Nikon Z7 pre-production sample gallery

These are fine photos but after going through some of them I saw nothing that was unique in quality that I haven’t seen elsewhere.

And possibly for a lot less money.

28 had it. Maybe they can clue us in.... ;)

You'd think based on some of the comments, photographers were never able to focus on eyes or capture action shots before some of the latest technology came around. Maybe it's a millennial thing, or just maybe some of these advancements are a necessary crutch to make up for their shortcomings.

Part of this is thanks to review sites that keep pounding pixel peeping ideology that just makes people argue about the fine print instead of the quality of the output. By the way, notice how I'm using paragraphs? You're welcome.

The quality is really good.

I am sick of reading stupid comments along the lines of "the AF is rubbish because it focussed on the nose or cheek rather than the eye". If the focus is not on the eye then it is the fault of the photographer, not the camera. Face AF is NOT eye AF. Face AF is a amateur feature not a professional one. No pro portrait photographer would use face detect AF. They instead manually position the focus point on the desired eye and then initiate focus. The only exception to this is with a reliable eye-detect AF system and only Sony's have that at the moment. If the photographer knows what he is doing then focus should be spot on every time on stationary subjects. Unlike DSLRs, mirrorless cameras have no issue with the mirror mech alighment causing focus error and the lenses do not require focus fine tuning in the camera settings menu.

After checking all the portraits, AF is DISAPPOINTING regarding the total lack of EYE-AF.
Indeed, most of the portraits are focused on the face, but almost never are they focused on the eye:

Pic 15: Focused on the cheeks.
Pic 22: Nose focus instead of eye focus.
Pic 27: Focused on the EYE, or could be (the scene is very well lit compared to a lot of other pics, and the face very sharp all over).
Pic 47: Nose and cheek more in focus than the eye. (Pic is soft due to high ISO)
Pic 74: More or less ok, high ISO.
Pic 77: More cheek than eye focused.
Pic 83: Cheek or mouth focused.
Pic 86: More or less ok, but not very sharp due to high ISO.
Pic 89: Hard to tell, eye is relatively sharp, as well as the cheek.
Pic 91: Eye is ok, but DOF is relatively important.
Pic 95: Cheek is in focus.
Pic 103: Nose and cheek are in focus.
Pic 107: Cheek is in focus.

Is it possible that nothing really big happened the last 4 years in terms if IQ and how images look shot on higher ISO? What I see here is nothing to say uhhh and nothing to say yeah. It's just standard.

Image 22:

Nose focus instead of eye focus, very annoying.

There is a faint purply cast to the edges, but the colors are definitively Nikon colors, with warm facial tones, nothing to worry too much about !
Sharpness is good overall, on par with regular G lenses. Some will be disappointed not to have outstanding results for the price, but keeping up with decades old Nikon quality is great.

As usual nikon lenses give the best only on medium distances. Always there are the problems of kneadings of green and lacking of definition of the photos of landescapes with focus at infinity

how can it be pre-production, if other reports say that nikon is producing these around 10k a month? what they gonna recall all?

TBH, this it is irrelevant. All cameras produce fantastic images, given you mount a good lens on it, the differences are minuscule. I really don't know what should I look for in images? Low DOF? 1:1 resolution? Really, who gives a damn? If you print that large, you know it and have large sensor camera. Apart from that, what is _really_ important is how fluid camera is in use. Is it ergonomic? Is the software simple, is it fast, how fast is focus... give any camera to a good photog and he will produce good images.

really red skintones...

I have no doubt that 46 MP FF is ding well since it is the same as the one in the D850. So...what happened here. I looked at the ISO etc but this set could have been shot by camera's with substantially smaller sensors than this one. At least quite a few shots could have been taken like that. I guess it is the lens...May be when dpreview has more time try to use it with portraits and landscapes to see how it all goes.

In general though I love this competition, Sony badly needed a serious contender for the FF market and it seems they have got one!

And here we see why canon beats the pants off Nikon... and why sony is also doing so well.

I have read (and agree) that one of the reasons why canon is at the top even though it does not compete so well on paper specs is because of UI and user experience. Many complain about canon, only to come back later and praise their cameras. Ease of use, "just works", reliable etc etc.

Canon is supposedly working on their own FF mirrorless, which we expect to be released or announced at photonika, and yet, not a peep from them. No hyped up release, like nikon.

That said, as a design engineer, I say that the Z cameras are great. They are a great first step. Yet the software is just not complete yet. The hardware is good. But the software is not there yet, and people are judging the camera on that. It hurts nikon to do things like this. People just won't excuse them as they do sony.

Canon won't release until their camera is ready. Nikon should have done the same.

Jeeez, If one is in need of a depression over the state of human kind, one only needs to read through the these comments 🙁
I really really hope most of these negative and troll-like comments are from russian bots, because if they are backed by real humans... No, that’s just to sad to contemplate.

Just canceled my pre-order.

DPR,

Could you PLEASE put up more pictures that demonstrate the edge to edge sharpness of the new lenses at wide open? That was a big goal of the Nikon team.

Thank you.

I'm more interested in the Z6 since that is priced roughly at the same place as the Oly E-M1-2.

Some of these pictures are bad snapshots. Some are okay. Nothing here that would make me lust after the camera.

Err....honestly, for the price I expected much much more, this is just barely above plastic fantastic niftty fifty optical performance.

Maybe something isn't show here, like less focus breathing for video?

The 35mm f1.8 looks soft wide open

I think it is still a bit too early to say with absolute certainty where this camera fits in the hierarchy of 'Real Good' cameras. I have no doubt it will be a 'good' camera though, Nikon doesn't normally make junk. My hopes are positive . . .

It never ceases to amaze me how grumpy camera gear heads are.

I'm going to wait for some RAWs and until Adobe provides RAW support (so I can peek around at the RAWs) before I make a decision here on IQ as these are just OOC JPEGs (I never use the OOC JPEGs myself). There are some concerns with the JPEGs above, but it may just be a side effect or over processing by the camera when it does OOC JPEGs and not affect the RAWs.

How about a varied clutch of landscape pics? That's what some of us will be looking for with these cameras?

First reaction is that the few outdoor pics seen here seem a tad too cool, unusual for Nikon.

Nothing to see here i guess? Are these Images blurred or just not that sharp?

What is a common thickness: "Me too!!". Who pushed you to post blurred images? What is an idiotic excuse - pre-production? You, guys, posting it to get a public opinion, created by very knowledgeable people, on a brand new system. What different can it make - pre-production, over-production, under-production? Year to year, you are shooting your own leg, but looks like nothing may help it.

Guys, do you have any in focus not blurred samples with the 35/1.8 or the lens indeed is so soft?

nice pix, but could we please cool it eith the embarrassingly sexiest and poorly lit pictures of models hired by the camera companies as picture bait for socially awkward, lonely men.
This kind of pseudo-suave objectification of women was revolting when Peter Gowland did it 50 years ago. Yet here we are in the middle of the #MeToo Era and a certain type of photographer is still eager to humiliate women by shooting them in these lasciviously staged “photo ops.”

I’ve never quite understood what samples like this are supposed to prove. Surely any decent modern camera can do this?

Like everything I am seeing and reading on this new Nikon but don’t think the samples are as pleasing as the Pentax samples from a couple of weeks ago.

They totally missed the price. It needs to be cheaper than the A7 III/A7R III, but more than the A7 II/A7R II. It's not the right time to try to capitalize on the loyal users who waited for the Nikon by having them pay a premium for less. And they aren't going to win back anyone who already switched.

Good to see more choice. I hope those chewing over the technical aspects and drawing pointless battle lines actually enjoy taking photographs.

I can not know its true potential without pet shots.

Give these are JPEGs, its hard to tell if this actually has good image quality. Nothing here looks truly sharp, but I'm sure the RAWs are very good...

Stop leaving the EXIF data out!

Impressive IQ and DR. The gamma curve is spot on. Well done

The image quality is pathetic , even my pixel 2 xl have a better IQ no kidding

35 mm seems to be suffering from longitudinal chromatic aberrations (LoCA) and cateyes.
24-70 looks like an impressively sharp lens, and with good bokeh (other than highlights). The only obvious defect is coma (night time shots).

I want to hear from the people who said that they had it. Where are those reviews?

The bokeh from the 35/1.8 looks very creamy.

Is it me or does the Z6 draw attention to just how good the A7 III is? I do like that grip though ;)