Huge comparison posted today by Matt Irwin. There are also lots of lens comparisons on the different cameras. I haven't watched it all yet, but the comparison between the 24-105/24-120 f/4 lenses from the different systems showed a very big difference in favour of the Nikon lens, even on 24-33mp cameras. The Canon has noticeably more noise. For those who doesn't want to watch it all for full context, and here is his assesment of the performance in the different categories:
Obviously the total score doesn't take into account what matters more than other things.
A lot of Canon’s early RF L lenses are, to be frank, not great. Many of their new RF designs are not very large improvements over some of their EF designs or outright downgrades to make them lighter.
Nikon has clearly tried to outdo themselves with every new Z lens.
That Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 is a budget lens of around 1/3 of the price of the Nikon Z 50mm/f/1.8. Just like adding up the points without weighing items it does not give a fair comparison.
So is the Nikkor Z 40mm f/2. However, the Nikkor is still noticeably better than the RF 50mm f/1.8.
No one forced Canon to be lazy and re-release a decades old lens design on the RF mount. It’s not just that lens they cut corners with. The new RF 85 f/2 has a slow STM instead of the USM in the EF 85 f/1.8. The RF 35 f/1.8 has an extending barrel when it focuses and nasty astigmatism.
Many if the non-L zooms don’t even cover the full frame image circle if you disable optical corrections.
Nikon hasn’t cut corners like that (yet) with their new Z designs.
The Nikon Z 40mm is one of the worst lenses I own. The RF 50mm 1.8 is not great either, but I don't see the "noticeably better", depending on what you are doing the 50mm even might have the edge. Bokeh is super fugly on the 40mm.
The Rf 85 f2 has an STM motor like mentioned, but in real-life use it is not slower than the Nikon 85mm 1.8, which is a bit suprising considering the Nikon is an S lens? I find the RF 85 f2 very useable and in terms of image quality MCH better than the old EF one.
The RF 35mm is certainly not very useful for astro and not a stellar performer, on the other hand the Nikon Z 35mm 1.8 is one of the weaker 1.8 primes as well (still good of course) but it is quite expensive for what it is. At least the Canon is slightly more affordable.
And what you forgot about 35 and 85mm: They can do "semi" macro / micro. For most people (even weddings pros) that is suffcient without having to buy a dedicated macro lens.
Nikon 1.8 primes vs Canon 1.8 don't compare well, the same applies to Nikon 1.4 vs Canon 1.4 (where Canon will have the edge).
The video itself is strange. To say the least. I'm not sure how he managed to get that kind of noise difference between those models. Most other available sources will paint a different picture (e.g.: the studio scene on dpreview or the ISO score from dxomark or photons2photos). This alone is very strange and some kind of red flag. Regarding AF he mentions that the Z5 II (and I guess this applies to the Zf than as well) can recognize subjects much earlier and this is not the case in my experience. AF in general is still more reliable on my Canons. There is a BUT: He did some of his tests in video mode, here I don't have a lot of experience, maybe video is significantly different than stills.
The biggest advantage of the Canon from my point of view is the ability to use it as an e-shutter only camera. The Sony and Nikon cameras will not be great if used like this and of course that there is a smaller sibling with a similar feature set available (R8), an area where I would wish for a Nikon release as well (aka a very compact and lightweight Z5 II).
