First European field review of the Nikon Z9

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

Tom-Neth

Tom-Neth

Tom
Supporting Member
Marketplace
Member's gallery
photographylife.com

Nikon Z9 Wildlife Impressions: Libor Vaicenbacher

One of our readers, Libor Vaicenbacher, tested perhaps the first copy of the Nikon Z9 shipped to the Czech Republic and has sent us his initial impressions! We hope you enjoy this first look at the Z9 for wildlife photography, including full resolution NEF files for download.
photographylife.com photographylife.com
Looks like a very good wildlife camera. Although I switched to Sony A1 this year after 20 years with Nikon, it is nice to see that Nikon is catching up with their mirrorless cameras.
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
I thought it was a good read, and was pleased that he was positive about the Z9. However, unless I missed it, no mention of high ISO performance and noise. I would expect that to be almost as important as AF and speed for a wildlife photographer, as we spend so much time shooting in low light.
 
Member's gallery
frdjohns said:
I thought it was a good read, and was pleased that he was positive about the Z9. However, unless I missed it, no mention of high ISO performance and noise. I would expect that to be almost as important as AF and speed for a wildlife photographer, as we spend so much time shooting in low light.
Click to expand...
He may not have commented but his shots at iso 2500 to 5000 are very clean which is a good start but yes, 12800 seems to be the new benchmark.
 
Member's gallery
FB101 said:
He may not have commented but his shots at iso 2500 to 5000 are very clean which is a good start but yes, 12800 seems to be the new benchmark.
Click to expand...

You are right, they do look clean, but then these images have been reduced to a small size for internet viewing in his article. I would need to see them in something approaching full (or at least a printable) resolution before I would make any judgement. I guess we'll just have to wait for regular folks to start getting the Z9 and see how they perform from people we trust.
 
Member's gallery
frdjohns said:
I thought it was a good read, and was pleased that he was positive about the Z9. However, unless I missed it, no mention of high ISO performance and noise. I would expect that to be almost as important as AF and speed for a wildlife photographer, as we spend so much time shooting in low light.
Click to expand...
Brad Hill has a detailed comparison of high ISO of the Z9 compared with Z7II, Z6II, and D6. It is his December 12th blog post. http://www.naturalart.ca/voice/blog.html
 
Member's gallery
Tiago Cardoso said:
It's hard to compare iso between cameras and brands when the same value doesn't mean the same thing. There isn't a fixed standard.

Click to expand...
Isn’t tne whole point of ISO that it IS standardisation?

What do ISO Standards have to do with you as a photographer?
For example, ISO 12232 gives camera manufacturers a benchmark for setting exposure in digital cameras. It also dictates just how cameras should record exposure in terms of metadata and even provides a standard method for comparing the sensor sensitivity of different digital cameras and smartphones.

Without these standards, each manufacturer would have to use their own process to determine a camera’s specifications. As a result, these specifications wouldn’t mean much relative to other cameras, as each manufacturer would be measuring according to a different benchmark.

Having a common, international standard prevents this from happening. It ensures that ISO 100 on a Sony is the same as ISO 100 on a Canon, which is the same on an Olympus, etc.

Not only does this help you know which camera to buy, it helps the manufacturers make a consistently sound product. It also makes it much easier for different photography products to work well together.

On the metadata side, having everyone follow the exact same ISO standards means that when we see the camera settings someone used, we can then recreate the exposure conditions without a lot of guesswork
Click to expand...
 
Member's gallery
John Navitsky said:
👆 this
Click to expand...

wow, that is one heck of a statement considering how good the z6ii is in low light. And he found less than 1/3rd stop advantage to the D6 when the Z9 is downsampled to the same size… pretty much says the advantage of low resolution for noise performance has mostly been erased in this new generation of Nikon cameras.
I didn’t expect that on their first stacked sensor and one amazing accomplishment. If they maintained the DR of the z7ii it will turn out to be one of the most striking new sensors launched in a long time (Keeping in mind that the A1 sensor is a second generation effort, not a first attempt).

My comments: Now this is interesting. If you downsample Z 9 images to the exact size of Z 6II images then the Z 9 slightly outperforms the Z 6II in ISO performance (at least in visible noise). This tells ME that there really is no net advantage in ISO performance of the Z 6II over the Z 9 in a field setting (and there's actually a slight benefit to shooting the Z 9). And, it also tells me I may have to re-consider the initial thought I had of keeping my Z 6II simply for use in high ISO situations where it would "beat" my Z 9.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top