I own a Nikon D850, which I paid 💰💰💰 for just last year. I love most things about it, but I routinely complain that the auto focus for action is not as good as Canon's, I wish it shot more frames per second, I wish it had image stabilization built into the body for video, and I wish it had a 50mm f/1.2 lens like Canon.

Well. I watched a few video reviews of pre-production units. Kai's was the funniest, as usual, but I needed more substance. I think the one to watch is DPReview's. Their attempts at humor are painful, but good substance. The BHPhoto live stream with Nikon ambassadors was all hype and I couldn't get through more than 10 minutes of it.

So. 9 frames per second shooting speed. Better than the D850. 5 stops of image stabilization built into the body. Mmmmm. A 58mm f/0.95 lens. 😍 Oh my God. Phase detect autofocus which is probably a step up from the D850.

So it looks like I. Must. Upgrade. And be out 💰💰💰💰 . Your thoughts.

📷: ntv

That 58mm f/0.95 is probably going to cost more than the D850 and the kit lens.

To me the only reason to upgrade would be for the new lenses and lens mount, whenever that becomes compelling. More frames per second isn't something that is important to me, so I don't really have an opinion on that. I have seen worse battery life scores, but that is not based on real-world experience and probably depends on use-case, but you can work around that. I have seen a lot of moaning about the lack of a redundant SD card slot as though that is the only weak point in data integrity chain from scene to secure photos.

I have a D750 and the lenses that I want and I get a lot of enjoyment out of this gear. To me, the new mirrorless cameras and lenses will probably be more compelling on or after August 23, 2020.

Initially when I read about the Z6 at 1AM it looked like the perfect camera for me since 24 MP is more than enough as I shoot a lot of low light work and adding VR to all my primes would be amazing but... The fact that it can't focus with AF-D lenses is the big killer for me. I love my 135 F2 and 180 F2.8. So the question is will an adapter with a motor be in the future? Otherwise based on the road map I've got awhile for Nikon to fill in those gaps if they ever do.

While the AF coverage is great I'm a little worried about the performance with its' lower number of points VS the Z7 so that's something to keep an eye on.

The single card slot is a worry. I know that I shot with one for years on my D700 and my DSLR's before it but once you have dual cards and the piece of mind that gives you it's hard to go back.

So in the short term I'll be getting another Nikon DSLR most likely but I have hopes for the Z mount's future.

Hmmm, yeah, those are really good points. I didn't realize it couldn't focus with AF-D lenses.

I would say your good for at least one revision of the camera. Reviews at this stage all seem to say very rough around the edges.

I suggest patience. The first availability for anything seems at least a month away and appears to start with the Z7 and Z7 "kits", so the body with and without different combinations of the
Nikon FTZ Mount Adapter and Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S lens. The Z6, Nikon NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S and Nikon NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.8 S are staged to follow in October and ... then additional lenses in 2019-2020. (Edit: The Z6 and Z6 kits are coming in late November.)

It has been suggested that the "S" suffix in these lenses indicates "Silver", as in "Silver Ring" lens. If that's true, then I don't see any Nikkor "Gold Ring" lenses in the announced lens roadmap; they are all "S" series lenses.

That combination of single memory card slot and all Silver Ring lenses may be Nikon's way of indicating that the "Z" series mirrorless is not intended as a "Professional" line? Perhaps there is more to follow?

While there is a lot to like about the Z mirrorless bodies, I do have 4 concerns:

1) Single memory card for both bodies. While I suppose that I could have understood a single card slot for the Z6, the decision to omit it from the Z7 seems off-putting and short-sighted.

2) Short battery life. 330 shots (CIPA) for the Z7. 330 shots is awfully paltry by today's standards. The Nikon D850 is rated at 1840 CIPA for still-image acquisition, for example.

3) Need to use the Nikon Mount Adapter FTZ for lens selection for now. The Nikon mirrorless lens roadmap is pretty limited to start, meaning that you will need to use Nikon "F-mount" lenses for many/most serious/professional applications at the start. While the viability of the lens adapter is not known, early reports of usability are pretty good.

4) No Patterned AF-Assist from flash. I have only seen one report on this but it seems that these Nikon mirrorless bodies are unable to use a flash's patterned AF-Assist light. Nikon appears to have chosen to use an on-camera assist light, which is better than nothing but not a professional substitute. I've had to shoot wedding receptions in both a bar area and an outdoor, night-time European tent setting. In both cases the on-flash AF-Assist light saved my butt in providing fast and accurate AF acquisition. This is something that only dSLRs currently provide (as far as I have been able to discern).

Petapixel has an editorial titled Why Nikon’s New Mirrorless Cameras Mostly Disappoint Me (On Paper)

He shoots a lot of video and the video specs didn't impress him (no 4K 60p). No flip-out screen so vloggers can see themselves as they record video. Not a good assortment of lenses to start.

It's funny how different our demands are. I voted impressed in this petapixel poll:

Nikon for me is like that super-so-incredibly hot girlfriend that you cannot believe you are hooked up and then she marries your best friend. The pain is felt deep. After Nikon completely delivered probably the WORST DSLR EVER - the D2H which resulted in my selling all my Nikon gear and going to Canon mostly because of the beloved Chuck Westfahl (RIP). But, seeing the trendline that Sony was making the chipsets for all these manufacturers I decided to align myself to the single component that really is the most critical for digital photography (and, videography).

I love how Nikon's feel.....they just feel well-engineered but they are so thick-brained at the Corporate Boardroom I will never buy a Nikon product ever again. I don't get in flame wars about cameras because some people would back in the day would have sworn by their Jaguar XKE's but the rest of the world knew it was all lust .....and, a day to the mechanic. lol

Hahahaha! I remember the D2H and how bad it was and I completely agree about the Jaguars back then. But things seem to have changed with both Nikons and Jaguars. I'm pretty sure I need a Jaguar I-PACE and my lust for it is not material to my assessment.

Off topic, but if it's a question of lust, how about this? I'm pretty sure this one will start even in rainy weather.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/24/jaguar-all-electric-e-type-zero/

Most beautiful car ever.

In today's video post Jared reviews images he took using the Z7 and he found some situational image banding, but that could just be a pre-production issue that gets cleared up for the production models.

He also complains about the Z-mount lens build quality, so I start the video at that point:

Nikon Z7 BANDING? (I SHOT JPEG!)

Cool video about the new mount (flange distance and diameter)https://www.youtube.com/embed/LxT17A40d50

Great find. Nice to have an actual engineer give specifics instead of super glossy spinning elements set to fireworks and music.

I have a vague hope of better autofocus with a bigger lens mount and I could see from his presentation how I might not be dreaming.

Speaking as an engineer, it is nice to listen to an engineer instead of a marketing rep. He dumbed it down just enough for the audience, I think.

I'm following all of this vicariously. I'm still shooting a D700 + manual lenses and I'm hoping that some newer DSLRs will show up on the used market when these cameras become available.

The most interesting thing to me is to see how Nikon (mis)handles the marketing and PR. Plenty of people have remarked on it. The single card slot needed to have a clear message - "XQD is so much more reliable, you don't need 2 slots" or "2 slots just slow down the transfer speed which is needed for video". Nikon seems to be proud of the video features but they're also not cutting edge.

Mostly I'm happy I will be able to buy a mirrorless full frame camera with Nikon's ergonomics, menus, *metering* and image processing.

Fascinating, gerikson and welcome to Cake! 🎉

You emphasized metering and image processing. I'd be interested in knowing more about why. I shoot with a D850 and I'm pretty surprised at how often I'm comfortable leaving it on auto exposure and even shooting in JPEG when there's action. Does Nikon have a competitive advantage in those areas?

This is a pretty balanced review of the new cameras based on very little hand time.

https://photographylife.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nikon-z-cameras

A refreshing break from all the click-bait headlines and vlogs.

That was an AWESOME review. Too me awhile to read it all, but so informative.

Unfortunately, it talked me out of buying a Z. I'll rent one to try it but two things he said disturbed me. One is how small the buffer is, so you can't continually shoot for long. The next is it sounded like it will focus more slowly than the D850, not sure about that. 🙁