360Photography

You can download our sample video right here.

The Nikon Z6 is a supremely capable video camera that comes with a 24MP full-frame sensor and captures oversampled 4K footage with no crop. It can also shoot 1080/120p footage for slow motion clips. The above sample footage was all shot hand-held with in-body IS turned on using the Auto AF area mode and Fulltime autofocus (AF-F).

Clips were recorded in-camera using Nikon’s Flat Picture profile. While not quite as workable as 10-bit N-log footage available over HDMI, a little time spent tweaking Flat Picture footage can lead to very nice results. This footage was edited in Final Cut 10.4.

Video still

Below please find our video still for comparing the Z6’s various video modes to those of its peers, including its most direct competitor, the Sony a7 III.

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4K

The Z6 and a7 III are taking different approaches to their oversampled 4K output with the Sony doing a better job capturing fine detail$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4310-731235669”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4310); }); }). The Z6 on the other hand looks to be using larger-radius sharpening$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4311–410966151”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4311); }); }) (by default) which results in a punchier look$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4312-553981737”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4312); }); }) out of camera. As expected, the Z6’s full-frame 4K looks better than the Z7’s full-frame 4K$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4309-910283880”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4309); }); }), which doesn’t use all its pixel rows, reducing both resolution and low-light performance.

The Z6’s cropped 4K$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4319-1546915030”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4319); }); }) also appears to use larger-radius sharpening than the Sony’s and looks similar (but still slightly better) when compared to the Z7’s$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4313–2140375960”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4313); }); }). Interestingly the Z6’s 4K full-frame footage looks very similar$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4314–395951683”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4314); }); }) to its 4K APS-C cropped footage. There may be a bit of a noise penalty $ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4315-911523642”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4315); }); }) using the later, but detail is broadly similar.

1080p

The Z6’s full-frame 1080/24p looks better both than the Z7’s full-frame 1080/24p$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4316–282793192”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4316); }); }) and than the a7 III’s 1080/24p$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4317–2139838496”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4317); }); }). As a whole, the Z6’s HD footage has much more sharpening applied than the a7 III’s, but it doesn’t necessarily show much more tangible detail. This is also the case when comparing the Z6’s 1080/120p$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-4318–805046091”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(4318); }); }) to the a7 III’s.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)