Nikon Z7 Review

@photoad
Banding does NOT disappear even when you switch to fully mechanical shutter.

I had it on previous cameras... never again, it's that simple.

photoad
Well you said switching off silent shutter removes the banding.
Now you are admitting you are wrong?

It is obvious for all informed that the SONY a7III should be the winner in this category, given it is such a better all round camera. Choosing the Z7 is not understandable, if you just consider its clumsy AF system, which in all reviews, including DPR, is shown to be below par!! then you wouldn't even put it as a good second,

First, I sold all my Canon L glass and bodies to move to Sony. But Sony is still lacking in a few areas.

1. Their weather sealing is the worst on the market.
2. 8 bit video to external recorders, which I use an Atomos all the time.
3. There is still room for improvement on the grip
4. The hard plastic port covers are terrible
5. The Wifi app is far behind all the other brands

So in these examples, the Nikon does a better job. So I would hope Sony would use these as items to improve in the Mark4 series. Everyone wins with competition.

@worldaccordingtojim "Their weather sealing is the worst on the market."

And so you've actually tested the Sony A7RIII? And if so, by doing what? Dunking it in water, 6ft under? I mean, when you make such a bold statement I would love to know which model you tested and how you tested it.......or are you going by the usual Sony haters that say that? I have seen many YouTubers pour water on the Sony A6300 and it has had no issues with functionality. Honestly, the weather sealing should be a non-issue for most, unless you using it constantly in sand storms or the rain forest. I'm sure the A7RIII would handle either one anyway.

"The Wifi app is far behind all the other brands. So in these examples, the Nikon does a better job."

Haha, I wouldn't even have brought that up. Nikon's Snap bridge sucks!. Yeah, I have a Sony A6300 and the app could use some work, but it doesn't drop signal and it functions, but Nikon is known for the Snap Bridge being the worst in the industry.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/articles/2017-weather-testing-nikon-d850-vs-sony-a7riii-canon-5div-olympus-e-m1II

@worldaccordingtojim. Hey Good Job posting that.....uh....USELESS LINK. HAHA. Sorry but unless you're comparing the Z7 (WHICH ISN'T THERE) then don't post this nonsense. The Z7 is an overpriced camera pretending to be the D850 thanks to Nikon's lying marketing saying it's a mirrorless D850. More like a feature-less D850.
Still, most people are not shooting in constant wet situations and despite your witty response (or you thought it was) it doesn't change the fact that not all lenses are fully weather sealed, so it doesn't matter if Nikon is a little better than Sony in that respect. Do you shoot in the rain forest or constant sand storms? Even if some people do that, most people will not put their $3000 camera in that type of environment, regardless of the type of sealing it offers. Thanks for the laugh. 😂

Lot of hate going on for a shooter who sold all his Canons and L glass to shoot Sony-so you could say he's a fan-then dares to suggest some areas where Sony could improve.

How do you know he didn't have to replace a Sony body after it got set in the condensation ring from a cold drink on a hot day..? Their weather sealing has been called into question-even by fanboys-enough to suggest that there are shortcomings in that area on some Sony bodies.

I'm going to wait for a couple of firmware upgrades before trashing the Z series, as I think it's a great start.

I'm worldaccordingtojim. Sony has a lot to improve

You can have the best engine in a car, but if you don't have all the other components on point you won't be the best.

And thanks for reinforcing the fact that professional photographers pick the system that gives them the best results. Professional reviewers pick the best gadget. The technicalities important to professional reviewers are not the game changers that you so often make them sound to be.

@NexLupus @jkokich (re: sports shooting) and neither would the Sony A7 be the camera for you. You're looking at least at an investment in the A9 and at that price your dropping D5 and 1D money.

@NexLupus

As stated earlier by DPR, scoring is heavily based on IQ. So the fact that the Z 7 has almost the same sensor as the A7R III is what pushed it so far ahead. Not the camera's performance and build in general. The same can be said about the R falling so far behind, having to compete with the A7 III. DPR's scoring methods need to be revised.

@BluBomber
Yes, scoring is skewed towards image quality.
It is, however, completely disingenuous for you to say that that was the main reason for the score and the Silver award; especially when the opening statement in the review says that “The Nikon Z7 is the company’s most well rounded camera to date. “
That encompasses a lot more than just image quality!!!!

Unfortunately, the huge list of negatives, which encompasses nearly every major point of the camera, says otherwise. Adding usable video and usable LV AF definitely helped earn that "well rounded" statement, as Nikon was well behind the rest of the industry in both.

@Blue
Yet none of those negatives were enough to detract from the score of 89 or the Silver Award, or the opening statement.
You can try to detract, dissect, disinform all you want.
It does not change the fact that it is Nikon's most well rounded camera...this from a company that already has the best DSLR on the market in the D850.

I tried the camera and the AF is not on par with the D850 in any shape or form.
I haven't heard anybody contest that as yet!!
All people say is; they know it doesn't function as well as D850, but they still like it, which is personal choice that I respect, but doesn't make it as good a camera as the D850.

@Bob Jameson
Tony and Chelsea seem to me quite expert in using and testing new gear. I rarely seen them so not convinced with any new competitive cameras, always looking at pros and cons. Tony even has a comparison between the Eos R and the A7III stating 'not clear winner" definitely valuing some of the strengths of the Eos R even if on paper is trashed by the A7III. I was quite surprise to see them not to really on board with the performance of the new Z from Nikon. To me that is a pretty big flag.

the problem is the price

What are you missing? Well, take a look at the full reviews. The "Gold" and "Silver" awards are akin to participation trophies. It is noteworthy when a camera does not receive one or the other (point and shoot excepted). Gold and Silver awards should be handed out at the end of the year in limited quantities and based on the totality of the year's reviews and not at the discretion of the reviewer. Make it meaningful. Make it hard.

Second, the scoring system does not generation enough variation. Most cameras reviewed fall into a narrow band--in the 80s. Some of this is simply due to the fact that the cameras reviewed on this site are generally very good cameras. DPReview needs to rethink this. There needs to be greater variation in the scores--88 or 89 are for all purposes the same--and greater range of scores. Toughen the testing and standards. I think I recall reading that they are working on this.

It's better than most people think. It's has several features better than the A7R III more than the A7R III has features better than the Z7. Real photographers say it is a very good camera even edging the best all around DSLR in D850 is most cases:

https://diglloyd.com/blog/2018/20181107_1145-ReaderComment-mirrorless-systems.html

http://blog.michaelclarkphoto.com/?p=7395

http://www.naturalart.ca/voice/blog.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNAziALpnXc&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xup0euGZS3Q&t

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGdOIj71aXY

Only Sony fanboys will say this is a bad camera so that they can justify their purchase. I will say to Sony fanboys, buy another Sony A7 body while they are on sale. Get a second copy, enjoy it, and don't look back. Buy them ASAP because Sony just lost over 30% market share on full frame MILC. What a better way to help your company by buying a second body!

"even edging the best all around DSLR in D850 is most cases"

Debatable.

@Bob Jameson

"Only Sony fanboys will say this is a bad camera"
I feel this is the defensive interpretation of some supporters of the Z series. I do not think many actually are meaning that. Z6 and Z7 are really good cameras however they do not exist in a vacuum. It is hard to recommend them at their price point when you have cameras like D850, D750, A7RIII, A7II. They feel almost a generation behind in some core features, no bad for a first but facing a tough competition.

Thematic you made yourself look like a troll.

You admit there is nothing wrong with adapters. Which means Nikon has over 90 lenses on day one.

And the Nikon adapter isn't like the Sony crap adapters that block light and massively restrict usuabliity (2.5 FPS, etc).

So one day one the Nikon Z cameras have lenses like the the 400/2,8 and the superb and compact 300/4 and many other lenses that other systems can only dream about.

@Oskar P
"Canon learned long ago. There is no need to have the latest most expensive technologies".
That is what Canon do with a massive market share and a mature system. That will not work as a strategy for someone that wants to succeed in competing with Canon at this time. Sony in my opinion is doing many things right, the main of them calling the opposite strategy that Canon offers drawing to them people unsatisfied with Canon marketing strategy, successfully. Canon will offer you a BMW will a Corolla engine? Sony offers you a Corolla with a BMW engine. Complementary works. It is also great that Sony can work quite well with Canon glass. That is also why I own both systems, yet for my own preference I shoot 99% Sony and 1% Canon, hanging there hoping that Canon will drop a decent engine in one of their future models. It has not happened in a while.

Sony is failing. They are down to 13% market share globally.
Canon APSC mirrorless (just a couple bodies) out sold Sony mirrorless, FF APSC, and SLTs combined in places like Japan...and not just for 1 year. For 3 years and each year increasing that dominance.

Now we see Sony has lost 33% market share in the past month alone. Ouch.

@Oskar P
"Now we see Sony has lost 33% market share in the past month alone. Ouch."
Going from 100% to 65% does not mean much at this time. It is really simplistic and naive making trends or drawing conclusions based on these numbers (i.e. are Sony Sales declining or MILC FF expanding? No new Sony model while Nikon Canon debut, etc).
Sony has had their A7SIII ready for debut for sometime, and they postponed the launch as they saw no real threat from current Canikon offerings :-) so clearly Sony has a different view from yours on the happening.
Let's pick up this conversation in a couple of years.

SLT's set the ground work for everything great in mirrorless cameras. Once minolta was out of the market some needed to step in and innovate. Nikon and Canon cernity wasn't going to. If you love your full frame mirrorless camera (any brand) you need to thank Sony. It was their out of the box thinking that got us here.

@Oskar P
If Sony did not work on FF mirrorless you can be sure that neither Canon or Nikon would be offering a FF mirrorless right now. That is pretty much a fact.
"SLTs had nothing to do with mirrorless. They were a massive failure."
SLTs are not a massive failure, Sony made the brave move to go all the way mirrorless sacrificing SLTs future, just like Nikon and Canon will follow suit with DSLRs. And again Sony is the overarching reason for which such process is happening much faster than Nikon and Canon would have liked to.
Panasonic and Olympus might have pioneered mirrorless, but Sony and just lately Fuji created the first truly competitive mirrorless to compete with DSLRs marking with this past year with the release of the A9, A7RIII, A7III, and XT3 the beginning of the end of DSLRs. Sure it is not because of the micro 4/3 systems.
But I doubt you get it Mr. Oskar who joined this forum 2 months ago and I know it all.

Again. NOT the IBIS in use today.
Olympus pioneered the 5 axis IBIS Sony later copied. It is completely different and far superior.
Sony still hasn't been able to come close to Olympus but their version is better than the inferior IBIS used in most SLTs (A99ii finally uses the superior IS).

Hmm, did you learn vocabulary from a certain orange politician in the White House? Massive, shocking, serious. Good power words that often mean very little.

😂 Only if you're dumb enough to not translate them to whatever words might make sense in your own head, or to not Google them if they're beyond you.

@kodachromeguy???
I think most people below would agree with PPierre. Since its first unveiling the Z7 was considered by many an A7RII competitor more than the A7RIII which indeed makes it a great camera yet now not cutting edge and the A7RII was cheaper than the Z7 even at its first release. I think, included myself, many are annoyed by the biased overall score. I do not think anyone is questioning that Nikon did a great job for a first.

It's easy to generalize and claim the Z7 is an A7rII competitor because of some aspects of the Z7 AF system but when you consider things like the Z7 better battery life, better EVF, better rear LCD, top LCD, much better weather sealing, better grip, and overall better build quality you can see that it is a lot more than the A7rII especially if these are things that you consider to be important for your needs.

@Clayton1985
comparisons are often done at performance level. Considering that right now you get an A7RII for almost half the price of a Z7, well I do not know if the advantages you are talking about buy the difference. Note that the Z7 battery is rated only 10% better than the A7RII and the Sony still has eye AF which is a really good feature and Sony offers a REAL battery grip too. So when you look at value for the money I am not so sure which one is better.

The Z7 battery is significantly better in the real world vs the A7rII. It isn't really close in my experience. I agree about the value to performance, that really depends on your own needs. For me, the better EVF, better rear LCD, top LCD, better battery life, base ISO 64, built in intervalometer, better weather sealing and my expectations for the soon to be released 14-30 f4 lens were the primary reasons I decided to replace my A7rII with the Z7. It was a difficult decision and I could have easily gone with the A7rIII and been happy too. They are all really excellent cameras.

Yes they will

I hefted the Z7 at Glazer's today. Well, 'hefted' isn't the right word since it felt nicely balanced and not too heavy. It also felt quick and responsive and the EVF was fantastic. I don't have any XQD cards or reader so sadly I couldn't bring the pics home for a pixel peep :-( but the camera playback looked great.

I've tried them both now, and I think I like the Nikon a little better than the Canon. Probably the control layout of the Nikon is a little closer to the Fuji and Olympus that I'm used to-the twin dial shutter speed and aperture control (versus on the lens aperture ring) felt very Olympus.

If I had the money I'd rent one to play with it in the real world.

@armandino
"In order to achieve top rating should have something truly special to offset the shortcomings"

yeah! like Image quality and ergonomics maybe?

"I do not see anything truly special about this camera"

that's because you are still focused only on the spec sheet instead of looking at the photos that come out of this camera nor did you use the Z7 in real live!!!

these reviews are for people who plan to buy the camera in question.
If the camera doesn't suit you, that's ok.
But WHY do you need to try to convince other people, that they shouldn't invest in that system?
Jealousy?
Or do you need to vent your post-purchase rationalization?

All these problems or drawbacks are already in the review .. so people need to read the review and not rely on the score, which is shown to be very mathematically biased, invalid and showing external unreliability. It is not testing what it should test, and it is shown to be unreliable in comparing cameras. This is a matter for DPR to re-visit, and perhaps get a good statistician to advise. They are doing a good job testing, but using dubious measures and methods, which produce a completely invalid and un-reliable score. So, don't waste your time and get a good mathematician/statistician.

For potential buyers, go out to the shows and shops and try it out for yourself and make that decision out for yourselves .. yay or nay

And from DPR themselves

AF system hunts in low light, due to limited sensitivity
Face detect less reliable than competition
AF Tracking less reliable than competition
AF Tracking cumbersome to engage/disengage
Touchscreen cannot be used for touchpad AF when using the EVF
Limited AF button customization
Significant rolling shutter in full-frame 4K footage
No live feed at 9fps
Live feed at 5.5fps suffers from significant drop in EVF refresh rate
Very limited buffer
Inconsistent metering, heavily weighted to AF point
On-sensor AF causes banding, slightly limiting usable dynamic range
Aggressive noise reduction at high ISO
Electronic first curtain shutter (EFCS) needed to avoid potential shutter shock (yet is off by default)
EFCS limits shutter speed to 1/2000
Two-Button-Reset and Quick Format actions missing
No linear response option for video shooters wishing to manual focus
Battery life on the short side
Single card slot
No flip-around screen for vlogging

@Mared and @Satyaa, remove your blinders and look at what the Z7 has over AR7 III and D850 and you will understand. You focused too much on the negatives that you entirely missed the big picture and that is Z7's advantages over other cameras.

DPreview got it right. In fact, the score could have been higher if not for the auto area AF. Don't worry that Sony lost 30% market share on MILC full frame the last 2 months. Good for you, they are on sale now. You can get your 2nd body cheap. Deal with it. Sleep well at night knowing your Sony can still make great pictures tomorrow.

I am not sure how/why you interpreted my message but I wasn't talking about Z7 or A7 cameras at all. You don't have to feel the need to defend any camera from me. I'm neither buying a Z7 or A7.

My response was only to the questions about why a score of 89 does not result in a Gold award. I was pointing out that the score and award are not directly related.

Go back and look at my comments on the Z forum. I agreed with DPR's conclusions.

@Mared
They gave it that score because they felt it obviously deserved it.
Again the Sony May focus faster in CF but the Z7 has...
Much better build
Much better weather sealing
Better viewfinder
Better touchscreen implementation
More megapixels
Better user interface (I know subjective, but they DPR prefers it).
Better ergonomics
Capable of 10bit 4.2.2 video
Better native implementation of adaptor with existing lenses.

Bob Jameson - You're full of cr*p. First - Sony hasn't lost 30% market share. That was for for one store sales in Japan only - nothing like conflation and lying. Also - if you looked at that data, Z7 sales were miniscule - all of the dent in Sonys dominance was a temporary spike in EOS R sales. Z7 sales were flat-lined/dead :).

As for DPRs PROS/CONS if you look at DPRs positives, the Z7s are a joke in a large part. Examples: - "No need to micro-adjust lenses" No Kidding, it's Mirrorless!!!! and "Headphone and microphone socket" You think!?!? for a $3,400.00 camera!!! "Menus familiar to Nikon DSLR users" Well that's nice for Canon, Fuji, Sony, etc Users!!! "First full-frame Nikon with a usable silent shutter mode" Who cares, everyone else (Sony, Fuji & Canon) has had this forever!!!!

What a silly list of positives - DPR staff was really reaching

It is great to see actual results where the AF is so much better than initial quick reviews.

The rest of the camera is mostly superior to the current FF mirrorless cameras (that have poor ergonomics and no weather resistance and lack lenses). 90 Nikon lenses function superbly...and there are more from several 3rd parties. And no 2.5 FPS restrictions!!

@Beshkno
Ahh, yet another Sony shill, with an account just 6 days old...welcome to the forum, or do you already have multiple accounts, so no need to welcome you?

@NextLupus, My friend, Im here only because Im recovering from the effects of 2 years of chemo treatments. I have little left right now but my opinion which I will post at my discretion and without your juvenile permission. When your mother finds out how much time you spend here she'll pull the plug on you. Now go do your chores and be good little boy.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/61903133

If at all possible, rent before you buy. Noone's opinion beats your own

Thom Hogan says Z7 is good in AF-C but not as good as D850. I tend to agree with his findings.

Nikon ambassadors

So it's good focusing a static subject, hmmm.... I can do.th
at in manual.focus. Ok, your turn.

@Bob Jameson
I agree with you that AF-C performance is not the be all and end all of a camera. After all, landscape and portrait shooters, etc. don't need good AF-C performance.

However, DPreview have repeatedly made a point how important AF-C is for them, e.g., by rating the Pentax K-1 at 84% only, despite the camera costing less than half of a Z7 and being the only DSLR with in-body image stabilisation with a host of tricks up its sleeves.

Consistency in evaluating features would go a long way of making reviews useful.

@Class A, The problem Ive seen with the reviews here is they seem to compare performance with less expensive cameras to ones costing 2, 3 or more times the cost. Its like comparing a Ferrari to a Ford Fiesta.
The rating must factor price point otherwise the process is seriously flawed.

I read at least 3 AF problems. General reliability for tracking moving subjects (that's a big one), face tracking losing focus more than competitors and AF in very low light 2 to 3 stops less sensitive than competition (lotd of hunting).

There's something to be concerned about for a large portion of the potential userbase. Only if you solely shoot static subjects or predictable motion in good light, there's no reason for concern. But that's where practically all cameras currently do fine. Even the first mirrorless Panasonic 10 years ago. For reference, some cameras released a few years ago were met with criticism for similar AF performance.

@Bob Jameson - Something to clear out - BCN covers just over 50% of Japanese market and has a long history of "tweaked" reports. So this 22% of Japanese market, not world FF MILC market, could be right but could be also very wrong. We are living in the world of fake news...