My experience has been a bit different from some of those here. I have used the FTZ on the Z7ii as well as the Z8. I have also used most of the F mount lenses listed on the D500 and D5600. My selection of lenses has not been as grandiose as many others I am sure. I have used the following:
Nikkor 200-500 f/5.6
Sigma 150-600 Sports
Nikkor 35 f/1.8 DX
Nikkor 70-300 DX
Nikkor 18-55 VR DX
Nikkor Z 70-180 f/2.8
On all of the F mount lenses I would agree with what Steve said: they worked better on the Z bodies with the FTZ than they did on the F mount bodies. They have generally worked well.
However, the F mount lenses have definitely have
not worked for me on the Z bodies as well as I expected of the Z bodies based on any of how I saw those bodies performing online - almost always with Z mount lenses.
In other words, I saw the Z7ii and Z8 working a certain way over and over in videos online and when I would put my F mount lenses on these bodies, while they'd work better than on my DSLRs, I would not see the performance from the Z bodies that those same bodies exhibited when being shot with Z lenses online.
The real revelation came when I got my first - and currently only - native Z lens, the 70-180. It's been pretty striking how much better the AF works. For instance, with the F mount lenses I would have my kids on the swings or going down the slide or running around in the yard and try to photograph them and if I relied on "old school" methods I could, but neither the Z7ii nor even the Z8 would really track their eyes especially well - though the Z8 was definitely better. When I had the Z7ii, I blamed this on the camera and its reputation for having poor AF for action. Even then I was always confused because lots of people out there would talk about how bad the AF in those early Z bodies was, while others would say it actually is fine and would showcase great photos of birds in flight, equestrian shows, sports, kids playing, etc. I'd even see videos of people doing this stuff and it worked! - but not for me. In part I even made the huge Z8 investment to try to finally get this stuff working and while it was slightly better I was truly devastated when the Z8 still didn't do this stuff well and felt like it was a huge waste of money.
It's not necessarily a super solid conclusion because it's currently a sample size of one, but the native Z lens just does all this the way I always thought it should. In fact, here's an example of how well: in the evenings we often take a walk and I bring the camera and a few times I've given the camera to my wife to hold so I can run with the kids. She has so little experience with it that a few days ago she tried taking photos with it while she was holding it and got a bunch of totally out of focus shots until she asked and I had to explain how to use back button focus. One day later we went out and she got almost nothing but in focus shots of us running around pretty fast and the kids being erratic kids where even when they are having a "portrait" taken they move faster than some wild animals. It was far more in focus shots than I've probably ever gotten of a scene like that, most of them focused right on the eye - and all in basically the dark.
I wouldn't have gotten shots like this with any of my F mount lenses, let alone my wife who hasn't ever really used a camera since the advent of mirrorless.
The best way for me to describe the difference would be to say that none of the uniquely mirrorless features have really worked very well for me with any of my F mount lenses, but basic focus performance has been more accurate than on the DSLRs. Subject detection, tracking, and that sort of thing has been poor and way more often than should be the case it won't even recognize a subject with the F mount lenses mounted. However, if a subject IS detected than the focus will be more accurate than with even my fine tuned DSLR, and if I use a regular single point AF or have subject detection turned off, focus will be more accurate. Thus, from my experience anyways, I have found that the reputation for the FTZ to work extremely well is deserved
in the sense that it will provide near seamless operation according to the standards for F mount cameras, but perhaps slightly overstated (again, in my experience) in that they haven't given me good performance
according to the standard for what a Z mount camera can do.
I'm attaching a few photos below that my wife took to demonstrate what the Z mount lens did in difficult conditions in the hands of someone who knows almost nothing about how to use the camera:
View attachment 69954View attachment 69955View attachment 69956
