♪ Got no money on my mind ♪
♪ Tell my mommy I'm alright ♪
♪ Even laughing at the jokes you tell me ♪
- In my career as a filmmaker,
I've tried a lot of different cameras.
I started off with a Canon, I've had Panasonics,
I've had Sonys, I've tried Olympus,
I've tried Fuji Film, but in my whole career
I have never ever filmed anything on a Nikon until recently
and so I had the great pleasure of testing out
the Nikon Z6 for the very first time
and this is the first Nikon that I've ever
filmed anything with and it's the first Nikon
that's really caught my eye for a few different reasons.
A, it's the first I feel like Nikon camera
that has decent video features to the point that
it really really made me wanna try it.
Up until now, I feel like Nikon hasn't really been
known for their video side.
Their photo side has always been really great
but their video side, kind of lackluster
and B is that they're doing something that
pretty much nobody else is doing
in this kind of mirrorless DSLR pro consumer
this kind of mid range of cameras and that's raw output.
Okay, other than Blackmagic,
Blackmagic's doing raw,
but nobody else, none of the traditional camera companies
like Canon and all of those companies,
none of them are doing raw output
and to me this is really interesting.
I feel like for the longest time
camera companies have kind of played it safe.
They haven't put all of the features
or all of the power that they could into cameras
but now the playing field is a lot more level.
There's a lot of competition,
new companies coming out all the time
really pushing this market especially with
the video side of things.
The competition is really heating up.
I feel like with the photo side,
the specs are so good on pretty much every camera
that it's more than the average person
would ever need in their lifetime
but the video side is still really growing
and developing really fast
and the video features can really make
a camera stand out and I feel like
that's what Nikon's trying to do with the Z6,
really trying to stand out from the market.
And then the combination of this Z6 with the Ninja V,
the Atomos Ninja V, you're gonna get crazy high quality
with manageable file sizes because we all know
that raw video is like crazy big file sizes
and it's really hard to deal with for the most part.
Essentially this could turn into something
like a C200 which is a lot more expensive
without all the bells and whistles
but still very similar quality coming out of this guy
and then the C200.
Now we can't be sure about the quality
because the raw output is not out yet.
I was really hoping it would come out soon
so I could test that out because that to me
is one of the biggest selling features of the Z6.
So we're just gonna have to wait for that
but we can look at what is the Z6 like right now?
What were my first impressions shooting with this camera,
shooting with Nikon for the first time?
And for this whole video I basically used
only this Nikon Z6 filmmaker's kit.
It comes with pretty much everything you need
except for a gorilla pod.
That's the only other thing I used
and if you wanna get into filmmaking,
the Z6 filmmaker kit is really great.
It comes with basically everything you need
to start out and more.
Plus you end up saving yourself
a good amount of money so that's always a bonus.
Okay let's start off with the build quality
and I really like the body of the Z6.
It feels really good.
It's maybe not quite as nice as the EOS R camera.
I feel like the body of the EOS R
just feels really good in your hands
but all the button layouts and everything
are really nice and I do really like
that they included a joystick still.
That's one of the things that I do miss on the EOS R
quite a bit.
No flip LCD screen.
We just get one of these tilt screens
which again in my mind is a downside
but it is nice that you at least have the tilt
so you can film lower or higher sort of if you need to.
Only one card slot for all you sticklers
for the two card slot.
You're not gonna get that and it's XQD
instead of SD cards with is kind of a downer
in my opinion for a few reasons.
Usually everybody has SD cards
and then everybody has an SD card reader.
Like a lot of computers even come with an SD card reader.
They do not come with an XQD card reader
so you're gonna need to buy another card reader
and you're gonna always have to make sure
you're carrying this.
Otherwise you're pretty much screwed
because you're not gonna be able to ask
for your friend's MacBook Pro or iMac or something
to offload your footage.
But in the grand scheme, that's a fairly minor thing.
Battery life I found to be really great.
I was reading that it can only do 300 photos
with one battery which is like very little, very little.
I didn't have any issues.
We only have two batteries and throughout the whole day
of filming B roll and vlogging and all of that,
I only think we went through like one and a half batteries
at most so no issues with the battery life
which is something that I was a little bit
scared of when I saw that 300 photos number.
I don't know where that comes from even.
Now we only use the Nikon 24 to 70 F4 with stabilization.
It was the only lens we had.
I kind of wanted to limit myself
to just the filmmaker kit but that's one of
the big problems with the ZZ6 right now is that
there isn't a ton of options for lenses
just like with the EOS R there isn't a lot of
lenses to choose from unless you're adapting
but then it gets bigger and it kind of defeats the purpose
of having a mirrorless camera.
I really want something in the wider range
like a 16 to 35 and then a little bit of a faster lens,
an F28 or faster.
F4 is kind of meh for me usually.
The new 24 to 70 F28 is probably really great
but I didn't have that one for this review.
And then let's take a look at really the most important
thing about a camera and that's the image
and this is probably the biggest thing
that I was apprehensive about with Nikon
and their video features but I was really impressed.
No crop, 4K no crop which is really great.
I wish Canon would offer that a little bit more.
Colors were great.
I didn't notice any big issues with the colors.
With a little bit of tweaks I could always
get them to a decent place.
120 frames per second, 1080, no crop again.
I was actually surprised at how nice
the 120 frames per second was.
Again, I was kind of apprehensive.
I thought it might be a little bit
just not as nice quality but I had no issues with it.
It looked really nice even blown up to a 4K timeline.
And then you pair the Z6 with the Atomos Ninja V
and you're getting 4K 10 bit n-log out of this thing
and that's when things really started to shine.
Yeah you're not gonna really notice a difference
for example in the video between the normal 4K
and then the 10 bit 4K but when you're working with it,
when you're color grading,
there's just so much more room.
You could get a lot of detail back in the highlights
or in the shadows and just color grading overall.
The color grade stuck to it really really nicely.
Again, you're not gonna really notice the difference
when I upload a video but working with it
makes it much more enjoyable
and that's really half the battle
when it's nice to work with and to you're not having
a battle with the colors the whole time
to get them to a good place.
I honestly can't imagine how good the quality's gonna be
when they're pushing raw out of this thing.
There is a flat profile which is gonna be enough
for most people so again, not the biggest thing
for a lot of people but I do wish I could get
that extra dynamic range even in camera
and not always having to use an external monitor
recorder like that Atomos Ninja V.
And another really nice surprise was
the IBIS in this camera.
I find it to be a little bit better than Sony's IBIS,
but not as crazy as something like a Panasonic
or the Olympus cameras.
It was kind of somewhere in between.
You definitely notice the difference
especially when you're vlogging and you're just
using a gorilla pod.
There isn't that gross micro jitter the whole time
but you also didn't get the crazy wobble
when you're at let's say 24 mil
whereas with cameras like the Panasonic
you do get a little bit of that wobble on wide lenses
when you have the IBIS on.
So that's really really great.
I do wish that Canon cameras had IBIS.
I don't know why they're not doing IBIS
but kudos to Nikon for putting IBIS no crop 4K 120p.
There's a lot of really great features to this camera.
Now the auto focus wasn't bad.
It wasn't the best either.
I feel like Canon still has the best auto focus
by a bit of a margin but I didn't notice
that it was any worse than the Sony.
It's definitely better than Panasonic.
The Sony and Fuji Film, Nikon, they all seem to be
kind of on the same level with their auto focus right now.
There were times where it didn't focus properly.
For example I had to re shoot the intro talking
in that trying Nikon for the first time video.
I wasn't sure if the focus points were off a little bit
or in a part where I wasn't anymore
or if it couldn't detect the face.
I don't know exactly what was going on
but I did need to re shoot that which is
very very rarely the case.
I don't even remember a time where I've had to do that
with a Canon but again I would say
it's just as good as the Sonys and the Fuji Films.
Somewhere in that range.
I feel like all the cameras have gotten
to a pretty good level with their auto focus
to the point where you can use pretty much
any camera's auto focus right now but Canon is still
just a tad bit better.
I don't usually talk about audio but I felt like
I needed to mention there's a little bit of talk
about the preamps not being as good on the Z6
and I did find, now I don't know if I was being affected
by reading that stuff but I did find
that it was a little bit more harsh.
Not quite as full of a sound coming out of
the Nikon Z6 so I do believe that the preamps
aren't quite as good as some of the other cameras
but again it's nothing crazy that you're gonna be like,
oh this is just horrible.
You can't use this, but if you listen really carefully,
you do notice kind of a difference I think.
Low light seems really great on this camera.
I didn't really have any crazy situations
where I needed to really push the ISO
but from what I've seen, the low light performance
is really really nice out of the Z6
and you're getting all of these features
no crop 4K 10 bit n-log coming externally,
raw very soon, decent auto focus, good colors
for just under $2,000 whereas something like
the Canon competitor, the EOS R costs $2,300
and it doesn't have 120 frames per second.
It doesn't have no crop 4K so this is quite
an interesting camera and I think it's really underrated
probably for the same reasons that I was
very apprehensive to even try this camera
when it first came out.
I was kind of like, eh, it probably isn't that good.
I'm not even gonna bother reviewing it
but now that I've tried it,
I think Nikon is taking massive strides in the video world
and I would not be surprised
if their next couple cameras
end up becoming really really popular
now that people are understanding like okay,
Nikon is also in the video game.
And cameras like the EOS R
which is a little bit more expensive
are not gonna be putting out raw.
There's no way despite the Twitter craziness mix up.
They're not gonna be doing raw with the EOS R
but the Nikon Z6 hopefully soon raw output.
So how was the overall experience
shooting with the Nikon Z6?
Pretty positive I would say.
Again, I was very apprehensive,
very scared of this camera and I think it was
way better than I expected.
Yes there are negatives, no log internally,
the lack of lenses right now.
That's a pretty big downside.
XQD memory cards, but you're getting a lot of
really great features like 4K no crop, 120p,
really nice external recording options.
This is definitely an interesting camera
and if you haven't thought about trying the Nikon Z6,
I highly recommend it.
Again, that's the only way to really find out
if a camera is good for you or not
is to try it out and that's why I feel good
that I've tested a Nikon and now I feel like
when the next Nikon comes out,
I wanna test it out because I wanna see how much better
they're pushing each of their cameras to be
in the video area of things.
And once they release a few more lenses
like a 16 to 35 F28 I highly reccomend
thinking about this for the YouTube filmmaking
and even other stuff.
It's gonna be a really versatile camera
with things like raw output.
You're getting kind of like a mini C200
for $2,000, well, I guess you got to
buy the Atomos Ninja V still but for way less money
than a C200 you're getting crazy high quality
so I could see this camera becoming
a very popular camera
even a little bit later once they do put out
the raw firmware update even though people didn't
necessarily jump on the Nikon bandwagon
right away from the beginning,
I can see a lot of people jumping to Nikons
as they roll out that raw feature.
Anyways, I'd say give it a try and don't rule it out
just because of Nikon's past,
their history with the video world.
I feel like they just took a massive leap
and maybe some other camera companies should do the same.
Okay, I hope you guys enjoyed this review.
Hit that like button, subscribe to the channel
if you're not subscribed already
and I'll see you guys in the next video.
(upbeat music)