360Photography

A critique, not a conclusion

The Nikon Z7 is the company’s first full frame mirrorless camera and its first mirrorless ILC to be aimed at high-end enthusiast and professional photographers. There’s a lot to like: it combines many of the strengths of the D850 with some of the advantages unique to mirrorless cameras, such as seamless video shooting, a silent shutter option, and phase-detection autofocus array that covers almost the entire frame.

But as our review has progressed, we’ve found some areas where we believe the Z7 could use some improvement. Here’s what we’d like to see fixed…

More reliable AF performance

Put simply, the Z7’s autofocus algorithms just aren’t on par with those of Nikon DSLRs. Focus isn’t as decisive, with the camera sometimes hunting in the wrong direction long enough that you’re better off simply re-initiating AF.

Meanwhile, Auto Area AF with face detection doesn’t always select the right subject: it often mistakes non-human objects as faces, everything from balloons to chair legs and UPS labels. Quite frequently ‘Auto’ doesn’t prioritize nearer objects over distant ones, which is the opposite behavior of nearly every DSLR we’ve tested. The lack of Eye AF is increasingly egregious: Sony Eye AF is nearly infallible and even allows you to target desired faces on-the-fly. Less sophisticated but capable continuous eye detection is also available on Olympus, Panasonic and Fujifilm cameras so you can maintain focus on brides walking down the aisle or running toddlers.

Subject tracking isn’t as reliable as Nikon’s industry leading ‘3D Tracking’ mode

Lack of Eye AF might be forgivable if subject tracking – the ability of the camera to maintain focus on your subject no matter where it moves in the frame – worked as well as Nikon DSLRs’ industry leading ‘3D Tracking’ mode. A D850 is capable of sticking to the eye of a subject as long as you initiated focus on it. But on the Z7 subject tracking is unreliable and imprecise, with a subject recognition area so large that quite often you can’t target your specific subject precisely.

Better low light AF sensitivity

Another issue we’ve encountered is how quickly the Z7’s AF system begins to struggle in low light. In our shooting we’ve found it to be considerably lacking compared to immediate mirrorless peers. In fact from our testing, the Z7 begins hunting in light levels two to four stops brighter than comparable cameras from Sony and Canon. The ‘Low Light AF’ mode barely improves things. It only activates in extremely low light levels and slows down focus so much as to be impractical unless you’re taking tripod-mounted shots of static subjects.

We’d love to see Nikon create a proper flashgun-based AF assist system

There might not be much that Nikon can do about this in the current-generation Z7, but we’d love to see the company create a proper flashgun-based AF assist system. This might require a new set of flashes and radio transmitters that project an appropriately colored grid pattern for the Z7’s on-sensor PDAF system to lock on to in dim situations. This would be of particular benefit for wedding and event photography, where fast low-light focus acquisition is critical.

Better AF in backlit shots

It’s not just low light situations where the Z7 AF system struggles. If you try to shoot a severely backlit portrait, particularly where your subject isn’t well-lit, the Z7 often hunts and never achieves focus. This is compared to Nikon’s recent DSLRs with cross-type AF points across the frame, which usually nail focus even in the most challenging conditions (as do Sony’s current-generation a9 and a7-series ILCs).

The Z7 isn’t alone here – the Dual Pixel AF system in Canon’s EOS R also struggles with backlighting, but it’s a shame that a pro-grade camera like the Z7 is unable to acquire focus in situations where even some pocket compacts can achieve focus instantly.

Autofocus user interface

In addition to autofocus performance improvements, we’d love to see some changes to the way that the Z7’s autofocus modes operate. At present, the camera’s subject tracking mode is ‘tacked on’ to Auto area AF, with the result that it’s slower to select and activate than if it were its own area mode.

Ideally, the Z7’s subject tracking mode would work exactly like the industry-leading ‘3D tracking’ mode on Nikon DSLRs, at least from a usability standpoint. That is, initiate tracking of the subject under the AF point with a simple press of AF-On (or shutter button), then reset to the original AF point when the button is released. This makes it easy to then quickly place the AF point over a new subject to initiate tracking, compared to the Z7’s method of first pressing ‘OK’ or tapping on a new subject on the LCD screen to switch subjects.

We’d love to see every one of Nikon’s DSLR AF modes replicated on the Z-series

More generally, we’d love to see every one of Nikon’s DSLR AF modes replicated on the Z-series – from expanded ‘dynamic’ area modes to Group AF. These modes have been added, refined and perfected over years of feedback from pros. And they work: Nikon’s DSLR AF is the envy of many systems. The end result might not be an AF system that is quite as good as that in the D850 or D5, but it would at least operate in a more sensible, more familiar way.

Better customization

Improving the Z7’s autofocus performance to the point where it’s on a level with Nikon’s DSLRs is a big ask, but matching the level of customization should be a simpler fix.

In our view, given its price and market position, the Z7’s customization should be at least as good as on Nikon’s DSLRs. Instead, it actually omits some useful features. For example, you can no longer assign custom buttons to instantly override the current AF mode to try something else when your typical way of working fails. This is something we’ve found useful time and again on the D5, D850, D500, and we’re sad to see it missing on the Z7.

Ultimately, we’d really like to see D5-level button customization on the Z-series. This means not just the ability to assign any button to any AF mode, but also to completely override camera settings with the press of a button (shutter speed, ISO settings, etc.). Sony’s mirrorless ILCs offer this in their ‘Recall Custom Hold’ button functions, as do Canon DSLRs. We’d also like to see Nikon bring back the useful Two-Button-Reset and Quick Format actions on the Z-series.

Summing up

We’ve listed five ways in which we’d like to see the Z7 improved, and as you’ve probably noticed they primarily relate to autofocus. That’s because with almost all of our testing complete, it’s AF where we’ve seen the most serious issues with performance. Unexpectedly, the native Z lenses we’ve tried appear to focus more slowly and less predictably than adapted F-mount lenses too (though to their credit they are silent to focus in video).

In most other respects the Z7 is an impressive camera. We’re optimistic that where we have concerns, Nikon can address some of them via firmware, and others via new dedicated flash accessories. Our other concerns? Perhaps we’ll just have to wait for a Z8.

Since focus is performed from the sensor, there are circumstances in which the Z7 will be more precise than Nikon’s DSLRs

Even so, we’re not saying that the Z7 with current firmware is flat-out bad at autofocus. In fact for a lot of photography, it’ll be perfectly fine. And since focus is performed from the sensor, there are circumstances in which it’ll be more precise than Nikon’s DSLRs, particularly with fast primes shot wide open where DSLRs struggle and often require microadjustment. But when it comes to continuous autofocus performance and usability, it’s simply not nearly as capable as its nearest mirrorless peer the Sony a7R III, nor (in some respects) as good as Nikon’s own mid-range and high-end DSLRs, including the similarly capable and priced D850.

For a complete overview of every aspect of the Z7’s performance, look out for our full review in the next few days.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)