Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai.
Today we're going to talk about the Nikon Z6 and if it's a
good hybrid camera in my opinion. Of course, by hybrid I mean a mixture of
photo and video work. I have used the Z6 with the filmmaker's kit. It has the gimbal.
It has the Atomos Ninja V recorder. A bunch of other little pieces. I also
tried it before that a little bit, so I have some experience. And I've used the
Z7 as well. So let's start with photos side. It has 24 megapixels. I think that's
more than sufficient for a lot of situations. Of course, if you need more
resolution you want to get the Z7 or other cameras with a lot more resolution
to them. Some of the camera companies have been dropped in the second card
slot in their cameras around the mid-range level. In this case they did do
that, but it does have XQD card slot, which should eventually be upgradable
with firmware to use the CF Express cards that will come out. Currently the
XQD cards are pretty expensive for a given amount of gigabytes, but with photo
situations that's not a huge deal. 24 megapixels you shouldn't really run into
big problems. You will spend probably at least a few hundred dollars on memory
cards, but with photo it should be fine. My issue of course, I do like two card slots
when I'm spending that level of money on a camera...
I had the D750 the D600. Those had two card slots. The D600 came out at the same
price as the Z6. I would have liked to seen two card slots. I do like that in
camera backup. Of course, one of the biggest benefits of mirrorless is what
you see is what you get for the most part. In this case in photography that's
a big benefit. I really enjoy the mirrorless setup now. I like that when
focusing I don't have to deal with micro adjustments and things that I had to do
with the DSLRs. That's a big plus for photography with the Z6. The camera does have
a flip screen. So in photos settings I think it's probably one of the best
types of flip screen. But it doesn't flip to the side, so there are some situations
in photography where it's not an ideal type of screen setup on the back. With
continuous shooting with autofocus it uses Nikon's older set up with their
DSLRs in live view. It's not an ideal setup...
Now let's go on to the video side of things.
I think this is a big game changer for Nikon especially with
video. Now in the camera when you record to the XQD card slot there are some
limitations. You're only getting the 8 bit the 4:2:0 recording. So you do lose
some potential quality in there. But it's in there and you can record to the
camera at 4k.. 1080p 120 frames a second type of situation, very nice. In autofocus
in video I used it quite a bit when I was testing for the filmmaker's kit, and I
didn't notice in huge issues. It was doing relatively similarly to the M50,
which I consider a very good camera for autofocus in video situations. The big
game-changer with video is when you attach a recorder to the Z6. In this case
I used the Atmos Ninja V. Gives you a huge amount of extra options. You get 10 bit
quality. You get improved 4:2:2, I believe, into the recorder. And all the
big huge benefits of getting the extra data which makes a big difference when
you're adjusting things in editors and such. There are a bunch of other little
benefits like being able to press the record button on the camera and it'll
start recording on the monitor. So just a setting you have to change and it is
very convenient. But some things to consider with video recording. If you
want to record to the camera itself and the recorder at the same time, you can only
do that in 8-bit. That's not ideal, but it is nice to have a instant backup on the
recorder and on the camera itself. Of course you have to consider the price of
XQD cards. It's gonna get really expensive with video. A few things to
consider with the Atomos NInja V is that it doesn't currently have a mirroring
mode. So if you do filming like I do where I have to film myself. I have to
set it up myself. Do everything... I would look at the recorder and of course I can
face forward, but it's not mirrored so it's a little confusing to use in that
situation. So just little quirks to consider. I think the Z6 plus the
recorder is amazing for a video operator. Because you have the higher quality. You
have a lot of options... zebras, settings, waveforms, whatever in
recorder itself to use. But you can also see you still on Z6 with the screen it
doesn't turn off, that's a nice benefit. We're going to
look at a few images from the Canon EOS M50 and the Z6. I just wanted to see the
differences between the two cameras. I did use the EF-M 32mm f/1.4 lens
on the M50 and the basic kit lens on the Z6. Of course, it's not gonna be a
fair comparison at all. I'm gonna show you a few different settings on each ones. I'll
use the same settings for a few of the photos as well. Let's check those out...
First one we've got M50 with f4 and the Z6 with f4, ISO 100. I think it's
1/50th of a second. So in this program there's a specific compare tool. You can
see the histogram here and the actual images. Let's just zoom in. I can unlock
the image to get them centered. Right off the bat we can see there is more noise
in the M50 image than the Z6. But quality wise, it doesn't look too different. These are
both at at f/4. You can see there isn't as much pronounced color. That could be
settings in the JPEG. These are JPEG images. We're not looking at the RAWs in
this specific program I don't have support for the in M50s RAW at the
moment. So just looking to JPEGs. Let's go to f/2.5 and the Z6 ISO
640 f/4. In this case F/2.5.. F4 this is at ISO 640.. ISO 100. So there's a definite
advantage to the M50 here, but the image quality is looking pretty similar. Depth
of field. See... the focus could be potentially slightly off. So there's
always that to consider as well with any type of image test, image examples
between two cameras. And there is a little bit of parallax because the
cameras were on a dual camera bracket so they're not directly straight. But these
images look very similar.
Look at the noise performance in this little area
here. I'm actually seeing less noise on the M50, but of course that's at
ISO 100 versus 640. That's a pretty big difference. Look at the hat. Let me unlock it
real real quick. See very similar result here. I do see more contrast, but
of course that's probably related to internal camera processing, and whatever
settings.. Let's go to these ones. You've got f/1.4 and then f4 on the Z6
ISO 640 versus ISO 160. Now this is an extremely unfair test to the Z6, but I
just wanted to see what it looks like. In this case you can see that the Z6 has
a lot more detail. It has more contrast. It's just a little washed out on the M50.
But you can still see a good amount of detail. That's of course at f/1.4 so
we're really pushing the 32mm f/1.4 lens at that maximum
aperture. With that f/4 lens and in f/1.4 on a crop camera, you can see depth of
field is definitely larger on the Z6 with that f/4 aperture. f/1.4 definitely
a lot less in focus in the background and foreground. See a big difference with
the Atomos Ninja V here. Definitely a lot blurrier on the M50. So if that's your
main goal was to get those really thin depth of field... Lens is the best
route. Of course, large sensors do help. Here are two images f/8 on each lens.
All the same settings. ISO 1000. So zoom in here. More sharpness, more detail, more
contrast. Still that M50 doesn't look terrible. See the texts on both of them.
They're pretty legible. Really not a bad result for the M50.
considering... But ISO 1000 isn't really pushing it too far. That's as far
as I went with this test. Because I just wanted to do a quick quick check. See
there is more in focus, of course, within the M50. In this one I did Auto EQ. it's a
function of Acdsee where it takes that histogram and it spreads it out. So
exposures are very similar in this case. Adjusted of course in software rather
than getting a perfect exposure when I took the photos. Let's see what the
differences are. It's going to pull out any flaws in the images. Look around..
still look a amount of detail. These are at f/4, ISO 100, 1/50th the second. Same
settings on both cameras. But definitely nice amount of detail in each image. But
of course a lot more noise I can see in the M50. Yeah...
Let's look at the Hat has more
detail, less noise on the Z6.
What's really benefiting the Z6 here is that it has
the same megapixel count, but it's a larger sensor. Each photo site that's
pulling the information from the light coming in is going to be larger. Most
likely less noise for each pixel.
Really not a terrible result on the M50.
But you can still see.. some kind of banding noise, color noise, and issues
of that nature.
This camera fits between the entry-level videographers and the high
level videographers. It doesn't have of course a lot of the features of the
ultimate cinema cameras. You're just not gonna get that and in camera like this.
But it does have a lot of good features that make it easy. Give you some really
good ways.. You got the autofocus in video that's pretty consistent.
You have recorder options now, and it's just a lot of things that make it
relatively easy for one.. two.. three person crews
to use the camera like that and just get great results. So I think this camera is
great with the video and on the photos side it's pretty solid as well, so I do
see it as a nice hybrid camera.
Hope you enjoyed the video. I'm Scott from Photography Banzai.
If you did enjoy the video please consider subscribing, that helps me out a lot.
Likes and shares help out a lot as well.
Thanks again!