It’s time for our annual predictions episode! Chris and Jordan tell us what to expect from each camera company in 2021. And like true Canadians, they do it while ice fishing.
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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Canon and Nikon dominated the DSLR market for around two decades but the move to mirrorless saw Sony gain a significant foothold in the full-frame space before the former ‘Big Two’ weighed in.
The second-generation full-frame mirrorless cameras from both brands are hugely capable though, so in the absence of an update from Sony, the Canon EOS R6 and Nikon Z6 II are the midrange models to beat.
But which is right for you?
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For many years, the biggest distinction between Canon and Nikon was their respective approaches to ergonomics: which one you found most comfortable was probably the best way to choose between them. And, to some extent, these distinctions are carried through in their latest mirrorless models.
The Z6 II hand grip will be familiar to Nikon DSLR users, as will the positioning and function of its command dials. These tend to be very ergonomic, with the dials well placed under the thumb and forefinger. It’s a smaller camera but finds plenty of room for control points without feeling cluttered.
Canon, meanwhile, has diverged a little more from tradition. The R6’s grip is still a lot like a larger Canon DSLR (less overtly hand-shaped but providing a solid, comfortable substrate to hold onto). The R6 gains a command dial on its shoulder, in addition to the vertical dial on the back plate and the dial behind the shutter button. We’ve found this latest iteration to be an improvement on a familiar setup, and appreciate the extra flexibility it gives.
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To a great extent, the biggest difference between the two cameras is in the sensors they use. The Nikon uses a 24MP BSI CMOS chip, shared with several rivals. In this instance it has an undisclosed number of pixels devoted to providing phase-detection autofocus.
The Canon uses a 20MP sensor using the older FSI CMOS technology but using Canon’s ‘Dual Pixel’ design in which pairs of photodetectors are used at each pixel, meaning the entire sensor can be used for phase-detection autofocus, and without even the minuscule risk of glitches or artifacts that comes with dispersed phase detection layouts.
In image quality terms, there’s not a lot to choose between them. The Nikon has fractionally higher resolution capture and slightly better dynamic range (less read noise, meaning there’s more information in the very deep shadows before it’s swamped by noise). However, the difference is small enough that the Canon’s finer sharpening means its out-of-camera JPEGs end up looking similarly detailed than the Nikon’s, despite the lower resolution.
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Both cameras use menu systems inherited pretty directly from their DSLR forebears. This is great in terms of familiarity, but both are beginning to creak somewhat with the sheer number of menu options crammed into them. Nikon’s ‘Setup’ menu has some of the best navigation cues in the business, but other sections are just long lists of options with few hints about the logic used to order the options and insufficient indications to find your way back. Thankfully both cameras have My Menu tabs into which you can collect the options you change most often.
Both cameras offer a decent degree of customization, though not to the point where every button can be reprogrammed to access any possible function. The Nikon lets you customize its ‘i‘ quick menu, with separate choices for stills and video, but it omits the useful option to assign a focus area mode (or area mode + AF-On) to a button, which the company’s DSLRs offered. The Canon lets you do this, via the ‘Switch to registered AF func’ option, though there’s less need to do so. The Canon’s quick menu isn’t customizable but you can add a series of functions to the list accessed with the ‘M-Fn’ button, for semi-fast access.
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Canon (top) combines face/eye detection and tracking in a single, unified AF mode. Nikon (bottom) lets you access face/eye detect as an option in two AF area modes; AF Tracking is a separate mode, accessed with a custom button.
The autofocus systems of the Z6 II and R6 are likely to be seen as revelatory to most DSLR users, and will seem like a pretty big step forward to anyone whose camera is more than a few years old. In both instances, the subject tracking performance and face and eye detection is extremely impressive.
Where they differ is how simple it is to access these capabilities. On the Nikon you need to choose whether to engage subject tracking or to use face detection, and then decide whether to limit face detection to a zone within the scene, to let you pre-select which person you wish to focus on.
On the Canon, once you’ve changed the settings so that you get to choose the initial AF position, you can just point your focus point at a subject and it’ll track it, using face and eye detection if it’s a person or just using generic subject tracking if it’s not. The whole process is easier to understand and quicker to operate.
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Video is one of the areas in which a distinction begins to appear, though again it’s more nuanced than simply being a case of ‘camera X is better.’
The Canon has the better-looking specification on paper: there’s a slight crop to all its video but it’ll shoot UHD 4K video in 24, 30 and 60p, whereas the Z6 II will apply a significant crop when 60p capture arrives in 2021. Using a cropped region makes it harder to find a lens that gives a wide-angle view, and gives the higher noise level of using a camera with a smaller sensor (APS-C in the case of the Z6 II’s 60p mode).
The Canon can also shoot 10-bit footage internally, giving more flexible Log footage or HDR TV-ready video. The Nikon requires an external recorder to record 10-bit data, making it less flexible. That said, there’s an extra-cost option to upgrade the Z6 II to output a 4K Raw video stream, which can be encoded as either ProRes RAW or Blackmagic Raw, but the footage is line-skipped, so it gains processing flexibility but loses some quality with regards resolution, moiré and noise.
There’s not a lot of difference in the appearance of the UHD 24, 25 and 30p footage both cameras can capture, other than the Nikon having less pronounced rolling shutter distortion of moving subjects. Neither camera is great in this regard but the Canon is visibly less good.
The latest firmware for the Canon has alleviated our original concerns about video overheating. We wouldn’t necessarily choose it if you need to shoot large amounts of stills and video back-to-back in a can’t-miss-a-moment setting, like a wedding, but for most video projects where stop/start recording is the norm, it’s no longer significantly different to its peers (so long as you turn the camera completely off between clips). Both cameras will stop internal recording after 29minutes, 59 seconds, which limits their appeal for long-run capture anyway.
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What’s great to see is that both cameras behave very similarly in stills and video mode, but don’t carry too many settings over from one mode to the other. Both cameras retain separate exposure settings for stills and video, and let you define different white balance, color mode and custom button settings for the two shooting styles, if you wish. This makes jumping from stills to video and back easier, since it avoids accidentally shooting a series of Log-gamma photos or video clips with 1/200th shutter speed.
Where the Nikon has a slight edge is that its AF interface behaves in exactly the same way in stills and video modes. This means you can set an AF tracking point in advance or try to trust face detection (with the risk that the camera will re-focus if your subject looks away). On the Canon, the only way to achieve AF tracking in video is to tap the rear screen, meaning you can’t prepare for a subject’s arrival in the frame and you risk shaking the camera as you select them. The performance once the cameras are subject tracking is pretty similar.
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There’s not much to choose between the cameras in terms of viewfinders. The Nikon has an edge on paper, but it’s not a big enough difference for us to notice in real-world usage.
Both cameras use 3.69M dot OLED viewfinders, but the Nikon’s optics mean that it gives a slightly larger 0.8x magnification from the panel, rather than the Canon’s 0.76x figure. However, while both cameras default to a high-resolution, 60 fps refresh rate, the Canon also offers a 120 fps high speed mode, which can be useful when you’re trying to follow action.
The Nikon has the better rear screen, with a 3.2″ 2.1M dot touchscreen (1024 x 680 pixels) rather than the Canon’s 3.0″ 1.62M dot panel (900 x 600 pixels). But we suspect the way the screen moves – up/down tilt for the Nikon, full-articulated for the Canon – will have more of an impact on your preference than the difference in the panels themselves.
Fans of a top-panel status LCD will prefer the Nikon, since the Canon doesn’t have one.
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Both cameras have been packed with just about every feature their respective maker can think to offer. Both cameras offer intervalometer functions, for instance, though only the Nikon also includes a time-lapse feature that builds a high-res movie file. In return, the Canon includes a mode to shoot high dynamic range 10-bit HEIF files for use on HDR displays, which the Nikon doesn’t.
Interestingly, neither includes a multi-shot high-res mode of the sort offered by a majority of other manufacturers. If you indulge in one of the types of photography that can benefit from such modes, you’ll have to look to Panasonic.
Both cameras can charge or operate using power over a USB-C connection. The Canon is rated as offering between 10 and 24% greater battery life than the Nikon, though frankly the larger battery used in the Sony a7 range is a safer choice if this is a major concern for your shooting. Both the Canon and Nikon offer battery grips to extend shooting times as well as provide duplicate controls.
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Both the Nikon and Canon are designed to attract photographers already entrenched in the companies’ respective DSLR systems, so both are available with adapters to use existing lenses.
Nikon’s FTZ adapter doesn’t include a focus motor, which means it’ll only autofocus with AF-I, AF-S or AF-P lenses that have their own focus motor. This still allows autofocus with around 90 Nikon lenses launched since 1992. The company says a further 270 lenses can be manually focused, before you even consider third-party lenses with built-in motors.
Canon, meanwhile, offers three EF-to-RF adapters: a simple pass-through tube like Nikon’s design or more expensive variants with an additional settings control ring or built-in filter mount. Because the EF mount always used in-lens AF and aperture drive, there are fewer compatibility considerations when using existing Canon lenses.
Many users report good experiences with adapted lenses, but the sheer number of lens designs, motor types and the subtle differences between DSLR and mirrorless AF systems means there’s always scope for variability in performance. While this compatibility is nice to have, we tend to find there are image quality, AF consistency and often size advantages to using lenses designed for the new mirrorless mounts.
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Overall, there’s something almost nostalgic about how well-matched the Canon and Nikon are. But, unlike the DSLRs of a decade ago, there’s more of a price difference between them. The Canon EOS R6 retails at an MSRP of $ 2,499 whereas the Nikon Z6 II can be purchased new for $ 1,999 (body-only in both cases).
So the R6 is substantially more expensive, but for us, the ‘it just works’ nature of its autofocus, the 10-bit stills and video capture and (nearly) full-sensor 4K/60p video make the Canon a slightly more convincing and enjoyable all-rounder, hence it getting a Gold award to the Nikon’s Silver. But the differences aren’t huge: they’re both extremely good cameras.
And whereas, ten years ago, I’d have said: ‘buy the one that fits most comfortably in your hand.’ I’m again in a position where it’s not really the cameras themselves you need to focus on most. The depth of any existing investment you have in DSLR lenses and the availability of new, native versions of the lenses you expect to use most often should be the more significant factor.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Did Santa leave a new Sony camera in your Christmas stocking? If so, your first step should be to enable Sony’s ‘real-time’ autofocus tracking. In this video, we show you how to set up this useful feature.
These instructions should work for the Sony a6100, a6400, a6600, RX100 VII, RX10 IV, a7R IV, a9, and a9 II.
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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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| When deciding which 35mm lens to buy, what do you want to know? How sharp it is? How it handles? How much it costs? I want to know what its field curvature looks like. (Spoiler: the plot on the right is from the little guy.) |
I’m not a fan of lens testing purely for the purpose of winning pissing contests. I am, however, a great fan of lens testing for learning how to best use a lens. There are a few tests I find particularly useful, and the single most important one is field curvature.
Field Curvature (in metrology speak MTF v Field v Focus) tells me a lot about how to use a lens. It is also the most complete way to test a lens because it’s three-dimensional. Shooting a brick wall or test chart the way most people do is 2-Dimensional. The 2-D chart test below says the lens is sharp in the center and soft at the edges. How nice.
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| This is a test image of a lens’ MTF, basically what you’d see shooting a test chart except with color representing sharpness. This one is sharp in the center, really soft at the edges, and a tiny bit softer on one side than the other. But what does that tell you about the lens? Not much. |
I’ve spent over a decade developing fast, sensitive optical tests. My gold standard is a modified $ 250,000 optical bench that quickly analyzes field curvature. That test (the graph below) tells me that this lens is actually amazingly sharp at the edges, but that field curvature causes the area of maximum sharpness to be further forward at the edges than at the center. In a 2-D test, the edges look soft because they are out of focus when the center is in focus.
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| A 3-D (Field curvature) MTF graph. The center focus is along the black horizontal line. The Y axis represents focusing distance, the X axis edge-to-edge sharpness, and the MTF is the color (red is sharpest). So the edges of the lens are very sharp, but not at the same focusing distance as the center.
The 2-D test chart images, like the first graph, are taken right along the black line of best center focus. They show the center is sharp and the edges soft. The 3-D graph shows, the edges are very sharp, but not in the same plane of focus as the center. That’s very, very different than the edges are soft. |
Think about that for a second. Photographer #1 gets that lens, knows how to frame with it, and posts about how awesomely sharp the edges are in his photographs, which are 3-D. Photographer #2 buys it, tests it on a 2-D chart and sees the edges suck so he sends it back because it’s supposed to have sharp edges. Again and again.
Inexperienced photographers think a curved field is bad and a flat field good. But a designer may have chosen to let the field curve so the lens has other, wonderful attributes. Not to mention a curved field is a tool that can be useful. Many great portrait lenses are great portrait lenses because of their curved field, for example.
knowing your lens’s field curvature will help you take better pictures
I showed how to check field curvature with just a photo in a previous post. Today I’ll show a slightly different method using a test chart or brick wall. But field curvature isn’t really about better testing; knowing your lens’s field curvature will help you take better pictures.
Take the lens above as an example. I saw a group photo taken with that lens. The photographer positioned everyone in a slight crescent rather than a line because he knew the lens’ field curvature and placed his subjects so they were all in best focus. Someone else (someone without that information) would probably have said the lens was ‘too soft at the edges’ to use in a group shot.
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| Field Curvature graphs (clockwise from top left) showing overall curvature (this lens doesn’t have much); astigmatism, tangential field, and sagittal field. |
The shape of the field is different for sagittal and tangential rays (the two lower graphs above), which many people don’t realize. Where the fields don’t overlap, there is astigmatism (upper right graph above). The overall curvature (upper left) is what you see at home if you do my not-patented ‘field of grass’ test. Most of the time I’ll just show the sagittal and tangential fields; you can eyeball whether they overlap or not and what the overall curvature would be like.
If you follow my grass-photo-with-find-edges-filter technique, you get a nice image showing the field curvature. You’ll also know if the field is tilted and if it is, how badly. Here’s the grass test for two copies of the Sigma 24mm f.14 Art, a lens with a bit of field curvature. One copy has tilt problems and it’s pretty easy to see which one.
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| One copy is good, one is pretty tilted. Can you tell which one is which? I thought that you could. This two-copy test took 60 seconds, was shot hand held, and required no home testing lab. |
If you’ve already got a home testing setup and want to put some numbers to your lens, that’s easy, too. First, mount the lens on a tripod and manually focus on your 2-D target of choice: test target, brick wall, treeline, whatever. (If you don’t use a tripod and you don’t manually focus, you should be filled with shame and delete all your test posts because you did NOT test the lens. I never, ever, take a single AF image of a test chart. It’s a waste of time. But you can do the find-edges technique with a hand-held AF shot even if you don’t own a tripod and don’t know how to manually focus.)
Where was I before the rant? Oh, yeah. Take your first image past (distant) to best center focus, then take a series of 6-10 images while manually moving the focus back a bit after each shot until you’ve gone out of focus to the near side.
I never, ever, take a single image of a test chart – it’s a waste of time
Next, you take that set of six or 10 through-focused images, find the one with best center sharpness, the one with best right edge sharpness, and the one with best left edge sharpness. If they are all the same image (it happens sometimes), congratulations – you have a very good lens with a flat field. Most of the time, though, you will get one of three other possibilities:
For example, let’s say you take six images. Images #1 and #6 from the sequence shown below were way out of focus, so I’m only showing you images #2-5. The center is sharpest in image #3, the right edge sharpest in #4, and the left in #5.
What this tells me is that I’ve got a lens with a field that is both curved towards the camera and tilted to the left.
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| Taking a series of images from far focus (2) through near focus (5) lets you evaluate field curvature and tilt. |
Let’s all take just a moment to think about all those threads that started with someone posting just image #3 and asking “do you think this lens is OK??” You’ll see 57 or so responses with no definitive conclusion because the OP didn’t give enough information from which to draw a proper conclusion. If they had done a through-focus test, they probably wouldn’t need to ask the question; the answer would be obvious.
If the field is badly tilted (scroll back up to the first grass images) you’ll know to exchange it for another copy, or if a little tilted you’ll have that information for framing your shots. I had a favorite landscape lens which had a field that was slightly curved and slightly tilted. It gave me great images, usually with a subject of interest closer and on the left side in sharp focus. It was a great lens for me because I knew how to frame my shots with it and I liked the different look that gave.
If the field is markedly curved, you can use that knowledge to better frame your shots. Or perhaps you’ll decide that this lens isn’t for you. Personally, I often prefer a curved field because it’s a tool I can use, but some people want flat fields all the time. I might choose one lens over another for certain shots because of the field curvature. That lens I showed at the beginning is going to focus the edges closer than the center, for example. It might be great for isolating the subject for center-framed portraits. Or to frame shots so the center point of interest is further away than the edge points of interest. I would prefer a different lens with a flatter field for an architectural shot. You might prefer flat fields for all of your shots, for that matter. I find field curvature a fun tool, but some people are flat lensers.
As an alternative, if the field is really curved, focusing slightly away from center gives an overall sharper image. Here’s an example. The Zeiss 50mm T/1.5 has big-time curvature with the edges towards the camera as shown in the top-half of the image below.
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Field curvature of the Zeiss 50mm T1.5 showing that if you place the focus point to the left or right of center you get maximum edge-to-edge sharpness. The calculations show the best off-axis point is 9mm from center (about halfway to the edge) but you could eyeball this pretty accurately. I love a curved field for just this reason. Center focus can isolate my subject but off-axis focus brings good edge-to-edge sharpness. I get to choose. I love getting to choose. |
I have some cool software (bottom half of the image) that tells me exactly where to focus to get the best edge-to-edge sharpness (the black line across the field curvature graph) but you can eyeball your homemade field curvature graph and know where it should go – about halfway to the edge in this case. This can serve as an alternative to stopping down for edge-to-edge sharpness, or let you get edge-to-edge sharpness when stopping down isn’t enough.
The big takeaway is you can often get excellent get excellent edge sharpness in lenses with field curvatures if you know how to use them. Many lenses with flatter fields sacrifice edge sharpness to get flat fields, and you can’t find edge sharpness that just isn’t there.
Do you know the focal length at which your zoom lens has the flattest field, or at which focal length the field curvature changes? That’s useful information, and I want to know this kind of thing for every zoom I carry (pro tip, the flattest field is rarely at the center of the zoom range; it’s often 1/3 of the way from one extreme). Some zooms have massive curve at an extreme, but if you zoom just a few mm away from the extreme the field is much flatter. That’s another useful thing to know.
Very often your 24-70mm is curved one way at 70, while your 70-200mm is curved the another (ditto at 24mm, etc.). Knowing that helps choose which lens best frames the shot. (I should also mention that one zoom is always sharper than the other at 70mm. Of course, I probably should also mention neither one is really 70mm. Most 24-70mm lenses are actually 26-67mm; most 70-200s are about 73mm to 190mm.)
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Sagittal field of Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L III and24-70mm f/4 L IS, both set at 70mm. The 70-200mm has a very slight curve back towards the camera and is pretty sharp (red) even at the edges at 70mm. The 24-70mm has a more significant curve and is not as sharp at the edges. Depending on what you are shooting, those differences could be important. |
At least a few of you, I hope, have read this far and are now interested in field curvature. This article is already long enough, so I’ll stop here for today. For the next article though, I’ll show example field curvatures from various kinds of lenses. To be clear, I’m not going to put out 6,342 field curvature graphs for all the lenses at all the focal lengths. I’m showing you how to fish, not hosting a fish fry.
Since everyone tells me I should click-bait tease the next article, here you go: Next time I’ll show how field curvature explains ‘3-D pop’ and ‘microcontrast’. (Spoiler: No, no I won’t. Field curvature explains a lot of things and is a useful tool, but it’s not magic.)
Until Next Time…
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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| Photo: Dan Bracaglia |
I think we can all agree that 2020 has been an unpredictable year, so it seems appropriate that my gear of the year is a camera I wouldn’t have predicted a few months ago: the Fujifilm X-Pro3.
But first, a bit of context.
Some of my earliest photography was done with a hand-me-down rangefinder camera, a Kodak Retina IIc. I loved the experience of shooting it and still remember exactly how it felt in my hands. I even remember how it smelled, no doubt the result of the grease used to lubricate gears, something you don’t get from digital cameras today.
However, as much as I love rangefinders, I’ve never had a natural knack for focusing them. I can do it, but it’s not my superpower. To this day, I have tremendous respect for photographers who can quickly and accurately focus a rangefinder.
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Mt. Jefferson in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. Velvia film profile, processed in-camera. ISO 160 | 1/250 sec | F2.0 | XF 18mm F2 R |
That’s a roundabout way of explaining why I mostly shot with SLRs for so many years and never lusted after a Leica.
This is where Fujifilm comes into the story, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. You see, I was never so much a fan of the X-Pro series, which always seemed big and chunky, but rather of the fixed-lens X100. I didn’t need one, but from the day I first used an X100 in person, I wanted one. Badly. It was sexy, compact, and provided a shooting experience similar to a rangefinder, but with autofocus. Eventually, I broke down and bought the X100T, and it remains my most-used camera to this day.
With that in mind, I suppose it seems odd that I picked the X-Pro3 as my gear of the year instead of the X100V, so I should probably get around to explaining that.
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Pre-pandemic family gatherings. Acros film profile, processed in-camera. ISO 5000 | 1/80 sec | F2.8 | XF 23mm F2 R WR |
It turns out the thing that made me enjoy the X-Pro3 most was the exact thing I expected to dislike about it: the inverted rear screen, which is undoubtedly the most polarizing feature of the camera. Unlike most cameras, the X-Pro3’s screen folds inward and remains hidden until deliberately folded out. There’s an extra step required to access menus or, more importantly, to chimp images.
I trained myself years ago not to ‘chimp’ images on the back of a camera when doing work for clients; I didn’t think it conveyed professionalism or confidence. When shooting for fun, however, I’m like most people. I like to see my photos right away. Because instant gratification.
With the X-Pro3, I shoot differently. Nothing actually prevents me from flipping open the screen to look at my images, but a glance at the back of the camera reminds me that that’s not what this camera is about. The thought of flipping open that screen feels like cheating, so I don’t.
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Cowboy country. Astia film profile, processed in-camera. ISO 320 | 1/170 sec | F6.4 | XF 55-200mm F3.5-4.8 R LM OIS |
It’s a subtle shift in mindset, but one that I’m really enjoying. I find myself having more of those zen moments where it’s just me, the camera and my subject. By removing the temptation even to look, I’m spending more time taking in what’s around me, looking through the viewfinder, and just enjoying the journey. I can look at the photos later.
I’m starting to fully realize how the presence of a screen impacts the way I shoot a digital camera, and I’m beginning to appreciate why someone might spring for a model like the Leica M10-D, which has no screen at all.
The only area where I feel let down by the X-Pro3 is its hybrid optical viewfinder, which is a core part of the camera’s experience. Viewfinders on previous X-Pro models had a magnifier that would engage depending on the attached lens’s focal length, allowing the user to view frame lines for a pretty wide variety of lenses.
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Home on the range. Astia film profile, processed in-camera. ISO 640 | 1/3200 sec | F4.0 | XF 18mm F2 R |
That’s missing on the X-Pro3. You can’t see frame lines for lenses wider than 23mm (equivalent to 35mm), which I notice when shooting Fujifilm’s 18mm F2, though fortunately, that lens’s field of view pretty closely matches the viewfinder itself. The EVF is very usable, and I’ll switch over to it at times, but it takes away some of the magic.
Many people pigeon-hole the X-Pro3 as a camera for street photography only, which is unfortunate because it’s really quite versatile. I’m definitely not a street photographer, yet to my delight, I found it to be an incredibly satisfying camera.
A lot of unexpected things happened this year, and not all of them were bad. I got to know my family better, even over FaceTime, I spent more time with my pets, and I caught up on projects that have languished for years. I also discovered a camera that brings me joy and reminds me of why I started taking pictures in the first place. That feels like a pretty good way to start 2021.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
What would the Sony a7S III look like if it were a cinema camera? Spoiler: it would look like the Sony FX6. This week, Jordan reviews the FX6 to see how it compares with the a7S III. Which one would he pick? You might be surprised.
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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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| Ansel Adams, The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming |
‘A Grand Vision: The David H. Arrington Collection of Ansel Adams Masterworks’ completed auctioned at Sotheby’s New York on December 14. The collection comprised 123 individual lots, 94% of which were successfully sold to buyers both in person at Sotheby’s New York and online. A mural-sized print, ‘The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming’, sold for a record-high for an Ansel Adams print, closing at $ 988,000 USD.
Ansel Adams photographed the record-setting print in 1942. The image was commissioned by the Department of the Interior. The mural-sized print of Jackson Hole is one of fewer than 10 thought to exist. David H. Arrington acquired it directly from a descendant of Ansel Adams.
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| Ansel Adams, The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming – Lot 53, sold for $ 988,000 |
David H. Arrington was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and currently serves as President of Arrington Oil & Gas Operating LLC. He became interested in photography as a teenager and began collecting Adams’ work in his twenties. His collection ultimately developed into one of the largest and most comprehensive private collections of Adams’ photography. Pieces from the collection have been part of many exhibits over the years, including in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Hayward Gallery, the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin, and the Museum of Modern Art.
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| Ansel Adams, Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada, from Lone Pine, California – Lot 107, sold for $ 403,200 |
Arrington said, ‘I remember the first time I saw an image slowly appear in the developing tray in my darkroom. I was 15 years old, mesmerized and thrilled beyond imagination at the possibilities inherent in photography. Now at 60 years old, I still feel the same.’ Many of his Ansel Adams prints were displayed at his company’s headquarters, making it a museum of sorts. He encouraged employees to select favorite prints to hang in their offices.
When the auction closed, the sold lots totaled $ 6.4 million, the highest total for a sale of photographs at Sotheby’s since 2014. Before the auction, the pre-sale estimate ranged from $ 4.1 to $ 6.1 million. Sotheby’s shared additional interesting figures, including that nearly half of lots sold achieved prices above their high estimates, more than 50% of lots were sold online and 35% of buyers were first-time buyers from Sotheby’s.
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| Ansel Adams, Half Dome, Merced River, Winter, Yosemite Valley – Lot 38, sold for $ 685,500 |
Emily Bierman, Head of Sotheby’s Photographs Department in New York, said, ‘The spectacular results from [the sale] not only affirmed Ansel Adams as one of the most important artists of the 20th century, but also that his subject matter is as relevant today as when it was created over half a century ago.’ She commented further that the record-setting print garnered a bidding battle involving at least half a dozen bidders.
Bierman continues, ‘The collection put together by David H. Arrington was unprecedented in its scale, scope, and condition, and now proudly takes its place among the most significant collections of photographs to ever come to auction. Handing this collection has been an enormous privilege for our entire team, and, personally, an opportunity I will cherish in my career.’
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| Ansel Adams, Yosemite Valley from Inspiration Point, Winter, Yosemite National Park – Lot 48, sold for $ 163,800 |
You can browse all 123 lots by clicking here. From there, you will be able to see the closing price for sold lots and view the pre-sale estimates for each lot. Notably, before the auction, Sotheby’s estimated that Adams’ iconic ‘Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico’ would sell for the highest amount, although it ultimately sold for about $ 300,000 less than Adams’ image of the Grand Tetons. David H. Arrington’s collection included many other iconic Adams images and it’s well worth it for any photographer fan to peruse and enjoy the images.
Image credits: The above Ansel Adams photographs have been shared with us courtesy of Sotheby’s Auction House
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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A recent report of out South Texas reveals the harsh reality of being a wedding photographer in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In an article titled ‘Texas Wedding Photographers Have Seen Some $ #!+’ shared by Texas Monthly, reporter Emily McCullar tells the story of a wedding photographer who was diagnosed with COVID-19 after it was revealed the groom of the party had tested positive for COVID-19 and didn’t inform the wedding photographer.
The photographer, who remains unnamed throughout the article, was informed of the groom’s positive diagnosis by a bridesmaid in the party. But not before the photographer had spent ‘an hour or two inside the unmasked wedding party’ taking photographs. The photographer said ‘[the bridesmaid] was looking for me to be like, “Oh, that’s crazy,” like I was going to agree with her that it was fine.’
That wasn’t the case though. The photographer suffers from asthma, a serious comorbidity factor that can increase the risks of a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. Additionally, the photographer has three kids and a husband at home that she didn’t want to infect, should she end up COVID-19 positive.
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After discovering the groom’s secret, the photographer and her assistant left. Texas Monthly notes ‘her exit was tense.’ ‘The wedding planner said it was the most unprofessional thing she’d ever seen […] Bridesmaids accused her of heartlessly ruining an innocent woman’s wedding day.’ The photographer even recollected a bridesmaid telling her ‘I’m a teacher, I have fourteen students. If I’m willing to risk it, why aren’t you?’
After leaving, the photographer ‘canceled her Thanksgiving plans with family, sent her kids to relatives’ houses so they wouldn’t get sick, and informed the brides of her upcoming weddings that she’d be subcontracting to other shooters,’ says Texas Monthly. Sure enough, a few days after the wedding, the photographer started feeling symptoms and eventually tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
The photographer said the couple whose wedding she was photographing ‘didn’t care’ about the diagnosis and ‘didn’t offer to compensate her for the test, nor did they apologize for getting her sick.’
The article goes on to point out that this incident is far from an isolated one. As you browse through the hashtag ‘#TexasWedding’ on Instagram, there are a handful of images that show groups of friends and family celebrating matrimony with what appears to be little regard for protocols suggested for mitigating the spread of COVID-19, a disease that’s confirmed to have killed over 302,000 individuals in the United States alone.
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| A screenshot of a few images that show up when you search ‘#TexasWedding’ on Instagram. Faces have been blurred for privacy sake. |
The report details statements from other photographers, who share their experiences trying to shoot weddings throughout the pandemic. A reoccurring theme is a lack of masks, proper social distancing and little means of sanitation options, such as hand sanitizer.
As for the original wedding photographer, she recalled a heartbreaking conversation she had with a bridesmaid at the wedding:
‘I have children,’ she told a bridesmaid, ‘What if my children die?’ The bridesmaid responded, ‘I understand, but this is her wedding day.’
The report notes that not all wedding anecdotes it came across from photographers were as reckless as the featured one, but even in the anecdotes that featured more responsible weddings, nearly half of the guests were unmasked, including those who had high risk factors. While Texas reduced the size of wedding gatherings — from 500 to 250 individuals — there’s still plenty of risk in having that many individuals together at a single venue.
Vaccines are being distributed around the globe, but according to experts on the matter, it will still be a while before anything gets back to ‘normal,’ whatever that may look like. And until then, this unfortunate reality is what many wedding photographers (and other professions) will have to face as the death toll continues to rise, particularly in the United States.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Apple’s new ProRAW format is now available to iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max users running iOS 14.3. The new format promises the power of Apple’s image processing capabilities with the flexibility of a Raw image. But what exactly is a ProRAW image, how useful is the format and what sort of results can we expect from it?
Ben Sandofsky, one of the developers behind the iOS camera app Halide, has answered all of those questions and more in a thorough overview of the ProRAW technology, with illustrations and example photos from Halide designer, Sebastiaan de With.
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Sandofsky’s overview is effectively broken down into three parts. That first part explains how a digital camera ‘develops’ an image using the data from the sensor. The second part explains the pros and cons of traditional Raw files. And the third part is where we learn what’s unique about Apple’s ProRAW technology and why it ‘changes the game’ despite ‘its few remaining drawbacks.’
We suggest taking Sandofky’s advice and grabbing a coffee if you plan on reading the entire post, but we’ll summarize a few of the standout details here on DPReview as well in the case you’re in a rush or are out of coffee.
Since most DPReview readers are familiar with how a camera processes data from the sensor, as well as the pros and cons of Raw files, we’re going to skip right to Sandofky’s rundown of the new ProRAW technology from Apple.
Shadow recovery on a ProRAW shot taken with the latest Halide beta.
This is just… wow. pic.twitter.com/ti03Js2C5n
— Halide (@halidecamera) December 13, 2020
Sandofsky gets straight to the point, answering a question we’ve seen a few people ask in the comments of previous articles on Apple’s new ProRAW technology — ‘Technically, there’s no such thing as a ProRAW file.’ ProRAW image files, as he explains, are simply regular DNG files that use little known features in the DNG file format specifications, as well as a few new features Apple worked with Adobe to implement in the new 1.6 specification.
Specifically, Adobe and Apple worked together to add a new set of tags for the open Raw format that enable much of what Apple is doing with its ProRAW-branded DNG files. In fact, the new DNG 1.6 specification went live the day Apple released the iOS 14.3 public beta, showing just how closely the two worked together on the new specification.
As Sandofsky points out, Apple opting to use the DNG format means, despite their attempt at rebranding the technology as its own Raw format, nothing about the resulting files is proprietary. The photos should, in theory, be able to work with any other device or program that chooses to make the most of the new DNG 1.6 standard.
Sandofsky goes on to state that ProRAW images store pixel values after the demosaic step. These demosaiced color values still contain all of the original colors and dynamic range of the scene, he says, they just cut out the step of choosing what demosaic algorithm will be used on that data—something usually done in post-processing based on the editing software you’re using.
Sandofsky argues that, aside from saving time and taking another step out of the equation, it’s ‘quite possible that iOS can do a better job demosaicing your images than any third-party RAW editor’ considering Apple’s strength of its vertical integration of hardware and softrware. That is, Apple ‘know[s] exactly the sensor you’re using, and how it behaves with different ISO settings.’ Sandofsky even points out that with Apple’s image recognition technology, iOS could apply a specific demosaic algorithm depending on the scene to achieve an optimal result.
One example he uses is a set of starscape images from photographer Austin Mann, who has also shared a detailed breakdown of the new ProRAW technology on his website alongside a beautiful collection of images.
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| A ProRAW file before and after editing. |
Another benefit of this approach is Apple could, in theory, start to develop its own sensors, eschewing the current bayer sensors they use. By doing so, they could tailor-make the best sensor possible for their smartphones and as long as the resulting image is saved as a ProRAW file, ‘it would work from day one in every pro photography process and app like Lightroom without having to wait for Adobe to write a new demosaic algorithm’ for the new sensor.
Next, Sandofsky explains how Apple is baking in the ‘local tone mapping and other computational photography goodies’ right inside the DNG using the new tags found in the DNG 1.6 standard. By using the new tags, Apple is able to apply its Smart HDR and Deep Fusion technology to the ProRAW images. While Halide is opting to not use all of this technology — Sandofsky explains why in detail within his post — it’s still there to leverage in the image editor of your choice or use with another third-party camera app should the developers choose to. ProRAW images also store semantic maps — the depth data used in Portrait mode — which gives developers yet another piece of information to work with.
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| A comparison image showing the semantic maps of an image next to the original photo. |
Sandofsky goes on to explain the file size flexibility of ProRAW files. A standard ProRAW file, captured with the default 12-bit data, is roughly 25MB. But it’s possible for developers to drop that to 10-bit, which roughly halves the file size while still getting ‘most of the ProRAW benefits.’ If that’s not small enough, it’s also possible for developers to use lossy compression on ProRAW files, which drops the files down to as little as 1MB, but as Sandofsky notes, this results in a ProRAW file that isn’t much more versatile than a standard 8-bit JPEG.
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| A list of Raw and ProRAW shooting options the Halide team has implemented into its camera app. |
Another neat trick is that it’s possible to store a fully-processed JPEG version of an image directly inside the DNG file. Apple doesn’t do this by default in its iOS Camera app, third party developers can choose to do this, which would ensure apps that don’t support DNG files, such as Instagram, can still use the processed JPEG image. Halide says it’s added this option in its app, but do note it will add an extra 4MB or so to the file size, due to the extra baggage.
In conclusion, Sandofsky notes that ProRAW ‘is a leap forward for everyone, but it will be especially impactful for beginning photographers.’ With Apple supporting Raw editing directly in its iOS Photos app, even casual photographers will be able to have the flexibility of editing a ‘Raw’ file format — even if they’re not using more advanced editing apps such as Affinity Photo, Adobe Lightroom, Capture One, etc.
Sandofsky wraps up his post talking about how the Halide team is further pushing the boundaries of ProRAW with its app, but we’ll let you read that over on the full post, linked below. You can download the Halide camera app in the iOS App Store.
Understanding ProRAW
Image credits: All images and illustrations by Halide, used with permission.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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Product shots: Dan Bracaglia
The Nikon Z6 II is an updated version of the company’s 24MP multimedia full-frame mirrorless camera. It gains more processing power to add improved autofocus and a few other tweaks to an already well-rounded feature set.
The Z6 II launched at the same price as its predecessor, with a recommended selling price of $ 1999 body-only or $ 2599 with the Z 24-70mm F4 S lens. It is available now.
Jump to:
What’s new | Body, handling
| Image quality | Video | Autofocus |
Conclusion | Samples | Specifications
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| The addition of a second card slot will be welcomed by some photographers. |
The Z6 II is a subtle refresh of the existing Z6, extending the capabilities a little, but offering a mostly similar, well-rounded stills and video feature set. In terms of hardware, the main difference is that the Mark II gains a second Expeed 6 processor, with most of the performance and feature improvements stemming from this additional processing power.
Nikon says the autofocus performance has been incrementally improved over the original Z6, but the most notable feature change is the addition of face and eye detection (both human and animal) to the wide area AF mode. Previously these features were only available in ‘Auto’ area AF, meaning the camera decided where to focus. By adding them to wide area, you are able to narrow-down the region in which that camera hunts for faces, giving you a way of pre-selecting the face you wish to focus on.
Nikon says autofocus now works in light
as low as -4.5EV
The variants of Wide Area AF with human and animal face/eye AF have been added to the list of AF modes accessible from the ‘i‘ quick menu, meaning you don’t have to separately engage those functions.
Nikon says the focusing system now works in light as low as -4.5EV (a one stop improvement, and the equivalent of moonlight somewhere between gibbous and quarter), when using an F2.0 or faster lens. And that’s without using the low light AF mode, which extends AF to light levels a further two stops lower, at the expense of longer acquisition speed.
The Z6 II’s maximum burst speed tops out at an impressive 14 frames per second, but only if you use a single AF point and you’re willing to shoot JPEGs or take the slight dynamic range hit of shooting 12-bit Raws. If you want the camera to choose an AF point or track a subject, it shoots at a still very respectable 12 frames per second.
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| The (paid) Raw upgrade will allow an output that an Atomos recorder can encode as ProRes RAW or, after February 2021, a Blackmagic Video Assist to encode as Blackmagic Raw. |
The Z6 II builds on the Z6’s already pretty strong video feature set, with the promise of UHD 4K 60p support in a free firmware update due in February 2021. This higher rate footage will come from an APS-C crop of the sensor, and will only be available for internal capture.
In addition, the camera’s video output options have been expanded, with the Mark II able to output 10-bit HLG HDR footage, in addition to N-Log, to an external recorder. An optional paid upgrade enables a 12-bit line-skipped 4K Raw stream can be sent to an external recorder to be encoded as ProRes Raw or, after a February 2021 firmware update, as Blackmagic Raw.
Line-skipping means less detail, more noise at higher ISOs and greater risk of moiré. You gain more flexibility in the footage but ProRes Raw from the camera doesn’t have the required metadata to let you use the White Balance or ‘ISO’ adjustment tools in Final Cut Pro.
The viewfinder in the Z6 II is the same 3.68M-dot OLED as in the original model (and the Z7/II). Nikon points out that the optics and coatings are of its own design and says it’s decreased both the refresh lag and the blackout time between shots. However, the company hasn’t put a number on either improvement.
Despite being a relatively subtle update, the Z6 II remains broadly competitive with other cameras with launch prices around $ 2000. The Canon EOS R6 is the outlier: priced at a higher level but offering better specifications (though it can’t always deliver the full promise of its video capabilities).
We haven’t included the Sony a7C here, since it seems more focused on compactness than being an enthusiast’s main camera, but its specs are similar to the Sony a7 III’s, just without the AF joystick.
| Nikon Z6 II | Canon EOS R6 | Panasonic S5 | Sony a7 III | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSRP (body) | $ 1999 | $ 2499 | $ 1999 | $ 1999 |
| Pixel count | 24MP | 20MP | 24MP | 24MP |
| Sensor tech | BSI-CMOS | CMOS | CMOS | BSI-CMOS |
| AF system | On-sensor PDAF |
Dual Pixel |
Depth from Defocus (Contrast Detection-based) |
On-sensor PDAF |
| Image stabilization | 5-axis | 5-axis + sync with lens IS | 5-axis + sync with lens IS | 5-axis |
| CIPA rating | Up to 5EV | Up to 8EV | Up to 6.5EV | Up to 5EV |
| Maximum frame rate | 12 fps (14 fps*) |
12 fps mech shutter 20 fps electronic |
7 fps (AF-S) |
10 fps |
| Flash Sync speed | 1/200 sec | 1/250 sec** | 1/250 sec | 1/250 sec |
| High Res mode | No | No | Yes | No |
| Viewfinder res / mag |
3.68M dots / 0.80x |
3.68M dots / 0.76x |
2.36M dots / 0.74x | 2.36M dots / 0.78x |
| Rear screen | 2.1M-dot tilting touchscreen | 1.62M-dot fully articulated touchscreen | 1.84M-dot fully articulated touchscreen | 921k-dot tilting touchscreen |
| AF joystick | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Top-plate settings display | Yes | No | No | No |
| Video capture | UHD 4K 30p (full sensor) UHD 4K 60p (1.5x Crop)*** |
UHD 4K 60p (1.05x crop) |
UHD 4K 30p (full sensor) UHD 4K 60p (1.5x Crop) |
UHD 4K 24p (full sensor) UHD 4K 30p (1.2x Crop) |
| Log/HDR modes |
N-Log |
C-Log |
V-Log/V-Gamut HLG 10-bit Internal |
S-Log2 / 3 / HLG 8-bit Internal |
| Memory cards | 1x CFexpress B 1x SD (UHS-II) |
Dual UHS-II SD | 1x UHS-II SD 1x UHS-I SD |
1x UHS-II SD 1x UHS-I SD |
| Battery life (CIPA) LCD/EVF | 410 / 340 | 510 / 380 | 440 / 470 | 710 / 610 |
| USB-charging | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dimensions | 134 x 101 x 68 mm | 138 x 98 x 88 mm | 133 x 97 x 82 mm | 127 x 96 x 74 mm |
| Weight (CIPA) | 675 g | 680 g | 714 g | 650 g |
* When shooting 12-bit Raw using a single AF point
** In electronic first-curtain mode: 1/200th with mechanical shutter
*** Promised in Feb 2021 f/w update
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| The camera’s ergonomics are essentially the same as the original Z6, which is a good thing. |
The body and handling of the Z6 II is basically the same as its predecessor, which means it remains a solidly built camera with a comfortable grip. The weather-sealed body is primarily constructed from magnesium alloy, providing a good balance of weight and solidity.
The grip itself is comfortable and the front and rear dials very well positioned so that they are readily accessible when you’re holding the camera. There are two customizable Fn buttons next to the lens mount, which can be configured independently or set to perform paired functions (such as aperture open and close during video capture).
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Although the spec of the Z6 II’s viewfinder isn’t particularly stellar by 2020 standards, the camera does at least use its resolution to its full potential (there are rival cameras with high dot-count finders that then drive the screen at lower resolutions). We haven’t been able to shoot much sports to test the EVF refresh rate, though Nikon says that compared to the original Z6 there’s less blackout when you take a shot.
The rear screen is also unchanged, meaning it has a decent resolution but only a tilt up/down design. We find we prefer the two-axis screens used by the likes of the Fujifilm X-T3 for stills or a fully articulated screen for video.
The camera’s menus are consistent with most Nikon cameras made over the last decade or so. This means the menus are quite dense with options but the key ‘Customs Settings’ section is well arranged and color-coded, which makes it easy to navigate. A My Menu tab can be configured with either your preferred options or a list of your most recently used options.
In terms of the user interface, the main change is the addition of Wide Area + face detect and Wide Area + animal detect to the ‘i‘ quick menu, meaning that you can more quickly engage human face or animal face detection as part of your AF mode selection.
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The Z6 Mark II comes with the latest EN-EL15c battery. It’s a 20% higher-capacity version of the 15b that came with the previous model. The camera is compatible with earlier EN-EL15 batteries but will perform much better with the more recent versions. USB-charging is only available with the type b and c units.
The camera is rated as delivering 410 shots per charge if you use the rear LCD and 340 shots per charge if you use the viewfinder. As always, these ratings are based on very challenging usage, and it’s not uncommon to get at least twice as many shots per charge in practice, depending on how you use the camera. We tend to find a rating of around 400 is sufficient for a day’s committed shooting or a weekend of fairly active photography, but not enough for something as photographically intense as a wedding without charging and carrying spares.
If you need more than this, you can power the camera over its USB-C socket or add the MB-N11 battery grip, which provides space for a second, hot-swappable, battery.
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Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you’ll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.
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The Z6 II’s image quality is indistinguishable from that of its predecessor, including at in low light, at high ISO settings$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5255-103829304”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5255); }); }). This is to say the Raw files have plenty of detail$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5253-30029708”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5253); }); }) (with the Z 85mm F1.8 appearing a touch sharper than the Z 50mm F1.8 used on the older camera), and noise levels$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5256-1587979363”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5256); }); }) are comparable to its peers.
JPEG color$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5257-620068565”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5257); }); }) appears good, with warm, rich yellows and greens. Pinks lean a fraction towards magenta, rather than the orange that produces such pleasing skin-tones in Canon’s rendering, but it’s less noticeable than with Sony and Panasonic. The camera’s sharpening$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5258–813117957”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5258); }); }) is a touch more crude than its rivals: the Canon R6 is showing finer detail despite its lower pixel count, and the Sony a7 III$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5259-1939670”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5259); }); }) pulls out more subtle detail from its very similar sensor. Noise reduction is pretty good but blurs edges$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5260-106209426”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5260); }); }) a little more than the competition, which means lower apparent detail.
The camera has an ‘Auto’ shutter mode that uses electronic first curtain at shutter speeds where shutter shake could appear, then uses the mechanical shutter to both start and end the exposure for very short exposures. The prevents the glitch that electronic first curtain shutters exhibit with bright lenses at fast shutter speeds, that causes part of the bokeh circle to get chopped-off.
Like its predecessor, the Z6 II uses a dual gain sensor, meaning that high ISO settings have lower noise. As such the low ISO settings (where the higher gain step would cut into dynamic range) are inherently a little noisier. The difference isn’t huge, though: even in the low-gain mode the sensor is adding very little noise to the image. It also means that, instead of using a very high ISO setting, if you want to protect highlights, you can use the high ISO exposure but keep the camera at ISO 800, where the higher gain is used: there’s little-to-no noise benefit to increasing it above that point.
There’s no sign of the AF banding that could appear in the deep shadows of its predecessor
Our Exposure Latitude test emphasizes how little noise the camera’s sensor and electronics are adding. Even if you reduce exposure significantly, to capture additional highlight information, the Z6’s images are at least as clean as any of its peers. And there’s no sign of the AF banding that could appear in the very (very) deep shadows of its predecessor.
ISO Invariance | Exposure Latitude
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Autofocus performance and usability has become one of the key areas of difference between the latest mirrorless cameras, and the Z6 II is strong in both respects, but still a little behind the best in its class.
The Z6 II offers a series of AF area modes, from the tiny contrast-detection ‘Pinpoint AF’ region (AF-S only) up to the ‘Auto Area’ mode that selects a subject from anywhere in the frame.
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| People or Animal detection are available as variants of Wide-L and Auto Area modes. You can limit which AF area modes are accessible if you want to make mode selection quicker. |
Instead of the human and animal detection modes being a separate setting, they’re now accessed as variants of the Auto Area and Wide-Area AF (L) area modes. This means you can use the ‘Wide Area AF (Large – People)’ mode to select where in the frame the camera should focus and look for a face, so it’s possible tell the camera to focus on a specific person or focus on a non-human subject, without risk of it getting distracted by other faces in the scene. You’ll need to keep the box over your subject if they move too far, though.
It’s important to change your AF mode to suit your subject, rather than the camera automatically doing so, as rivals do.
Subject tracking mode is activated with a button-press from the Auto Area modes. It gives you a focus box that then tracks a subject when you half-press the shutter button. This is distinct from face detection: you can either use face detection or the subject tracking mode to follow your subject but, unlike some of its rivals, the camera won’t utilize face and eye detection if the subject you ask it to track is human.
This makes it more important to change your AF mode to suit your subject: rather than the camera automatically using its full capabilities on whatever you point it at, as Sony and Canon’s latest systems will.
We conducted our standard AF tests, first checking the camera’s ability to refocus on an approaching subject, then asking the camera to identify a weaving subject and choose an appropriate AF point, too. These tests were shot using the Nikkor Z 70-200mm F2.8 VR S.
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Shot 12 is one of the most significantly mis-focused images of the ~500 shots we took in subject tracking mode. In addition, while this tracking performance appears similar to that of the original Z6, we’ve found the Mark II seems better at fixing on a subject if you set the focus subject and recompose, where the older camera would sometimes drift off your intended subject.
In terms of tracking people, the Z6 II does a good job of using eye detection, face detection or just staying focused in roughly the same region, if your subject looks away. But, perhaps because human detection and subject tracking can’t work together, the Auto Area mode will sometimes find a more compelling subject if your intended target isn’t recognizable for a while.
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| Eye detection seems improved over the original Z6, with the camera focusing closer to the pupil rather than eyelashes in most instances. Nikkor 85mm F1.8 | ISO 100 | 1/640 sec | F1.8 |
In terms of Eye AF, we still find the camera will occasionally focus on the eyelashes instead of the eye itself and, like most systems, doesn’t judge focus quite as well when the subject is wearing glasses. Overall, though, we found Eye AF to be the most reliable way of getting perfect results (rather than pinpoint AF or manual focus).
AF in video works very similarly to that in stills, both in terms of operation and performance, which is something not all its peers manage. We’ve found the tracking to be very dependable, with a decent amount of control over AF speed and willingness to re-focus. The stepper motors used in most Z lenses can contribute a little bit of ‘chatter’ to the internally captured audio, and there can be occasional overshoot as the camera refocuses, but for all but the most demanding work, it’s one of the most reliable video AF systems.
Ultimately, you can expect the Z6 II to perform well in a wide variety of situations. If you’re used to the behavior of an older camera, the AF is likely to seem excellent. But there are rivals that are that bit more dependable and that make the whole process simpler.
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The Z6 II is a pretty adept video camera. Nikon says it will add a Super 35 (APS-C) 4K/60p video mode that will bring it broadly into line with the specs of its 24MP peers. However, unlike the Canon EOS R6 and Panasonic Lumix S5, the Z6 II is unable to record 10-bit footage internally and instead requires an external recorder for Log, HDR or Raw capture.
In its favor, though is an intelligent separation of stills and video settings. Out of the box the camera will use different exposure settings for both modes, but in almost every other regard, you get to choose whether video mode should take its settings from stills mode or use its own, distinct values. This means you can just jump across and use the same white balance, if you wish, or use a preset value for video that won’t then mess up your stills.
Add to this a pretty capable video AF mode, that works more similarly to stills mode than many of its peers, and you have a camera that makes it easy to shoot casual clips or shoot high quality stills and video back-to-back.
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In terms of video quality, the Z6 II is a match for its predecessor, with highly detailed 4K footage but rather less impressive, rather moiré-prone 1080$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-5264–536311894”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(5264); }); }), at up to 120p. We’ll have to wait until a firmware update promised in 2021 to see how its APS-C 4K/60p will compare with the R6’s full-frame version.
In terms of rolling shutter, we measured a rate of 22ms for both 4K/24 and 30p, which is much better than the Canon EOS R6 and comparable to the similarly sensored Panasonic S5 (and S1H, for that matter). That’s a long way short of the 10-15ms figures we get with more video focused cameras such as Panasonic’s GH cameras or the Sony a7S III.
The camera’s Raw video stream is sub-sampled: skipping pixels to deliver 4K output from its 6K sensor, but we’ll look at that in more detail in a separate article.
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| What we like | What we don’t |
|---|---|
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The Z6 II is an extremely capable camera that will support the photographer in almost any situation you throw it into. It’s comfortable to use, takes great photos, has a highly effective AF system and can be used to capture very good video footage.
It’s not a huge step forward from the original Z6 but the ability to add a battery grip with vertical controls, and the addition of a second card slot only help to expand its already broad-ranging ability. With these changes and the various small improvements we’ve seen, we can recommend the Z6 II for everything from family photography to weddings and sports shooting.
The Z6 II is an extremely capable camera that will support the photographer in almost any situation
However, while it does very well in most regards, it’s noticeable that there are cameras that offer comparable AF performance with less need to switch modes, and others that offer more flexible 10-bit video footage without the need of an external recorder. The quiet chattering of the Z-series lens motors and the split-second hunting that precedes a big change in focus distance serve as reminders that ‘very good’ is the minimum required just to remain competitive in 2020.
The Z6 II’s ergonomics are superb, the menus are generally well organized and, AF foibles aside, it’s a very enjoyable camera to shoot with. Battery life might impinge on your experience on long shoots or during extended periods of video capture, but generally it’s an easy camera to live with. Even the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi system works pretty smoothly once you’ve set it up.
It’s a camera very much worth considering, but one that doesn’t stand out from its rivals in any particular respect. This breadth of capability takes the Z6 II beyond the likes of the D750 and D780 (two of the best DSLRs ever made, when they were launched), but against competition that’s just as good, it doesn’t dazzle to the degree necessary to gain our Gold award.
Canon EOS R6: it’s hardly a surprise to find that Nikon’s most pressing competition comes from Canon. The R6 is more expensive and offers fewer direct control points than the Z6 II, but offers a simpler AF experience, impressive image stabilization, 10-bit internal video, larger area 4K/60 capture and the choice of some fast, quiet-focusing Nano USM lenses. But the Nikon’s video is still very good and exhibits less rolling shutter, the AF performance is broadly comparable, and the range of F1.8 primes may be more appealing than Canon’s rather exotic initial offerings. Your individual needs or ergonomic preferences are likely to swing this decision more than either camera being decisively better.
Sony a7 III: the Sony offers a wider range of lenses and significantly better battery life, but doesn’t have the latest AF refinements that would help it stand out from the Z6 II. The Nikon has a nicer viewfinder, better video autofocus and ergonomics that we overall prefer. The very similar Sony a7C offers a size advantage over the Nikon but we prefer the Z6 II unless you really need that extra portability.
Panasonic S5: there are a lot of similarities between the Z6 II and the Panasonic S5, in terms of price, feature set and sensor performance. The big distinction is AF performance, with the S5 falling behind, particularly in terms of video autofocus. Which is unfortunate, since the S5’s video feature set is the stronger of the two, especially when used with Panasonic’s co-operative lens+body IS system. But as an all-rounder, the Nikon would be our pick.
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Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about the changes to our scoring system and what these numbers mean.
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Nikon Z6 II
Category: Mid Range Interchangeable Lens Camera / DSLR
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Build quality
Ergonomics & handling
Features
Metering & focus accuracy
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Viewfinder / screen rating
Performance
Movie / video mode
Connectivity
Value
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Conclusion
The Z6 II is a camera that does well at just about everything. It's comfortable to shoot with and its performance is reliably good. Its AF system is effective, though not at simple to use as its rivals', and battery life isn't particularly impressive, but if you're looking for an enthusiast camera that will do a bit of everything, it's well worth considering.
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Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)