My first days with the Nikon Z9
As an amateur wildlife photographer, I have more than enjoyed my Nikon D850 and D5 with my long glass over the last few years. Both great cameras and combined with the excellent 500mm f/4 FL or the brilliantly light and portable 500mm f/5.6 PF my kit has not been the limiting factor to my photography … that has squarely been down to my ability to take advantage of such sophisticated gear. I have become very comfortable with those two cameras and over years of use increasingly got better at mastering them.
I did buy a Nikon Z6 when it first came out to test the water with mirrorless, but I continued to rely on my DSLRs for wildlife and used the Z6 with the excellent 24-70 Z f/2.8 as my family, events and travel camera. I particularly found the auto focus and the EVF stutter under continuous shooting an issue for wildlife. It also didn’t balance very well with the long F lenses.
When the Nikon Z9 was formally launched in October last year I just couldn’t stop myself. Overcome by GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) I put down a deposit on the Z9. It just sounded so good. Did I need it? Do I need it? Nope, not at all rationally. I could have continued to enjoy and expand my wildlife photography skills with the DLSRs for many years. But, it was too tempting. The hit to my pocket was significantly reduced by trading in my D5 and D850 in return.
The Z9 arrived a few weeks back and I have been able to take it for test drives for days of extensive shooting in England, Wales, Scotland and Costa Rica. And to sum up – it has been a joy to use. My slow march towards mirrorless will now gain momentum. There is no way back. Suddenly the noisy mechanical DLSRs feel just a little bit old.
As a Nikon shooter for years, the Z9 is instantly familiar, and the great ergonomics quickly makes it feel like you’ve had it for much longer than a few days. Buttons and menus are as you would expect. My remote shutters fit as the Z9 has the good old 10-pin connector, D5 batteries can be re-used, and the F lenses work just as expected with the FTZ2 adapter. You don’t even think about those lenses not being ‘native’ as they work perfectly with no difference in focusing speed or behaviour (at least for the ‘E’ lenses). The long glass balances very well with the Z9’s D5 style body.
Compared to the Z6 the EVF is brilliant. No blackout, no stutter. I forgot I was using an EVF. In addition, the ability to review your photos without taking your eye from the viewfinder is a bonus. I programmed a button (see more below) to switch to review mode and another press of the same button would zoom in to 100%. You can instantly examine the shot you captured without having to look at the rear screen.
The biggest difference from the DSLRs is the autofocus. The animal recognition is a bit like magic. After an initial split second of reviewing the scene, the camera will latch onto a bird. First the body, then the head and if in view, the eye. The focus stays glued to the bird as it moves around even at speed in flight. It is not perfect, and in some cases it would ‘think’ it found a bird from other patterns in the landscape, but it is much better than I expected. By narrowing the area of detection or using carefully positioned pre-focusing you quickly improve the camera’s ability to latch onto subjects and stick to them. This allows you as the photographer to spend more of your time thinking about composition rather than ensuring the subject stays in focus. I tended to use AF Area Wide (Large) with Animal detection. This allowed me to broadly target the animal (bird usually) I wanted to capture and let the camera detect and attach focus on it. Thereafter, I sometimes would toggle to 3D tracking, particularly for birds in flight. My keeper rate improved. More on how I have currently programmed the buttons for AF is described below.
One thing I noticed is that I shot more photos than I tended to do with the DSLRs. Mainly this is down to the continuous shooting rate of 20 fps for raw files, but also the fact that the camera is entirely silent as it has no mechanical shutter. I opted to disable the fake shutter noise and use the blinking sidebars in the EVF to indicate shutter release. This took a little getting used to and I tended to hold the shutter for longer than I normally would without the feedback of the shutter sound, resulting in a larger number of recorded frames. This improved as I got more familiar with this new way of shooting. Needless to say, more frames equal more storage requirement. And the CFexpress cards are not cheap either. I use two Angelbird AV Pro SX 160Gb (cost of £185 each in UK) … and with these new fast cards you also need a new CFexpress card reader. I would recommend investing in fast cards for wildlife. Although, the XQD cards from the D5/D850 can still be used but with much reduced write speed.
Battery life has not been an issue. With the Z6 I know I almost always will need two batteries, but the monster Z9 battery only ran out of juice on one day out of several days active shooting. On one of those days, I shot over 1,200 frames and the battery was 55% full at the end. Battery life will depend on your shooting pattern, how you configure your camera, and particularly the use of the EVF and rear screen throughout the day.
I have so far only shot in full lossless 14-bit raw, as the new high-efficiency compressed options are not yet supported by many main Raw editors (apart from Nikon’s own NX Studio). My workflow is DXO Photolab 5 and Affinity Photo for more extensive manipulation. The noise reduction in Photolab 5 is second to none and I find it a very good raw editor. Overall picture quality of the Z9 is excellent and on par with the D850 (subjectively to my naked eye).
I am experimenting quite a bit with how to configure the Z9 buttons. I am currently testing not using back-button AF which I used with my DLSRs, and this has taken a bit to get used to, but the 3D and Animal Detect tracking is so good that I have combined shutter and AF. This has freed up the AF-On button for another related action. Some of the default configurations I’ve settled on for wildlife so far are:
Continuous shooting set at 15 fps (20 fps is in most situations a little excessive – too many files)
Shutter button - Continuous AF with either 3D or AF Area Wide (Large) (this allows me to control the areas of the automatic animal detection to ensure the right animal is selected quickly)
AF-On button – Single Point AF and AF On (to pre-position focus to aid animal detection / 3D tracking)
Fn1 – Recall Shooting Functions – Hold (to toggle to a higher shutter speed / auto-ISO for quick change for action shots – e.g. when a bird is about to leave a perch)
Fn2 – Toggle Focus Mode / Area Mode (much easier to use than the AF button at the front bottom left of the camera.
Fn3 – as Fn1 for vertical grip shooting
Video button – first button press: Review of photo in the EVF), second button press: Zoom to 100% (this has worked great and allows you to quickly toggle between view and review in the EVF without taking your eye away and with minimal finger movement)
Fn4 – My Menu access
My Menu: Battery Life, Continuous High Speed fps, ISO setting, Auto-ISO toggle, Power off delay, Raw recording, Vibration Reduction, Self timer.
Needless to say, I am very impressed with the Z9 and it is truly a power house. It will take me months of active shooting to really get the max out of it. This is clearly the future, and with Nikon’s recent trend of providing firmware upgrades of substance there is likely more to come to make this camera even better. Even so, I do have a short wish list:
slightly esoteric maybe, but I miss my DK-19 big rubber eyecup from the D5. This accessory helps my eye strain and I hope one will be available for the Z9 soon
The card door lock is a bit tricky, I much preferred the D5 solution which allowed you to open it easily one-handed. The door on the Z9 is much more fiddly
Unlike the D850, no option to assign spot metering to a button (this is surely an omission which will come in a future firmware)
Allow Auto ISO toggle option and related settings (shutter limit) to be in My Menu. I can do this one my D850 and Z6 (updated: Fixed in firmware 2.00)
Why cannot all buttons be equally programmable – it is strange that some buttons have limitations. For example, I would like to access My Menu but pushing the Mic/LAN button. Not allowed :-(
The sensor protector is a great addition, but allow it to be activated when the lens release button is pressed only, rather than every time the camera is switched off (if this is possible unless it is a purely mechanical button)
Iron out bugs and improve the manuals. There are still a few bugs lurking in the complex software. Sometimes the AF setting will reset to single point (it has occurred a handful of times and mostly before the 2.00 firmware upgrade). There are also some strange quirks in how Recall Shooting Function works – not all the settings are sticky. The manuals leave a bit to be desired. Firmware 2.00 introduced a new custom setting f13 (prefer sub-selector centre). Maybe it is just me, but I still don’t get how to use this feature …
Not directly Nikon’s problem but they don’t help – we need software support (particularly DXO Photolab please) for High Efficiency Raw. It will likely take some time for this support as it is more difficult to reverse-engineer. It baffles me that Nikon isn’t supporting the major providers of raw converters in extracting max value from their cameras and assist with optimising conversions
Not a Nikon problem, but cheaper and more availability of CFexpress cards (they are often out of stock).
So far, not a long list and for Nikon shooters the Z9 is as good as it gets. And it is very good! My wildlife action keeper rate has significantly improved. I am really chuffed.