I am going to be completely honest. The Nikon Z7ii was never a camera that I wanted. I tried out a number of mirrorless cameras over the years and wasn’t that impressed. In my experience they were slow focusing, battery hungry cameras that haven’t gotten close to their DSLR cousins.
As a Nikon Professional Shooter (NPS) I got the opportunity to use the camera for a week. So I thought it would be fun to try out Nikon’s top of the line mirrorless camera. Why would I purchase a Z7ii when I already have full frame cameras like the Nikon D850, D4S, and Df? Surely this mirrorless camera couldn’t do anything better than those cameras.
This Changes Everything
Let’s just get to the point – The Z7ii has a ton of fantastic features but there are two things that elevate it above all my other cameras.
Autofocus
The most important upgrade is the autofocus system. Autofocus has always been the driving force behind my excitement that will help me to capture images I couldn’t capture before.
My first camera was a Nikon F801S which only had one autofocus point in the middle of the frame. This severely limited my ability to compose with a moving subject off centre of the frame.
When the F100 was introduced and it had 5 autofocus points, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I could focus on moving subjects that were not in the middle of the frame. It allowed me to capture images I couldn’t capture with my F801S.
My current cameras have way more than 5 focus point. The Nikon Df has 39, the D4S has 51, and the D850 and the D500 both have 153. Over time the number of points have continued to increase and improve my ability to accurately focus on my subject.
As focusing systems improved, even the types of focus points improved. Cameras focus by detecting vertical and horizontal lines. DSLR Cameras can have 3 different types of autofocus sensors. Vertical sensors for detecting vertical lines. Horizontal sensors for detecting horizontal lines. And cross type sensors for detecting both vertical and horizontal lines. Cross type focus points are more accurate because they detect contrast in both horizontal and vertical lines. So the higher number of cross type focus points means a better focusing camera.
However, in DSLR cameras these focus points are still concentrated around the centre portion of the frame.* It wasn’t until mirrorless cameras that we have had focus points from corner to corner of the frame. The Nikon Z7ii has 493 focus points that stretch to every corner of the frame. This is the next evolution in autofocus.
*(I know that I can use live view on a DSLR camera which extends to focus points outside of the centre part of the frame. However, focusing this way of focusing is much slower than when not using live view.)
An example of the 493 focus points covering virtually the entire from on the Nikon Z7ii.
However, there is a difference between the way that DSLR cameras and mirrorless cameras focus. DSLR cameras are better at sensing three dimensions while mirrorless cameras are better at pinpointing focus. So in general, a DSLR camera will do better in focusing on fast moving subjects while a mirrorless camera will do better at getting a specific point in focus. As the processors in mirrorless cameras have improved, the focusing speeds have improved to and they will continue to improve.
This makes complete sense and explains why the Nikon Z7ii’s eye and face detection autofocus system is so great. It can easily pinpoint the eye and focus on it. In my tests this worked extremely well. I loved the eye detection autofocus especially when used with a wide aperture lens like the Nikon 105mm F1.4 or the 85mm F1.4. This in particular is one of the major reasons that I would purchase this camera. The eye detection autofocus is amazing.
However, the eye detection autofocus didn’t work as well with fast moving subjects. Again, this makes sense because mirrorless camera have more trouble with moving subjects.
To be clear, the Nikon Z7ii isn’t slow at focusing. It focuses incredibly fast. But the Z7ii’s ability to focus on very fast moving subjects isn’t currently as good as my some of my DSLRs like the D500.
In Body Image stabilization
The other feature of the Nikon Z7ii that I love is the In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS). This system moves the sensor in the camera so that your image is sharp when using slower shutter speeds. Nikon calls it Vibration reduction in their lenses and in their cameras.
The main benefit of vibration reduction (VR) in the camera is that it works with every lens you put on the camera. So you can shoot older lenses that don’t have their own inbuilt VR at slower shutter speeds. If you have a lens that has its own built in VR, you can use that in tandem with the Z7ii’s IBIS system for even better results.
When it comes to the types of IBIS systems, some cameras have accelerometers in them which compensate for movements that are up, down, left or right. The Nikon Z7ii goes one step further because it has a gyroscope built into the camera which gives it 5 axis stabilization. So it adjust the sensor for movements that are:
1. Y-axis – moving the camera directly up or down
2. X-axis – moving the camera directly left or right
3. Yaw – Imagine a vertical pole going through the centre of the camera and camera’s sensor. Twisting that pole is yaw movement.
4. Pitch – Imagine a horizontal pole going through the centre of the camera and camera’s sensor. Twisting that pole would give you pitch movement.
5. Roll – Imagine a pole that goes through the middle of the camera’s sensor from the front of the camera to the back of the camera (like the direction of light striking the sensor as it goes through a lens into the camera). Rotating that pole around that centre point is roll.
This 5 axis stabilization does an amazing job at keeping your image steady and allows you to use slower shutter speeds and still capture sharp images.
You can see the Nikon Z7ii’s IBIS system at work in the video below.
If you are interested in an in depth explanation of IBIS, this Photography Life page does a great job.
Other Important Things to Note
Battery Life
As with any mirrorless camera, I was worried about battery life. But as I learned how to manage the battery of the Z7ii, it actually performed very similarly to my Nikon D850.
I set the camera to prioritize the viewfinder which means that I used the viewfinder on top of the camera and not the screen on the back to compose images. Much like I would do with my other cameras. I only switched to the screen on the back of the camera when I needed it. This was easy to do by pressing the monitor button on the side of the viewfinder.
To be completely honest, there were a couple of times when I got frustrated because the viewfinder doesn’t come on immediately when I put my eye up to it. I see black in the viewfinder for half a second while waiting for the viewfinder to turn on. This took a little getting used to as sometimes I wanted to quickly compose to capture a shot but couldn’t see anything. To adjust for this, I started to press the shutter release button on the camera before bringing it up to my eye to wake the camera up before putting it to my eye. But overall, this meant that my battery lasted much longer which was great.
Silent mode
Capturing images without making a sound can give you an incredible advantage. I have photographed weddings in the past and the ability to be quiet in the background while capturing images is invaluable. The Z7ii in silent mode needs to be seen to really be appreciated. Check out the video below to see it in action. If you want, skip forward to the 2:55 mark where I demonstrate how quiet it is.
The Z7ii makes a tiny bit of sound when you are using a smaller aperture because the lens needs to close the aperture blades. But when you open your aperture to it’s widest opening, there is no sound at all. If you want to be inconspicuous when capturing images, the silent mode is the perfect solution.
Conclusion
No camera will make you a better photographer. But a camera with more capabilities will make you better prepared to be able to capture the images you are trying to capture.
Cameras over time have gotten more and more focus points in the frame. But it wasn’t until mirrorless cameras that we have had focus points from corner to corner. Earlier mirrorless cameras had these focus points across the whole frame but they focused slowly.
The Z7ii focuses with pinpoint accuracy better than my DSLR cameras. The eye detection system alone elevates this camera to the next level of autofocus beyond what my other cameras can achieve. This is the next evolution in autofocus which started with multiple focus points back in my F100 film camera and then more and more focus points spread across the frame of newer and newer cameras. But changes in autofocus since the introduction of more and more focus points have been incremental. The Z7ii can do something revolutionary that those cameras can’t do. It can detect a face or an eye and track it with amazing accuracy. And that makes this a camera that I absolutely want in my camera bag.
This changes everything.
