Is this Z BEST Nikon Z camera? My Full Nikon Z6 II Review

hello friends if you're new here my name is lee i go by the snapchick here on youtube and i make videos about all things photography and photography related this morning i have the nikon z62 and i thought i'd bring you along with me to do my review of this camera this camera is not going to take me very long to know what i think of it because i own the z7 i have owned that since its release we owned the z6 for a time and we also have owned the z50 since its release so i speak this guy's language so i do have three lenses with me today i have the kit lens the 24 to 70 millimeter f4 s lens i also have the newer nikon 14 to 24 millimeter f 2.8 s lens and then i also have my those are both borrowed along with this camera from nikon and then i also have my nikon 200 to 500 millimeter f-mount lens and my ftz adapter i have updated the firmware on the ftc adapter because it needed to be updated i updated the firmware on this camera because it needed to be updated so we are good to go i've been here for i don't know an hour or so since just before sunrise right out of the gate image quality is fundamentally the same as the original z6 you have the same 24 and a half megapixel sensor here of course at this point your lens has far more to do with image quality than the camera body itself the z mount lenses are stellar so if you're using those you are only limited by your own creativity you may already know that you can also use the ftz adapter to use any f-mount lens on this body and more than 90 of them will even autofocus the camera has a native iso range of 100 to 51 200 and one interesting thing is that you can shoot longer exposures than with the predecessor the z62 allows you to shoot up to 15 minute exposures so the z62 and the z72 look identical to their predecessors if you're just looking at the camera body in fact if i were to be blindfolded and you put the z6 z7 z62 or z72 into my hands i wouldn't know which was which because they are they're all the same on the outside so while they may look the same on the outside there are some differences on the inside between the z6 and the z62 one thing that you know upgrades are great right but one thing that i really don't like is the card options that you have in the camera on the original z6 and z7 you had one i say one like you can see my finger in my mitten one uh xqd card slot and i did not mind that i bought a couple of xqd cards and and i had them they're reliable they're great they're fast i always liked them but a lot of people did complain that there was only one card slot and also that it was xqd a lot of folks wanted it to be sd and they wanted two card slots so in these cameras they did give us two card slots but they gave us one xqd and one sd oh by the way the xqd can also be cf express now but i don't like it i want it to be one card type i don't want to have to carry around two different card types i only have one xqd card in here for most of my own photography i don't need dual card slots but if i were to go and shoot a wedding again for example um you know i would be using dual card slots but anyway that's my thoughts so far on the differences but let's let's go into a little bit more of the differences on the inside now that i have that off my chest the difference between the z6 and the z62 aren't big changes overall but the changes that were made may tip the scales for some of you that have been thinking about nikon's mirrorless line one really good change is that nikon has gone from one xspeed six processor to two this seems to have made a lot of little things better on the z62 than its predecessor for example 14 frames per second burst shooting with the z62 compared to 12 with the z6 along with a much deeper buffer let me talk about accessories here along with the ftz adapter i mentioned earlier there is a new grip for the z62 and z72 which does have shooting controls on it and it also allows you to do the two battery shuffle meaning that you can swap one battery out while the other is powering the camera for time lapse and astrophotographers or anyone doing extensive video this is great also speaking of power the usb charging port can now be used to power the camera while it's in use on the original z6 you could technically power the camera while using it but you needed one of these battery adapters which just always felt like the long way around given the camera's own usbc port there is a new version of the battery though the camera is backwards compatible with older en el 15 types the new one is the en el15c i should mention that you do need to be using this new battery to be able to power the camera while shooting as expected you can shoot video with the z62 the camera can shoot 4k 30p with the full sensor width and in a firmware update in february of 2021 nikon has said that it will gain 4k 60p video with a one and a half x crop you can also now shoot 1080p at up to 120 frames per second and that is all to your card of course that's going to depend on what speed the card is in your camera however with the z series of cameras you can also shoot 10 bit to an external recorder like my atomos ninja 5 here via hdmi and i just did that out towards the canyon to show you the difference between 8-bit video and 10-bit video when i bring it into final cut pro to edit it later on you simply have more latitude and color grading with 10-bit video you can recover more detail in the shadows and highlights than you can with 8-bit video 10-bit video with an external recorder certainly gives you larger files that your computer needs more power to process but it is an option for you video shooters out there on a related note you will be able to pay for an additional upgrade to 12-bit raw 4k footage with the majority of the sensor width via external recorder i'm closing out my time here at the grand canyon today and i am kind of doing my last little bit of testing with the z62 and that is auto focus in general how fast is auto focus and also the detection and tracking options it has both human eye detect autofocus and animal eye detect autofocus which i did get to test out um as well as the tracking the autofocus tracking on for example ravens flying in the sky here at the grand canyon i should note that the animal eye detect is for stills and video but it only works for cats and dogs it did work exceedingly well for this pup also i detect autofocus for both humans and animals has been added in wide area focus previously eye autofocus was available in auto area for stills and not for video at all so this along with how the autofocus performance was approved improved in general and how you have more frames per second here it improves the usability of this camera now i wouldn't say that nikon's auto focus detection and tracking is quite at the level of sony's class leading auto focus detection and tracking but they're definitely getting there for the most part i feel that the mark ii versions of the z6 and z7 bring the z series into 2021. the question that i always get asked about the z series is where does it stack up to other brands and here's the deal there are no poor choices out there right now they are all good cameras this one is unapologetically nikon meaning that if you've used at least one of the many other nikons out there you may already know how to use the z62 this will be a natural transition for you to a fabulous camera for non-nikon users peeking in what you have with this camera is very interesting combination of still image and video performance how it stacks up to other brands depends on what features you're looking for we all have one or two things that really matters to us and the rest like image quality or low light performance you can get that on any number of cameras you need to look at the specs at the lenses available in the lineup find those things that are important to you but then get the camera in your hands to see if you like using it for most of us that's just as important as the specifications as many of you know we shoot leica we shoot sony we're no stranger to fujifilm and we've reviewed cameras from virtually every brand the reason why we always have nikon z cameras handy is that they seem to do everything quite well they're all around cameras and each z lens that we've used has been properly amazing z lenses aren't held back by the f-mount and its legacy compatibility the z-bodies were designed hand-in-hand with the z-mount so the focus speed and accuracy and the amazing sharpness and in-camera corrections are spot-on it all just works and the z-lenses are so new that there's no wonky old ones to avoid you can shop with confidence if nikon is your cup of tea now there is still debate when it comes to mirrorless versus dslr the closest thing we have to the mirrorless z62 over on the dslr side is the d780 and if dslr is your love language then the d780 is where you should look but it sure does seem that with some of the new faster better and stronger features of the z62 unless you're an f-mount lens junkie the z62 does seem to leave the d780 and most of the other z system in the dust we do have to send this loner back but you will see a z72 review coming from us very soon and our z50 and z7 are permanent members of our collection here along with a handful of z-mount lenses of course it's not my job to sell you on this camera but i can share my experience with you and for me it's hard to find anything to complain about with this camera or any of the z cameras that we've used they're designed to do the job with neither fuss nor pageantry they just work since we purchased our z7 at launch it's what we've used to film nearly all of our videos with and it's been as reliable as we expected i think one reason that the z series might get less press than it arguably deserves is that it's not necessarily the best at any one thing there are cameras that go deeper into video options that are less effective for stills there are higher resolution still cameras that lack the 10-bit video or flexibility of 4k options the only camera that we can think of that puts in a solid performance in as many areas as the z62 is it stablemate the z72 with its higher resolution and suddenly fewer compromises overall at a non-subtle higher price you all do a great job of lighting up those comments below whether you are a nikon shooter now or even a z62 shooter or peeking in from another brand don't be shy about those questions or your comments of course please like this video and subscribe if you haven't already and if you are interested in learning more about photography in general i do have long form courses available on the basics of photography on classic portraiture and right now i'm in the midst of rolling out my landscape photography course my courses are available to channel members so there is a link in the description to learn more about channel membership and i will also link to the z62 and the lenses that i used with it so you can find out about pricing and availability in your area and that's all everybody thank you for [Music] watching [Music] you

Channel: Leigh TheSnapChick

Views: 72,946

Keywords: z 6ii, z6, photography, photographer, snapchick, snapchick.com, leigh, raymond

Id: 2qQvMnb1QnA

Length: 13min 32sec (812 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021