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

Great Camera!
I shoot basketball games and purchased the Z-8 with that in mind. Did after speaking with a colleague about his experience with the Z8 and I have been very happy. Prior to the Z-8 I used a D4S, D500, Z-6 amongst others. I absolutely love the Z8. The autofocus is fantastic, very fast and picks up focus well. The viewfinder is very fast and responsive so no flicker or blanking while shooting – really just like shoot with a DSLR so it’s very easy to track the action. The images are sharp. ISO range is good and works quite well at higher ISO – allows me to shoot using an F4 lens that I have instead of having to use my 2.8. The auto-iso seems to work pretty well though I don’t need it for indoor basketball with fixed lighting and manual shooting. I do enjoy the specialize focus for where it can grab the eye point for focus. I use that more for non-sports. Not heavy and not too big, easy to carry. You can add a vertical grip to make it more like a Z-9 but it’s basically the same camera without the vertical grip (so I understand). This is the best camera I own now. The autofocus is really good from what I have scene and I don’t think anyone would be disappointed if they purchased one.

Nikon….Bye Bye.
Excellent camera on paper but in reality, it’s more marketing than anything else on many aspects! The video image quality is superb but that doesn’t make it a video camera but more a very good camera! So yes, the technical sheet makes you dream, 8k60 nraw, pro res raw, 4k oversampled, 4k120 without crop, almost zero rolling shutter, very good in low light and robust body but in reality and me who was looking for a camera for video mainly, I turned to Nikon, after having moved from Sony and Lumix but what a mistake! in my opinion and according to what I’m obviously looking for, Nikon is an excellent brand but they are years behind Lumix for video, autofocus on a gimbal with fast rear movements, are a disaster even with a native lens and specific settings, the Z8’s autofocus is far behind Lumix S5IIX in video, except in low light, the body is made of plastic so it heats up a lot! I tried several types of cf express but where I am it’s hot it’s impossible to film a video shoot outdoors! In short Lumix’s strong point is to make their cameras compatible with SSDs but Nikon will not do it because they will not be able to do it on their range above Z9, in any case for me it’s a first on Nikon and the last time, paying 4000usd for a video camera, which limits you in your actions, it’s not worth it. Bad AF video, overheating, cf express too expensive, N-log to rec709 weak compared to v-log and s-log3, believe me stay away from Nikon cameras for the moment!, I’ll come back one day maybe but not now.UPDATE>Ok, I’m coming back to the z8’s autofocus, I almost sold it and I still decided to buy the 50mm 1.4 z, a latest-gen native lens, to see how the AF works and I have to say that in video, it’s now very, very good! it manages to surpass my s5IIX in autofocus, after some research, I saw a lot of possibilities to improve the camera that heats up, like a Zitay SSD to the express cf or Exascend pro or element pro cards for example with lower voltage 1.25v at 400mb/s, so this card should be the best for this camera, I’ll get back to you on that soon but in practice in h265 or Nraw 4k 30p, you can film for more than 2 hours without the camera emitting a signal which is a pretty good sign! I also improved the Nlog to the rec709 on Davinci resolve because the one given by Nikon was bad! with just a few options on the software and the use of RED luts, it becomes very very good. in short, with patience… so I change my rating, only morons don’t change their opinion.

A wonderful camera, but there’s a learning curve
I’ve been a Nikon user for decades and come from the D850. The D850 is a great camera but the weight and clunk the mirror makes make it a problem at times. The Z8 solves those issues. It is also very nice that I can use all my D850 batteries. I got the Z 14-24mm f2.8 which is amazing. I will now refi my house and sell my fist born to get other Z lenses.I upgraded the software to version 2.0 which went smoothly. I set about configuring the camera to the way I shoot. The options for setting the way the shutter, viewfinder mode, histogram display and monitor interact are quite complex. I called Nikon when I got stuck. They have live help which I appreciate. They told me about the viewfinder mode button which I did not know existed. Beyond that they could not answer my questions and said that they would get back to me. They never did.So I went and did a flowchart of how all the factors noted above modify the camera’s behavior. It took me about five hours of hard work but I got it all figured out. Hint: it all starts with setting playback menu > picture review on. Now, the photo I just took appears in the viewfinder which is great because on a sunny day, the monitor is hard to see. I can also press the ok button and see a histogram. Its hard to imagine that the Z8 could not be set up to satisfy even the most demanding user.The “user’s manual” the camera comes with is a joke. It’s tiny and contains only the barest information. You will need to go online for the real manual. There is a problem here. In many places, the manual refers to a “G Button” followed by “A” and “U”. There is no such thing. It means nothing. I called and they told me (after a lot of “checking”) that it was a “typo.” Seems to me that a $4K complex camera from a big manufacturer could put more effort into the manual.I love the camera. It’s a big step up from a DSLR.

Su capacidad de auto-enfoque en los ojos del sujeto asi como su rapidez, la sensación de robustez, son tantas cosas que son fabulosas en esta camara!