Today we're going to be taking a look
at the new 2.0 firmware for the Nikon Z9,
which for video shooters at least,
might just be the greatest camera firmware update
of all time.
Actually, that makes for a good comment prompt,
what has been your favorite firmware update
from the past whether for cameras
or some other piece of tech?
Let me know down below the like button.
As far as disclosure, Nikon lent me this camera
to make this video.
I don't get to keep it, no money changed hands.
The firmware is still considered to be pre-production
or late beta.
I'm told it's pretty much final,
but there might be the odd hiccup
that needs to be ironed out, but I'm happy to report
I haven't really found any serious issues
with this firmware during my testing.
Also, this whole video is a continuation
of my original review of the Z9.
I'm not gonna be repeating too much information
from that video, so if you don't know anything
about this camera, I suggest starting with that video first.
So the headline feature here is that you can now record
raw internally to the CFexpress card.
And you can do that all the way up to 8K
at 60 frames per second.
And that's full frame, with no limitations or gimmicks.
And the files are actually a little higher resolution
than 8K, they're 8256x4644,
giving you enough room to crop out a 17x9 image
while still maintaining the DCI 4320 lines of resolution.
You can record at two compressions
that they're calling High Quality and Normal,
with normal being about half the size
with no noticeable loss in detail.
You can also record in a 4.1K full frame raw
up to 120 frames per second,
and you can do that both internally,
or externally with ProRes Raw.
But the ProRes Raw caps out at 60p.
But to be honest, I've never really liked ProRes Raw
so I'm glad that Nikon basically makes that unnecessary
by allowing for their own raw to be recorded
which also works in DaVinci Resolve, unlike ProRes Raw.
There's a few other resolutions and framerate combinations,
and some crop modes as well, and support for PAL framerates.
We'll get into the development panel for the raw
as well as some dynamic range tests in a minute,
but first let's go over some of the other updates
in this firmware package.
So, another big addition is the ability to toggle a switch
to allow the 4K60 mode, which was previously not oversampled
to be oversampled bringing the image quality
up to the same standard as that of the 4K24 and 4K30.
This is awesome.
I tested this feature as well as the 8K60 raw extensively
and couldn't get either overheat
in my indoor studio environment.
But Nikon did add an overheating sensitivity toggle,
similar to what we've seen in Sony cameras
to expand the threshold for overheating.
Keep in mind though that 8K60 raw files are quite large,
even when using the tighter compression,
you're looking at about 25 minutes of record time
for 650 GB CFexpress card.
So, I presume storage will run out
before the camera overheats.
And regarding the 4K60 oversampled mode,
I'm told the only consequence of enabling it
is your battery runtime will shorten while it's active.
In my tests, I got a yellow overheat warning
after about an hour of oversampled 4K60,
and then an hour later, that warning turned red,
and then I recorded for another 30 or so minutes
before the battery was about to die.
And so then I plugged it in to USB power delivery,
switched the camera to the standard overheating mode,
and closed the screen, all to see if I could get it
to shutdown due to heat, and it didn't.
It just kept recording.
The body was quite hot to the touch at this point,
but I couldn't actually get it to shutdown.
Now your results will likely vary depending
on your environment, but I can safely say
that I have no concerns with this camera
in a studio setting.
They've also added a red record frame indicator
around the LCD and a dedicated video display mode
that is reminiscent of the display on say a cine camera.
And they've added a proper, resizable waveform monitor
that is accurate and easy to read.
And what's great about the Z9 is that you can also mirror
these overlays and tools on your external display
if you want with no blackouts or screen issues of any kind,
which is actually how I was able to record those tools
and show you in this video.
They've also refined the shutter speed and ISO controls.
For ISO, you can enable an option to move
in 1/6th stops instead of just 1/3rd stops
if you want more a refined adjustment.
And for shutter speed, they've given you a toggle
to enable the ability to lower the shutter speed
beyond the frame rate.
So you can shoot 60 frames per second, for example,
and shoot at less than 1/60th per second shutter.
Now using this slower shutter speed like 1/30th
while shooting at 60 frames per second
will give you jerkier motion,
but the option is there if you need it.
But what I like most about it is that you control
whether it's enabled or not.
That way if it's disabled
you don't have to worry about accidentally
undercranking your shutter like I do sometimes
on other cameras that don't have shutter angle.
This is the best way to implement this.
I'm mostly focusing on the video improvements
in this episode,
but they have added some new photo functionality as well,
like the ability to capture images pre-shutter release
for up to a second before you start shooting.
Basically, giving you one second of safety buffer
in case you were late on pressing the shutter
before an important moment.
You can now customize the size and shape
of your wide-area AF box.
And you can blend a series of images together
in camera to make a multi-photo overlay.
And there's been some AF improvements
in low-light situations,
and they've even added a timer now during long exposures
in bulb mode.
So rather than timing it yourself on a separate device,
you can see the timer count up on the LCD
for as long as you're holding the shutter.
And they even added a 120 frames per second mode
in the viewfinder.
And there's a few other welcome enhancements
that you can read about in the release notes.
There's honestly like two pages of improvements.
It's impressive.
But let's jump into the meat of this video,
which is what happens when you shoot raw.
So in camera you still have your previous options
like 8-bit and 10-bit H.265, and you've still got ProRes,
but now you also have the N-Raw option,
which can be viewed as either N-Log or SDR.
Of course, because this is raw,
this selection doesn't matter too much
because you can just change it later,
so think of it more as a preview choice.
If you choose SDR, you have the option to implement
one of Nikon's color modes, like Standard, Portrait, or Flat,
but these will also not be maintained
when you develop the raw in post.
Again, they're just for preview.
When you bring the clips into DaVinci Resolve,
you'll notice you have both the raw file,
which is a .NEV as well as a lower resolution MP4 proxy file
for each recording.
This ensures editing performance won't be an issue
if you're using older hardware,
but I found that even the 8K60 edited quite smoothly
when using the Studio version of Resolve and using my GPU
to decode the raw footage.
I rarely even noticed a hiccup or dropped frames.
I am using an RTX 3090 though, so your mileage may vary.
Now in the raw development panel,
you can choose from three different color spaces,
Rec. 709, P3 D60, or Rec. 2020, and then for Gamma,
you can choose either 2.4, 2.6, Rec. 709,
Linear, or Nikon N-Log.
You also have the ability to change your white balance
with Kelvin and tint sliders,
and these produce mostly decent results,
but it's not magic and will require some finessing
to get extreme white balance pushes to match up.
I found shifts between 4000 Kelvin and 7000 Kelvin
to be painless, but shifting from 2500 or 10000
won't be as easy.
And watch out if you're saturating a particular channel
like shooting a clear blue sky,
because this will heavily affect your gain
and can have big impacts on white balance
even when shooting raw.
Basically, it's always a good idea
to white balance correctly even when shooting raw.
Raw is just more forgiving.
And you also have an Exposure slider.
Now there's no ISO adjustment in post,
but you can use this exposure slider to compensate
in the same was as ISO with the same results.
I was able to match ISO 800 to ISO 1600 and 3200,
with no visual differences whether I did it in camera
or in post.
The only issue I found with the exposure slider
is that it's scaled by a 2x multiplier.
So if you wanna increase one stop of ISO,
you only increase exposure in post by 0.5.
Two stops of ISO is one stop of exposure in this panel,
1/3rd of a stop of ISO is 0.17, and so on.
I contacted Blackmagic about this
and they acknowledged the issue
and said they were able to recreate it
and will be addressing it.
So I suspect we'll see a fix for this soon.
But in the meantime, you can use it with great results
as long as you only move half as much
in post as you wanted it to be in camera.
Also, I'm not sure because I don't have a Mac,
but there might be compatibility issues currently
with DaVinci Resolve, Nikon Raw, and the M1 Macs.
It works fine on PC and possibly even when using Resolve
under Rosetta, but it looks like M1 users
will need an update to read these files in Resolve.
Unfortunately, I don't have any information
on if or when that update is coming.
But the process on PC has been terrific.
You know sometimes when you compare your raw recordings
to your AVC 10-bit recordings they're different,
even if they're both log for example.
Maybe the color isn't quite the same,
or the highlights don't clip the same way.
Well, none of that happens with the Z9.
If you develop your raw to N-Log,
it performs exactly how you would expect your H.265
or ProRes N-Log to perform.
And you expose them identically as well.
The waveform on this camera is great.
It matches the zebras, accurately shows clipping,
and both the raw and debayered N-Log clip highlights
at the same point allowing for a seamless transition
between modes both in camera and in post.
So why even have raw?
Well, if you don't wanna develop to N-Log,
you don't have to.
Now you can set the gamma to linear in post,
and then transform that linear data into a different gamma
of your choosing, maybe ARRI Log C for example, or V-Log.
And then you can use whatever workflow you like
for that log gamma instead.
And I tested this quite extensively on the clips
from this camera and it works very well.
And in fact, if you do convert to ARRI Log C
you can avoid some of the harshness caused by the LUT
that Nikon provides and actually see a little better
into the shadows.
With N-Log when using the Xyla21 and Imatest,
I was only able to see about 13.5-14 stops total,
but when converted to Log C, I got closer to 16 stops.
Now this is obviously much noisier
and not a usable 16 stops,
but after you apply some noise reduction
and push those shadows down a bit,
you're left with about 12.5 clean stops,
but with a much smoother transition out of the highlights
compared to the standard N-Log workflow.
You can't magically create dynamic range,
and you can still get 12.5 stops
with just the regular 10-bit H.265 N-Log,
but the tonality and distribution will be different
and the raw allows you to play with those subtleties
and express the image using a workflow of your choosing,
which is the point of it, in my opinion.
Something I did notice though,
Nikon claims the raw is 12-bit,
but Resolve is showing it as 14-bit.
I'm not sure if this is just a metadata read error
or some linear versus log mismatch,
but I've put the question out to both Nikon
and Blackmagic and I'm just waiting on a final reply.
So, as usual, raw doesn't innately give more dynamic range,
and yes, it certainly is a lot noisier right out the gate,
and you lose your lens corrections,
but if you want to invest the time to do all that manually,
you have a greater ceiling for image quality.
But Nikon has great color to begin with,
so other than the slightly harsher contrast
when converting N-Log using the provided LUT,
you're not losing too much by just sticking
to the standard Nikon development path.
But I was happy to see that I got accurate color
when using either Nikon, ARRI, or Panasonic V-Gamut.
Oh, and now that I have the raw,
I can validate the theory I posed in my original review.
When I suggested that this camera
has a second native ISO at 4000.
The first being ISO 800.
And yes, that appears to be true.
Because the noise noticeably improves
and the image on the screen flashes for a second
when switching from ISO 3200 to 4000,
even when shooting raw.
Anyway, that's pretty much it.
You can download this package for your Z9 for free
starting April 20th.
This is a truly fantastic firmware update.
I mean, think about it, picture yourself a few years ago
and imagine reading, "Nikon offers free firmware update
that adds raw recording internally up to 8K60."
8K60! Plus the 4K60 oversampling, all the video tools,
and everything else I mentioned.
And you don't have to send your camera in
or buy some funky token online.
This is great work by Nikon. Bravo!
All right, I'm done.