Z 6

After owning the Z6 for a few months now, I am really loving it. I came off a D7100 that I´ve had now for 6 years. A camera I loved and used professionally for some product photography. I was scared to jump to mirrorless, but took the plunge considering I have only used Nikon products (It´s the only camera system I have ever used). I have to say after the latest update, the camera has provided me with an even greater experience with eye detect. In fact, it´s the first time a product has gotten me more excited to wanna go out for more photowalks and shoot protraits. There are so many great things about the Z6, I would urge anyone to just go on YouTube to see others reviews. It´s also great to see other brands supporting the Z mount. Including adding firmware updates to their current lens so it can be compatible with the FTP attachment to use F Mount lenses. Also, I advent any issues with my F mount Nikon Lenses with the FTP adapter. They work great together. So, anyone concerned shouldn´t worry; Images look fantastic. Im very glad I took the plunge to mirrorless.

Have owned a few Nikon D cameras, great sports cameras. This camera does shutter priority with low light ability that is amazing! My night shots of the Petit LeMans race in Georgia came out great, with no flash!

Recently stepped up from a D7000...which I really like and will keep...to the Z6. I love this camera. The low light capabilities boggles my mind. This may not be as big a jump from higher end cameras as it is the D7000 but to say it is an impressive jump is understating it. I can take videos and pictures in light so low it´s difficult for me to see and still not have excessively long exposures!! Moving to the Z6 has been very easy. The changes were not too extreme but they are improvements....not just ´´changes´´ for the sake of change. I´ve only used my F-mount lenses a few time with the FTZ adapter but it was flawless. The 24-70 F4 is a really nice pairing with the Z6. I´ve really enjoyed getting to know the Z6.
Loaded the 2.01 FW out of the box. Overall, very pleased. Only negative, spot autofocus seems to have an issue when subject does not fill the square and background is brighter.....i.e. focusing on fence rails in shadow. Wants to focus on background. Pinpoint may be better but was not available in the mode I was shooting.

All I can say is that this Camera is amazing I use it for travel,, photo shoots and video. I use it I conjunction with my D850, D810 and D500. The eye auto focus is good and just needs a few more tweaks, which Will hopefully be in future updates.

The Nikon Z6 is an exceptional camera. If you are a Nikon user you will be familiar with many of it´s features and menus. The image quality is superb. Images are clean and crips. I use my Z6 for mostly video and the quality of the video is outstanding. Nikon did not leave out the quality on the lens either. It is very well constructed and produces clean, crisp, neutral images. For the price this is a great camera. If you are not a mirrorless user yet... you will be after owning one of these! Can´t wait to get my hands on a Z7!!

The small form factor that this camera brings really allows help me as a photographer to carry less and shoot more. The in body image stabilization is one of the key factors I switched from DSLR to mirrorless. The FTZ adapter is great which allows me to use my collection of F mount lenses.

Things I like:
> Silent shooting (without flash only)
> Big, bright EVF, great for those of us who wear glasses
> Better auto white balance than the DSLRs
> Built in square crop mode, so no need to flip camera for portraits
> Usual great Nikon color renditions
>Adapter for using some of Nikon´s existing lenses
>Three custom settings instead of the two on Nikon´s DSLRs
>Built-in sensor stabilization in addition to in-lens stabilization gives added benefit when using lenses w/o their own stabilization
>Viewfinder shows what the photo will look like with adjustments incorporated into image
>Menu system similar to other Nikons
>AF sensors over most of the frame instead of just the middle part

Things I don´t like
> Auto-area focus often grabs the wrong object or face, so it isn´t that useful
> Battery life much less than DSLRs
> No 4x5 crop mode in the Z6
> It takes a second or so to ´´wake up´´ for shots, unlike DSLRs
> Different colors for in-focus indicators depending whether you are in Single or Continuous focus mode. Confusing.
> Poor continuous auto-focus is mostly useless; frequently grabs the wrong item and jumps all over the place. No 3D focus tracking of subject. Need to use manual selection or the focus zones to keep moving object in focus.
>Heavy with adapter and DSLR lenses
>No auto-focus motor in adapter, so many of Nikon´s older lenses without built-in motors are mostly useless on this camera.
>Some third party flashes don´t work as they do on Nikon´s DSLRs (don´t respect minimum shutter speeds set suing the menu or with Auto-ISO.)
>No built-in flash.
>Not good for high speed action due to focus issues and tracking subjects
>Requires expensive XQD cards, and only one card slot, so your SD cards are useless with this camera

It does some good things, but would like to see the above issues corrected in future versions. Perhaps some can be addressed in firmware updates.

I absolutely love the Z6. Image quality is great and the optical view finder works very well. The ability to create a custom menu for frequently used menu items is a great time-saver especially when you´re working in low light. The snail´s pace of the Z lens rollout is aggravating, especially the lack of a telephoto zoom beyond the 24-70 range. But the camera itself is great and the 24-70 kit lens is very sharp.

It took Nikon a while to offer a full-frame mirrorless camera, but they seem to me to have hit a home run with the Z6/Z7. They did several things right: The new Z mount takes advantage of the closer sensor spacing enabled by mirrorless design. The new lenses are getting very good reviews and the two I have so far are excellent. The FTZ adapter lets Nikon DSLR photographers use their existing inventory of F-mount lenses. What You See Is What You Get with the electronic viewfinder reduces mental and physical effort to set exposure, leaving more brain cycles to consider everything else. Eye autofocus (with free upgrade V2 firmware) is magic, even though other companies already have it. The 50mm f/1.8 is the best lens I´ve ever used (but caveat - I´m just a hacker, not an experienced pro. I haven´t used the competition.) The camera feels great in my hands and in front of my face. The control structure is pretty good considering how much it can do. And more.

I do have some complaints: The XQD memory cards are absurdly expensive, so they can´t really be used like film the way SD cards are. I´ve added a step to my workflow wherein I copy new images from XQD to a secondary archive SD in addition to my primary archive external hard drive where I do my post-processing. When the XQD fills up, I´ll erase and reuse it. Yes, XQD enables more, faster burst shooting than a slower SD card, but for me and many others that´s a solution in search of a problem. Better would have been a dual-slot system with a choice of XQD or SD (or both). Nikon seem to be avoiding a good, Z-mount, do-everything/walk-around zoom, say 24-200 or at least 24-120. If I tire of waiting, I´ll get an aftermarket lens, not the reportedly very good F-mount 24-120 from Nikon, just out of spite. And I wish they would provide more flexibility in dealing with F-mount DX lenses rather than arbitrarily reducing resolution to 10 Mp. Can´t they let the user decide how to deal with vignetting or other issue? Maybe that´s optically impossible, though - not my field.