As I said in my previous post on this topic, I took a little persuading about buying a mirrorless Nikon, the Z6, but I thought I’d post a few words on my impressions, having used it on a recent trip to Oman.

Unsurprisingly, my overall impression is positive.  Did you seriously think that I’d confess to having cocked up after spending two grand on a new toy?   But I can justify this in a couple of ways.

For me as an experienced Nikon user, similarities with its DSLRs mean that there was effectively no learning curve to be able to use the camera immediately reasonably well with no practice – just as well, since within an hour of arriving in Oman, I was taken to a fish market and I had to try to capture it.  I don’t think I did a particularly brilliant job, and I wish I’d put my foot down with the guide to allow me more time, but here’s an example of a grab shot I got, to capture the scene.

There was a further test awaiting me on day one, which was a walk along a gorge in bright sunshine – in other words, deep shadows.  Here’s an example of how the camera recorded a particular view:

As you can see, a lot of the detail is lost in shadow.  But once I could get at the RAW image and play, the ability of the sensor to record information became clear:

When I got to processing the RAW files, I was frequently amazed at how easy it was to get an excellent level of detail.  Of course, it’s a more modern sensor than in the camera it replaced (a D750), so you’d expect that.  But it still brought a smile to my lips.

The next test was the next day. when we went to watch a cattle market, in Nizwa.  I got some nice still photos, but also decided to try some video.  The results (edited below, but with very little tweaking of the actual picture quality) are, I think not bad for handheld video:

Here, the Z6 performed much better than a DSLR could, because the autofocus, which was in action here, is so much faster.  Combined phase and contrast detection mean that it keeps focus without the hunting that lets a DSLR down.  The hubbub of the market blocks out any noise that the lens was making to keep focus, so this footage works.

I did try other video, and the results were better than I could have got with a DSLR but still not good enough to publish.  The stabilisation plays some tricks, and only works well in some circumstances; and you can hear the noise of the lens adjusting focus (I don’t have a specialist video lens, just my general-purpose 28-300).   Moral – use a tripod and manual focus where possible.

Other plus points of the Z6 that I particularly noted:

• You get an artificial horizon in the viewfinder, not just on the rear screen.  Since I have a natural 1-degree lean in my shots, this can really help get things right in-camera.
• Similarly a live histogram – but not at the same time as the artificial horizon, sadly
• You can charge it from a Power Bank through a USB cable
• You can really push the ISO up.  I took photos with ISO 51,200 and the results are acceptable; yes, you can see noise but not too badly (see below)

A few words on ISO.  The following picture is out-of-the-camera at ISO 51,200:

which actually doesn’t look too bad. After RAW processing, it came out like this:

which is pretty impressive to me.

Of course, nothing is perfect, and there are some downsides to the Z6:

• Battery life – I was getting just over 300 shots from a charge.  So you really need to have a spare battery to hand, despite being able to charge through USB.  I got the photographic equivalent of the range anxiety that drivers of electric cars have – always worried that I wouldn’t have enough charge for the day.
• Exposed sensor – I changed lenses a few times and was always really worried about getting dust on the sensor, as there’s no mirror to guard the sensor.  Canon’s EOS-R automatically puts the shutter across if the lens is removed and I think this is a good feature.
• EVF eye detection – I set the camera to switch automatically to E;lectronic Viewfinder if I put the camera to my eye and this works well most of the time.  But the eye-detect sensor is really sensitive and I found that it often triggered the switch when I didn’t want ti to.  Typical example – holding the camera low, therefore flipping the screen so I could view it from above.  If I went to select a focus point by touching the screen, the camera switched to EVF.  Of course I could change it to be rear screen only, but I feel the sensitivity is too high.  Panasonic cameras allow you to adjust it, and this would be a welcome addition here.
• Media – the camera uses a new format of storage called XQD – somewhat bigger cards than the SD format I’ve been using for all my other cameras.  Whilst I appreciate the technical merits of the format (reliability, speed), it meant that I had to buy a spare 64GB card in case I used up the one that came with the kit (I nearly did!), but, more importantly, this affected my backup strategy.  I use a WD MyPassport Wireless Pro, which has a built-in SD card slot and which will automatically read and store the contents of any card put in.  This great device will also read any USB device attached, so I had to make sure to purchase and take with me an XQD card reader.

But overall, I’m very happy with my new camera.  Teamed with a 28-300 lens it becomes a great general-purpose travel camera.  I had to wait with barely-concealed impatience for DxO to release a version of Photolab that supported the Z6, as this is critical to my workflow; but now that this is available I’m as happy as a very happy bunny indeed, and llloking forward to future projects with the Z6.