Nikon’s new mirrorless system, coming in ... late September 2018

[SrMi]

Great camera, great lens (24-70 S). Did not see any issues in corners when using test charts ... on contrary. Few primes are as good.

Tested also Z1 with 90mm Tamron Macro vs a7rIII with Sony 90mm Macro, AF-C mode, f.2.8, low light. Similar focusing speed, except that Sony occasionally starts oscillating.

The camera is very quick and switches quickly between record and play. This may be trivial for people used to DSLR, but not to those who are using mirrorless cameras.

Great ergonomics, almost as good as D850 :-).

[jeremyrh]

https://photographylife.com/nikon-z7-first-impressions-and-sample-photos

Did any of you notice the high vignetting and "huge" drop off sharpness in the corners that it's mentioned in the above first take?

No I didn't, but I didn't look for it.

The Arca-Swiss incompatibility with the FTZ thing is potentially annoying. I guess you can use the tripod mount on the FTZ itself.

[armand]

I'm sure DPR's latest headline will displease some.

Banding means Nikon Z7 cant match D850 dynamic range.

It is not ideal, I really wanted a D850 sensor in that Z7 body. Interestingly at ISO 100 is less obvious that at ISO 64 but there it's behind the A7R iii.

[BJL]

https://photographylife.com/nikon-z7-first-impressions-and-sample-photos

Did any of you notice the high vignetting and "huge" drop off sharpness in the corners that it's mentioned in the above first take?

That reviewer seems to have had a polarising filter on when he saw the vignetting; if so, that’s crazy. (Who tests lens quality with any filter on?!)

[BernardLanguillier]

That reviewer seems to have had a polarising filter on when he saw the vignetting; if so, that’s crazy. (Who tests lens quality with any filter on?!)

Interesting, I'll do some tests when I find the time.

I normally use ultra-thin PL filters though, there may be no issue.

I have double checked in Lightroom and I don't see the reported sharpness drop, but I have not photographed flat test charts, so it's hard to tell for sure.

Cheers,
Bernard

[kers]

That reviewer seems to have had a polarising filter on when he saw the vignetting; if so, that’s crazy. (Who tests lens quality with any filter on?!)

"The 24-70mm f/4 lens also has a couple flaws, despite its overall impressive image quality.
For one, at f/4, it has very high levels of vignetting across the zoom range, to the degree that I had to double check whether or not I was capturing my polarizing filter in the edges of the photo (I wasn’t)."

[Dan Wells]

If he had a PL on, I wonder if it was stacked with a UV filter - any 24mm will vignette like crazy with two full-thickness filters. PL filters can also cause vignetting on their own, both due to the thickness of the filter rings and due to the polarizer itself.

     

[Christopher]

Didn’t he say already that he didn’t....


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[BJL]

Didn’t he say already that he didn’t....


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He said that the edge of the filter was not the cause, but implies that the filter was on. Polarisation effects can dim parts of the image, so it seems a sloppy procedure. Still, I’m sure we’ll get images of gray cards or such soon enough

[JohnHeerema]

Curiosity got the better of me yesterday, so I did some Imatest testing on the new Nikon 24-70 f/4 S lens, using a large SQR-Plus target. For comparison, I also re-tested my 85mm f/1.4 prime, 70-200 f/4, and 16-35 f/4. I looked at MTF-50.

In my copy, central sharpness of the 24-70 is very good - even a bit better than the 85mm.
It's best at 70mm with a fairly large region of maximum sharpness.
At 70mm, my copy is sharpest right in the middle, so I believe that it was put together more or less correctly.
Sharpness drops off smoothly in all directions, but is dramatically lower in the corners (the corners are all about equal).
Compared to the 85mm f/1.4 at the same aperture, the peak sharpness is slightly better than the 85mm, but the 85mm is much better into the corners (this 85mm f/1.4 is exceptionally good across the entire frame).

At 24mm, some decentering is evident, with maximum sharpness about 20% off to one side of centre.
The peak sharpness is a smaller portion of the frame, and is a bit less sharp than at 70mm.
Corner sharpness drops dramatically.

At 35mm and 50mm, the only other focal lengths at which I tested, the central sharpness is very good - particularly at 50mm.
It's significantly better than my 50mm f/1.4 prime, but that's not a particularly high bar to jump.

Hope this is of some interest to potential purchasers.
This compact lens was one of my biggest drivers for getting the Z7, since I do a lot of backcountry shooting.

[Christopher]

Doesn’t sound like the amazing MTFs are holding up. I really need tontest that myself, but your description sounds underwhelming.


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[kers]

I would not expect a compact 24-70 zoom to be perfect wide open, but the corners should be good enough at f8.
24-70mm, is a difficult range to get everything right. The VR 2.8 version has very good coatings and did not disappoint me- more than good enough always.
But now how good is the 50mm and 35mm lens? They should be really good.

[alan_b]

Corner sharpness drops dramatically.

Thanks. 

Did you check field curvature, or focus at center and let corners fall where they may?  What target distance?

[JohnHeerema]

The focus was at centre, so the results will be affected by whatever curvature there is in the focal plane.
That's pretty much how it has to be when you use a flat chart (which is pretty much universal).

My chart distance is 55 focal lengths.

[JohnHeerema]

If I'd been thinking more clearly, I would have moved a zoomed-in view around the frame to see if I could get better visual sharpness in the corners by focusing on them. Another time.

Nikon's theoretical MTFs are pretty amazing - but they only show MTF 10 and MTF 30. I'm not surprised that MTF 50 doesn't hold out right to the corners, although I confess that I'd hoped that they would hold up better than they do on my copy. 

Still though, it's a very decent lens, and the sharpness around 35-50mm is outstanding.

[armand]

I'm quite conflicted by these findings, I'm very tempted to cancel my order (so far only the adapter shipped). If I get it I want a big step in quality compared to what I have, the positive reviews might be new toy excitement.

[kers]

I'm quite conflicted by these findings, I'm very tempted to cancel my order (so far only the adapter shipped). If I get it I want a big step in quality compared to what I have, the positive reviews might be new toy excitement.

Why don't you wait a bit, rent the camera to check it out...
I am sure there are some things that could be better since its their first FF ML.
For one the sensor needs a very short read-out-time  to make it more useful; am not sure were these new ML's stands and there will be tests and reviews all over the place.
I have a d850 and that serves me well...  although i see the benefit of ML in some cases.
 (and still have the lightweight nikon1 that i really like and can combine with all my nikkors)

[SrMi]

"The 24-70mm f/4 lens also has a couple flaws, despite its overall impressive image quality.
For one, at f/4, it has very high levels of vignetting across the zoom range, to the degree that I had to double check whether or not I was capturing my polarizing filter in the edges of the photo (I wasn’t)."

The vignetting at f/4 is corrected automatically by Capture NX-D (when converting to TIFF) but is not corrected by Lightroom. Maybe we need to wait for Lightroom update to recognize and correct the lens properly.

[JohnHeerema]

The Z7 is pretty good, considering that it's Nikon's first FF mirrorless.
There are a few things that I hope get addressed in a future firmware update though:

One of the really nice things about aperture priority shooting on Nikon DSLRs is that you can modify the shutter speed selected based on 1/focal length, plus or minus a couple stops worth of shutter speed. I use it a lot on my D800e - I bump the shutter speed up for non-stabilized lenses, and lower it for stabilized lenses. On the Z7, I can't put this setting into "My Menu", nor can I assign it to a physical button. So the best I can do is to put it into U1...U3 (speaking of which, I'm sure happy to see the U1..U3 settings, since Nikon's DSLR settings banks are, to put it as politely as I can, not incredibly well thought out).

I'm not the first person to wonder what happened to 3D subject tracking. And why the user interface for subject tracking is so awkward? Also, like almost everyone who's used the Z7, I'd love to see something like Sony's eye tracking.

I was really keen on focus stacking - in fact, it was one of my reasons for getting the Z7. Unfortunately, the user interface for focus stacking is ... awkward. The most annoying thing about it is that the live view goes away while you're setting it up, and there's no way to actually aim the camera before starting the sequence. This makes handheld focus stacks almost impossible (although I tried). This isn't because I don't believe in tripods - I do, and like to use them where possible. But a lot of my shooting is in the backcountry, where every gram counts. I can easily handhold well enough to do half a dozen shots at different focus distances, which is enough depth of field even for the very large canvas prints I make, if combined with stitching. I tried attaching this function to a control ... but I still get taken to the focus stack screen, and so I can't see what I'm trying to focus stack. Too bad - this would be such a simple firmware fix. More sensible control over the focus increments would be really handy too, and would also be easy to calculate in camera (if Nikon folks were interested, I'd be happy to help them out).

Anyway, hope this of value to someone...

[SrMi]

The Z7 is pretty good, considering that it's Nikon's first FF mirrorless.
There are a few things that I hope get addressed in a future firmware update though:

One of the really nice things about aperture priority shooting on Nikon DSLRs is that you can modify the shutter speed selected based on 1/focal length, plus or minus a couple stops worth of shutter speed. I use it a lot on my D800e - I bump the shutter speed up for non-stabilized lenses, and lower it for stabilized lenses. On the Z7, I can't put this setting into "My Menu", nor can I assign it to a physical button. So the best I can do is to put it into U1...U3 (speaking of which, I'm sure happy to see the U1..U3 settings, since Nikon's DSLR settings banks are, to put it as politely as I can, not incredibly well thought out).

I'm not the first person to wonder what happened to 3D subject tracking. And why the user interface for subject tracking is so awkward? Also, like almost everyone who's used the Z7, I'd love to see something like Sony's eye tracking.

I was really keen on focus stacking - in fact, it was one of my reasons for getting the Z7. Unfortunately, the user interface for focus stacking is ... awkward. The most annoying thing about it is that the live view goes away while you're setting it up, and there's no way to actually aim the camera before starting the sequence. This makes handheld focus stacks almost impossible (although I tried). This isn't because I don't believe in tripods - I do, and like to use them where possible. But a lot of my shooting is in the backcountry, where every gram counts. I can easily handhold well enough to do half a dozen shots at different focus distances, which is enough depth of field even for the very large canvas prints I make, if combined with stitching. I tried attaching this function to a control ... but I still get taken to the focus stack screen, and so I can't see what I'm trying to focus stack. Too bad - this would be such a simple firmware fix. More sensible control over the focus increments would be really handy too, and would also be easy to calculate in camera (if Nikon folks were interested, I'd be happy to help them out).

Anyway, hope this of value to someone...

Good comments. Focus stacking (shift) interface is the same as in D850. Unfortunately, you cannot have separate content in EVF and LCD (an advantage of OVFs).
Would like to have some in-focus notification in AF-C mode (there is in AF-S) and generate a raw file as result of multiple exposures, instead of jpg (the originals can be saved together with the merged image, so merging can occur in post).