You’ll need Snapbridge. I use it with my Z8 an Zf all the time. Download that before you start. If you paired it already somehow go to your phones and Z8’s Bluetooth settings, forget those pairings, start fresh.
Snapbridge can be finicky so I would choose one device you want to pair to and not multiple, I’ve had most of my issues with the app from pairing to more than one iOS device and they seem to fight over the camera connection.
Set your Z8 to longer standby times, it’s annoying if it’s trying to shut off through the process. That’s in C3 Menus/Standby timer, just set it to like 5/10 minutes for the setup.
Network Menu is next,
Make sure Airplane mode is OFF
Connect to Smart Device, Pairing, start pairing, It‘ll show a Pairing (Bluetooth) message to start the app. Now go to Snapbridge.
*make sure your USB data connection is MTP/PTP, if you were using a USB cable and it’s set to iphone it’ll ghost all the wireless settings.
Open Snapbridge and use the upper right gear icon to locate add camera, select your Z8 and follow the directions. Don’t forget when you get to the number code to pair to select OK on the phone AND the camera or it’ll timeout.
After that you should have a Z8 paired in the snapbridge app, set auto link if you want but it’ll eat battery, I usually leave it off. Snapbridge will look for the Z8 and Bluetooth connect so you can open the app and select download pictures, that‘ll establish a wi-fi connection. You can download full size RAW (slow) or smaller 2mp or 8mp JPEG, or Original JPEG or HEIF files your choice.
You can use it as a remote for the camera as well.
I set my Z8 to airplane mode when not actively using Snapbridge to preserve battery.
Things I’ve noticed that screw up the connection
-Phone being far away and Bluetooth connection with auto-link breaks down, auto link is finicky. I only use this deliberately as it’ll fill up your iPhoto’s library real quick.
-Pairing more than one thing to the Camera
-Standby timers set really short sometimes seem to cut off the connection process, set them longer if needed.
*** Add airplane mode to my menu and standby timers for quick access as needed.
If it all goes haywire just delete the connections from the Z8 under Connect to Smart Device/Pairing/Paired devices and then Forget the paired device in your IOS/Andriod Bluetooth connections and start over. This only happens to me when I try to pair my iphone and ipad and they seem to conflict trying to both connect at once.
Hope that helps.
*One last time is use the rating system in the camera (add one star) to tag the photo’s you actually want to download. I screen mine on the back LCD on the Z8 and flag them with a star. Then when you select download in snapbridge, center top is “Display Options” and bottom of that menu is “rated images”, turn that on. Now you can ONLY see the starred images in download options, select all from those or hand pick and download. That’ll save you a ton of time if you’re just needing select RAW files to download or JPEG/HEIF full size images.
I use lightroom mobile all the time to edit RAW files so that’s my typical process to download them.
I use NXMobileair (a paid app), a separate app to USB download large amounts of RAW files from my iphone (which are put in a folder for my icloud) then that is uploaded for backup And later download for processing on my home mac for use with lightroom if i need AI denoise which isn’t included on lightroom mobile yet. I’ll download those on my faster home connections, edit the RAW’s and dispose of the bulk files keeping only the selects. That’s how I backup when I’m on travel. I don’t use card readers much.
