Nikon Z9 First look hands on. Autofocus tests

hey everybody in today's video i can finally talk to you about what i've been up to what i've been doing and what i've been shooting with the nikon z9 i've had this camera for quite a while a really long time in fact and i've got so much to show you that i thought i'd make a little trailer of all the things that i've done with this camera [Music] [Music] [Music] so let's just run through some main specifications first of all so first off 45 megapixels on a stacked sensor this is something that we kind of knew was coming nikon said it was a stack sensor but they didn't confirm megapixel counts so now we know it's a 45 megapixel sensor i want to be really clear there it's nowhere near the same sensor that's on a z72 the megapixel count r is similar but it's not the same sensor it's a completely different sensor design so that 45 megapixel sensor is stacked and that allows the camera to shoot so much faster to get so much more data off of that sensor that's also then helped by a new processor so this z9 will use an xspeed 7 processor that xspeed 7 processor is 10 times faster than what we had in previous cameras and the readout of the sensor is up to 12 times faster from previous cameras as well so everything about this camera is just incredibly fast the first thing that will strike you about that 45 megapixel sensor is that it's not covered by a mechanical shutter the z9 has no mechanical shutter it only has an electronic shutter what does that mean for photography you know what does that mean for shooting sports what does that mean for rolling shutter what does that mean for using flash there's some of the things that we'll talk about in this video as we go on but there's no problems that i've found over the past couple of months shooting with this camera shooting fast moving subjects like kingfishers and birds in flight so this camera can shoot a number of different frame rates you can still choose 5 10 15 but 20 is the fastest you can shoot whilst shooting raw that's really important this camera will shoot faster it will shoot at 30 frames per second it will shoot at 120 frames per second but those 30 and 120 frames per second come with a couple of caveats so 20 frames per second is in lossless compressed 14-bit raw you're not losing anything okay so you can shoot the maximum quality at 20 frames per second 30 frames per second is in full resolution but it's jpeg you cannot shoot 30 frames per second at full resolution raw files it has to be full resolution jpeg files and 120 frames per second is still jpegs but the megapixel account drops to 11 million pixels frames per second wise it's fast it's incredibly accurate while it's doing that as well when it comes to autofocus so one of the biggest headline specifications is that the z9 will do all of its auto focus calculations and all of its exposure calculations at 120 frames per second it does 120 calculations every single second this really helps to not only give you fast autofocus but incredibly accurate autofocus when you are shooting your camera at 20 frames 30 frames or 120 frames per second you're not limited by the lenses that you're using there's a lot of other cameras where if you choose those higher frame rates you are going to then be limited by which lenses can deliver those maximum frame rates so i've not tested every lens obviously but i'm led to believe that all of the current f-mark lenses so around 90 to 100 f-mount lenses via the ft zed will allow you to shoot at 20 frames 30 frames and even 120 frames per second there's no limitation when it comes to using the ftz and those f-mount lenses and obviously all of the z-mount lenses support 20 frames per second 30 frames per second and 120 frames per second the viewfinder itself one thing i want to be really clear on with the viewfinder is it's not the highest resolution viewfinder that's probably the only thing that i don't quite like is that it's not the highest resolution viewfinder so it's the same resolution that we have in the z72 but where it lacks resolution it gains in brightness so one of the things that nikon really wanted to do when it came to the viewfinder is not just increased resolution for the sake of it but they decided to make the viewfinder significantly brighter this is the world's brightest electronic viewfinder as far as i can tell and it is quite difficult to find what other levels of brightness the other cameras produce but as far as i can tell it's the brightest viewfinder by quite a long way it's three times brighter than any other viewfinder from any other manufacturer that i could find this not only helps when shooting outdoors in really bright light but those of you that know about hdr and hdr displays they're all revolving around brightness and that can be really evident on really bright sunny days if you're shooting out on a bright situation or a bright sunny day especially a wildlife photographer who shoots with both eyes i shoot with both eyes when tracking subjects and it's very difficult to see the difference between the viewfinder and actual real life whereas previously a lot of other viewfinders just never got to that brightness so it is much easier to use that viewfinder when shooting in really bright locations because how bright that viewfinder can actually get also it's a given the z9 has no blackout whatsoever and there's no change in what nikon called the real live view so your viewfinder is always displaying to you the most up-to-date version of what's right in front of you there's no lag in the viewfinder there's no blackout you don't have to wait for a delay there's no preview of other images or anything like that what you see through the viewfinder is actually happening right in front of you nikon designed a new system to allow that to happen so the sensor and the processor are basically feeding two streams or dual stream information at the same time so the sensor and the viewfinder are effectively showing you what's happening right in front of you and at the same time the process is then sending that information to the memory card or and obviously saving it whilst you're shooting so that dual stream means that when you're shooting and saving to the card it doesn't interrupt what's going on with the viewfinder hence no blackout and hence that real live viewfinder view a lot of other cameras even though they don't have blackout they do sometimes have a little bit of a delay or they do sometimes have a bit of a lag in their viewfinder and the z9 doesn't have any of that it makes it much easier when it comes to tracking and following moving subjects okay so let's start getting a little bit more specific let's start getting into some of the deeper details around this camera buttons button layout outside of the camera and build quality we generally know what the camera looks like but there's definitely a couple of things to keep in mind so as we saw from the teasers the button layout is very similar to previous zeds but we still get that nice full grip design one thing i'd really like to say about the full grip design is it's so much more comfortable than a d6 or a d5 because those cameras their vertical grip wasn't very deep whereas the vertical grip on the z9 is the same deepness or the same depth as the traditional grip it actually feels so much easier to hold in the hand compared to a d5 or d6 because their vertical grips just weren't always that deep i feel like ergonomically this camera is actually better to handle than the d5 and the d6 which i'm aware is a bold statement and obviously it's going to be personal preference down to your hands and so on but i do feel like this is a much easier camera to shoot with ergonomically than the d5 and the d6 because of that extra deep vertical grip because of those button placements as well we obviously have our three function buttons on the front we also then have function three and function three is completely accessible from the vertical grip as well we obviously have the ability to use the camera in any orientation that we want the display on the back of the camera will rotate around as well we can also flip that screen out as well just a little bit of information around the screen it is incredibly well built i would have no concerns about breaking the screen you know unless you physically just dropped your camera with the screen hanging out but the screen is incredibly well built and nikon have obviously spent a lot of time in making sure this frame is a pro body worthy frame obviously previous d6s and d5s never had a flip out screen like this before so it's definitely a well built screen i wouldn't have any concerns around this frame or this hinge over time unless you really just catch the frame while sticks extended but obviously if you want to keep the screen flat you can keep it flat one of the buttons a lot of people were really confused about online when they started seeing some of the previews of the camera was this button on the left hand side of the camera body a lot of people thought it might be a joystick it's definitely not a joystick this is an auto focusing switch this is brought back from dslrs dslrs always had an auto focusing switch and an auto focusing button on their left hand side this is brought back from dslrs this allows you to always change your auto focusing modes and your auto focusing settings nikon was so keen to have this as an auto focus only button that it's not actually customizable so it's always assigned to autofocus you can obviously assign autofocus to other things if you wanted to but this is always assigned to autofocus not only do we have this great layout and this great collection of buttons we also then have illuminated buttons so for the first time on a z-series camera thankfully we now have the ability to use our illuminated buttons in low light situations you can turn that illuminator button setting off if you want to but you can have illuminated buttons you can have them on all the time as well you don't have to have it just based on a little flick switch on the shutter button at top so illuminated buttons are back finally as you would expect with a pro build camera this camera is just as rugged and just as weather sealed as you would expect from a d5 and a d6 and in fact in some cases it might even go a little bit further than that so you can really treat this the way that you would expect to be able to treat a pro serious camera use it in incredibly harsh conditions using incredibly busy environments don't have to worry about giving it the odd knock don't have to worry about taking in and out of bags and things like that because it's a full grip body it does take the larger battery it will take a new enel 18d so it is a newer battery a higher capacity battery and in terms of the battery life that i've had it's been incredibly good when it comes to the size of the z9 there's a couple of things to keep in mind so it might look big in pictures and so on but it is actually a lot smaller than you might think it is smaller about 20 smaller than the d6 but that would also then include obviously the d5 it is actually smaller only just but it is actually slightly smaller in terms of height compared to a z72 or a z62 when they have their vertical grip attached obviously when you remove that vertical grip the z9 is then bigger the z9 is thicker but it is generally not as tall when you compare it to a z6 or z72 with their grip attached it is though heavier so the weight of this camera is a little bit heavier than you're used to from z series cameras but still lighter than we're used to from a dslr point of view so it is smaller and it is lighter than the dslr equivalent d5 or d6 but you have to keep in mind that a lot of photographers that use this style of cameras request the camera to be bigger and to be heavier they want to have something that's substantial and can take the daily abuse of sports wildlife wherever you want to use this camera the nikon z9 is the first camera that incorporates a physical sensor cover now please don't mistake this for an actual shutter it does look very similar to a mechanical shutter but it is not it's made of a different material is there for a different reason so this actual mechanical cover covers the sensor to protect from dust and debris getting into the sensor itself and you have the choice of activating this or deactivating it's entirely up to you this is not the same as using an actual shutter mechanism to cover your sensor that is generally a terrible idea because you run the risk of damaging your shutter mechanism you have to have a dedicated cover otherwise over time you're in a situation where you could very easily damage your shutter mechanism so i'd never really ever like to see a shutter drop down and cover the sensor i'd always prefer to have a dedicated mechanism that covers the sensor that's separate away from the actual shutter mechanism now behind that mechanism that covers the sensor nikon are employing what they call a dual coat system on the front of their sensor so this includes a fluorine coating on the front of the sensor it also includes a conductive coating as well that conductive layer just makes it makes it a little bit easier for the camera to remove dust and debris on the sensor when it's using the in sensor cleaning rather than you having to have it cleaned much more often so from a professional point of view this camera should be repellent to dust and it should put you in a situation where you're not getting as much dust on the camera sensor a combination of the filter that's in front of the sensor and a combination of the mechanism that drops in front to cover the sensor when you're changing lenses now one thing i want to be really clear on the actual image sensor itself does not have an optical low-pass filter so the actual stacked sensor does not have an optical low-pass filter but in front of that there is an optical filter that then houses the flooring coating and this conductive layer that helps to stop dust sticking to your front of your sensor so let's talk about one of the main reasons why most of you guys might be here which is autofocus the nikon z9 autofocus system as i mentioned is one of the best systems i've ever seen and used the ability to be able to track and follow multiple subjects is something that is obviously becoming more and more important and also then the ability to track eyes faces and different subjects as well is becoming more and more important you can still use the auto focusing system as a traditional auto focusing system if you want to use a dynamic mode where the point doesn't move for you but it just still stays where it is so if you just want to use the auto focusing system in single point then you can but the z9's auto focusing system really shines when you start to use those tracking options when you start to use the ability to follow a moving subject this is the first nikon zed camera that has nikon's 3d tracking the 3d tracking is an auto focusing mode that's been used in nikon dslrs for a number of years and a lot of people really liked how that 3d tracking worked but this is the first time it's been added into a z and it works incredibly well so in terms of the modes that you have available to you you can now use face tracking and eye detect in wide area small wide area large you can also use face and eye detecting auto area like we've been used to but 3d tracking will 3d track a subject but as soon as you get the square close to a subject that has a face or an eye whether it's a human whether it's an animal whether it's just a whether it's just a vehicle as soon as that 3d tracking square comes close to a recognizable subject it can automatically jump to that subject and it will track that subject as a recognized subject when it comes to subject detection you have the ability to choose an auto area and this will just look for nine different types of subjects it's not just humans it's not just animals it also looks for vehicles it looks for cars planes bikes bicycles as well not just motorbikes there are up to nine different subject types that the camera can recognize track and follow you can also limit the camera to look for only particular types of subjects you can ask it to just look for vehicles you can also ask it to just for look for animals and you can also go ask it so that it just looks for people you don't just have to have it in that auto area where it looks for particular subjects all the time you can narrow down what it the camera is looking for also on those auto focusing areas there's one type of auto focusing mode that's missing and if any of you have come from a d6 or come from a d5 we had group autofocus in the d6 that was customizable you could effectively choose your own size of group nikon made a really big point about being able to choose the size of your group focusing in the d6 and obviously with the d5 over time they added in different shapes and sizes of group auto focusing we don't have the ability in the z9 to make a custom size grouping of points but that will be coming in firmware there will be a firmware update that will add the ability to customize the size of the number of focusing points that you want to use i don't know when that will be available but it will be definitely something that's coming in firmware and it will effectively give you that opportunity to make your own size of focusing point right now at launch though that's not the case you are set with the areas that are available to you outside the box 3d tracking auto area dynamic small medium and large and then wide area small and large as well we obviously still have single point we obviously still have pinpoint as well it's probably one of the most sophisticated auto focusing systems nikon's ever made but they're still clearly willing to add features to it as we progress into the future and i'm really excited about some of the firmware updates that are coming out to this camera as well so in terms of autofocus performance i'm not just going to show you recordings of the screen of the viewfinder i'm also going to show you actual still images i'm going to show you the results of the camera shot [Music] [Music] [Music] one of the things that i wanted to test out when it came to autofocus is i wanted to know what animals does it track what animals can it see because as far as nikon is concerned they generally say cats dogs and birds but what does that refer to i thought i'd do some tests and i went to the nearest place that i could that would give me the ability to shoot loads of different animals in one location i'm not really there to shoot still images so i've not really got any massive or i've not really got any sample shots from there but i do have viewfinder recordings and the idea is here is not to show you autofocus performance i i've done that in previous tests the idea here was just to show you what animals it can track and what animals it can't track because i found the idea of cats dogs and birds to be really limiting and actually in fact it tracks loads of other animals alongside that as well so i'll run a couple of the viewfinder recordings that i have just to show you the different animals that this camera can track when you are in animal tracking [Music] [Music] [Music] i'd also thought i'd just throw together some of the sample shots that i've captured with my z9 just to give you an idea of some of the different pictures that i've captured with this camera some of these you may have already seen in some of the recordings of the viewfinder but these are some of the shots that i've been able to capture because there was a lot of stuff that i've shot without an external recorder attached as well [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so when it comes to video what's the video like on this z9 not only is this the best stills camera that nikon's ever made it's also the best video camera that nikon's ever made as well headline specifications we can shoot 8k at 30 frames per second internally 10 bit at 422. if we want to shoot prores hq or if we wanted to shoot just in 10 bit we can do that we can shoot internally using n log we don't have to record externally anymore and that's the case for 8k it's the case for 4k we can shoot up to 4k 120 frames per second internally if we wanted to as well now the one thing that you won't be able to do at launch is internal raw recording but that will be something that will be available at a firmware update for free early next year so early next year and i need to be really cautious here because there's only certain things i can say so i'm just going to pull that up so early next year there'll be a free firmware update that will allow the z9 to shoot 8k 60 frames per second in raw internally you don't have to use an external recorder and not only is it 8k it's actually a slightly higher resolution than 8k so you're shooting over 8k in 60 frames per second in raw internally in a z9 for free as a firm update early next year nikon are not only showing this is kind of one of the best stills cameras they've ever made it's also shown that they can use this from an incredibly good video point of view as well there's so many other new video features that have been added to this camera i'm actually about halfway through making a video dedicated for video and what you can do in the z9 the options in the menu and stuff like that so i'm going to save some of those other video options for some later videos but hopefully that gives you enough of an insight into some of the things that you can do in this camera some of the options that you have available to you when it comes to video okay so when it comes to memory cards when it comes to the memory card door it is a locking door which i know a lot of pro photographers are going to be really happy about this camera will take dual xqd cards or cf express cards but in all honesty if you've got a z9 you have to be using cf express cards with it unless you're a landscape photographer and you're using this for landscape realistically if you're not using this with cf express cards you will never get the best out of it also cf express cards they're not all the same they're not all equal you can't just use cfx press cards in this and expect them to all work to the same performance as the z9 it just doesn't work there's only a small collection of compact flash express cards that can save the images fast enough to allow you to shoot at 20 frames per second and 30 frames per second for long enough i really struggled to find a good cf express card to use with this the first cards that i tried their buffer performance and their shooting performance was awful and i started to think to myself you know is the camera just not firing correctly when actually in fact it was all down to the memory cards that i was using so the memory cards that i've tested the memory cards that i recommend pro grade cobalts they are fast enough in their read and they're right that's the really important bit the right speeds and also delqin black cards delkin black cards are the cards that i have myself i have a couple of those and they're the fastest cards that i've found to use in a z9 and i've been really happy with their performance not only when it comes to speed but also when it comes to temperature i did try a couple of other cf express cards they just were not fast enough and they got extremely hot don't just go out and buy the cheapest cf express card it will not let you get the best out of a z9 along with the z9 nikon are also launching a new ft zed they're launching the ft z2 now i've not had hands on with that ft zed i've not been able to use it everything that i've shot has been taken on the ft z1 the first generation one thing i really want to highlight with that first generation ftz and the z9 you cannot use the vertical grip with the ftz because of the where the tripod mount is on the bottom of the ft z1 you just physically can't use the vertical grip which i found incredibly annoying so quite clearly nikon also know that that's a problem they've developed the ft z2 to fix that it removes the tripod mount from the ft zed they've moved the internal design so originally there was a motor that sat inside that foot of the ft z1 they've moved that motor to somewhere else inside the ft zed so they've rearranged the internal design and now you can make use of that ft z2 with the vertical grip so just be aware of that if you're expecting to be able to use your ft z1 seamlessly with a z9 yes the performance is fantastic but the vertical grip position is painful when it comes to raw files nikon has completely thrown out what you know about raw files and they've completely included entirely new options you don't have the ability now to choose raw small raw medium you don't have the ability to choose uncompressed or compressed raw files what we have is all of the raw file options are all 14 bit you cannot choose 12 bit that's gone what you can choose however is raw lossless compressed raw high efficiency with a star and raw high efficiency without a star the quality of those goes from top to bottom so lossless compressed is the best quality high efficiency star is good quality and as far as nikon are concerned it's indistinguishable between the two but it's a much smaller file size still 14 bit still full resolution we then have high efficiency without the star there is a slight drop in picture quality here but it's still full resolution it's still technically a raw file and it's still 14 bit but the size of that file is equivalent to a d850 or a z72 raw small 12-bit file so the file sizes can be made incredibly small without sacrificing resolution okay so i think that's pretty much everything i wanted to cover in this first video there's so much more stuff that i can go through there's so much more things that i can talk to you about with this camera and i'll be doing that over a course of videos over the next couple of weeks we're not only i'm gonna have videos on the z9 i'll also have videos on the new lenses so the 100 to 400 video should drop at the same time that i've dropped my z9 video so take a look out for that i'll also be doing a 24 to 120 f4 video when i can get one i just haven't had one yet also ft z2 ft z2 i'm going to try and do a separate video on that what that works with what it looks like on a z9 what it looks like when you're using with different f mount lenses and so on and then i will do a very short video on the development announcement of the 400 millimeter f 2.8 z lens which i am incredibly excited about and i certainly can't wait for that lens to be officially announced so i can tell you about some of the things that lens does as well so there's lots of other videos there's also lots of other z9 videos i'm going to make a couple of videos around the menu system new options that are available in this camera the menu system in this z9 is entirely new as well as always it's finally here thank you so much for watching if you have any questions below please do pop them in the comments if you found this video useful please do give it a like it makes it so much easier for other people to see this video as well thank you so much for watching goodbye you

Channel: Ricci Talks

Views: 160,108

Keywords: Nikon, Nikon Z6, Nikon Z7, Nikon Macro, nikon D850, Nikon D750, Nikon Z6ii, Nikonz7ii, Nikon Z9, Nikon lenses, Nikon f mount, Nikon z mount, Nikon Autofocus, Nikon lenses test, Best macro lens, Food photography, close up, lens focus close, Nikon Z, Nikon f, Nikon Z fc, Zfc, Nikon Zfc camera, Nikon Pro z9, Nikon new camera, Nikon Z lenses, Z9, Z9 video, Z9 autofocus, Z9autofocus tracking, Z9 8K video, Nikon Z9 video, Nikon 100-400mm, Nikon 24-120mm

Id: BoVu1OMDvOE

Length: 33min 22sec (2002 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021