Nikon Z 7; What Gives? Part II

All images in this post were made with a Nikon Z7 and the Nikon 24-70mm f/4 S lens.
I saw this scene at the side of the road and made some images.
(click to enlarge)

Completely out of curiosity, I acquired a Nikon Z 7 with a 24-70mm f/4 S lens for a short period of time.  I thought I would share my short experience and thoughts.  For purposes of length, I decided to break up a post into two parts rather than have you sit reading for too a long time.  You can find Part I here.  If you have come to this part first, I suggest you read part one then come back here.

After reading the camera's extensive user's manual, looking it over, feeling the camera in my hands, then configuring it, I conducted the same sort of tests I do for all cameras and lenses for auto white balance, focus accuracy and consistency, lens sharpness, etc.  I wrote about those things in Part I.  Also, I am not going to go over all of the technical specs or features of this camera in this post.  This camera is much too configurable and feature rich for me to do that on this blog.  You can find that information in many places on the Internet.  My purpose is to highlight a few days use of this camera in a succinct way.

At this point, I'm ready to take the Z7 out as I would any other camera and make some images to assess how it works and how I like using it. 

Initial Use 

On initial use, I found the camera straightforward, easy to use and quite familiar.  Owning and using digital Nikons in the past provided a familiarity with controls and menus.  The Z 7 is certainly easier to use than my Olympus E-M1.2 (better menu system) but not as easy or satisfying to use as my Fujifilm cameras.  That opinion is entirely due to Fujifilm's retro design using dials and knobs and less menu, which I really like.  But, I didn't have any issues other than having to think about what was where as I would with any new camera.  Using any new camera takes a while to become familiar with its controls, etc. and burn that into muscle memory.  I don't suspect it would be hard to quickly get used to this camera if one used it daily.

As I previously said, I set up the Z 7's operation to pretty much mimic my other cameras so things would be as mentally similar as possible when using it.

EVF 

I like this EVF.  It has the same resolution (3.69mp) as the EVFs in my Fujifilm X-T3 and X-H1 but somehow it seems better.  Subjects seem to be a bit sharper and better defined when looking through it.  Nikon says they spent a lot of time fine tuning the EVF by using a lens system to maximize its resolution, contrast and color transmission.  I think they succeeded.  I didn't see any lag when panning.  I also found that when photographing, for whatever reason, my images seem to be better exposed when using the Nikon EVF than when using my Fujifilm or Olympus cameras.  With the Fujifilm and Olympus cameras, I tend to slightly underexpose but that doesn't seem to be happening with the Nikon.  The difference might be a combination of EVF illumination levels and the in-EVF histogram.  By the way, in the Z 7 the histogram is located in the lower right corner of the EVF.  That is a better placement, in my opinion, than Olympus' histogram which blocks the bottom center of what you are trying to see.  However, I really don't have a good explanation for the inherent difference in exposure at this point.  All in all, the EVF is really excellent.

Nikon's "pull the diopter adjustment knob, turn to adjust the diopter to suit your vision, then push to lock" feature is welcomed.  On occasion I still find my diopter adjustment has moved on my X-H1, even though I place gaffer's tape over the knob.  I'm glad Fujifilm finally adopted the Nikon model with the X-T3 and it does make a difference.  For example, in the past, I've looked through my EVF of my X-T2 or X-H1 and can't figure out why the subject doesn't look like it is in sharp focus?  Immediately I start wondering if there is something wrong with the focusing system, the AF on the lens or my eyes.  Finally, I realize the little diopter knob has been bumped and moved.  It slows me down and frustrates me.  That being said, it has happened enough times now that I almost immediately recognize and correct the problem.

This image had very high contrast.  The sun backlit this scene and reflected off the water. The reflection of the sun
off the water, which was almost pure white, coupled with the fully shadowed trees and bushes would be a
challenge for bringing down the highlights and lifting the shadows to see if I could make it look like I viewed it.
This image is straight out of the camera while the image below is the edited version. (click to enlarge)

In Lightroom Classic CC, I lifted the exposure +4.24 stops, reduced the highlights to -100, lifted
the shadows to +26 in order to bring this image to where it looks somewhat as I found it.  Since I only lifted the
shadows by +26, I had plenty of adjustment left to lift them even more if I thought it was necessary.
There is plenty of detail in the sky and water as well as the shadows.  Also, I saw no banding anywhere.
I don't believe either my Fujifilm cameras nor my Olympus cameras would give me the same flexibility. (click to enlarge)

General Camera Comments and Features 

I found the shutter button to be in a good location and its pressure to be fine.  Not to easy nor difficult to press to the half-position that locks focus and exposure and fine for full press.  It has a nice feel.

I used the Auto Bracketing feature a couple of times.  Auto bracketing is something I employ regularly in my other cameras.  When reading the Z 7's user's manual, I discovered a couple of things that I like about how Nikon implemented this feature.  First, as I can do with my Fujifilm cameras, I change the auto exposure bracketing exposure order to -, 0, +, (under, normal, over) rather than the standard 0, -, + as is with most cameras.  I find it easier when editing to see the three progressive exposures in order.  Bracketing can set bracketing for up to 9 exposures in the Z 7.

The other welcomed feature is that Nikon engineered is exposure bracketing so you can set your base exposure then only make bracketed exposures that are brighter (for lack of a more clarifying word) or set your base exposure and make bracketed exposures that only are darker.  In other words base exposure of 0, then bracketed exposures of +, ++, +++ or 0, -, --, --- exposures.  I like that.  Often times I want to bracket in only one direction but have been limited to what the camera would do unless I did it manually.  Nice touch.  Thoughtful.

I also tried the automated "focus bracketing."  Nikon calls it "Focus Shift."  I have three comments, about this feature.  First, I found the feature works similarly as it does in the Fujifilm and Olympus cameras so it was easy to understand and implement.  

Second, on the positive side, when viewing the LCD after the focus shift procedure has been completed, Nikon gives you a black and white high contrast preview of the merged image with focus peaking so you can see everywhere in the frame that is sharply focused (see below).  This is a nice confirmation that you nailed your image.  You don't have to wait until you get back home and blend the images to only find out that you missed something and the blending failed.  

Third, on the negative side, when the camera is going though its focus shifting exposures, the LCD remains black and you can't see the shift progression as I can with my other cameras.  With other cameras, you can look at the LCD and watch the camera change focus and step through each exposure.  Intuitively, this tells me that not being able to see the progression of actual focus shifting precludes me doing hand held focus shifting.  In other words, if I can see the image in the EVF or LCD as it is making the successive exposures, I can confirm that I am hand holding the camera (as much as possible)  in the exact same spot.  With the EVF and LCD being blacked out, I have no visual confirmation and one's hand may tend to drift somewhat instead of holding rock steady.  But, in spite of this deficiency, I was able to hand hold focus shifting quite easily.  I would always recommend  tripod, however.  That is my normal procedure but I tried out this feature in an impromptu fashion.  I was a bit surprised that It worked fine.

 I saw this azalea blooming and thought I would see how close the 24-70mm f/4 S lens would focus.  I just bent over and
got closer and closer, with the "Pinpoint" autofocus point, to make a handheld shot that really tested the autofocus,
the IBIS and especially my skill. This is the full image frame.  Below is the same frame at 100%. (click to enlarge)

Focus, using the "Pinpoint" spot in the Z7, was on the stamen in the middle. This is a 1.9mp crop from the
original 45mp image.  Quite severe.  (click to enlarge)

Image Quality 

I found the image quality to be overall superb and visually pleasing.  I really have nothing to complain about the quality of the images I made.  Nothing.  In fact, I think the Z 7 has the best image quality of any camera I've owned (about 50).  Before this, I would have rated my previous D810 as empirically the best.  At 45mp, there is really nothing more to say about the resolution available, except the files are very large.  The Z 7's 14-bit losslessly compressed RAW files average about 52mb while the losslessly compressed RAW files from my Fujifilm cameras average about 26mb.  The Olympus files which are only 12-bit and not 14-bit and with a smaller sensor average about 16mb.  Quite a difference.  I configured the camera as I did with my last Nikons to use 14-bit lossless compressed RAW format and I saw no discernible difference between uncompressed and losslessly compressed files.

For a few of these posted images I cropped quite a bit as 70mm was not enough reach for a particular composition.  I've noted the cropped image size, but the files held up really well when heavily cropped and having a 45mp sensor really came in handy for that kind of cropping.  I've never fully bought in to the belief professed by some that, instead of buying a telephoto lens, one can just crop these high megapixel files to get the desired composition.  Its okay for an emergency but I think there are some real drawbacks with that philosophy.

The sharpness of the files using the 24-70mm f/4 S lens was wonderful.  I have no complaints and really the sharpness exceeded my expectations from a so-called "kit lens."  The 24-70mm f/4 S lens is really a winner.  It reminds me of Fujifilm's unassuming but winning lenses.

I had forgotten just how much dynamic range was available in full frame Nikon cameras.  Quite a bit more than in my other branded cameras.  Sensor size, pixel pitch, the physics of light and Nikon's algorithms have a lot to do with that.  Subjectively, I would say that the Z 7 has at least 2-stops more dynamic range than my Fujifilm cameras.  I underexposed a few frames purposefully just to see if I could recover the files and edit them to make them look as good as normally exposed files.  The files are very malleable and it would be easy to compensate for exposure mistakes, even in very high contrast scenes, a photographer might make.  

As illustrated above, dynamic range is quite remarkable.  By the way, I never saw the "banding" that has been talked about.  I guess raising the exposure and shadows about 4 stops is not enough to show any potential banding.  That means it's a non-issue for me.  If I can't get my exposure closer than 4 stops of being correct, I need to take up another craft and sell all my gear.  Lol.

This was a pretty dark scene as the day was very overcast and stormy. (click to enlarge)

I'm not really keen on "some" of Nikon's color science, as it is now called.  Mainly the blue sky—too magenta for my taste.  The other colors seem fine but not as "out of the camera" pleasing as Fujifilm's.  Yes, I can adjust the colors in Lightroom and, in fact, I made a profile for this camera using the X-Rite Colorchecker Passport which, with one click,  automatically allows you to correct colors to industry standards.  I think I would probably use that or the Adobe Color profile long term if I owned this camera.  The Adobe Color profile is pretty close to industry standard.  Color is a highly subjective preference and you might be perfectly happy with the Nikon blue sky.  Typically, we don't necessarily want "accurate" colors anyway.  We want colors to mimic how we felt about a scene to reflect the emotion we felt.

The highest ISO I used was ISO 2800.  I normally don't photograph much as high ISOs.  At ISO 2800 the digital noise was almost not noticeable, even at 100%.  With a very small amount of noise reduction in LR, it was gone.  In reality, I don't think you need to add any noise reduction for those ISOs.  The noise performance in this camera is much better than in either my Fujifilm or Olympus cameras.  However, I would need to do much more testing before rendering a final verdict on ISO noise.

Nikon gives you many, many ways to configure the camera. Nikon calls these configurations Picture Controls.  They don't attach to RAW files but to JPEGs (hold this thought). Similar to Film Simulations in the Fujifilm cameras, Nikon gives you profiles for Standard, Neutral, Auto, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, Landscape and Flat.  Inside each there are adjustments for "Quick Sharp", Sharpening, Mid-range Sharpening, Clarity, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation and Hue.  The "Quick Sharp" allows you to move three different sharpening/clarity algorithms with one control.  I don't remember "Clarity" being offered by other camera brands.  

Family fishing.  I don't know if there was any "catching," however! (click to enlarge)

I discovered something interesting when editing my images.  Typically, no matter what Film Simulation, Picture Control or Picture Style you have set in your camera when you use the RAW format, none of those have any effect on your RAW files and when you import to Lightroom, Adobe Color is the default profile that is displayed with your RAW files.  With the Z 7, the in-camera selected Picture Control is maintained when you import your images into Lightroom Classic CC.  Not only that, other sliders are not at default.  For example, using the "Neutral" Picture Control, I found the Shadows slider defaults to +10. I suspect, using the various Picture Controls, there are other slider modifications but I discovered this too late to check. I have not seen this behavior before.  All my other cameras default to the Adobe profile.  Hmmm.

All in all, to keep this relatively brief, I think the image quality is the best I've ever used in a digital camera.  The things I find troublesome are niggling, such as some of the colors, but they can be adjusted in LR.  In fact, a preset could be created to do it automatically.

Now—you must remember what I've written and said many times—in normal bright light photography conditions, the differences in image quality between the Z 7's images and the X-T3's or E-M1.2's images is most likely almost non-existent.  It is only when you get to the "edges" that differences will be seen.  I define edges as high ISOs, poor lighting conditions, fast and very accurate focus tracking for fast moving subjects in sports, etc., very large prints, or extreme cropping, etc.  For everyday work, most any camera will give you excellent image quality.  Just take a look at the images made with the Sony point-and-shoot cameras or all-in-one superzoom cameras.  Excellent.

These guys go out everyday and "tong" for oysters on the river bottom, then bring their catch
back to the dock, shovel them into buckets to unload them to a buyer's container. (click to enlarge)

General Comments 

XQD Cards 

The Nikon Z 7 uses a single XQD memory card.  These cards are faster and have sturdier construction than do SD cards.  I can see why Canon and Nikon are moving to this new standard.  At first I thought XQD cards were much more expensive than comparable SDXC cards.  In doing some research on XQD cards I found the price comparable to newest and fastest SDXC cards.  There isn't too much of a difference.  For example a Sony 64gb XQD card, which reads at 440mb/sec. and writes at 400mb/sec., cost $130 US on Amazon.  A Sony 64gb SDXC UHS II card, which reads at 300mb/sec. and writes at 299mb/sec., costs $109 US on Amazon.  For the extra $21 you get a faster and much sturdier card.  Is it worth it?  That is your call.  Of course, you don't have to buy the newest and fastest SDXC cards so slower cards can save you money.  There are no slower XQD cards money savings.

Nikon will introduce a firmware update this week which will, among other things such as improve low light and Eye AF focusing abilities, allow the camera to use CF Express cards.   I predict CF Express cards will end up less expensive and more commonly used than XQD cards.  That is because Sony owns the patent on XQD cards and I believe they are the only remaining manufacturer (Delkin Devices may also be making them under Sony license).  Hence, the cost.  Delkin Devices XQD cards are listed in a few places but I don't know if what I see is new old stock or they, too, are still making them.  The replacement standard, CF Express cards, will fit in the same slots as XQD cards be backwards compatible with existing cameras (requires a firmware update) and be even faster.  

One Card Slot 

I've thought about this "major" issue (as it has been portrayed by all of the influencers on the Internet) quite a bit.  Until I had my Nikon D800E a few years back, I never had more than one card slot.  (By the way, we never had in-camera backups in film cameras either.  You carried a second camera with a different lens with a different roll of film.  That was because it is easier grabbing a second camera body than trying to quickly change lenses.  It wasn't for backup.  There was no backup for any images in a particular camera.)  I only had one card slot in my Nikon D700, D300, D200, etc. as well as my Fujifilm X-T1 and both of my Olympus cameras I owned before the current E-M1.2.  I never worried about it even though I was mostly shooting professionally when using those cameras.  I've never suffered a card failure (rare but always a possibility) except for human error when I formatted a card without uploading all my image files first.  Even after that, I was able to recover all of my images from the card.  By the way, what do you do when your camera fails!  Two card slots don't mean anything in that case!

But...  I can certainly understand why it is important to some in having immediate redundancy for files.  It gives a nice sense of comfort knowing a second card has another copy of the image files.  For me, it is not a big deal.  I have a high level of confidence in Nikon cameras and the technology behind XQD memory cards.  Just sayin'.

If I were going somewhere and anticipated "once in a lifetime" photographic possibilities or felt I needed an "immediate" backup strategy, here is how I would handle dealing with only 1 card slot when using this camera.  I own a Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro portable hard drive.  I use it when I travel as a third backup option to my laptop and a small USB external 1TB SSD hard drive.  The WD is battery operated, I don't have to plug it into a computer, and I can automatically, upon insert of an SD card in the built-in SD card slot or by plugging a card reader into its USB port, transfer image files to its hard drive.  Painless and quick.  In fact, I do this at night in my hotel room, as I said, as a third backup of my image files.  Also, I never leave this drive in the hotel room so if my laptop or other gear is stolen, I have all my image files with me.

It would be very easy to stick this device in my camera bag and whenever I wanted to stop and backup the XQD card, I would just pull it out, turn it on, place the card in the card reader and plug it into the side of the Passport Pro.  The device quickly and incrementally uploads your image files, usually in less than a minute.  This is a viable immediate backup strategy that would work if I felt I needed it.  I could even continue to photograph with a second card.  I always have more than one memory card with me anyway.  In other words, one card or two, there are always ways around limitations if you use your wits.

Personally, where I am with my photography today—I am now just shooting for myself and this blog and no longer photographing for stock—one card slot on this camera is really not a concern.

 This image is a result of the in-camera "Focus Shift" feature.  I focused on the piece of wood in the foreground, set the camera to make 10 images at a setting of "5," (on a scale of 1-10) and pressed the shutter.  The camera made 6 images
and then stopped when it reached infinity focus.  I then focus stacked the 6 images in Photoshop.  (click to enlarge)

This is the high contrast "Focus Peaked" image you can bring up on the camera's LCD.  As you can see,
the entire image is in focus after the camera processed it in-camera for confirmation only.  This is clear confirmation
to the photographer that the image has been fully captured in focus.  Nice! (click to enlarge)

F Mount Lenses 

In case you are wondering, I have three or four old AF-D and manual focus Nikon F Mount lenses in my photo cabinet (as well as an old Nikon FE2!).  However, I didn't have the FTZ adapter with which to use them.  If I had the adapter, none of those would be fully automatic focus with this camera as the AF-D lenses don't have an internal focusing motor as they rely on a camera's focusing motor with a connecting shaft to actuate the autofocus.  I think the AF-D system was Nikon's first (actually 2nd as the first, designated  "AF" lenses didn't have the distance (D) reading built-in) foray into autofocusing lenses many, many years ago.  Newer lenses have focusing motors built within the lenses themselves and will work with the FTZ adapter.  From everything I've read and seen so far, the FTZ adapter works very well with the older F Mount lenses.

(click to enlarge)

That kind of sums up my initial experience with this camera and lens.  Overall I really have come to like how it feels and how it operates.  I really like the fully touch enabled LCD and the high quality EVF.  The buttons and dials feel good and seem to be logically placed with a good feel.  I think the menus, which also can be accessed by touch on the LCD are logical and make things easy to find.  The camera allows you to place your most used settings in the i-Menu and the My Menu screens.  The camera can be configured in more ways than I will ever need.  

However, why do we research, select and buy a good camera?  Primarily for image quality.  I find the image quality from this camera and lens to be excellent, better than any camera I've owned or used in the past.  I like the character and malleability of the files.  I don't care for the blue color of the sky nearly as much as my Fujifilm cameras and I wish there was an electronic horizon line that showed in the EVF as is available in my X cameras.  There is, however, a 3-dimensional virtual horizon feature that you can activate by pressing the Display button.  One has to cycle through a few EVF or LCD display options to activate it, however.  A simple line in the viewfinder to indicate level is unobtrusive and welcomed by me.

Other than a couple of niggly things, I think Nikon developed a really well thought out camera with pretty much unlimited potential that will exceed most photographers needs.  Obviously, this camera doesn't represent Nikon's final foray into mirrorless.  I see this camera as a first effort, a "place holder," so to speak, that will keep the Nikon owners in the Nikon system and not switch to Sony or another mirrorless system until Nikon has the ability to introduce their higher level mirrorless cameras.  There is some indication that a "Z 9" or such may come later this year.  That being said, I think this camera is every bit professional caliber, versatile and can do just about whatever a photographer needs to do.  YMMV.

If you are a user of a Nikon Z 6 or Z 7, I would be interested in hearing your experiences and thoughts with these two cameras.  I didn't get to use the camera extensively and your experience might be much more extensive and valuable to those who may read this and consider buying one.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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