Photos from the new Nikon Zf

A mini review

I wasn’t going to do it. Even though it caught my eye, I wasn’t going to do it. But it looked so cool. I got tempted and browsed the online store. It was sold out in black, but grey and green were available. For. $100. More. I wasn’t going to pay $100 more for a special color. I wanted black.

I decided not to do it.

Then I went back to the store a week or so later, and black was available for pre-order. We were driving to Duluth, and I was in the passenger seat.

“Should I do it?” I asked my wife.

“Why not?” she answered.

Done. I bought it.

It showed up a day or two after it was officially released; I had bought a Nikon Zf.

The Zf is a retro-style camera with a modern operating system. It’s almost a Nikon Z 8 stuffed into a smaller body with the 24mp sensor from the Nikon Z 6. Here it is wearing a homemade climbing rope strap while sitting next to my old Nikon FM3a.

I have a hard time writing reviews about cameras, because either they are going to work for me or they aren’t. The Nikon Zf works for me, especially with the Z 40mm f/2 lens. The lens has some optical flaws, but I find them charming. It also works great with the 24-70mm f/4 or the 35mm f/1.8 and it can drive my 100-400mm just the same as my Z 8. But, the first three lenses are smaller and seem to fit it better. I do wish that Sigma would offer some of their smaller lenses with aperture rings for the Z system. If I were to use it on an outdoor adventure, I’d likely glue the Z 24-120 f/4 S to it.

There’s something about the size — I know people complain about the lack of a big grip but I like that it doesn’t have that — that’s about perfect for me as a carry around camera. Since I got this, it’s a constant companion. It’s almost always slung over my shoulder and resting on my back. It’s almost like a fashion accessory and takes photos. When it isn’t there, it’s slim size allows it to fit into bags that a camera with a bulky grip wouldn’t, such as my bike bag.

And, wow, does it take photos. The following photo of fireworks was shot at ISO 6,400, f/4.5 and 1/50th of a second. I was handholding it down to a quarter of a second and getting sharp shots during these fireworks.

The sensor from the Nikon Z 6 has always been an amazing sensor for night and low-light photography. It seems to have gotten better. It’s now also lightning fast for focus because it uses the same system as the Z 8 and Z 9.

I’m mainly using this as a camera that I carry around town and shoot the strange little things that I like to shoot while walking around town.

It also works great for filming videos and shooting selfies. The selfie is below. The camera autofocuses on your eyeball and gives you a two second countdown on the flippy screen when you turn the flippy screen to the front of the camera. If you want to see a video I shot with it, you can watch one about all the gear, including photography gear, that I took on my recent bikepacking trip across Minnesota. This camera actually makes me want to go out and film more videos. I think it is because it has one of those flippy screens that you can face towards yourself. I don’t have to run a HDMI cable to external monitor or try to use a funky mirror to see myself. That same flippy screen also snaps into the back of the camera backwards to hide the LCD. That’s usually how I use it.

It doesn’t have a lot of buttons, so you have to make more decisions on what your priorities are. I have the shutter button programed to AF-ON and Auto Area AF plus Subject Detection. The front function button is Single Point AF plus AF-ON. The AE-L/AF-L button is programed to AF-ON and 3D Focus with the point in the center. That works well for what I use it for. I do wish that you could program a button to do AF-ON, AF Area and AF Mode with one button push. Then I’d change the front function button to AF-ON, AF-S, Single Point, but Nikon doesn’t let you do that with any Z camera as far as I can tell.

When in photo mode, I programmed the record button to give me quick access to the top item in the “My Menu.” I have that set as Auto ISO On/Off, but below that I have Airplane Mode, Format Memory Card, Bluetooth Connection (which is great if or when it works — Nikon needs to fix their SnapBridge), and Wireless remote (ML-L7) options, and finally Non-CPU Lenses for when I want to shoot an old manual focus adapted lens.

There’s a new focus mode that locks onto an eye to allow you zoom in for manual focus. It rocks and makes shooting my old Contax G Zeiss Sonnar T* 90mm f/2.8 or my Voigtlander Nokton 75mm f/1.5 a breeze.

Missing are the shooting banks from the Z 8, which is a bummer. I wish I could program the delete button to do something other than delete. I’d also love to have a focus button on the front of the camera like the Z 8 has. But I can’t complain too much because the viewfinder has the same round eyepiece that the Z 8 and Z 9 have. I can’t stand the ones on the rest of the Z cameras.

I’m mainly shooting in Aperture Priority (as always), with Auto ISO ON. I can override the ISO to make it higher when needed by quickly turning the ISO dial. The shutter speed dial basically does nothing except sit there and look pretty. I’m fine with that because I love the look.

But, it does shoot and focus fine while riding a bike and following your friend on a sunset bike ride.

It works great for portraits.

Including bike portraits…

I usually look at cameras as a tool to use and seldom fall in love with them. In the recent past, I fell in love with the Ricoh GRIII. But I’ve brushed aside that fling for a chance at love with the Zf.

I don’t know what more I can say about it. I love this camera. It makes me want to go shooting, and I don’t know what more you could ask for.

Until next time

And that’s my mini-review of the Nikon Zf. I hope that you found it useful and thanks for reading today. I’ll see you again in two weeks.

p.s. buy my calendar and sign up for my winter photo workshop.