REVIEW : Nikon Z6
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View from the front with the 24-70/4 The front element of the f/2.8 version is considerably larger.
It’s been a while since I have written review. There are good reasons for that. Any camera from any of the major makers is going to do a good job at image capture, that most specs are mostly marketing blab and that the difference between two cameras is that the one that fits your hand and use cases is the right one for you, all the rest of the internet prose being irrelevant.
So is it Zee or Zed? Depends where you live and how much you care about offending the sensibility of linguists. In my review, I put my attention entirely into usability, lens performance for my use cases and camera handling. The image quality captured by the camera is superb. The storage on the XQD card is fast and reliable and I personally prefer XQD to SD for performance and durability.
How Does It Handle
I have fairly average sized hands and certainly don’t have the long elegant fingers of a Eubie Blake or Jim Hendrix. All the controls are where I need them to be for my hand size. I never felt that the camera was too small or too large. Like baby bear’s porridge, it is just right.
A clean and uncluttered top deck makes the Z6 easy to use without taking it away from your eye. Note the perfect positioning of the back button focus actuation. Nikon got this right. Canon farked it up completely.
Some may argue that the pentaprism look is unnecessary given that there is no mirror box and no need for a pentaprism. I find it puts the eye level viewfinder in the right place in relation to a proper camera body grip. The EVF is bright and easy to read. I turned down the default brightness to suit my own eyes, but never had any issue with seeing the information presented. I also had no issue with the quality or sharpness of the EVF.
Coming from a DSLR, I did have to get use to the fact that the most recent image does not stay by default on the LCD. There is a good reason for this and that is to return the EVF to live as soon as possible. It did slow down my chimping a bit but also meant that I wasn’t missing shots because I was too absorbed looking at shots that had already passed.
I found the shutter release to be very precise and while I always and only use back button focus, when I put the camera in its default mode, there was no mushy space between autofocus on and shutter release.
The Z6 has 273 AF points, which really is about 272 more than I need in regular use. I want complete control over where the camera focuses and so default to a single point in all my use cases. If you need more, you have them. What really impressed me was how good the AF was in low light. It works down to -3.5EV and up to +19EV. I have trouble differentiating contrast below about -1EV and the camera does better than I can. Perfect. There are numerous focus modes and areas that you can find in the specs linked in this article. I used AF-S and AF-C predominantly and some of the predictive AF capabilities in video tests. All worked very quickly and effectively.
Some have commented that AF tracking was slow. Photographing geese migrating south was no problem using a single point in AF-C. Even the one time I pushed the camera to its maximum capture rate of 12fps, it kept up fine, and to be blunt, firing that number of frames just means I have more stuff to dump when editing time comes around. For my use cases, spray and pray is a waste of time and resources. For most any speed work such as birds or horse jumping the standard high frame rate of 5.5 fps gets the job done.
Like most mirrorless bodies, the camera offers 5 axis image stabilization via sensor shift. While I am always cautious about the claims of any vibration reduction system, it is my experience that in body stabilization is superior to in lens stabilization for the wide range of photographers. The engineers at Canon claim that in lens is better with super telephoto lenses to IBIS. I have never been able to test that statement, so have no data to form an opinion in that specific regard.
Telling you that the in camera metering did a great job should be unnecessary. It works from -4EV to +17EV and never gave me a bad exposure when I paid attention to the subject. I liked that it did not try to second guess me as to backlighting or spotlighting and found the Exposure Compensation dial to be convenient and easy to use. As my general practice is to expose to the right, this was very easy.
I shot the camera in the four PASM modes, and got consistency across the board, just as you would expect. I contend that you could shoot the camera all day in program and for general snapshotting never regret a result. Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority both do exactly what you expect and as I only ever use Manual mode in an indoor studio situation where I am in complete control of the light, using it in changing light is, to me, an utter waste of time and energy.
There are numerous picture control settings. I only shot in 14 bit RAW and as they have no impact on RAW, I used none of them. They work with in camera JPEGs and since I never shoot JPEG in camera, any testing I did would be spurious.
Many people still think that megapixel count makes a real difference so for those folks, the camera offers 24.5 megapixels with an ISO range of 100 to 51,200 native. I found the images fine to ISO 6400 while those at higher ISOs started to get flat and show digital noise. I would say usable to 12,800 without a lot of work in post processing. I have made a 17” print from one of my images and am very comfortable saying that higher megapixels would not have made any difference in this print at a proper viewing distance would extend that out to a print 36” on the short side, again at proper viewing distance. Sensors are so good now that worrying about megapixel count these days is more a case of insecurity than image quality.
Colour rendition is consistent to other Nikon cameras using the same RAW converter. Nikon’s converter produces the “Nikon look”. Adobe’s converter is just fine, although for the core editing of test images, I used DXO’s PhotoLab3 exclusively. This is subjective of course, but I prefer their RAW converter to Adobe’s. You should do whatever you prefer.
Glass
For lenses, I had the Nikkor-Z 24-70/2.8 S and the Nikon-Z 14-30/4 S. Both deliver an FX image circle and I cannot imagine why anyone spending this kind of money on a new camera would ever buy a DX lens unless budget was a serious problem. You would expect that these lenses would perform brilliantly, delivering excellent sharpness, and great colour. Your expectations will be satisfied. In practical use, they both did a terrific job and I have no complaints or concerns at all. I did no line tests or things of that nature, mostly because that’s not what I actually shoot. For subjects that I would actually photograph, the lens performance was excellent.
I am not personally enamoured of the 24-70 range on any camera. It always hits me as not quite wide enough and definitely not long enough. If Nikon were to bring their excellent 24-120/4 F mount to Z, or better still a 20-120/4 I would be a happier guy. I did like very much the ease of mount and removal of the locking bayonet mount of the lens hood. It never got jammed up or gritty. I find the price of the lens high at an MSRP of $3199.99 CAD. Drop it a grand and it’s killer. At this price point, it’s a big stretch and I would personally go for the f/4 variant and save $1800! The sensor in the camera is excellent and for the $1800 savings I could buy the 14-30! It is marketed as dust and drip resistant. That’s rather vague so I would exercise normal care in hostile environments like a rodeo, or rainy day.
I liked the 14-30/4 S lens very much. If I were a buyer, this would be a definite purchase lens. It’s sharp, reasonably compact and quick to use. The f/4 maximum aperture is no issue for any of my use cases including work in clubs, because the sensor in the body is just fine in poor lighting. I see no reason on this body to pay exorbitant prices for one more stop of light. I can do an amazing amount of correction in post processing for the price difference. The missing in the 14-30 is that the eval unit I received had no lens hood. I believe that a lens hood is the one accessory that a photographer should NEVER work without, and I definitely missed having one. I could not find a hood for this listed on Nikon’s site. It can take front element filters if they are the very narrow mount type in 82mm. It is marketed as dust and drip resistant. That’s rather vague so I would exercise normal care in hostile environments like a rodeo, or rainy day.
24mm 1/80 f/16 ISO 100 (24-70/2.8 S)
14mm 1/320 f/9 ISO 100 (14-30/4 S)
70mm 1/250 f/9 ISO 100 (24-70/2.8 S)
When I tested the Z7 in January of this year, I used the Nikon F mount adapter. I found that it worked very well in the tests that I did back then. I did not have long glass and the snowy owls were not visible anyway so I really could not test the concerns about degradation in AF performance reported by some people with that combination. Firmware has been updated since then and any old conclusions require revalidation regardless. Thus this test involved only Z series lenses.
Showing the F mount adapter
The Z6 and Z7 are not inexpensive products and are geared I think to the serious photographer, whether amateur or professional. The recently announced Z50 is a completely different beast, based around the same Z mount but a crop sensor and is designed, in my limited opinion based on no hands-on thus far) to the aspiring amateur and the vlogging marketplace. If one is looked at a Z6, then one is probably also looking at Z series glass. In the interim before the telephotos and longer zooms are available, you would be looking at DSLR DX lenses with the mount adapter. That is the only downside I see right now to the Z series, that native glass is only in short focal lengths, or in a DX image circle. Thus in my personal use cases, the Z series is not a fit yet, because I would want long focal length native glass, not the buik of the old F glass and the mount adapter. Mind you, I don’t have an inventory of existing F glass. If I did, my answer would be different.
Flash Support
The Z6 works completely with Nikon’s SB5000 speed light. I wanted to test this because I will put a flash in the bag before I add a second lens, as I like to use a flash pretty regularly. While the SB5000 works just fine in the hotshoe. I prefer off camera flash and so used the off-camera kit with it and the Z6. This is one area where I was less happy. The off-camera flash transmitter plugs into the side of the camera via a mini USB connection and the little unit, which is just under one inch square hangs out there just waiting to be torn off the camera. I was so concerned about damaging the already known to be unreliable mini USB plug or the port on the side of the camera, I found myself constantly putting on and taking off the transmitter, finally giving up and leaving it in my pocket. Thus despite an otherwise excellent design and layout, I give Nikon a failing grade on the connection for the off camera radio flash transmitter. I think the SB5000 is a superb flash, despite it’s very high cost, and that you have to buy a transmitter kit on top of the flash cost. Were I a Z customer, I would likely look at a third party alternative with a better mount for the transmitter (like the hotshoe) such as I have found in the Godox TTL speedlights and transmitter systems. Yes I would give up some integration, but I would be more sanguine about leaving the transmitter mounted on the camera. Your own use cases may be different.
In Summary
I like the Z6 very much, just as I really like the Z7. There is no doubt in my mind that the future for Nikon is in mirrorless. I like the FX Z lenses that I have seen. Since I would not be buying into DX, I have not tested or considered any of the DX glass. Glass is one place where I think that Nikon needs to pick up the pace, particularly in telephoto and telephoto zoom. Their glass is excellent but the idea of running older glass through a bulky mount adapter sounds very backward to me, considering that doing so is unnecessary with Olympus or Fujifilm and particularly Sony. Nikon is not at the leading edge of the mirrorless curve, they are in serious catchup mode. The two cameras that I have tested are superb, no doubt, but the missing telephoto glass is a big hole. If you have a bunch of F mount lenses, the adapter is a fine interim step, but really you want to get to native glass as soon as it is available. Flash integration is the same as the most current DSLR bodies. I think the SB5000 is a terrific flash but feedback from readers is that it is just too darned expensive, considering the price of offshore alternatives offering similar performance. I cannot disagree with those folks, even though I love working with the SB5000. However, I do think that the mount for the off camera flash transmitter on the Z6 is a disaster in the making.
Image quality is what you should expect from Nikon. It’s great. The camera fits the hand and is extremely well laid out. I was able to use it without making a study program of the manual. If you are looking for a very capable camera from Nikon, want to buying into the future and not the past, and are okay without telephoto native mounts as of this writing, you definitely want to be looking at the Z system cameras.
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I'm Ross Chevalier, thanks for reading, watching and listening and until next time, peace.
