So I am not the technical guru you all are, which means I am not going to get into all of that here. I’ve been shooting with Nikon pro bodies for over 10 years, with 14 years in my portrait business.
The unboxing went well - I find the single battery charger to be nice in size to take in a bag, the double chargers of the past always stayed home. But since I don’t travel a lot in my portrait business, that doesn’t really matter much to me. It just means more apparatus in my charging area when I want to charge two batteries at once.
The change of button placement will take a little time to get used to while I’m working. So far my Z journey has been all for fun, so I’ll want to be much more comfortable with those changes before this camera goes out for a spin with clients. Right now it feels great ergonomically and that’s a big plus as I move quickly with my clients and my gear has to keep up with me.
I still have to test my profoto lights/triggers with this, and my alien bees & triggers for studio stuff. I’ll get some of that today as I’ll be photographing equipment to potential sell LOL. This part is critical for me. I’ve spent years getting my lighting for sessions the way I like it, and so I need this all to not be a difficult transition. I’m not really expecting a problem, but I am basically “we’ll see” girl until it proves itself to me.
Little tiny things - the hot shoe cover is just a plastic piece, not the rubberized one from my D5s. Not crazy big, I don’t shoot in the rain…but still something I noticed. And the battery cover has this little latch now, which seems to stick a lot, making me nervous about putting too much pressure in frustration over it. Hoping it works itself out in a few days.
Oh, and this is also my first foray into CFExpress cards vs XQD. Not a fan, as they got really HOT in the reader - I know I read about it before, but it still surprised me how hot they got. Since I don’t think I need the buffer that I would get from CFEpress, I think I can shoot with XQD and use my huge stash of cards and the reader that doesn’t scorch my fingers when the card comes out, LOL.
Again, I’m not overly technical. I know enough about the technical stuff to keep up with you guys in lots of ways, but I’m not taxing this equipment on rapidly moving animals or sports. For me, I wanted to move my business into the mirrorless world and this is my transition camera. I’ll keep a foot in both F mount and Z mount for a while as I don’t think I can part with both D5s. I just have to figure out the glass “dance” now.
But for now, the Z24-70 F2.8 I picked up with this camera (on a whim, I was supposed to wait until next year for that one) is AMAZING. I can’t prove it yet, but my initial plays with it, even on my Z5 before the Z9 batteries were ready were great. They seem so much MORE than either of my other two generations of f mount 24-70 f2.8s (one of which will be photographed today for sale, LOL).
Hope that helps someone!
