I am really excited to get my hands on the top of the line Nikon mirrorless camera, the Nikon Z7ii. It is loaded with features and I wanted to share my first impressions. I will do more in depth explorations into some of the camera features in future blog posts.
Mirrorless Apprehensions
There are a few things that have kept me from purchasing a mirrorless camera in the past. The first is the autofocus. Previous mirrorless cameras that I have tried have had slow autofocus systems that just haven’t been very responsive. This is not a problem with the Nikon Z7ii’s autofocus system. It has 493 autofocus points which cover the entire frame. The autofocus is fast and responsive.
Another issue that I have had with mirrorless cameras that I have tried in the past is the quality of the digital image in the viewfinder. There is a digital screen in the viewfinder of the camera and that screen in other mirrorless cameras I have tried have not been great. The image looks very digitized and I really didn’t like it. The viewfinder for the Nikon Z7ii is fantastic. It is by far the best mirrorless viewfinder that I have ever used. I am really impressed.
Battery
One issue that all mirrorless cameras have compared to DSLR cameras is the battery life. Because the camera needs battery power when someone is looking through the viewfinder or at the screen on the back of the camera, you will go through your battery faster on a mirrorless cameras than a DSLR camera. This is something that I definitely noticed with the Nikon Z7ii compared to the other cameras that I often use like the D850, D4S, D500, and the Df.
On the bright side, the Z7ii has the same battery as the D850 and the D500 so I just brought come extra batteries with me. I would definitely recommend making sure you have at least a couple batteries if you are going out to shoot all day.
Although the Z7ii is much smaller than D850, they conveniently share the same size battery, the EN-EL15a.
Amazing Features
As you would expect with the top of the line model, the Z7ii is loaded with features. I am very familiar with Nikon cameras like the D850 and so it was an easy transition and intuitive for me to find the feature I was looking for. The features that I am really interesting in mainly involves the autofocus system. As I have already mentioned, the Z7ii has 493 focus points that cover the entire frame. This is a huge improvement over the D850 which has 153 focus points which cover a much smaller portion of the frame.
As you can see in the above comparison, the Z7ii has focus points that cover the entire frame while the D850’s focus points are concentrated in the middle of the frame.
There are also additional autofocus modes including eye detection autofocus and animal eye detection autofocus. I am really excited to explore these options especially when using a lens that has a very limited depth of field like the Nikon 85mm F1.4 and the 105mm F1.4. Keeping the eye in focus is critical and if the camera can do that easily, that alone could change my photography.
I will explore these specific features in future blog posts.
Ready at a Moment’s Notice
Because I use a DSLR, I am use to just putting my camera up to my eye and seeing the scene without having to press a button. But a mirrorless camera needs to be on to look through the viewfinder. To save precious battery power, mirrorless cameras turn off the viewfinder. I would put this camera up to my eye and only see black. As I get more and more used to using the camera, I am sure I will press the button as I am bringing the camera up to my eye to wake up the viewfinder so I don’t look at a black viewfinder and then press the button to wake it up.
Customizable
One of the things that I appreciate about all of the Nikon cameras that I have is the ability to customize the function buttons on the camera. There are things that I want to do quickly and I love that I can set a button to quickly access those settings.
One of the things I like to do is have a button on the front of the camera as the AE/AF Lock button. The way I often shoot with continuous autofocus means that there are times when I have to lock the exposure and focus and recompose. However, I have to do this because the focus points on my other cameras don’t cover the entire frame. Being able to put a focus point anywhere on the frame may mean that I don’t need to use the AE/AF lock button very much anymore. So instead of using setting the function button to AE/AF lock, I have changed it to allow me to quickly cycle through the different autofocus modes.
There are a number of things that I prefer to have access to quickly and not have to go through menus to access them. For example, I set one of the function buttons to quickly access the HDR function of the camera and another button to activate silent photography mode so the shutter doesn’t make a sound.
Like other Nikon cameras, I like having the ‘My Menu’ setting. It allows me to add menu items that I use so I don’t have scroll through multiple layers of menu items to find them. An example of a menu item that I save is the image overlay option.
Other Features
This camera is loaded with features and I am just scratching the surface with my first impressions. I haven’t gone through every possible feature or menu item yet but I am looking forward to exploring. One of the things I love about Nikon cameras is they have a question mark button (?) which, when pressed, explains the menu item. It is like having a camera manual right there in the camera.
I also really appreciated the monitor mode button that is on the side of the viewfinder. It allowed me to cycle through options of 1. automatically switch between the monitor and the viewfinder. 2. Just the viewfinder. 3. Just the monitor or Prioritizing the Monitor. This was great for saving battery when I didn’t want to use the monitor all the time.
Like the D850, the monitor can articulate out so you can view it from a higher angle.
The Z7ii’s monitor is also a touch screen monitor. This means you can navigate the menus with the touch of a finger.
You can also frame your composition on the Z7ii’s screen (know as ‘Live View’ on DSLR cameras). There are a few different options for the touchscreen when composing your image. First, you can make the screen inactive so touching it will do nothing. A second option is to move the focus point to a part of the frame. The focus won’t activate unless you slightly press the shutter release button or the AF-ON button. The third option is what I use most of the time. You touch the screen and the camera puts the focus point on that part of the frame AND automatically focuses there. The final option is to touch the screen and the camera will put the focus point on that spot, focus the camera and also take a picture.
One other feature that I am really excited about is the vibration reduction that is built into camera body. This helps to support handholding the camera at slower shutter speeds with any lens you are using. The In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS) system means that you can have vibration reduction (also known as image stabilization) with any lens including older manual lenses. You can also use the system alongside a lens which has its own built in vibration reduction system for even better results.
Check out the video of my hands on review of the Z7ii first impressions.
Final Thoughts After Day 1
I was excited to get out and try the Z7ii. Not knowing all the features of the camera wasn’t going to stop me. I just had to start capturing images. There were a few things that I learned while I was out with the camera for the first time and there are a few things I wish I knew but it is all part of the learning process.
Check out the video of my first outing with the Nikon Z7ii and see some of the images that I captured.
So after one day with the Z7ii, what are my first impressions?
It is definitely has all the features one would expect in a top of the line flagship camera. I am excited to do some more testing of the autofocus system and see how it works in real world testing. Early testing has shown me that the autofocus is fast and accurate. I can’t wait to take a deep dive into the eye detection autofocus for people and animals.
This may be the camera that finally makes me take the plunge into mirrorless.
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