The Nikon Z9 will be announced in November or December this year

[st jack photography]

$7000.
Made in China by shackled children using inferior components.
Relying on a brand name that clearly reached its zenith in 1986 right before Canon released the EOS EF system that changed the industry.
So despite me flirting with a Sony full frame compact for a bit, I think I'll stick to Canon. Wouldn't touch Nikon with a 10-ft pole. No future in that.

 

[AlanF]

Very good balanced review by one of the best birders on youtube - why can't all reviewers be this good. It's a fine camera, but the R5 gains AF faster and has better birdeye AF, echoing other comments on the web. Fantastic video performance.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

has better birdeye AF

I don’t think that’s a good assessment. On the first firmware it didn’t know what a wren was but now it does. The birds I shoot are all recognised but you hear of subjects it doesn’t know yet and subjects the R5 doesn't know yet. So I would say ether Canon has a bigger catalog of bird eyes or that Canon and Nikon have similar sized catalogs but photographers from different regions have better success than one over the other. And both systems can get confused by a tree that looks like a bird and frustrated all three of us.

 

[AlanF]

I don’t think that’s a good assessment. On the first firmware it didn’t know what a wren was but now it does. The birds I shoot are all recognised but you hear of subjects it doesn’t know yet and subjects the R5 doesn't know yet. So I would say ether Canon has a bigger catalog of bird eyes or that Canon and Nikon have similar sized catalogs but photographers from different regions have better success than one over the other. And both systems can get confused by a tree that looks like a bird and frustrated all three of us.

He said that Canon could recognise birds eyes further away.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

He said that Canon could recognise birds eyes further away.

I haven't noticed any real world differences in distance. What I do see is that Canon R5 can pick up birds in foliage better and the Z9 is picking them up better in dark/gloomy/usual Scottish conditions. Maybe other factors are at play with distance? And I certainly would love the Z9 to go right to the bird in full auto. But it does go right to the fox and stays locked on the fox in full auto even in distances were the foxes eyes start tiny (wren sized) before it gets close in frame. I really think this is a per subject thing. At worst I have fn1 on wide-area large and fn3 on single point for when there are multiple subjects confusing the camera which isn't unlike the double back button focus I use on the R5.

Also as an aside, why are people still using back button focus? We don't need to focus and recompose anymore.

 

[AlanF]

I haven't noticed any real world differences in distance. What I do see is that Canon R5 can pick up birds in foliage better and the Z9 is picking them up better in dark/gloomy/usual Scottish conditions. Maybe other factors are at play with distance? And I certainly would love the Z9 to go right to the bird in full auto. But it does go right to the fox and stays locked on the fox in full auto even in distances were the foxes eyes start tiny (wren sized) before it gets close in frame. I really think this is a per subject thing. At worst I have fn1 on wide-area large and fn3 on single point for when there are multiple subjects confusing the camera which isn't unlike the double back button focus I use on the R5.

Also as an aside, why are people still using back button focus? We don't need to focus and recompose anymore.

That's a valid point about BBF. I use AF-ON as BBF for full screen tracking and the * button for centre point, and muscle memory for switching between the two. However, there are advantages of having say a half press of shutter doing the metering and full screen tracking and having say the * for centre point, and I could then have the AF-ON for another mode, for example or vice versa. In fact, now prompted I might change to that. I suppose the advantage of the Canon ergonomics is that the AF-ON and * are next to each other, a thumb movement apart, whereas for the Nikon you need a button at the front to be pressed by the forefinger. But, I got used to that on the D500 and D850. What is good is that Nikon, Sony and Canon now have three fantastic high resolution mirrorless bodies for us nature photographers and so we can make our choices based on the overall systems. There's no doubt that Sony until the R5 and Z9 was streets ahead in in mirrorless AF.

 

[Deleted member 381342]

There's no doubt that Sony until the R5 and Z9 was streets ahead in in mirrorless AF.

Not necessarily directly in response to this. But on a similar note. Today your aren’t buying a compete body like you did on the DSLR days. You are buying hardware that is going to get multiple software updates. I mean just look at the Z6 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.40(which could have been a 4.0 as the AF boxes on that are well past 3.30). I think we’ll see the same from the Z9. And Canon are doing the same. The camera you buy today is going to be a different beast by the time the software updates. Hopefully we don’t start getting DLC…. The songbird AF pack only £3.99.

 

[josephandrews222]

...a great interview with a (professional) user of the Z9 is here:

Interview: Sports photographer Mark Pain on the new Nikon Z9

Professional sports photographer Mark Pain has been using a Nikon Z9 for some time, inside some of the biggest venues in the UK. We caught up with him recently to get his opinion and insights into Nikon's most important pro camera for at least a decade.

www.dpreview.com

The problems with LED signage are interesting...and the comments after the post are worth a look.

Apologies if this link is posted elsewhere on CR.

 

[unfocused]

This is a very interesting comment (emphasis added):

"The camera is absolutely stunning. It is more usable by far than some of its competitors that I’ve shot with. From my point of view as a working professional though, the file sizes are way too big. As a sports photographer I don’t need all those pixels. I still shoot Raw most of the time, which isn’t very common in the sports world anymore, and the new compression options save on card space, but they still open in Photoshop at 130MB, regardless of the compression mode. That’s still a huge image size, twice the size of files from my D6. It’s a pain for my workflow."

Personally, I've started shooting games in CRaw. I'm finding that download times (and the time it takes to clear the buffer) even with the 24mp of the R3 can be overwhelming when you are using the electronic shutter. I use the R5 as a second body to shoot wide shots under the basket and color shots of the coach talking to the team during time outs and I can't imagine shooting a whole game at 45mp.

 

[neuroanatomist]

This is a very interesting comment (emphasis added):

"The camera is absolutely stunning. It is more usable by far than some of its competitors that I’ve shot with. From my point of view as a working professional though, the file sizes are way too big. As a sports photographer I don’t need all those pixels. I still shoot Raw most of the time, which isn’t very common in the sports world anymore, and the new compression options save on card space, but they still open in Photoshop at 130MB, regardless of the compression mode. That’s still a huge image size, twice the size of files from my D6. It’s a pain for my workflow."

Personally, I've started shooting games in CRaw. I'm finding that download times (and the time it takes to clear the buffer) even with the 24mp of the R3 can be overwhelming when you are using the electronic shutter. I use the R5 as a second body to shoot wide shots under the basket and color shots of the coach talking to the team during time outs and I can't imagine shooting a whole game at 45mp.

Stuff and nonsense. The self-proclaimed experts on this forum have declared that there’s no such thing as too many MP.

 

[AlanF]

Stuff and nonsense. The self-proclaimed experts on this forum have declared that there’s no such thing as too many MP.

To steer between the Scylla of too many and the Charybdis of too few requires either following Odysseus and tying yourself to the mast and ignoring the song of the sirens or, like his crew, stuffing your ears with beeswax.