This dreadfully grubby image is proof that iPhones CAN take crap photos – well, be fair, it’s down to the photographer 99% of the time – and that was me!
This is the new NIKON Z6lll (the fuzzy bit) with my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens (in focus) just to show I did actually go and play. It doesn’t actually matter – it’s 99% identical to the previous Z6ll anyway.
The presentation was total crap – I’m sorry NIKON but one of the first rules of public presentations is NOT to read out the printing on the slides – the public have already done that, you’re there to develop, enhance, make it interesting.
This was followed by a step by step, sorry, line by line ‘reading’ of the Photo Shooting Menu – the idea being to show how to select and setup basic autofocus settings etc. What seemed to be missed by the two (really nice and well informed Nikon representatives) was that everyone in the room knew precisely how to do this – being as we were NIKON Pro camera body owners. I think this was simply a waste of time. When this had all ended and people were moving away, I had to ask one of the guys if I could actually see/handle what we were all there to play with…
I can’t help thinking this was a slight waste of time – NIKON launch things on a fairly regular basis, and these get togethers need to be a bit more polished – show a video, not just the teaser for the launch of the camera, get the participants to take a photo or two, bring a backdrop and a bit of lighting and beef things up a bit.
NUMERIPHOT in Toulouse can’t be blamed – aside from the fact that the coffee machine decided to go into ‘I need to be descaled ‘mode just before we wanted coffee – they were there (obviously – it’s their shop!) with a huge variety of lenses and some accessories for us all to pretend we needed….
Not a totally wasted morning, but I do feel NIKON were taking the piss a little – I discovered there were actually only two new bodies there today (this thing has been out in the field for the past 4 months being tested by ‘trusted’ pros – I feel sure they could have got hold of a few more) – good job there were only 12 of us.
Coming back down to Earth – the main differences between the Z6lll and the previous model are:
EXCEED7 (the same processing engine as in the Z8/9)
New sensor – same size, but giving the possibility of more AF points
Pixel Shift (like in the Zf and Z8)
Access to the NIKON Imaging Cloud (in a months time) – this will be (initially) uniquely for Z6lll owners with an unlimited 20Gb (yes we all laughed at that) to upload images etc. In addition, firmware updates will be available to be streamed by WiFi directly to the camera and installed (or not – there is a choice) automatically.
A lot of play on how wonderful it is for video
Not much else – aside from a brilliant new invention – the twisty screen mount! Finally NIKON have got around to changing from the strange screen mounting systems used up until now, and the Z6lll (as indeed the Zf before it) uses a foldable pivoting screen that can now be turned round to be seen from the front of the camera. Personally ‘selfies’ are far from my thing, but this could be very useful in a number of situations – let’s hope user feedback from this and the Zf cameras will encourage NIKON to use this mount in future iterations of all the camera bodies.
A very nice, up-to-date and competent image making machine, with still and video capture, and if you’ve never owned one before, worth the purchase, but hardly worth trading in the previous model. And don’t get me started on the Zf….