Z 6

I´ve spent the last six and a half years using my trusty Nikon d800 for everything under the sun, including, amazingly, sports photography. But there was always a lot of ´´something´s missing´´ when shooting with it. Trying to be a sports photographer with a sub 4fps camera is a tricky thing. You have to hone your eye for when to shoot, and pick your moments. Burst is all but useless with it, and I wound up training myself over those six years and change to shoot soccer games on the MLS stage with Single Shot mode, since I knew the burst would fail me. But I got very good at picking those moments.

And then I heard about the Nikon Z6. I went to the official ´´reveal´´ here in Seattle, got hands-on with the camera, talked to the Nikon engineer who ran the show, and was so hooked that I put my pre-order in that very night. That was September of ´18. In November, the camera became my own... my precious. I started shooting everything with it. From November until early February, I shot only with Single shot, only with the 24-70 f/4 z-mount lens. And the pictures were gorgeous. The first time I´d ever considered a lens that short, with that ´´slow´´ of a speed, to be that amazing.

The MLS season started at the beginning of March, and I switched over to my Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 to start shooting the games. I switched to Continuous High Extended burst mode, and I was hooked. Those 12fps meant catching sequences I never could have before, and the camera´s capability with that ´´slow´´ lens once again astounded me. I was shooting NIGHT games, pushing my ISO as high as 4000-6000, and the images were coming out absolutely incredible.

This camera is, quite honestly, the best thing to happen to my photographic life. I have to try very hard to find anything to complain about, but in the effort of Full Disclosure™, here it is:

The battery doesn´t last as long as I´d like. If it´s cold outside (under 50 degrees), or wet and cold, the battery level visibly drops over the course of the game. An MLS game is 90 minutes, with a 15 minute half time, and in that span, my battery dropped from full to about 10-20%. It was unnerving.

That said, in the warmer games since, the batter has been fantastic. And the ´´single card slot failure´´ is a hoax, probably perpetrated by the Chinese. Because that XQD is ridiculously fast, both in the taking of pictures, and in shoving them onto my laptop for processing. (I´m using a wonderful Sony XQD card reader via USB-3.) I spent 6 years with 2 card slots in my d800, taking thousands and thousands of pictures every weekend (or weeknight game) and never actually having any pictures go onto the CF card I had in there as backup to my SD. You won´t miss your second card, because you don´t really need it.

This camera is perfect. Sublime. And I bought a second battery... just in case.

As a retired pro still life photographer who has owned a Nikon F back in 1967 I have always relied on Nikon to give me great and reliable gear This new Z6 is of the same caliber. I never bought into digital camera´s with mirrors ( you never look into the view finder anymore) in them. I waited for Nikon to come out with the Z line and I am glad that I did.

I´m less than 30 days in with this camera, but really like it so far. It fits my larger than usual hands quite well and is SO full of features and customizations that it´s going to take a while to feel like I´m controlling it instead of the other way around. I have a 17-200 Nikon that works well with the FTZ adapter but when set to ´´Pinpoint´´ focus and zoomed out to max, it seems to really struggle to focus. If I back off just slightly, it´s fine. I´m anxiously waiting on the Eye A/F firmware update that should come in May and I hope it will put the Z6 at or above the performance of Sony´s Eye a/f. I have not shot any video yet so can only speak to the still images, but so far they are quite good! Well done NIKON....

As an amateur I shoot mainly travel, landscapes, and family. The Z6 is in the perfect file size range at 24mpx and has amazing clarity and color rendition. I haven´t pushed it to the limit but have pulled out details in 3 stops underexposed. Being a Nikon shooter for a number of years the FTZ adapter is super handy. I have the f2.8 zoom trilogy and a couple of other long zooms. One problem is that the clarity is so good, I was seeing minor distortions in some of my longer zooms that I overlooked before with my D600. The autofocus worked surprisingly well with my 28-300 picking out the sweet spot of a bird in flight in the Everglades. The 24-70 f2.8, although very sharp, is a bit too heavy for the Z6 so I opted to buy the new S series 24-70 2.8. After witnessing the sharpness of the S series 50mm f1.8 I am excited to run the new native mount zoom through the paces.

Probably the best feeling in hand, Nikon body I´ve owned to date, having previously owned D700/D800/D3x/D800e/D810/D750. I went to two Nikon events for hands on before buying, and I knew it would replace my 4 year old D750. The things I like and use, EVF, finally a 1:1 ratio file that´s a decent size, silent shutter, size, weight, I´m a traveler and hiker so this and a very good 24-70 F4 is what I´ve been waiting for, for years. It feels durable but time will tell, but I already have paint loss on top right dial, the touch screen, my 70-200mm F4VR seems reborn on the Z6, was acting up with twitching back and forth AF on my D750.
Cons...Lack of lenses, Nikon is slow getting new lenses to market, constant backorder issue.
Multiple Exposure, the resulting file ends up recorded as a jpg and not a RAW file.
Camera freeze up x 2 times in the field, removed the battery to fix.
Paint loss on top dial after a few months of use.

This is not the great all around camera that it is touted to be. The auto focus in low light is poor. When I´m shooting in low light situations I have to switch the my D 750, which is much better in low light and focuses faster than the Z 6 in most situations.
The ability to see what you just shot in the viewfinder is one of the great advantages of a mirrorless camera. The shortest viewing time for this feature on the Z 6 is two seconds. It takes two seconds before the image clears and you can see your subject again. For event photography two seconds of viewer blindness is totally unacceptable. I have another company´s mirrorless camera which has a half second setting which is just about right.
Another short coming is the focal point toggle (joy stick) knob on the back of the camera. Any time the camera bumps against me (which is all the time), the focal point toggle knob moves and so does the focal point. When I raise the camera to my eye I never know where I´m going to find the focal point in the viewer and there´s no way to lock the focal point in place. To make thing worse, the auto focus system has no eye detection and the face detection is poor. The good folks at Nikon´s tech/camera support are very nice but have no solutions or workarounds for the camera´s short comings.
Very sorry I bought this camera.

While using Nikon cameras since the late 1970´s, I have collected quite a bit of quality Nikon glass in all shapes and sizes, including some very old (and extremely sharp) super telephoto lenses. With its focus peaking and in-body image stabilization, the Z 6 has breathed new life into my old AI-S lenses, allowing me to hand-hold some lenses that have spent most of their active life on a tripod. The Z 6 also performs flawlessly with the newer auto-focus lenses that I purchased more recently for my D850 and other D-series cameras.

Do to its reduced size and weight, I bought the Z 6 primarily as a ´´travel´´ camera. However, it has become my mainstay for almost everything that does not require the 46 mega-pixels of the D850. The D850 is very good for video, but I find the Z 6 to be easier to use in video mode, as well as having far superior focus tracking for video.

Although I have yet to buy a Z-series lens (as I already own a good selection of Nikon lenses), I couldn´t be more pleased with the Z 6! I plan on purchasing the Z-mount 24-70mm 1:2.8 as a kit lens for everyday shooting as soon as it becomes available.

I have been a Nikon user for years and have just upgraded from the D500 (which is an awesome camera as well).
Shooting with the 24-70/f4 kit lens and couldn´t be happier. Edge to edge sharpness to say the least.
The camera will accept my Tampon 10-24mm and 16-300mm using the FTZ Adapter. Some Tamron lenses will not work until a planned bios update is available.
I will be adding quite a few F Series lenses to my arsenal soon. I cannot wait to see and feel the full potential of the Z6.

The 24-70 S lens and sensor produce excellent images. Though the 24-70 is not a macro lens, images taken at the closet focus setting and cropped in Photoshop give me quality images. A recent video project produced clips with useable color and good ambient sound. Follow focus and touch screen focusing worked well as persons moved and the dialogue changed from perso to person. The SB-500 flash or LED lights work well with the Z6.