As many of you know, I have had my Nikon D850 since the beginnig of it’s existence. I did pre-order the D850, and never regreted it. Despite needing to replace the body due to some electronics failure.. It was a true workhorse, I don’t know how mayn images I shoot with it, but it never let me down. I took it to Icland where we had rain and the vulcano, in Arosa I was shooting at -20°C or in the hot sands of the canyons in the US. This is the type of camera I need.
With all the mirror-less camera hype, I was kind of looking for a replacement at some point.I was a bit jelous of the AF systems of the Sonys an Canons, but changing a system, was not an option for me. When Nikon anounced the Z9, I was hoping to see a mini-Z9 soon as the Z9 was really too much for my needs.,It took some time to see the Z8 beeing anounced. I focsed more on drone fotography and other things, as I’ve lost a bit the lust of taking photos. The Z8 is not really a small camera, but I thought it must be right for me… having large hands and coming from the D850, I am used to some hardware!
The Body…
Finaly Nikon announced the Z8 in the spring of 2023, I had my summer vacation already planned, I order the Z8 body and three lenses. Also having my 50th birthday this year, I thought I can make myself this birthday present 😉
The Lenses..
I used to carry around the “classiclal three” and the very long zoom:
- 14-24mm f2.8,
- 24-70mm f2.8
- 70-200mm f4 (yes, not the f2.89
- 200-500mm f5.6
So I looked at the Z-Lenses of Nikon, to see what could match my “standard” set of lenses, and maybe I can get away with one less..
As most of my photography is around landscape, I don’t really need a f2.8, further the image stabilization of the new camera system, can compensate a stop or two.
I ended up with these four wonderful lenses:
- Nikorr 14-30mm f4
- Nikorr 24.120mm f4
- Nikorr 100-400mm f5.6-6.3
The reason I’ve selected these lesnes are:
- full focal range, from 14 to 400mm with 3 lenses
- quite compact size of the lenses, I can now carry all three lenses with me, and still have space for the Mavic drone in my backpack
- excellent image performance
The Images…
I’ve recived the camera and the lenses in time for the 5 weeks of vacation on the Azores. And wow, the images have turened our beautiful! The AF system of the Z8 is amazing, it tracks the faces of the kids as perfect as a mountainline in the sunset. I have not talked about the videocapabilities of the camera, but I started to take quite a lot of videos too.. so stay tuned for that.
I was amazed the shoots I was able to take, from little insects hovering on flowers, to large vistas. And the images have been exceptionally sharp.
Thank you Nikon for bring back my excitment for the photography…
