Long- term test
NIKON.CO.UK Nikon Z 6: one year on
PRICE: £2249WITH 24-70MM Z F/4 S LENS
The Z 6 was launched in November 2018 and the PN teamhas been using it ever since. Now, in the first of a series of long-termcamera tests, you can find out what they think…
Z 6 since launch, along with a range of lenses, and shooting in wildly different situations, so we’ve got the kind of real, first-hand experience of the camera you can’t get from just a few days testing. We all know the benefits of mirrorless cameras by now – but is the Z 6 the one for you?
IT’S NOW JUST over a year since Nikon launched its Z series of full- frame mirrorless cameras and lenses, starting with the 45.7-megapixel Z 7 body, and followed a few months later by the 24.5-megapixel Z 6, a more general purpose camera with a healthy 12fps burst mode. In that
time, the Z series has also added a decent, though still nascent, range of lenses. So has the Z 6 been a success? Coming up to 12 months on from its launch, we thought it’d be a good time to revisit the camera and find out. The PN team has been using the
ON THE STREETSWITH THE NIKON Z 6 PN’s editor Will Cheung is a keen but timid street shooter, and prefers small and silent cameras. The Z 6 is not the smallest – so how did he get on wandering the cold, wet streets of London?
WORDS AND IMAGES BY WILL CHEUNG
cheaper as well, currently at £2389 with 24-70mm f/4 and FTZ adapter, which sounds a very good deal. My default camera set-up is aperture-priority AE in multi-zone matrix metering, single AF zone, auto WB and manual ISO control, so this is what I applied to the Z 6, and very well it worked, too. Exposures were very consistent, stumbling over only when there was a strong highlight in the frame. AF was accurate, and the AWB system delivered colour correct shots time after time. After some initial testing I was happy shooting street scenes at ISO 6400 and even 12,800, knowing I was going to get digital noise but that it would look neutral and film-like
NIKON TOOK ITS own sweet time to take to the full-frame mirrorless camera market, but when the Z 6 and Z 7 were announced, I thought the wait was worth it. I loved the chunky look of the camera bodies, the high-resolution 3.69-million dot EVF was brilliant and, being a Nikon owner, I felt immediately at home with the control layout and menu set-up. Even giving the buyer the choice of different resolutions in fundamentally identical bodies seemed right, too. I like having lots of megapixels so the Z 7 would be my natural preference, but the less crowded sensor on the Z 6 should mean a better noise performance, which I also value highly. The Z 6 is significantly
IMAGES There’s little digital noise, even at high ISOs like ISO 6400
42 Photography News | Issue 71
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