Nikon Z5 - A crippled bargain for pros? Or an overpriced beginner camera?

this is the all-new nikon z5 or the z5 depending on where you're from and this is nikon's entry into the entry ish level priced entry-level full-frame mirrorless segment for fourteen hundred dollars and from what i've seen so far i don't think a lot of reviewers are being very kind to this camera for various reasons saying that it's too expensive for what it is or that they have crippled it a little too much compared to z6 and i thought i would save my judgment until i tried the camera in person last year when the canon eos rp was released it had received similar criticisms from reviewers including myself i had voiced my opinions from the very beginning that that camera is not worth thirteen hundred dollars and i had also learned that whenever i say something is too expensive a lot of people get mad at me because obviously no one likes to be told that they overspend their money on something but since then canon has lowered the price of the rp to 9.99 and they had a lot of firmware updates and they've improved the autofocus and added 24p recording which they shouldn't have taken out in the first place and now it has become a much more decent and affordable camera that's much easier to recommend to new users so in 2020 what can nikon offer in this price range at fourteen hundred dollars that no other cameras can because right now this is a very interesting price point because all the two thousand dollar cameras from two years ago are getting a lot cheaper now so if you spend just a little bit more money you can get cameras like the z6 or the sony a7 iii or if you if value is really what you're after you can get an esrp for 400 less and also if you don't need full frame you can get a higher-end crop sensor camera like the sony a600 or the fuji xt4 which have a lot more attractive video specs but if you do decide to go with full frame and if you don't shoot a lot of videos then there are some positives on the z5 to start the z5 has dual uhs 2 sd card slots which right now no other nikon or canon mirrorless cameras have in this price range the sony a7 3 does have dual card slots but only one of them is uh s2 and it also has sensor stabilization which again none of the canons have in this price range so if that's something you really need then it's only looking better than the canon eos r or the rp and also what i really like and appreciate here is the fact that they didn't try to make the body smaller and give it a smaller battery like they did on the eos rp and get rid of a lot of the buttons and try to dumb it down just to make this more entry level it uses the en el-15c battery which is the same size as the older batteries and backwards compatible obviously but it just means that the camera is now chargeable via usb and they also give you a charger unlike sony which only gives you a cable and an ac adapter the body design overall is very similar to the z6 i mean they did custom corners here and there they got rid of the top screen and moved the mode dial to where the screen was the top dials are metal on the z6 plastic on the z5 and the mode dial doesn't have a lock anymore not a big deal and it has the same number of custom slots as the z6 they didn't try to reduce that down to like one or two like canon often does on their cheaper cameras and only its front and top plates are magnesium alloy not the entire body like on the z6 but if i just close my eyes and grip the camera they basically feel identical other than the plastic dials at the top a lot of people tend to underestimate the durability of modern plastic and i don't think the durability or the build quality on this camera will be an issue to anybody and it's still weather resistant and if you open up the sd card slot you can even see the ceiling on the gaps here i mean obviously that's nothing extraordinary but small things like that can give you some extra confidence as a consumer the weight of the camera hasn't really changed from the z6 the z5 is actually 5 grams heavier than the z6 according to the nikon website at 590 grams all the buttons on the body feel exactly the same look the same the grip again identical to the z6 if i were being really picky here i feel like the shutter button is a little too upright which kind of forces me to grip the lower part of the grip which is not a problem on most dslrs but this is a very small camera so i feel like i'm always holding the camera with practically just three fingers i have the similar problem with my a73 which is why i always use the grip attachment but the body definitely feels like a more expensive camera than the eos rp and it also has a joystick which again neither of the canons have the viewfinder resolution is exactly the same as the z6 and the eos r at 3.69 million dots and which is about 33 percent higher than the a7 3's viewfinder the rear lcd screen resolution is cut down by about half though from 2.1 million dots on the z6 and to about 1 million dots on the z5 and but that's still a little bit higher than a7 3's and screen resolution at about 921 000. i'm usually not that picky about screen resolutions but looking at the screen side by side i could definitely see the difference and with the z60 screen it was always easier to see if i nailed the focus on my images without having to zoom in all the way and but if you want to be really sure you should always just use the viewfinder instead of the rear screen because that's going to be a lot sharper than the screens on both cameras overall i think the body definitely looks and feels like a 1400 camera in a good way if nikon cut down on quality to lower the price i think they did a good job on hiding it at least on the outside now let's move on to some not so positive things or at least what other people are complaining about the camera the z5 has a 24 megapixel non-bsi sensor unlike the z6's which is backside illuminated i don't know if nikon ever confirmed this but i believe this is the same sensor from the d750 but they have tweaked it to have higher iso sensitivity up to 51 200 or expandable to a hundred thousand a lot of people are mad about this but if i'm honest i don't remember anybody ever complaining about the image quality on the d750 and a lot of professionals still use that camera today but i did notice one thing that i didn't know about before i got the z5 it seems like there's no way to shoot uncompressed raw on the z5 there's lossless compressed or compressed raw in 12 and 14 bits but there is no uncompressed raw which is clearly present on the z6 surprisingly i haven't seen any other reviewers mention this and this is not a pre-production model this is the actual unit that's shipping out to everyone right now and maybe i'm missing something maybe they're going to add it in a firmware update just leave a comment down below if you know something i don't i mean do you need uncompressed draw well i guess that depends and most people won't care and most people won't even notice unless you shoot a lot in bad lighting or unless you edit your photos a lot it's probably fine but can you live with the fact that nikon decided to take it out because they thought you wouldn't mind or can you accept the fact that the images from this camera will not be as good as they can be because nikon didn't want them to be that's all for you to decide and some of you might also be disappointed by the shooting speed of the z5 which is 4.5 frames per second yes 4.5 even the canon eos rp can shoot 5 frames per second which is pretty embarrassing the sony a7iii can do 10 frames per second and the z6 could shoot up to 12 and even the old d750 could shoot up to 6.5 frames per second i mean depending on your shooting style this is probably not a deal breaker and unless you're a sports shooter 4.5 is quite usable and 4.5567 they're not that different but obviously this is another clear example of nikon crippling the camera because we knew this camera could shoot 12 frames per second like the z6 it could probably do 10 8 or even 6 but it had to be 4.5 because they had to make it more different from the z6 and that continues with the video specs as well it can shoot 1080p videos up to 60 frames per second and no 120 options and 4k up to 30 but the 4k has a 1.7 x crop unlike on the z6 so if you think about it the video specs on the z5 is actually very similar to the eos r two-year-old canon company that's always two years late on their video specs now again if you're not a video shooter this is not a problem at all and i don't think this camera will widely appeal to video shooters but i don't think that's going to upset any still shooters either so if you think of the video specs on this camera sort of as a added bonus instead of a crippling feature then you'll be happy with it and but if you do want better video specs you're just going to have to look elsewhere and one last thing and this isn't necessarily the fault of the camera but it's the z mount lenses and the nikon z mount lenses are still in their infancy and some of the lenses are ridiculously expensive and i know some of you are gonna say that canon and sony also have expensive lenses but and i've criticized their lens prices in the past many times so i'm not going to give nikon a pass here right now their cheapest prime lens is the 50 millimeter 1.8 and that's 600 which is 500 more than the canon ef lens and about 350 dollars more than sony's and to be fair sony does have the zeiss 55 1.8 which is more expensive than this lens and canon doesn't have an arc mount version yet when sony came out with their 35 1.8 for 750 dollars i thought they were crazy but nikons is 850 and that's 400 more than cannons and their 85 1.8 is 800 which is about 200 dollars more than sony's and 450 dollars more than canon ef lens so even with a 1400 camera if you buy at least one prime with it then you're going over two thousand dollars and i mean if they're charging seven or eight hundred dollars for their 1.8 then what the hell are they going to charge for their 1.4 and 1.2 obviously if you don't mind using an adapter you can always adapt your old dslr lenses but when you use an adapter on this camera your 5-axis stabilization actually becomes a 3-axis stabilization is that a deal breaker probably not but something worth noting but if you're a nikon shooter i'd like to hear your thoughts on this do you think the price of the z-mount lenses are justified are you happy with the current selection or what lenses do you want nikon to make next let me know in the comments and now let's take a look at some images comparing the high iso images they are actually pretty similar up to about 6400. if you look hard you can tell that the z5's image definitely has more noise but they're both fine no dramatic differences here but from 12800 the differences become much more obvious but still both images are quite usable here's 25 600 and 51 200 where as you can see the z6 pulls ahead quite a bit i don't necessarily think the z5's images are terrible but the z6 does perform better for obvious reasons dynamic range is where you'll see an even bigger difference especially when raising the shadows as you can see the file straight out of the camera aren't that different but pull up the shadows five stops the noise level doesn't necessarily look that different but the z5's image seems very muddy and lacks the definition and contrast the z6 has for most entry-level photographers that nikon is trying to market this camera to i think the image quality of this camera is more than good enough but if you don't want to settle for good enough and if you want to go for the best just get the z6 i did a quick video comparison with the z6 and at least straight out of the camera i couldn't see any difference in video quality like i mentioned the 4k on the z5 has a 1.7 x crop and on the z6 you have the option to either shoot in full frame or in crop mode the crop mode 4k on the z6 and the 4k on the z5 looks virtually identical to me one difference that's probably worth noting here is that the z6 can do 10 bits external recording while the z5 can only do 8 bits next the autofocus so at least on paper the z5 and the z6 have identical autofocus system they both have the 273 point face detection autofocus and compared to sony and canon nikon has always been a little bit behind on things like face and eye tracking but with the latest firmware updates i think they have gotten a lot closer so moving forward i don't think a lot of new users will be choosing sony just based on the autofocus performance alone and the z5 performs pretty well it did a great job detecting and tracking my eyes and just keeping focus on my face in general again i still don't think it's quite on the same level as sony and canon but it will still get the job done no problem i also didn't see a huge difference in performance compared to the z6 both cameras did a pretty decent job not perfect but decent but with the z6 you obviously get a lot more keepers with the faster frame rate so here's my conclusion overall i like the z5 i like the design i like what it can do it may not be the most impressive and exciting camera on paper but it offers more practical features like dual car slots or bigger battery and also the weather ceiling which to me personally are way more important than things like image quality or video specs is this camera worth fourteen hundred dollars is that an appropriate price for an entry-level camera well obviously lore is better but for once i'm actually gonna say it's okay i think fourteen hundred dollars is okay for this camera i'm not gonna say it's an amazing deal but i don't necessarily think that it's a terrible deal either i think this camera is worth about four hundred dollars more than the eos rp and about 400 dollars less than the z6 which is exactly where it's at right now but the only problem is when you're competing with older cameras you're also competing with their used prices as well right now you can get a used or refurbished eos rp for about eight hundred dollars so about six hundred dollars less than this camera or you can get a z6 for really just a little over fourteen hundred dollars under fifteen hundred dollars so fourteen hundred dollars for this camera would have been really amazing just about a year ago but now in 2020 unfortunately it feels just moderately appropriate so would i recommend the z5 well it's hard to say because me liking a camera is one thing but recommending it to others is a completely different matter i'm sure there's a market for people who don't shoot video who don't need faster frame rates don't care about uncompressed raw or the latest sensors but i just can't shake the feeling that this camera could have been so much better if nikon wasn't so worried about their other cameras whether you're a beginner or just an enthusiast or a hobbyist when you're spending 1400 on a camera it means you're serious it means you want to be a better photographer it means you care about the gear that you use when i buy or recommend the camera i want to believe that the camera manufacturer put in their best effort and resources to make the best possible product that they can not just some watered-down version of something only to fill a gap in the market and i know that sounds a bit harsh but i'm just being honest and if you disagree that's completely fine too and if someone told me today that they're buying the z5 i wouldn't stop them but i wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anybody either if it fits your budget and if you'd rather have to do car slots than the z6's image quality then this might be the right camera for you and if you rather have the better image quality and if you're okay with the single card slot then get the z6 or if you want both i guess there's always the a7 iii so that's gonna be it for me today thank you for watching and let me know in the comments what do you think about the z5 and are you gonna buy one or are you not gonna buy one and why what do you think nikon could do differently i want to hear your thoughts and if you have any more questions about the z5 just let me know in the comments and i'll try to get to them all and i will see you in the next video bye-bye you

Channel: Hyun Ralph Jeong

Views: 47,085

Rating: 4.7696161 out of 5

Keywords: nikon, z5, nikon z5, full frame, full frame mirrorless, z5 vs z6, nikon z5 vs z6, canon, canon eos rp, eos rp, eos r, sony a7 iii, 2020, camera, cameras, z5 vs eos rp, z5 vs rp, nikon z5 vs canon eos rp, nikon z6, nikon z6s, uncompressed raw, canon vs nikon vs sony, sony, mirrorless, nikon z mount, z mount, canon vs nikon

Id: lhuE_TlBNSE

Length: 18min 49sec (1129 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 11 2020