Nikon Z 8 with Zoom Lens | Professional full-frame mirrorless hybrid stills/video hybrid camera with 24-120mm f/4 lens | Nikon USA Model

Upgraded from a Z5, and have been using this Z8 camera for 2 months now, shooting north of 7,000 photos since, high res JPG, no RAW, mostly scenes in interior halls and rooms, think VIP's, surrounding people and gatherings. I change some basic settings in the setup, throw the camera in fully automatic mode and just focus on finding the best angles and capture expressions and interactions discreetly, without having to worry about the technicalities. The fact that you can change your audible shutter options is a wonderful upgrade from the 5.The Z8 stacked image sensor is amazing, capturing images that are arguably sharper, better color, greater pixel count resulting in more detail, excellent dynamic range, and almost miraculous high-speed performance. Really impressed.The included kit lens is very good, but will give you depth of field distortion at higher zoom values, more so than on the Z5 with it's NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR kit lens. But the F4 all the way on this lens is great, giving fantastic shots. The natural light setting allows for really amazing shots indoors without flash, with excellent results. Battery life is as expected. Not much of a learning curve if you come from the Nikon family of cameras, everything is intuitive and so customizable. The Speed of the autofocus is outstanding, so is the sharpness of the images. Love the "touch the screen, focus and take photo" feature in one easy finger movement.Definitely heavier than the Z5 but the results are worth the extra weight for sure. I use a wrist strap instead of a neck strap, that helps with weight support.Not a fan of the XDC-card slot, as I don't use the camera to capture video at all, but the SD-card slot is what I prefer. Miss the dual SD-Card setup on the Z5 but worth the tradeoff.Price here was right, and the 5 stars are definitely earned by this lovely, well built piece of equipment. Well done, Nikon.

The media could not be loaded. I have been a long time shooter of the Nikon brand. I have been using their cameras since the old Nikon film SLR cameras. With the move to mirrorless, the first two generations left a lot to be desired. My Z5, and Z6 offered a nice experience but you really had to know your camera in order to deal with it’s less than perfect auto focusing issues. Trying to nail focus with those cameras had become an art form that had to be perfected. Then they released the $5500, beast of a camera, Z9. This camera gave us a taste of just how good a nikon with reliable auto focus and premium features could be. The problem with the Z9 was that the larger body and the much more expensive $5500 price tag did not appeal to most of us. I tested the Z9 out after preordering it and was not a fan of the full body size and weight so i cancelled the preorder and decided to wait for something great.Two and a half years later, they finally gave me what i wanted, the Z8. It had all the features and proven autofocus of the Z9 with a much more attractive price tag and stuffed it in a body that felt more like a D850 than the previous Z6-Z7II bodies. Finally i got a camera that was worthy of the Nikon name. The Z8 feels great in the hand and just looks how a professional camera should.It’s 45mp sensor gives you a ton of resolution for those that like to crop in or edit with full detail in post. The BSI CMOS sensor is stacked and renders a beautiful full frame image with colors that are synonymous to the Nikon brand. The images that come out of this camera are some of my favorites amongst all camera manufacturers. I shoot with Fujifilm, Sony and Canon, so i have a lot of experience and reference points with these brands.The shutterless design seemed like a gimmick that i did not think i was going to like when it was announced on the Z9. After doing a couple of shoots, it has really grown on me and now i see a lot of benefit in it. You can adjust the volume level of the artificial shutter sound. This is perfect for events where silence is important and the sound of a full frame shutter slapping could create an annoyance. There is a sensor shield that you can turn on to close when the camera is powered off. That allows you to change lenses in the field without the concerns of dust, dirt and droplets making its way onto your sensor.The Z8 boasts a good collection of frame rates for photography. Being able to shoot at 20 fps at full resolution and RAW is more than i will ever need. But there is a whopping 120 fps mode as well as 30 fps and 60 fps in JPEG only for those who really want to pinpoint the perfect moment of motion and do not need the flexibility of a RAW file. These frame rates are amazing and will definitely be something for me to play around with in the future.Unlike the Z9 the Z8 only has one Cfexpress type b card slot instead of the dual cfe slots. Instead it has an SD UHSII card slot as the second slot. For what i shoot, this is more than sufficient and works out well as i have a ton of SD cards just waiting to be used. The Cfexpress type B card has blistering fast writing speeds and is the best media on the market IMO.The Z8 has all the video specs of the Z9 but at a compromise. The smaller body does not handle heat as well and therefore will not give you the same record times as the Z9. The battery of the Z8 will also play a factor in these record times. 4K frames range from 24fps all the way to 120fps for amazing slow motion video. The Z8 also adopts the Z9’s ability to record in 8K. This future proofs your camera. I have recorded in 8K a handful of times just so that i could have the flexibility to zoom in and out of a shot and still be able to maintain a 4K image quality. Then i can render the entire file at 4K.Nikon made a bold statement when they created the Z8. They are no longer holding back when it comes to the features and performance of their newer released cameras. It’s a great time to be a Nikon shooter.

Upgraded from my old DSLR. super pleased with the image quality so far. Got it with the FTZ adapter so I can use my old lenses. Loads of great features. The eye recognition alone is worth it. Tilt screen on the back makes getting low angle from a vehicle or boat so much easier! Can’t wait to take this out on safari next year! But I have a lot of practice to do before then. Menus are a bit different. Programmable function buttons will be nice.

I like it, nice upgrade from the D850. A lot of new features which can be read about and reviewed elsewhere. Much faster frames per second (I limit my bird shots to 3 frames per burst though it is capable of doing 20 per second in RAW). Light, nice features. The one thing I miss from the D850 is the ability to lock the focus point with the flip of a lever on the back of the camera body, here you have to go into the menu and it is not done quickly. Having the inability to easily switch from locked focus point to unlocked leaves me with hitting the toggle often when carrying the lens and then wondering why I can't focus on the bird (in my case generally) - Oh! There is why, the point has inadvertently walked over to the far right or left corner. One other down side that some other friends have mentioned is that a close focus distances I often have to manual focus first before using the autofocus because the lens just hunts for that which I am trying to lock on. Didn't have this problem with the D850. But no way would I go back to DSLR after using mirrorless.

There’s not really enough room here to review every feature this camera offers. Check out other review sites. All I can say is after shooting this camera for a few months and many different scenarios, it is a really amazing camera.