Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On May 10 this year, Nikon released the flagship full-frame micro-single Z 8, which is very close to Z 9, but is nearly 30% smaller in size and weighs only 910 grams. Equipped with a 4517-megapixel stack sensor and an EXPEED 7 image processor, it not only has a very high photo imaging standard, but also supports high-quality video shooting such as 8.3k / 60FPS N-RAW. Nikon Z 8 is priced at 27999 yuan as a single machine, and the price has been increased to more than 30000 yuan in the secondary market, which is enough to see the popularity of this camera. Nikon Z 8, as the flagship image quality of the full picture, is still at its peak. This article will introduce you to Nikon Z 8 from many practical dimensions, such as photo experience, video experience, manipulation experience and so on.

Photo experience Nikon Z 8 is equipped with a full-frame sensor with an effective pixel of 4571 megapixels, the sensor size is 35.9mm × 23.9mm, and even the DX mode of APS-C still has 1940 megapixels. Higher pixels can not only obtain more picture details, but also reserve more space for secondary composition. For example, in this photo of the corridor taken casually, it happens to run past a little girl and contrast it with a woman who is reading quietly. Thanks to the high pixels of Z 8, I can cut out the extra white space and highlight the two main characters.

For example, this picture of the cat taken in the dim light environment of Z 8 is still rich in detail after magnification. The well-rooted beard hair, the slightly moist pink nose tip, and even the blue-green cat's eyes are very real.

Unlike the lowest ISO of most cameras, the Nikon Z 8 has a lowest ISO of 64 and a maximum ISO of 25600. It can also scale up to 1EV downward or upward, equivalent to an ISO range of 32-102400. A lower ISO allows the photographer to enable a larger aperture, get a lighter depth of field, or slow down the shutter to capture the appropriate motion blur effect when the light is brighter and not using the ND filter.

The high sensitivity performance of Nikon Z8 was measured by CTOnews.com. In order to facilitate comparison, except for the lowest ISO64, the other shooting was based on ISO100. JPEG enables default noise reduction. You can see from the screen that the RAW output of ISO3200 is still very pure, the noise is more obvious at 6400, and the availability is still good after noise reduction in the later stage.

Tolerance determines the later space of a photo, and the measured tolerance of Nikon Z 8 is really surprising. Overexposed two gears can be pulled back, and the bright part information can basically be retained. After overexposed third gear is pulled back, the bright part information is seriously lost. As for the underexposed state, the fifth gear can be pulled back, and the dark details are still rich, but the number of noise is relatively large. Usability is general. Nikon Z 8 can be pulled back between 2EV and-4EV, so that the early shooting has a very high fault tolerance rate, but also leaves more room for later. Of course, we were tested under ISO100, and a higher ISO will lead to a decrease in tolerance.

The ISO of this dim light environment photo is 1250. After increasing the two exposures and correcting the white balance, the dark part is still rich in detail and the overall noise level is still within an acceptable range.

▲ right photo enlarges two exposures and corrects White balance Nikon Z 8 cancels the mechanical shutter design like Z 9. With the image processing speed of EXPEED 7, real-time view without black screen and ultra-high speed still photos can be taken continuously. Nikon Z 8 can achieve 20 RAW high-speed continuous shots per second, 30 full-pixel JPEG high-speed continuous shots per second, and 120 1100-megapixel standard quality JPEG continuous shots. When C120 is enabled with the simulated shutter sound, there is a feeling of holding the blue fire Gatlin in hand. I can't stop.

I believe many friends who follow the camera have heard of a Nikon focus stalk: "the background is as sharp as a blade, and the main body is like cream." This time Nikon Z 8 also has a lot of enhancements for autofocus, such as AF subject detection and aircraft options. This undoubtedly provides a lot of convenience for aviation photographers.

Nikon Z 8 supports compound autofocus of phase detection AF and contrast AF, with 493focus. The autofocus detection range is from-7 to 19EV. If starlight view mode is turned on, you can probe down to-9EV, which can achieve fast focus even in dark light.

Nikon claims that the machine learning algorithm of Z 8 is also better than that of Z 9. We did a simple test on the rooftop. Even though my face accounts for less than 5% of the picture, there are occasional side faces or hats covering my face. Nikon Z 8 can still accurately identify and focus.

The picture RAW file of Nikon Z 8 is in NEF format and can be previewed and edited through the official Nikon Workshop or the latest Adobe Camera Raw 15.4. Nikon Z 8 uses RAW to take pictures and record the dynamic range of 14.2 files. Nikon Z 8 also supports dynamic D-Lighting functions, and can also quickly adjust the appropriate dark details of the screen through Nikon Workshop. We chose a photo in NEF format and compared it, and we can see that the dark part of the picture is obviously highlighted under the extremely high setting.

In addition to the well-known picture output in JPEG and RAW format, Nikon Z 8 also supports HEIF format, which supports HLG high dynamic range recording. If the monitor supports it, you can directly preview and edit it with HDR effect in Nikon Workshop. Adobe Camera Raw is currently unable to open the HEIF format photos taken by Nikon Z 8.

Video experience Nikon Z 8 supports the same high-specification video recording as Z 9, and up to 8.3k / 60FPS N-RAW (12Bit). In addition to its own N-RAW, it also supports industry common formats such as Apple ProRes RAW HQ (12Bit), Apple ProRes 422 HQ (10Bit), H.265 / HEVC (8 Bit / 10Bit). Of course, the ability of high-quality video is valuable, but the duration of recording determines the real combat level of Nikon Z 8. CTOnews.com measured the video recording heat of Nikon Z 8. In order to be more suitable for the actual use of the scene, we chose to test the rooftop at 2:00 in the afternoon, when the outdoor temperature was about 32 ℃, the relative humidity was 68%, the wind was level 3 on a cloudy day, and the gentle breeze would have a certain cooling effect on Z8. The memory card uses 128GB's SanDisk Extreme Pro CFexpress. Considering the limited capacity, our recording specification is 8K / 30FPS 10Bit H265 N-log.

At about 7:00 when recording, the camera prompts the memory card to overheat, around 12:30, the yellow camera fever flag turns red, and the camera displays a red high temperature warning around 35:00. At this time, 128GB's memory card just prompts you to record full. This kind of performance makes us users who take Canon R5 as the main force envy extremely.

In addition, if you pursue the ultimate recording time, you can open the lid of the camera memory card for recording, which can more or less accelerate the heat dissipation between the camera and the memory card.

We also briefly tested the jelly effect of Nikon Z 8 video recording. from the point of view of the material, the jelly effect of the picture is still somewhat obvious when shaking the lens quickly from left to right.

Like many flagship models, the Nikon Z 8 also supports in-machine delay photography video recording, which is located in the penultimate option of the photo shooting menu, and then you can choose the shooting interval and shooting time, as well as the generated video file specifications and other options. Nikon Z 8 can shoot H265 delay video up to 8K / 30FPS 10bit. It is important to note that if you want to record 10bit delay video, you need to select the hue mode to HLG in the photo shooting menu, rather than in the delay photography video or video shooting menu.

The author directly used Z 8 to shoot a sunset delay photography, because the 85mm focal end is still not long enough, I chose DX mode to shoot, which is equivalent to the perspective of the 130mm lens. The video specification is H265 with 4K / 60FPS 8bit. The picture is smooth in both hue and brightness. Of course, if you want more room for adjustment, you can also choose to shoot 8K, 10bit or interval photo sequence, and later make your own delayed photography video.

Nikon Z 8 provides 5-axis body anti-shake and 2-axis lens anti-shake, which can achieve up to 6-gear anti-shake compensation. The NIKKOR S lens of 85mm f1.8 does not support anti-shake in itself. You can take a look at the comparison after opening the 5-axis fuselage, the anti-shaking effect of hand-held shooting, the author himself is not an iron hand, the actual picture availability is still good.

▲ turns off anti-shaking

▲ turns on anti-shaking

In the video recording function, Nikon Z 8 supports waveform display, which can better reflect the location distribution of brightness information than histogram, and is more conducive to observing the overall or local exposure of the video. Nikon Z 8 provides two sizes of waveforms to choose from. If you don't care about screen occlusion, you can choose a large waveform, which is more intuitive to observe.

Appearance-the fuselage design of the Nikon Z 8 is more like a SLR than the current flagship micro-SLR, and the operation logic is clear, as long as you have some camera experience, you can easily use it. However, I still recommend that you read the manual before use, you can find a lot of hidden and convenient operation.

Nikon Z 8 weighs about 910g (including battery, memory card, excluding lens) and the camera size is about 144x 118.5 x 83mm. This size is definitely not "micro" in the full-frame micro-sheet, but the author personally believes that large-size fuselage design is inevitable if you want to have fast and efficient control and comfortable and stable grip.

Nikon Z8's wide handle has a full grip and a curve fits into the palm of the hand; there are many key wheels on the surface of the fuselage, but the position is reasonable, the distribution is more uniform, the key distance is moderate, and the misoperation rate is very low.

In addition, Nikon designed a lot of different details for the button to facilitate the photographer's blind exercise. For example, the Nikon Z 8 has two shortcut buttons next to the camera lens, but the two keys are located in the visual blind area. Nikon has raised and sunken the surfaces of the two keys respectively, which can be distinguished by the touch of the fingers, reducing the probability of misoperation.

Another detail of lifting control is the button backlight of Nikon Z 8. As long as you turn the toggle power switch to the end, Z 8 will light up the button and shoulder screen, and you can quickly adjust and confirm the camera parameters even in the wild night shot.

In addition, Nikon Z 8 also designs starlight view and warm color display color, the former can increase the brightness of the display screen or image display, so that photographers can better preview dark information, the latter can make the display color into a low-brightness red tone to avoid interfering with other photographers.

In addition, in the "four-leaf clover" button on Nikon also specially set a shortcut to surround the exposure, press the front and rear wheel to quickly adjust the number of sheets and steps surrounded by exposure, with Z8 20 sheets per second RAW continuous shooting ability, in shooting humanities, scenery and other uncertain factors and other uncertain themes, to a large extent to avoid missing wonderful moments due to wrong exposure.

The shoulder screen of Nikon Z 8 has a very practical design. When it is off, the shoulder screen will also display the status information of the memory card, including the memory card format, the number of photos remaining to be taken, or the length of video recording. Unplugging the memory card in the off state will also update the memory card status. Just glance at the shoulder screen before going out to avoid the embarrassment of forgetting your memory card or battery.

The Nikon Z 8's fuselage interface is not only complete, but also has high specifications. In addition to the MIC port and headphone port, it is also equipped with a full-size HDMI interface, two USB C ports and a 10-pin remote control terminal interface on the front. To be praised are two Type-C ports, of which the bottom USB C can be used for charging / power supply, and the other Type-C interface can be used for high-speed data transmission. Full-size HDMI + independent USB C power supply is very convenient for people who need a camera for live broadcasting, so they don't have to worry about the interruption caused by the power depletion of the camera.

It should be noted that using the USB C interface for power supply requires turning on "USB Power Transmission" in the settings menu in advance, and Z8 can only use USB power after the battery is inserted, and the battery will not be charged at this time.

The Nikon Z 8 supports a battery model of EN-EL15c with a capacity of 16Wh (2280mAh, 7.0V). It takes about 2 hours and 35 minutes to charge from 0. A battery can record more than 1 hour of 8K / 30FPS H265 video.

In terms of card slot, Nikon Z8 adopts CFexpress (B) + SD double card slot design, which is the basic configuration of flagship cameras of various manufacturers. Compared with Z 9 double CFe card has its own advantages, SD card is cheap, but if you want to record high-specification material, you still need to choose CFexpress card.

Nikon Z 8's screen uses a 4-axis folding design, which can flip horizontally and vertically at a certain angle, but not 180 degrees. The advantage is that most cameramen see the screen, but the disadvantage is that they cannot preview the selfie and install a heat dissipation module on the back of the fuselage, which is a bit inconvenient for users who need to record Vlog. The 3. 2-inch display has the highest brightness of 900nit and can see clearly even in the scorching midday sun.

In addition, although the Nikon Z 8 does not use a mechanical shutter, it still has a shutter-like CMOS cover structure that will fall down in the off state to avoid CMOS ash or scratches.

Summary: Nikon Z 8 positioning, like Canon R5 and Sony A7R5, is a high-performance bucket flagship machine. Compared with these similar models, Nikon Z 8 has higher video recording specifications, longer video recording time, better photo control experience, and improved focus performance compared with Z 9 and other models. The original price of 27999 yuan is competitive within 3W yuan, and if the budget is adequate, it is a safe choice for most professional creations in one step.

Sample display: the following samples are taken by Nikon Z 8 with Nikel Z 85mm F1.8 lens, with some photos with a small amount of trimming or exposure white balance correction.

▲ ISO250 f/1.8 1/100s

▲ ISO80 f/1.8 1/25s

▲ ISO500 f2.8 1/200s

▲ ISO500 f2.2 1/4000s

▲ ISO200 f6.3 1/2000s

▲ ISO125 f2.2 1/4000s

▲ ISO500 f2.0 1/320s

▲ ISO64 f4.5 1/125s

▲ ISO500 f2.2 1/125s

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