hi guys it’s been a while since i’ve done a camera review and today is a great one this is the nikon z72 i’m gonna go right past all the usual bs that people do on these videos and just tell you straight off is this a great camera hell yes this is an awesome camera is it perfect does it do everything i want of course not nothing is if you’ve been following any of my work for any time you’ll know that i started off shooting film back when google was just a funny word that no one had even thought of yet i moved into the dslr market around the time of the d3 the d700 that sort of era there and i’ve been shooting with the the dslrs ever since until now i’ve finally gone mirrorless that is i predominantly use cameras for shooting landscapes i don’t do so much in the you know the model the fashion or the bridle anymore mainly now it’s doing a lot of travel and landscapes and this thing’s got a beast of a sensor in it which makes it perfect for the kind of shooting that i do one of the other things i really like about this is that i’m able to use all of my normal nikon glass as well i have a whole bunch of great pro lenses and using this uh the uh ftz adapter that comes to go from the uh the z-mount to the f-mount works flawlessly it allows me to keep my lenses they’re brilliant they have all their functions and nothing’s lost what is gained though is that instead of just having now vr lenses i also have the in-camera stabilization so it gives me three axis there plus the vr they’re incredibly stable i can hand-hold shots that i couldn’t do before and for somebody who’s traveling and you want to stay light you’re not always wanting to unpack your gear at every opportunity being able just to rest the camera on my hand on a rock or something like that and take a semi-long exposure is amazing and that’s one of the things i love about this camera is that stabilization factor um i’m new to the evx i’ve used evfs in other things to video et cetera but for stills new to the evs at first it was really jarring to look through the viewfinder and have all that um uh you know all the information about the shot’s going to look visually presented to you um you know when it’s under exposed the viewfinder is black etc when it’s overexposed it’s white and at first it’s quite jarring but then you start to really appreciate how much that improves your workflow where you’re able to see basically what the image is going to look like straight in the viewfinder i also like the fact now that i can review my images in my viewfinder that way too when you’re in a really harsh light things like that you can sit there and look straight into your viewfinder and actually zoom in and view the image it’s almost like using a loop which now i don’t have to carry around my neck anymore so that’s a bonus with these things too other things i like about this is the focusing setup now a lot of people have bitched and moaned about it they’ve talked about how it’s an extra button press blah blah blah to get the tracking and also stuff i really don’t think of it as being a pain in the ass it’s different if you’re used to the regular nikon system this is different it’s a completely different setup you’re using buttons dials your sort of filtering touch screen all different ways to get through those shooting modes those focus modes but they’re all still there and the tracking once you know how to use it it’s phenomenal it works really well uh the human tracking uh the eye tracking is brilliant in video it’s brilliant for animals it’s great um i’ve had no problems with the tracking mode some of the small things i’ve had problems with have just been the learning curve that i’ve been going through where i didn’t know exactly how to switch something on or off properly that’s been probably about the worst of it but once you figure out how those modes work they work really well and the camera’s fantastic at tracking subjects and keeping them in focus even when you’re shooting at really really wide open apertures f28 f18 even down to f12 i found the tracking and the focus has been really exceptional highly impressed with that you know i’ve heard a lot of people talk about how this camera doesn’t have a fast enough burst rate
but the burst rate is pretty good it’s not amazing it’s not up to the speed of say a lot of the pro bodies might be but it’s pretty good what really sets it apart though is because it has those dual processors it just keeps on going the buffer is amazing so you can just sit there and shoot and shoot and shoot i think it’s 70-something images at nearly 50 megapixels it’s crazy it’s more than enough
okay one of the other things i’ve noticed when shifting from uh the old-school sort of dslrs to this mirrorless format mirror’s body is there’s a lot of buttons in different places um you still have of course your play and your your garbage bin up here in the same spot as they used to be but now instead of having all your buttons down along the side of the back of the screen here they moved over to different spots so it’s a little bit cumbersome getting used to where they are especially when you’ve been shooting for a long time and kind of intuitively kind of reach for those those spots i like the fact that i can program these function buttons down here next to the lens i put different things in there as i want them i love the fact that i can set the user settings and then the function buttons will play differently with different user settings um really enjoying that i like the fact that i can switch to the burst mode quickly i like the fact i can zoom crop in on my images and my focus points quickly using the button but i also like the fact that the i button will allow me to go into my little custom menu screen and i can touch screen and move things around there really really useful um once you figure out how to how to set the camera up so it works for your flow i think you’ll forget all about how it used to be laid out and be really stoked on how it is laid out now so that’s really good another thing i like to do is time-lapse photography and really long exposures and this camera’s really geared up for that so they’ve got now the ability to shoot up to 900 seconds for long exposures straight in the camera without having to use a third-party app or a trigger release which is absolutely brilliant another thing i love about that too is that on this top display up here it actually counts down and lets you know how many seconds you got left which is really really cool now that only works once you break past 30 seconds would like to have seen that just continued on all the way through so you could just count down even a 20 second or a 30 second exposure but um some reason they decided not to put that in there maybe in a firmware update but that would be really useful i’d also like to see if possible is they could have maybe put that countdown up here on the back screen when it’s counting down just even very pale very light not very luminous so it’s not interfering with the shot but just so you could sit there and not have to try to look over the top of the camera all the time to see what countdown is small one on the back that would be fantastic now while we’re talking about the time lapses as well even though this camera shoots 8k easily it shoots well over 8k it does output 4k time-lapse in camera what’s great about it as well is that it will still save the raw files if you want to go and take it into lightroom into lightroom lapse etc and have a play around with the actual images to get a bit more out of it or turn it into an 8k sequence that’s possible but you can just get your 4k straight in camera which is fantastic as well that leads us into talking about video video functions on this camera are great i want to say they can shoot great photos and do nice videos so that’s why i went with this one um the other reason i’m wearing this is that i shoot a lot of my footage as i am right now on the blackmagic 4k pocket cinema camera and this camera now can shoot basically the same frame rates as that 4k can do so i can match those up but it can also output to the black magic video assist i think is what they call it it’s an external recorder and then i can get the same b raw out of both the cameras it’s going to give me a really similar look when i’m trying to shoot multiple cameras and try to match things up in post um the other thing that makes this exceptional where i always had problems with black magic is now i’ll be able to have active autofocus on one of my cameras when i’m shooting a two camera setup or if i’m shooting something there there’s a lot more motion going on i can have this camera tracking and shooting in that 4k you know slow uh you know slow motion 120 frames per second if needed 60 frames per second when wanted um and i can have that while i while i manually focus my other camera i set that up and let it go um even if i’m shooting like different focal lengths and stuff it’s just a great additive to have there and it really complements the setup i already have in place so really really glad about the video functions there um are they going to be the best they could be no of course not but it’s not really designed to be a video camera it’s a still camera that shoots video so keep that in mind for that one other good thing when you’re talking videos well if you’re doing location hunting with this camera it’s really good um while you’re if you switch your display a little toggle over here to video mode and then you hit the shutter button not the video record button the shutter button it’ll actually shoot a still frame and it will show you the seal frame will look exactly how the video will look so it’s great for going ahead location hunting storyboarding out um you know blocking out a scene you can sit there and use this camera to get all those images so you can run a really good storyboard and that’s super useful for those situations it’s just a nice little thing i noticed okay another thing as well it’s got this cool little button here on the side where you can toggle between where you’re viewing your images whether it’s automatically switching using the sensor to the viewfinder or to the back screen whether it’s just through the sensor whether it’s predominantly through the the evf or whether it’s just on the back screen um being able to toggle between all those is fantastic depending on the kind of shooting you’re doing now as most people said this thing now has the two card slots it didn’t have before you have the xqd or the cf express and the the sd card slot always good to have redundancy when you’re shooting okay so another thing i really love about the nikon z72 is that when you switch into manual mode you can use focus peaking now if you haven’t done focus peaking before it basically just illuminates the areas that are in focus in a color you can choose red blue whatever i’m not sure the options i always go with red because that’s what i’m used to but it gives you this focus peaking which is fantastic you’re shooting landscapes like this so you get full manual control over your your focus points you’re not messing around trying to get the focus and then switch it to manual switch in a manual dial in that focus and you’re good to go now while i’m here i thought i’d take a moment just talk about this new filter i bought uh it’s by knf concept it’s their uh nd 100 mil square uh nd64 and it’s fantastic for this kind of shooting i saw it it was on sale it was a bug and i was going to go with the lee filter but they were a lot more expensive this one was on sale i’ve used k f concept before i use it with my video cameras but they’re variable nd and the image quality is fantastic so i’ll grab the nd filter while it does slip a little bit inside the li the original lee filter holder it’s a little bit thin for it a little bit of masking tape on the sides fixes that and it works fantastic it renders really great highly recommend looking into that great little uh company not super well renowned yet but uh they make great products and now on front of that i’m going to slide in my lee gret and see if i get a nice shot this waterfall
okay so another thing to keep in mind if you’re considering jumping across to the z is lens compatibility a lot of third-party lenses are not compatible with this camera particularly i’ve noticed the tamron the 150 to 600 first generation completely useless that camera is totally only manual focuser and no image stabilization the version two i’ve heard you can upgrade it at tamron tamron’s factory or you can buy an adapter that will allow you to upgrade it yourself and then it’s useful i haven’t tested it myself oddly enough the first hammer on 70 to 200 2.8 that works fly that’s fine that works great that’s the old push-pull manual to auto thing that’s a good lens it works on this camera second generation completely useless that doesn’t work at all so if you are sitting on a pile of third-party lenses make sure you check your compatibility before you drop the hammer on the camera otherwise you’re going to get stung looking for new glass or trying to find ways to make it compatible and it’s just going to be an absolute pain in the ass if you have a bunch of nikon glass however it works flawlessly it’s beautiful it’s crisp it works exactly as it’s meant to it’s very fast there’s no lag in the in the auto focuses etc using the adapter absolutely fantastic with the nikon glass just something to think about
look if you’re on the fence about buying the camera i’d say jump jump over uh it’s it’s brilliant you’re not gonna regret this camera they might come out something new which they will undoubtedly something better is coming uh other cameras might be able to do a few more tricks and stuff like that but if you’re a nikon shooter and you’re looking to upgrade to mirrorless or you’re looking to jump into the next level of cameras you won’t be disappointed it’s a brilliant camera the images are beautiful the files are gorgeous it works well it’s tough it’s robust and you can still use all your old glass as long as you’ve got that adapter i say go ahead and do it that’s just my review super stoked with it and uh yeah that’s about all you can really talk about it’s a camera it shoots photos it’s beautiful and it does video excellent if you like this video comment subscribe all that kind of junk helps me keep doing what i’m doing keeps me coming to places like this and most importantly happy shooting
you