Is 24MP and a KIT lens GOOD ENOUGH? Nikon Z5 vs Z7 Surprising result!!

so there's one question that i get asked so often and that is how big can you print with your camera and how many megapixels do you need so i've got the 24 megapixel z5 here i've got the 45 megapixel z7 we're gonna go and take some photos of some woodland some vistas the seascape like i've got behind me and we're gonna print them out really big and i can't wait to see the results [Music] morning everybody fantastic to see you all again so i'm in snowdonia in wales and in this beautiful oak woodland which i'm exploring and it is really amazing it's quite difficult at the moment because the light's shining through and um that's just making it a little bit difficult but hopefully when the light drops i get some nice reflected light and be able to get some shots but i'm here to basically check out the difference between a sort of entry level full frame and there's nothing better than this nikon z5 with a kit lens compared to the top of the level full frame the z7 and a top of the range lens as well the 24 to 70 millimeter f 2.8 and i'm going to print them huge so i'm going to go over the next few days take some shots and then i'll talk about what i think about that what i think the results might be like and then i'm going to print them really big on my printer back at the studio and see what we get but wow it is so nice here tonight right let's see what i can find this isn't a bad little shot here is it but i think we'll find something better call me out tiger call me out why don't you so you might just be able to make out a mountain just up here somewhere um and just the ridge of it and and the sun's just about to drop behind that ridge and that's going to be good although it looks pretty with the sun like this what i'm hoping for is the sun to drop behind that but the glow from the sort of blue sky is still to sort of reflect down and just create some nice warm light and the warmer light will still be coming from over that direction because that's where the sun is so that's my um that's my hope some really really nice uh oaks and it just looks really amazing it's a bit like when you first go to a woodland that you've not been to before it's a bit overwhelming but i think i found something just over there that i'll show you in a minute um it's just so still the only thing you can hear is the mosquitoes which is not so good lift me up higher above the clouds won't you learn so this is nigel in studio unfortunately i seem to have muted my microphone in this section but basically what i was trying to say is this is the composition the light's gone down i've got some really nice light on the trees now and you know that's that's making quite a big difference and then just wanted to just talk about the composition a little bit with this tree in the background being the main character and then all the other trees sort of supporting it a little bit and i just wanted to talk about the background and how it all ties in together i was also careful to sort of remove the sky from the image as well and i chose this composition because i felt that it would show a lot of detail in the corners as well and that's one of the things i wanted to have a look at the other thing to mention with the z5 and the z7 and you know it's not just about megapixels and that's what i was just saying it's not just about megapixels it's about the other things with the camera as well you know perhaps that you want the z7 because it's got a slightly better screen and when you're choosing cameras you should not just look at megapixels you should look at the functionality of the camera as well so let's have a look at the photo and on to the next scene [Music] don't leave me hanging just cause i'm too proud whisper away oh this location is so amazing and and this is a really good example of why i think it's good to shoot in blue skies and clear skies especially when the sun's just gone behind the mountain or you can find some woodland that's in shade this is perfect because there's a valley there's a mountain over there and then i'm just on the edge of the woodland so it's getting all that sort of really nice light coming through and you get that really nice warm light and then these trees down here with the foliage on just look so good so this will be this will be fantastic i'll definitely take this with with both cameras i mean i might not print all these obviously but we'll choose um some to print maybe i'll i'll get a vista a woodland and a seascape hopefully and we'll we'll print one of each ah amazing amazing [Music] [Music] oh just look at the difference it makes when the sun's gone in and we've just got that glow from the sky now just look at this look how this is glowing there's no light on it but we've got blue skies the sun's gone down it's 36 minutes before sunset and this is just really nicely glowing so look out for that when you're in the woodland or when you're anywhere really look at how the light is interacting with the land because you can often get much better conditions than you think just by waiting a few minutes right back to my camper van [Music] so it's the morning now and the clear skies have gone a little bit got some really quite nice clouds and i've come to an area that has got a good view in sort of two directions so i'm aiming to try and get some of the early light just coming down the valley here and there's a good view over there with a lake and what i'm really interested in with the z5 is just how this kit lens will perform on it and what the difference will be when i put the 24 to 70 2.8 lens on this camera so i'm going to take some shots with the kit lens and with the 24 to 70 f 2.8 and you know we can compare all the different outcomes which will be really really interesting so this is a shot that just needs a little bit more light just on these hills and yeah i think it'll look pretty good there's a really nice sort of diagonal line of these trees it'll be perfect in autumnus [Music] so i've got the 24 to 70 f2a which is probably one of the best lenses that i've ever used um and so it'll be interesting to see what that's like on the z5 i've taken this same scene on the z5 and the z7 with both lenses and it's pretty good you know you can just see up here we've got these amazing clouds which just you know look really good coming through the valley i think it'd be really nice we've got some light through the valley and um yeah we're about three minutes before sunrise so there's a chance i think depends what the clouds like on the horizon um and then the view in that direction is pretty good as well [Music] [Music] oh so i found this amazing place let's say i found it i looked on a map and told me where it was and um it's quite a famous rainforest and i think there should be some ancient oaks here so i'm going to see if we can find them i just want to say something about the z5 and also megapixels really because one of the questions that i get asked the most is is 24 megapixels enough can i print with it how big can i print with it and what i wanted to try and do in this video is is obviously look at this z5 you've seen some of the photos that i've taken already take a range of different photos and then print them and see what they're like i i suspect that the z5 will be able to print really big pictures and they'll look fantastic if you pixel peep then obviously a larger megapixel camera will be a little bit better but the difference is small it is very small and the percentage increase if you look at it and and i'll overlay something here that shows you the difference between 24 megapixels and 45 megapixels isn't isn't huge so yeah i'm going to try and find something it's quite harsh the lights pretty harsh but yeah probably just stuff handheld this has got in body stabilization so i should be good handheld at the moment i've got the again the 2470 f 2.8 on which is a little bit heavier but i think i'll be good uh it's just a question of just watching the shadows really because our eyes are pretty good and it looks good to us but it's a huge dynamic range at the moment right [Music] so i thought it'd be interesting just to take one shot just to have a look at the dynamic range of both cameras the z5 and the the z7 and and see you know does the sensor make a huge amount of difference if you look at the specs then it is a little bit different but i want to see some real world examples so i've got a super high contrast scene here um it's a reasonably nice composition but i would never take it at this time of day usually there's too many shadows on the on the trees so i'm going to take it with both cameras at different exposures and we can have a look at it back in lightroom [Music] so as you can probably see the scenery around me has now changed i've come to the coast with an idea of just taking a lighthouse i've thought i've taken some woodland i've got a little bit of a vista so it'd be good to come and do some coastal photography and it's really good here there's a lighthouse that looks over back to the mountains where i was this morning so yeah i'm just going to take another shot with the z5 and the z7 and then we can print them out and compare them later it is still so warm here in wales it's just it's crazily warm it's about 28 degrees c everyone in america now is saying that's so cold but this to us in september that's crazy right anyway these dead trees look quite good as well so i think i'm going to see if i can grab a shot of these just hand held maybe with the mountains in the background [Music] oh so finally made it to the lighthouse and as you can see this is such a spectacular scene we've got the lighthouse here these amazing rocks and then snowdonia in the background those amazing mountains and i've got to say i think the light although it's not very bright we've not got a lot of sun out there's a lot of rain cloud above so it could be really good so i'm gonna um try to take some shots again with the z5 and the z7 and see what we get i've got plenty of time it's two hours 14 minutes before sunset that's a precise amount of time i have [Music] so this is like a little mini lighthouse near here which is also quite photogenic but um well just watch on waiting for sunset i thought i'd just come and have a look at this over here and see if i could find anything i mean it's all so beautiful but i feel like the best shot's still over there i might take a few shots here if i find anything amazing i'll show you the photos [Music] okay so i just want to talk about the composition a little bit i've only got 24 millimeter lens so usually i'd come a little bit closer and shoot a bit wider but because i've got the 24 to 50 millimeter kit lens i wanted to do a similar thing um with the 24 to 70 as well so i've just got the 24 millimeter lens and um yeah i've got these rocks in i've just been careful about the placement of this lock rock at the bottom and then also out to the right hand side you can just see i've got the rock um on on the right hand side bottom right that i've just been careful where i positioned that as well and the top of this rock needs pet careful positioning in the background and then there's also the white path that's just you've got to be a little bit careful about as well because you have too much of that white path over there then it can look look a little bit complicated but i can't wait to see what these look like i'm really intrigued to see how the kit lens and the z5 compare against the expensive z7 and 24 to 70 lens ah i think we've had the last of the light there this was just lit up when i got the shot but it's gone behind a bank of cloud as usually happens in landscape photography oh well [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow what an amazing 24 hours of shooting i managed to get in two sunsets and a sunrise and yeah i really enjoyed shooting with the z5 and i think it's you know valid to do this because you know you can look at dp review and see the the facts you can pixel peep and i think if you do that then you're probably always going to go for the higher megapixel camera but the reality is that it probably doesn't make a huge difference um but i wasn't sure so i thought let's try it so i've got my prints in front of me i've printed them about a meter wide so at this size then hopefully we'll see a little bit of difference and i've also got some a2 prints as well and we can compare them um obviously i could have done this simpler than you know by just enlarging a section and printing on a smaller bit of paper but i thought this was a bit more fun and it's something i get asked all the time so if you do like this video please give it a thumbs up it's taken quite a long time to produce this video longer than usual because obviously i've printed i've had to sort of think about what how i'm going to compare the the two cameras and quite a long long time shooting woodlands a vista and the seascapes so yeah give it a thumbs up it really helps me and my youtube channel and the algorithm okay this first print here the one you can see right in front of you is shot with the z5 and the kit lens so this is the z5 which is a full frame 24 megapixel entry-level camera um and it's the i think it's 300 kit lens um when it's bought with this z5 so it's a cheap lens this and this is so cool i mean if you just saw this photo i think you'd think that's fine i am really really happy with that you can see a lot of detail in the trunk area here and all these sort of ferns coming coming down here um and the detail's just amazing and also there's not a huge amount of dynamic range in this but i'll talk a bit more about that in in another photo but it just picks up all the detail in the shadows and the highlights where you notice it a little bit i shot this i shot most of my um photos on the on the on this kit lens around about f eight i did that because that was the sharpest point at what should which i got the most depth of field the sharpest point on the lens is probably about f4 um when it's at 24 millimeters isn't it five six i think at 50 millimeters but this is the sharpest point of the lens where you get the most depth of field and and it's good um it's super sharp in the center here um but it drops off a little bit of the edges like around here it it it is definitely um losing some of the quality and up here as well but you just wouldn't notice that so let's have a look at the next one which is the z7 same scene z7 um with the 24 to 70 millimeter millimeter f 2.8 lens i'll put the prices and compare the prices of the two kits here so you can see this is the next one oh and yeah it is from a distance you cannot tell the difference i put i held both of these up um and asked my my kids what they thought was the best one and they picked different ones you just can't tell from like two meters away you can't tell you have to come close but when you do come close there's definitely a difference there's a little bit more detail in the phones here um there's a lot more detail over here on this left hand side the edge detail on this lens is definitely better you do see that that um when when it's printed this big um yeah it's it's there's definitely definitely an improvement but in terms of colors any fringing um there's no difference really it looks as good in a real world situation printed this big but when i say there's a difference that's because you compare the two side by side now it's not very easy for me to pull these two bring it side by side but if i just try um you can see in this bit here the trunk i can't really do it can i but that that this has just got a little bit you know i've got to even look at the camera but yeah this is the this is the um z5 and you can see that it's definitely sharper here but it's not it's not huge it really isn't huge um and i've got something that i want to talk about the end of the video so stick around for that i'm also doing a giveaway as well um but there's something really interesting at the end end of the video that i do which i think if you've got a 24 megapixel camera or any lower megapixel camera will really help your photos if you're going to print them big okay so before we get on to the ones of the seascapes i've just got the woodland ones here so yeah these are these are the woodland ones okay so this is the same configuration i've got the um this one which is the z5 24 megapixel with the kit lens and then i printed another one with the z7 i really like this scene by the way um i thought i thought this was quite a nice sort of um vista early morning this was taking a about sunrise so maybe it's about five minutes before sunrise and you can see the details really good in this house down here what an amazing house i imagine living there but the detail you can see all through this just the ridge lines really really sharp even to the edge here with this tree which i thought would the kit lens would fall down but when printed this size you just can't see it it's slightly soft here but not that bad and again it's not too bad there then if you compare it to the this is the said seven i mean i mean you can't really tell a difference to be honest you'd have to be really i can't tell the difference if you put these two in front of me i don't think i'd choose which one is taken on the 45 megapixel camera which is on the 24 with the kick lens so printing at this size when you're printing a2 i think you really can't tell tell the difference now we haven't got anything really sharp in the corners here and i think that's probably where you probably would tell the difference a little bit um at this size but no i think if if you've got a fairly cheap lens and a 24 megapixel camera you're going to be super fine printing at a2 and also a1 it'll be fine when you when you're just viewing it from it from a distance so yeah so that's interesting um i i i thought you'd probably notice the difference at this size but you don't before i get onto this seascape shots and that i took on the coast um obviously being seascapes i just want to show you this shot so this was one that you saw me take and i showed it and but i printed it out and i really like it and i want to say why i like it because there's a few things about it that i think look really good so i really like the texture in in these trees here this was taken when the sun had just gone behind the clouds um and so i've just got nice sort of even lighting on the trees and then i've got this sort of ridgeline in the background i really like the fact the tree goes all the way through the image and i also really like the fact that i've just got these people in i was a little bit worried that these people are going to ruin it but actually i think they add something to the image um they just create give it a little bit more character i think um being by the coast so i like that i i really like that something a little bit different for me i tried it in color but i just don't think it worked quite as well as black and white because i had quite a lot of textures and shapes in it so okay let's get on to the other coast shots of the lighthouse um and this is where i swapped the lenses so i put the 24 to 70 f2 on the z5 um and then the kit lens on my z7 um so let's have a look at those and see how they've come out so i'll just move these over here and this over okay so this is the z5 but with the 24 to 70 f2 lens on now i realize that lens is quite an expensive lens and you probably won't maybe buy that lens for um the the z5 but also you've got the option of an intermediate lens like this like the 24 to 70 f4 lens and this lens is amazing um and it's a lot lighter and a lot cheaper than the other lens i expect other manufacturers have a range of lenses as well so it's probably worth looking at that but again on first look this is just such a stunning image it's worked so well i really like the composition um i think everything works well i was a little bit worried about this path but i think it's fine this boat in the background adds to it and then the mountains in the background there we've got some nice sort of light on on the on the lighthouse and then the five minutes or so the light came out and hit this rock it was pretty good the advantage of this is that it's a lot sharper towards the corners so obviously you know i've got that sharpness now with the with the sharper lens i don't know if i really notice anything in the middle um so it's probably just the corners that are benefiting which is what you'd expect but but the difference isn't so huge as the as the price tag really so i suspect that intermediate lens is probably fine for most people so yeah i mean it looks good the only thing i would say is that printed at this size when you really peer close and look at this area here then you lose a little bit of that detail and then if we look at the z7 with the kit lens on this is z7 with a kit lens then i feel that again we've lost the sharpness in the corners which you would expect especially in this corner here there's a definite degradation of the quality but this area even with the kit lens is sharper than the z5 printed at this size so it's it's marginal but it's definitely a little bit sharper again up here there's just a little bit more detail that you can see in the lighthouse here um so that megapixel increase is definitely definitely helping but then um just before i show you the final print i'll tell you what i did so then i thought i know what why do i try and upscale it and there's something called super resolution in photoshop and that uses the neural engine within photoshop to sort of sample the pixels around and try and create a higher megapixel image and basically it multiplies it by four so you end up going from a 24 to almost 100 megapixel image um so i printed that image from the z5 with the um expensive lens um the 2.8 um 24 to 70 lens i printed that one and yeah it was pretty good so i'll just show you that one so that's this one here and i'd say it looks better than the the z7 the z7 one because it's got that sharp lens on i've upscaled it i was really shocked i didn't think this would look as good but it does it looks super amazing which is just blowing me away really because that means um yeah i just can't believe that so yeah so that's it that that that's a bit of a revelation now this is just one particular image and it might be that the rock detail here works very well in that neural engine although it is pretty good up there so what i'm going to do is if you're signed up for my newsletter and i'm going to share in my next newsletter a link to the high resolution images so you can go and actually pixel peep yourself um of these images that i took um but you just need to be signed up for the newsletter so there's a link in the description below so i'm also doing a giveaway and i'm going to give away this print here this print the super resolution print taken on the z5 so what you've got to do to win that is comment below an idea for a future video and the top idea by votes below for a future video we'll win this print so i'll just look in the comments whatever's at the top and it's got to be an idea for a future video we'll win this print and i'll check that out in a week's time okay so that's it there's a lot to talk about in this video i hope you've enjoyed it something a little bit different and yeah thanks ever so much for watching until next sunday bye [Music] you

Channel: Nigel Danson

Views: 99,862

Keywords: photography, Nikon z5, 24mp camera, full frame camera, camera review, nikon z7, nigel danson, Nigel Danson photography

Id: jzGFbz8OndE

Length: 28min 8sec (1688 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021