The one that’s now « out of the bag »… this is the Nikon Z 7 which is now part of my camera gear…
…and it’s great. I’ve already been out to take make some test shots, and the first thing that surprised me was the lack of hi-ISO noise even though I was shooting at 6400 ISO – remember the sensor is almost twice the pixel density of the Z6.
The battery pack now allows me to shoot continuously for much longer than before – sometimes I had to change the camera battery halfway through a performance, which was a nuisance. The batteries can be « hot swapped » – this means that if one runs down, it can be changed without affecting the power coming from the other battery (assuming it’s charged…) The only button on the battery grip allows you to check the charge of the batteries inside. There is also a USB-C connection to enable external charging (but only when the camera is turned off, strangely)
The grip is metal (magnesium alloy?) but the end caps (battery doors) are plastic. Ergonomically it actually helps (me!) to grip the body of the camera – the only downside at the present moment, is that an ARCA tripod mounting plate designed for this grip hasn’t appeared on the market yet – as I would generally use this for dynamic (concert, performance) work this isn’t a huge problem, but it’ll be nice to see someone get to making one so that I can whack it onto a tripod easily.
There’s not a lot to say about the camera itself – aside from a couple of minor (IMHO) technical issues – slower burst shooting, lower maximum Hi-ISO setting – which don’t affect me in any way, it’s IDENTICAL to the Z6 – in fact, the only thing different is the 6 or the 7 on the bottom righthand of the camera body.
This shot was one of the first I shot on the new body – as you can see, the hi-ISO is pegged at 6400 and frankly the noise is handled extremely well.
This was taken a couple of days earlier, but the ISO was down to 200 as I had the camera on a tripod.
This is confusing in that the detail was masked by the fog! Hi-ISO but on a tripod.