My Full Frame Gear; Keep It Or Sell It?

(click to enlarge)
Nikon Z7; 24-70mm f/4 S lens @ 70mm; 1/100th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 400

Last April, I purchased a Nikon Z7 with the 24-70mm f/4 S kit lens.  I purchased it for the singular reason of using it for a project I had in mind.  This camera perfectly fit the bill  for me to achieve my project goals.  I was looking for a mirrorless camera so as to achieve off-the-sensor focus, has very high resolution full frame sensor and which also had high quality macro lenses available for it.  One last criterion was that the combination needed to work with an available 35mm slide copying and film negative attachment.  

My project was to digitize my archive of thousands of 35mm slides as well as my 35mm and medium format color and black and white negatives.  This would be quite an undertaking and I've been putting it off for years.  I have now completed as much of that project as I plan on doing.  I've copied thousands of film based images and the camera has performed better than expected.  As a bonus, I used this camera and lens for general photography.  The Z7 can produce extraordinarily high quality images.  

As much as this camera was initially criticized by the Internet based "influencers," mainly upon only a very short if any time actually using the camera in the field, I will tell you from the perspective of a guy who has been photographing for now 50 years, this is a superb "picture taking machine."   Nikon did an excellent job in creating the Z6 and Z7 as their first two serious mirrorless cameras.

The Z6 an Z7, in my opinion, are not suited for every type of photography, however.  It is not a jack of all trades/master of all trades.  I don't think it is the best camera for birds-in-flight nor sports photography.  Short of those two genres, I think it will hold its own in all of the other kinds of photography we practice.

Is there room for improvement?  Isn't there always?  The two things that I think in which criticism has been deserved is the camera has only one memory card slot.  This was not and is not a deal breaker for me but I can see how it could be for others.  After all, I shot film for over 30 years and we only had one roll of film in the camera and no LCD to check our focus or exposures.  Additionally, we had no control over the processing of that film when sent off.  Add to that, only the digital cameras I've owned in the very recent past have had two cards.  Most have not and it was never an issue.  Finally, I have yet to find anything written anywhere on the Internet detailing an XQD card failure in either of these cameras.  (If you know of one that is documented and not anecdotal, please let me know.)  The second thing is the camera's ability to competently track focus on fast moving subjects.  That has been improved substantially but still could be better.  If you aren't photographing professionally and wanting a second memory card and don't shoot fast moving subjects such as sports of birds-in-flight, then this camera will more than suit your needs.

Since the inception of the Z6 and Z7, Nikon has followed the Fujifilm Kaizen path and provided a couple of important firmware updates giving us users improved autofocus and adding additional features.  Good for Nikon.  I hope the company continues to do this in the future.

That being said, although I've not copied all of my archives, I've copied the important images and don't plan on copying the remainder.  Frankly, it is tedious work copying slide after slide after slide after slide for hours on end, day after day.  I completed most of my archive and that's fine for now.  Any others I want to copy in the future, I will with whatever camera I happen to own at the time.

One question before me now is do I keep the Z7 and lenses I purchased for it?  After all, I purchased it for a specific reason and that reason no longer exists.  

Furthermore, I find I almost never reach for it to pick it up first when going out to photograph.  Almost 100% of the time, I grab my Olympus gear and head out of the door.  

After using it for a variety of photographic excursions over the last year, I really don't see a significant benefit from using it over my smaller sensor cameras.  The full frame, high megapixel sensor and large lenses seem to be overkill for anything I do now or plan to do.

The camera is about the same size as my Olympus E-M1 Mark II and my former Fujifilm X-T3 but the lenses are larger and heavier.  If you think back over the past few years, I've written numerous times about my goal to go smaller, lighter, less expensive but keep high image quality.  The Z7 is a nice size but the lenses still have to cover a 43mm image circle (the diagonal measurement of a 35mm film frame or full frame sensor), which requires them to be larger, heavier and subsequently more expensive.

I'm not sure I can make a use case for regularly using the Z7 in the future.  I mean I could use it in place of my smaller sensor cameras but the negatives almost all of the time outweigh the positives.  The only use case I can arguably make is when I know I'll need extremely high ISOs or such circumstance that I need 14+ stops of dynamic range and bracketing is impossible.  Other than that?  

The sensor provides 45.7mp and is much more than I think I'll ever need in the future for what I do with my photography.  However, if you like to really zoom in and see all of the fine detail in your images, that large sensor is wonderful!

Those huge files require much more hard drive space and slow down the import, editing and exporting process considerably.  Try importing 1000 files that are almost 46mp (as large as 58mb each) versus 1000 files that are 26mp or 20mp.  Got get coffee and come back!

From the time I wrote about buying it I also wrote about not knowing whether or not I would keep it after finishing my project.

Now has come the time to decide if I should keep it or it should go.  But three questions remain.

Do I need a full frame digital camera?  My answer to that is no.  I certainly don't need one.  I can be perfectly happy with an APS-C or M4/3 camera.  I've proven that to myself already several times.

On five separate occasions in the past, I have taken only a micro4/3 kit or an APS-C kit on extended (up to 4-weeks) road trips to some spectacular places and have absolutely no regrets nor have I second guessed myself that I wished I had taken a camera with a larger sensor.  I've made large prints from some of those images and they are sharp, fully detailed and with great color.

Do I want a full frame camera?  My answer to that is not really.  Its nice to have and scratches an itch and those big, gorgeous files are really nice to zoom into.  But if I really wanted one it seems to me that I would be picking it up and using it regularly.

The third and final question is should I keep my Nikon Z7 kit since I own it and its paid for or sell it so someone else who may need and want a full frame camera can use it?  I think the answer, after all of this, is "I don't yet know."  I know.  Anticlimactic.

I should sell it as that was my original intent when first purchasing it but I'm not quite there yet. Over my lifetime it has been my policy that if I'm not quite sure about something, I do nothing until I'm sure.  Maybe I just want to "hedge my bet," so to speak, in having a camera body handy that can handle those extraordinary situations that we sometimes, but rarely, encounter.  I guess, in the meantime, I'll try to pick it up and use it more often.  If I find myself, again, letting it sit in its bag for weeks without use, then my decision has been made for me.

What I have rediscovered and was reinforced to me is that full frame is no magic bullet, panacea nor necessary to make extraordinary and satisfying images.  It seems to me that we've been indoctrinated into thinking only full frame will do and anything lesser could never be better than "good enough" and satisfy our photographic needs.  If you listen to most of the popular "influencers,"  your photography will be inferior if you don't have the latest, best, fastest full frame camera and most expensive lenses available.  To that I say bull....!

As you see, I'm trying to work my way through this using a bit of common sense and logic.  I try to remove as much emotion as I can to make rational decisions.  Like anyone else, it doesn't always work.  If you have never owned and used a full frame digital camera, you may be really wanting one.  I can understand that feeling.  The pressures of the "influencers," the mystique of it all, the wonder if it will give you better images than what you now have all play into that emotion.  If you can, before you spend your money, try to logically think your way through it and make a decision based upon logic.  That is, of course, if you just want one and can afford to buy one with the associated lenses.  Then scratch that itch.

Finally, all of this comes back down to the phrase first uttered by the landscape photography genius, Ansel Adams, "The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it."   I believe that still holds true today.  Good gear helps but in the end, you, your vision, your passion and your desire will make much more difference in your final images than will a full frame sensor camera.

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

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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