Big test Nikon Z 6III PRICE: £2699 NIKON.CO.UK Equipped with the world’s first partially stacked sensor, the third generation in the Z 6 series oozes potential – and this superfast sensor provides a serious lift to focusing and video performance. Will Cheung takes it out for a test drive to see if this potential can be realised
it is heavier and slightly bigger than its predecessors. Body only, it weighs 760g compared with 705g for the Z 6II – though it falls short of the Z 8, which is a hefty 910g. The handgrip is deep, giving an excellent and secure grip, while core controls are readily accessible with the movie record, ISO and compensation buttons next to the shutter button and on/off collar. With the focus joystick and AF- ON button at the rear, and the two front function buttons (Fn1 and Fn2) falling perfectly for the third and fourth fingers, controlling the camera is an intuitive pleasure. As you’d expect, there is plenty of customisation potential with the Z 6III’s many buttons and various lens controls, including three user modes to which regularly used features can be assigned. Hold the camera up to the eye and I challenge anyone not to be impressed with the EVF image. Its large, fine detail looks incredibly well-resolved and is bright... really bright. Using manual EVF brightness control, it goes up to Hi 2 or 4000 nits and has DCI-P3-equivalent colour gamut – the first mirrorless camera to have this. It’s also compatible with HLG shooting, but more on that later. The optical versus EVF debate is not what it used to be due to the big strides made in electronic finders, and the Z 6III’s is one of the very best around; it might even appease those optical finder diehards. Maybe. The Z 6III’s hybrid credentials are impressive. We’ve mentioned internal 6K/60p Raw video recording and a vari-angle monitor; it additionally offers full-sensor 4K with frame rates up to 60p, plus 100p and 120p (with
WORDS & IMAGES BY WILL CHEUNG
YOU’RE NOT STRUGGLING for choice if you’re in the market for a full-frame hybrid, with the Canon EOS R6 Mark II (£2000), Panasonic Lumix S5 II X (£1899) and Sony A7 IV (£2079) all excellent machines with plenty to offer. These quoted street prices are for body only, so the Nikon Z 6III at £2699 is significantly more expensive; it’s also much more expensive than the Z 6II, which was £1999 at the time of launch and is now in the shops for £1599. The Z 8 and Z 9 have stacked sensors and both reap the rewards of that super high-speed technology with their abilities, but it comes at a price. The partially stacked sensor in the Z 6III gives a fast readout without the cost of a fully stacked sensor. The benefits include improved AF and tracking skills, full-width 6K/60p Raw video which is recordable to internal memory and flash sync at 1/60sec with the electronic shutter. Factor in a very bright 5.76m-dot EVF, fully articulating monitor, 8EV benefit in-body image stabiliser (the most seen in a Nikon body), 20fps Raw shooting or 60fps with full-frame JPEGs as well as pre-capture, and the Z 6III seems a compelling proposition despite its lofty price tag. The camera’s body form follows in the footsteps of the Z 6/7, though
LOGICAL LAYOUT The Z 6III’s body design takes its cue from its predecessors. Control layout is great a crop) and a full-size HDMI port. Autofocus has also been improved from its predecessor with AF 3D tracking and subject recognition, both benefiting from the faster readout of the sensor. Nikon hasn’t been a big advocate of fully articulating monitors on its Z series, but we’ve seen two cameras come out recently with the feature: the Z f and now the Z 6III. I’m neither a vlogger nor a YouTuber; however, a camera monitor that faces forward is an obvious benefit and saves hooking up an external screen via HDMI. Before all you still photographers start feeling neglected, let me
Capture feature is JPEG-only, but there’s the option of capturing frames at 0.3, 0.5 and 1sec before full shutter release, and the post-release burst can be set at 1, 2 or 3secs, or Max. Set Max and keep your finger down on the shutter button, and you’ll end up with hundreds of shots. The Z 6III can shoot 14-bit Raws at 14fps with the normal shutter, which increases to 20fps with the electronic shutter. I did speed shooting and buffer tests using an Angelbird 512GB CFexpress B card rated at 1785MB/s and a Lexar 2000x SD card. With the CFexpress B card in continuous high extended mode,
reassure you that the Z 6III has plenty to offer. Its 24.5-megapixel sensor is a high-performing unit, as you can see from its ISO performance (see the separate panel). There’s Pixel Shift shooting (at four, eight, 16 or 32 frames) plus Pre-Release Capture, which kicks in at C30 and C60 for full-frame shots, and C120 where you get DX format (24x16mm) and ten-megapixel files. Olympus got its Pro Capture bang on from the start with the ability to shoot Raws. Rivals, including Nikon, have been slow in embracing pre- capture – and with varying degrees of success. The Z 6III’s Pre-Release
32 Photography News | Issue 117
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