Which Nikon Mirrorless Camera should you buy? $650-$5500

foreign [Music] we have every current Nikon body here so if you're deciding that you want to buy a Nikon this is a video for you we've reviewed them separately but it can be really hard to figure out which one by watching a bunch of different videos recorded at different times we're going to find the right camera for you but first we're going to tell you where to buy it from and that's Adorama Adorama not only do they have the best prices the fastest shipping but they give you free stuff with each of these cameras like if you decide on this Nikon z30 you can get it with their accessories kit at no extra cost and they will include a camera bag and an SD card they provide a great value they also have the deal of the day which is fun to go click and see what you can get the best deal on for that day they have fast shipping and a vast selection so if you're looking to buy new gear check out our sponsor Adorama in the description below thanks Adorama we're going to divide the Nikon cameras up into two main groups by sensor size these cameras have aps-c size sensors that's a little bit smaller than these full frame cameras it's a little bit less than half the size and that means that they have not quite the same image quality but they're smaller lighter and less expensive first up is the Nikon z30 this is their entry level camera but it is a great place to start a great place to get into the Nikon system you can see it's a basic camera with a flip forward screen this makes it ideal for recording videos or taking selfies it has interchangeable lenses so it can use all the same lenses as the rest of these but it lacks a viewfinder the viewfinder is this part where you hold your eye up to it instead of doing that you will simply use the screen at the back to compose your photos also I'm farsighted so for me to see the rear screen I'd have to be putting on my reading glasses but I can dial in my glasses prescription into any one of these viewfinders which means I can see everything sharp even when I hold it up I don't even have glasses but I like having a viewfinder because if it's very bright out it's often difficult to see the back of the screen I like to look through the viewfinder zoom in and make sure everything that's supposed to be in focus is in Focus so if you appreciate a viewfinder as well you might want to upgrade to the Z50 or the zfc so the Z50 is a little bit more money than the z30 but you get the viewfinder that's the main thing the guts of the camera are pretty much the same and that goes for the zfc as well the Z50 less expensive but actually more functional because it has that deeper grip it's easier to hold but this is the one I'd rather have around my neck it's prettier and it's fun to use because it has analog controls so you can dial in your shutter speed or your ISO manually without having to look at a screen the Z50 has a screen that flips down which if you were recording video it would be blocked by the tripod so it's kind of less than ideal but they had the sense to put the side flip screen on the zfc so you could record yourself the only cameras with the side flip screens that are ideal for video are the zfc or the z30 so if you are video Centric I would look at these two cameras the rest of these would require an external monitor to see yourself well so in summary for the aps-c cameras they all produce about the same image quality so the main differences are functionality so if you want a viewfinder or if you want your screen to flip a particular way if you're leaning more towards video or you're leaning more towards pictures that's really where your decision is going to be made the image quality should look just about the same now let's move on to the higher image quality cameras starting with the Z5 it is a fantastic price especially because you get almost all the benefits of full frame you can get all that beautiful background separation take advantage of all of the big Nikon lenses it's nice because it has two card slots as well and if you don't know the importance of that it basically just gives you backup in case your card corrupts and you fear losing all of your videos or your pictures I just got an email from somebody who took the vacation of their life and they filled up their memory card and then they got home and they put it in their computer and the card wouldn't read now this is the entry level full frame camera and there are some features that you will be missing it has a frame rate of four and a half frames per second so that means it will not be good for wildlife and sports I'm not saying you can't do it I'm just saying you won't get as many opportunities for catching the right moment another thing that I'll mention is that the sensor isn't as high quality as the other full frame cameras it doesn't mean that the sensor is not good it just means that there's some things that's not as good at and one of those things is dynamic range that means capturing image information and the darkest shadows and the brightest highlights so if you're shooting raw and you have high dynamic range scenes like a bright sky and a dark foreground and you want to be able to bring up the detail this camera will limit you a little bit let's talk about the Z6 Mark II and the z7 mark to they look identical they both have the exact same body they have the same memory card configuration which is one SD card and one faster CF Express type B card that means that you can shoot bigger files to the CF Express type B card and shoot a little more quickly before you run into buffering problems that's an advantage over the Z5 if you're upgrading from this entry level to this camera it's about a 700 difference you're getting the better sensor more dynamic range you're also getting a higher frame rate 14 frames per second instead of four and a half so this is more capable when you're doing action and it has a nice top screen so you can see your settings while looking down on the camera without having to use the rear screen it's not a must-have but it's a nice to have now the difference between the Z6 Mark II and the z7 Mark II is megapixels the Z6 Mark II is 24 megapixels the z7 Mark II 45 megapixels in our real world shooting we pretty much always shoot High megapixel cameras because you really do see the difference your images are so much sharper without actually putting that much more work into it if you actually are making prints you might appreciate the higher megapixel sensor if you crop a lot if you're doing sports or wildlife and you're cropping heavily you'll get more resolution in your pictures if you are otherwise just shooting wide like a landscape and posting to a small format like only online and people are looking at a small image nobody's going to really notice the Z6 Mark II actually has a pretty big advantage over the z7 Mark II if you're shooting video and you're behind the camera the Z6 Mark II is going to be the better choice it has fewer megapixels so it doesn't have to do as much processing for video so the video ends up being a little bit higher quality but the Stills not as good a quality now you mentioned Sports and Wildlife and the truth is if you want to shoot Sports and Wildlife you're going to get dramatically better results if you pay a bit more money for the two cameras we're about to discuss yeah but before we talk about those I want to take a minute to talk about our sponsor Adorama because they sponsor this video they make these reviews possible but they also make finding great gear at good prices possible they are for creators so if you need a camera they have it they have lenses tripod lights backpacks they even have computers anything photography related you can find it at Adorama they have VIP points so every time I buy something from there they give me some points that I can apply towards a future purchase and I bought enough stuff that I needed to get some filters for my DJI drone they ended up being completely free because I just applied my point so you get free stuff when you shop at Adorama so use our link so that they know you heard about them through us and that helps these reviews not sponsored by the manufacturer come to you thanks Adorama all right let's get into the sports and Wildlife cameras because these are like these are the top of the line options I feel like even if you can't afford them you want to hear about them you want to try them and my favorite is actually the less expensive of the two the Z8 me too I love the Za what a Powerhouse and it's it's four thousand dollars but it's actually kind of underpriced like this is the best value here despite being so expensive they took everything from the Big Brother and crammed it into a smaller less expensive body and it is brilliant it shoots 30 frames per second that's unbelievable wait it's a little more complicated than that the Z8 and z9 shoot 30 frames per second 45 megapixel jpegs perfect for sports if you really need to freeze the action they will shoot 11 megapixel 180 frames per second if you're shooting raw like I do for wildlife the frames per second drops down to 20 which is still very good so if you're looking to capture those little moments when you're shooting sports and Wildlife you can definitely get it with 30 frames per second and it's also 45 megapixels so if you want to crop zoom in it's going to look good the image resolution is going to be excellent and for wildlife it's amazing because it has animal iaf so it will spot the eye on a flying bird word and lock into Focus no matter where it's moving all over the frame it makes Wildlife so much easier and for video it does 8K at 60 frames per second raw that's a lot of video to try to handle it really bogs my computer down but the image quality is absolutely astounding and that's why at four thousand dollars the Z8 is really the Best Buy if you want more battery capacity and a few more features that are nice to have the z9 might be for you now the reason why I prefer the Z8 is because I think the form factor is very large for a person that's me yeah and it doesn't fit into my bag very well like it's too deep for my backpack and when I hang it around my neck it swings kind of awkward that's those are reasons why I prefer the Z8 but the extra space isn't empty you have this huge vertical battery grip if you like to shoot vertically you'll appreciate that and you'll be changing your battery less so that's just a preference another difference between these two is that this C9 has symmetric CF Express type B card slots let's see if Express type B card slot is faster than the SD card slot now the Z8 1sd card slot one safe Express type B card slot that means if you write raw big raw files to both card slots it's going to get bogged down right into the slower card and that means it can start buffering and in our testing we found that buffering to be a real problem so if you were doing prolonged burst shooting like you're shooting somebody who's running the 100 meter sprint and you're shooting the whole time or you're doing wildlife and you want to just keep shooting these two Eagles fighting in the sky that might make the z9 worth the extra price and weight yeah this is a Workhorse like this is what people would bring to the Olympics or something and it has features specifically for professional sports photographers like it has an actual wired ethernet port right here on the side so you can plug it right in and transfer files to your editor most people don't ever need that but this isn't for most people this is for really high-end professional sports and Wildlife photography another cool feature that the Z8 and the z9 have is what Nikon is calling pre-capture and that means that when you hit the shutter button it starts recording one second before you're taking pictures so if you're trying to take a picture of an athlete and they catch the ball and you're a little bit too late your Nikon will be recording one second before your reflexes so you can recover those pictures you thought you didn't get that's so cool that's absolutely amazing another feature that the Z8 and z9 have that the z7 and other cameras don't have is a two-way tilting screen so not only does it tilt out like this but it can tilt to the side and that makes it really useful for for example perhaps you're shooting over crowds and you're holding it up like this or you're doing astrophotography vertically the two-way tilting screen is much more functional another feature I love about the z9 that the other cameras don't have is motion detection it can take pictures when it sees something move or even when a spot specifically a person or an animal and I set it up by the bird feeder and just wait for birds to come and it's like taking pictures while I sit back and have my coffee lazy photographer it's pretty amazing a feature everybody would love that the z9 has that none of these other cameras have is built-in GPS so when you take pictures it will log the photos on a map so you can go back to the very exact location that you we're at and for me that's great because if I want to find a picture that we took in Stockholm I can just zoom in in Lightroom on the map pane I wish every camera had that absolutely now if you get one of these cameras you can start with the kit lens it's great to start with but I will also suggest you upgrade to the 24 to 70 F28 lens because it's sharper it's going to be better in low light it's going to be better at freezing the action and it's just kind of what every Pro inevitably upgrades to that's like a really important thing that we mentioned your camera is only as good as the lens that you put on it so when you're considering which camera is for you based on your budget remember to also factor in good glass hey when you do decide to buy a camera you should use our link that just lets Adorama know that you watched our videos and that some unbiased photographers helped you make the right choice thanks Adorama and thank all of you for watching if you want to see more videos like this be sure to subscribe and hit the notification Bell so that they actually show up in your feed we have a video very similar to this one with all Sony cameras and another one with all Canon cameras but if there's another brand that you would like to see let us know in the comments down below thanks bye

Channel: Tony & Chelsea Northrup

Views: 117,346

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Id: txp46RAprEo

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 29 2023