Video: Nigel Danson on his switch to mirrorless and the Nikon Z7

Clayton, I'm not sure what you mean because my "baseline" is not DSLRs; I've tested/reviewed the D850, EOS R, Z7, and A7R3. I still prefer the D850, for landscapes.

The Z7 EVF is excellent, but that's not my point. My point was that for landscapes I still prefer an OVF. I can shoot stills all day long through the OVF, and yet whenever I do need, it live view is great on the D850. (I don't really need live view AF, not for landscapes.)

Battery life was a huge annoyance with the Z7 versus the D850. It was also annoying that I couldn't run the camera directly off USB power, like with the A7R3. I ended up using a dummy battery a lot on the Z7, because it was so annoying to keep trying to charge up the battery in-camera whenever the camera was off, which is painfully slow by the way. (About 10-15% per hour, so, pointless during a day of shooting.)

In short, maybe I'll reconsider the Z's in late 2019, but until then, the D850 is still a better choice for me, and many others too I suspect.

@matthew saville ..... You mention no quirks or frustrations using the D850 in your original comments and someone that isn't biased towards DSLRs (whether intentional or not) wouldn't present the arguments you did in this way. I would be more frustrated using the D850 than the Z7 and that is how it would come across if I tried to articulate the same things you did in your comments. In other words, your "only question" in your comments is far from the only question. But to be clear I'm not saying some of your points aren't fair or valid, just that your point of view has a decided DSLR slant.

Again, you have to take this in the context of landscape photography, and the relatively traditional methods with which most landscape photographers work. In any other genre, my opinions are COMPLETELY different.

For landscape photography, the benefits of mirrorless are largely null due to the fact that you shoot slowly and methodically, on a tripod. I find that I never "need" an EVF, and when I do raise a camera to my eye to shoot landscapes, I like being able to click pictures and barely consuming battery. Or, when I'm shooting with the camera at arms' length on a tripod, to me live view has been more than good enough on all DSLRs in the last 5+ years.

My point was, even though I wish the D850 was the size of the D750, I'd still rather have a D850 or a D750 instead of a Z7. In fact, I'd have been much happier if the Z's had just been ergonomically identical to a D750 or D850, and merely smaller.

Wet cleaning with sensor swab

This is going to be the typical experience of a DSLR user switching to mirrorless. It just needs a different mindset and a blower. Pretty much every time I swap lenses I use the blower. I very rarely have dust issues. If you do need to clean, cleaning is nothing to be scared of on a mirrorless body.

Is the sensor on a mirrorless camera easier to clean than on a DSLR?

@entoman I shoot with primes. I change lenses many times during a shoot. I’m not defending mirrorless or saying they don’t have a problem. Simply pointing out that modifying your approach from what your used to eliviates the problem. To pickup on the car analogy, do people expect not to get wet when they have the roof down on their convertible? When you buy one you get used to the idea of putting the roof up when the weather changes. With mirrorless you get used to the idea of a couple of puffs with a blower on lens changes. It’s of course optional. Could manufacturers do more to prevent or elucidate the problem, sure, but until it impacts sales don’t hold your breath.

Paul - Instead of accepting a problem that doesn't need to exist, wouldn't you rather see Nikon, Sony, Fujifim, Panasonic, Olympus and Leica follow Canon's lead, and fit an automated dark-slide or shutter override that kept dust off the sensor during your frequent lens changes?

Surely that's the main purpose of this forum - to provide feedback to manufacturers (via dpr staff) so that future cameras don't suffer from the same problems as current models?

While I do admire the EOS R shutter-shutting mechanism (and subsequent aperture closure to protect that shutter) it only shuts when you turn OFF the camera, not while changing lenses. And since most of us hot-swap lenses and never do a hart reset, I find it collects just as much dust as any mirrorless. My DSLRs are better in that regard no question.

Ebrahim - That's very interesting, I had assumed that pressing the lens-release button would have actuated the shutter closure. Like yourself I nearly always hot-swap lenses, so perhaps Canon should rethink the process that actuates the shutter closure. Perhaps this will be revised on the pro versions, when they are eventually released.

Right at this moment I'm holding back on going mirrorless, as the Sony, Canon and Nikon options all have significant "faults" that convince me to stay with my DSLRs until such time as the pro models are released and when Nikon and Canon have macros, telezooms and long tele primes that don't need adaptors. In a couple of years time I think the Big 3 will all have equally good pro bodies and complete lens systems, and that is the time I'll be likely to make the switch.

Eric my Olympus Pen F cleans the sensor itself. And it works amazingly good.

Just for the fun of it here are some examples and I don't see a huge weight benefit:

Nikon D500 with 16-80 mm f/2.8-4 = 24-120 mm
860 g + 460 g = 1320 g

Nikon D810 with 50 mm f/1.8
980 g + 185 g = 1165 g

Nikon d810 with 24-85 mm VR f/3.5-5.6
980 g + 485 g = 1465 g

Nikon Z7 with 50 mm f/1.8
675 g + 415 g = 1090 g

Nikon Z7 with 24-70 mm f/4
675 g + 500g = 1175 g

But of course the Z lenses are probably better than the G lenses listed above.

@philharris. Not sure how you get a weight difference over 1 kg between D850 with 24-70mm f/2.8 (1005 g + 900 g) and the Z7 with 24-70 mm f/4 (675 g + 500 g). That is a difference of 730 g.

The new 24-70 mm VR is a little heavier at 1070 g, so the difference is then 900 grams. But then again it has a full stop advantage and is probably a much better optically.

Less weight getting to where you want to shoot is always more pleasurable but personally i find a heavier camera is better when shooting on a tripod in the winds of winter. Even with a load of rocks hanging from tripod my camera has been blown over before.

Ape I took a video a couple days ago shooting in hard winds with my heavy Hasselblad. It was on a tripod but the start was completely flying horizontal in the wind. Haven’t developed the film yet but it should be good I was using a decent shutter speed.

@Geomaticsman:
I was hoping for that. Thank you for the comments

That's where Pentax & Sony A fall down. Their telephotos - few as they are - rely on IBIS only. I agree, the way forward is combining the two as Olympus, Panasonic & sony have done so well.

@Geomaticsman. But it has nothing to do with dslr/mirrorless.

As an examplr, the EF 24-70 f4 ist really good.. not being for mirrorless.

However, mirrorless + crop sensor, like Fujifilm or Olympus, does offer a really smaller and compacter package.

Nothing wrong with the Z7, but the lens selection (for now).

1.) It's very, very easy to set your in-camera Picture Style/Control to match almost identically what the RAW output will be. Just go with Neutral Picture Style, and turn the contrast down a couple notches, and your image and even your histogram will give you quite a good raw sneak-peek. Turn up the Active D-Lighting (or whatever it's called, DRO, etc.) if you want a good representation of the shadow recovery possible before noise becomes terrible.

2.) WYSIWYG is also extremely useful for seeing your creative vision in general before you click the shot. Oppositely from the "make your in-camera images match the raw output" ...you can also go the opposite route and use the in-camera settings to previsualize your creative vision. Switch to Landscape or Vivid (or even B&W!) Picture Style, turn the contrast down all the way, and turn the saturation up a notch or two, and you can really see what the final image might look like, which helps you notice small details you might want to change.

Of course, landscape photography in particular is such a slow-paced, traditional craft, that all of this is a bit of a moot point since you can just click the picture through your OVF and see the image on the rear LCD quickly enough.

Personally, even though I've been using the two previously mentioned techniques as the situations require for 10+ years now, I actually still prefer an OVF for landscape photography, because it allows me to shoot general imagery with very little battery consumption, and when I need WYSIWYG, I can just jump in to live view on the rear LCD.

WYSIWYG is more useful for the types of photography where you're shooting everything with the camera to your eye, and in moderately fast-paced conditions such as portraiture or weddings, where nailing images in-camera is very important, and the time constraint is just the right amount that makes an EVF useful, not a drawback.

Geomaticsman: good points. If the nature of the camera system (smaller registration distance, electronic shutter), allows for smaller lenses and tripod, then the total size and weight difference can be quite substantial.

@ matthew saville , that's theory. Practically, do you really have both single eye resolution and enough time to fiddle with camera setting while keeping an eye in the EVF? My experience tells me that whenever I shoot with people in the frame, there is no way I would have time to fiddle with camera settings for tweaking of exposure to get the shadows right. And when I have time to do so, I can do it using liveview on my DSLR. Which mean, practically, mirrorless is for the pleasure to buy, essentially, no real benefit practically.

@ Geomaticsman: tht's clear that if you use a slower lens with the mirrorless camera without tripod, you'll end up with significantly smaller system, relative to a DSLR with with a fast zoom and heavy tripod. I could also cheat: I make a mirrorless kit with a cast iron tripod and a f2.8 zoom, and compare it to a hand held DSLR with a pancake prime and tell you that the DSLR system is smaller and lighter than the mirrorless kit.