Nikon z8 in-the-field Reviews
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For the past 30 years, I’ve been shooting Nikon professionally, and in 2002 I picked up a D100 to replace my Fuji 2.
And I’ve shot most of the D series since then, other than the 850, but I’ve been using the D500 for a few years now for portraits, weddings, landscapes, and wildlife.
But when the z6 first came out, I picked that up to record videos for this YouTube channel, and then I decided to use that for landscapes versus the D500, which I was using mainly for wildlife after that.
Now that I have the z8, that will replace the Nikon D500.
So I will do a series of in-the-field testing and reviews of the Nikon z8.
And in this video, I will give you my first impressions.
Then in the coming days, I will release around six or seven reviews, including the actual battery life; since it’s about half the size of the z9 per the specs released by Nikon, you get about half as many shots per charge.
And I’m also going to review the auto-focus system image quality comparisons to the D500 and more.
About This Review
This z8 review isn’t scientific and won’t bombard you with specs.
We already have lots of videos on that kind of information out there.
Also, I won’t review the video aspects of the z8 in this series.
I may do that in the future, but I’m more interested in how the z8 responds in real-world photographic situations.
And the results that I get in the next few days are what I will be sharing, along with some tips on how I go about shooting.
That being said, I don’t want to sugarcoat the testing either.
I want to see how the z8 responds under extremely challenging situations …
- low light and high-contrast lighting
- how it responds
- how well it does with subject detection
- eye focusing with and without a foreground and background element
- and more.
I believe this will give us all a better idea of what to expect when shooting with the Nikon z8.
So the images I’ll be shooting are nature, landscape, and wildlife.
Now, if the z8 does well with wildlife, it will do equally as well with portraits, weddings, et cetera.
After my z8 had arrived, I had to use a previously charged battery since the one that came with it was not charged.
My Initial Thoughts
And my initial thoughts when I first picked up the z8 were, wow, I love how this feels because I’m used to shooting with the z6 and the D500.
The z6 is a little bit smaller than the z8, and I never really liked how it felt in my hand, but the z8 is similar to the DSLRs that I’ve shot with in the past, and I just love the ergonomics of the grip.
It fits in my hand well, and I love that aspect of the z8. It’s much better than the z6.
Surprising Sound
The other thing that surprised me when I took a few quick shots with the z8 was the sound of the shutter clicking.
It wasn’t something I was expecting because we have a familiar sound with DSLRs and older cameras. When we press the shutter release, you can hear that clicking sound.
But with the z8, it sounds completely different, and that’s because the z8 has an electronic shutter compared to a mechanical one in the d500.
So nothing major in regards to the sound. It’s just something that I needed to prepare to experience at the time of capturing that image.
So just keep that in mind when you start using the z8 if you’re used to using older mechanical types of shutters.
Now, the cool thing about that is if you shoot weddings or even wildlife, you can turn off the sound of the shutter, making that sound or that fake shutter sound, which is a little weird to me when I did.
I’m so used to hearing that sound, but I can understand why turning off the sound with that electronic shutter would be beneficial if you don’t want to be distracted.
There are other benefits to having an all-electronic shutter versus a mechanical shutter. I won’t explore those advantages and disadvantages in this series of reviews.
However, if you want to break down the difference between a mechanical and an electronic shutter, let me know in the comments below.
Nikon z8 Battery Capacity
Now, one of the things I heard from other photographers was their concern about the number of photos you could get with the z8 battery versus a z9.
This is from my D2x, but it’s the same size. And as you can see, it’s almost twice the size. So you get twice as many photos per charge with the z9 versus the z8.
Honestly, though, with my experience with the z6, I don’t think it will be an issue.
This is why I will go ahead and do a four or five-day field test to see how many photos I can get per charge with different camera settings with the z8, like…
- using the viewfinder versus the LCD
- birds in flight,
- and other situations to see how many photos I can get per charge.
Before you watch that video, I have 10 camera settings that you should change before you go into the field because these settings will help you get the most out of the Z8.
