the world to use Nikon’s first full frame mirrorless camera.
Like with the D850, I was given free choice as to where I wanted to shoot – the perfect assignment! One of the things that stuck with me after hearing all the features of the Z7, was the oversized lens mount and how it enabled the engineers to create new lenses that would produce edge to edge sharpness. I then decided to test this new level of sharpness by taking the Z7 to the sharpest landscape on this planet: the Grand Tsingy in Madagascar. This place is so razor-sharp, that I literally had to climb up and down using construction workers’ gloves as to not cut myself on those limestone needles. But Madagascar is a unique place that has a lot more to offer, so I also decided to include the location where I shot my first National Geographic publication more than 10 years ago: the Allée des Baobabs, aka the Avenue of baobabs. I managed to get three Z7 prototypes for this project, which started late May.
Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot; over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth.
As always, I spent a great deal of time figuring out the best shooting locations and ways to create unique images. Great photographs start with great ideas, so that’s what I consider the most important part of any shoot: the pre-visualization. During my research I noticed that it’s very hard to get a proper sense of scale when looking at the tsingy images that I found online. As it’s physically impossible to walk on top of 99.99% of the tsingy, putting a little person in there for scale was not an option, unless of course that person was a mountaineer. And so it started. I found a climber with a death wish who was very excited to give this a try, so the only challenge that was left was the fact that I’m afraid of heights. Minor detail.
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