Nikon Z6 / Z7 Photos....

Brilliant thread so far. I haven't had a chance to get out with the Novoflex M adapter and Leica lenses yet, but otherwise have found it a very easy camera to get along with and even the f/4 kit zoom is very good and definitely not ye dodgy kit zoom of yore.

I've found that I really like the EVF for carefully composed shots wider than 50mm. Age has saddled me with progressive lens spectacles and it turns out that the Z7 EVF gives sufficient eye relief to allow me to view the entire frame. With M bodies with 35mm lens mounted I find I'm already having to move my head around a bit to check each corner of frame lines.

Goes without saying that EVF and Image Stabilisation are Good to Have for focal lengths much longer than 50mm.

Which does make one wonder :)
 
The one huge advantage I like with the Z7 (as compared to the Monochrom or any M for that matter) are the 493 focus points. This is particularly advantageous for me when I’m shooting at wider apertures and want to set the point of focus off to the side or even into a corner. With the Monochrom, if I’m focusing on a dynamic subject at f/2 or 2.8, sometimes the focus changes when I reframe the shot after focusing. The EVF isn’t much better because you can’t shift the focus point in it. Might just be me though!
 
What better thing to do on New Year's Day than more camera testing! I feel like I'm back at Ryerson in Hans Westerblom's 3rd year undergrad tech class :)

Thought I'd try a very contrasty situation to see how each camera does. I'm using the 50/1.8 and 35/1.8 on the Nikon, and the 50/1.4 Summilux ASPH and 35/1.4 Summilux ASPH on the Monochrom 246. For a bit more consistency I had each camera on a tripod, each set to the same exposure (1/4000 @ f/2.8, ISO 320). As far as focusing went, I used LiveView for both -- one thing I did not do in the case of the Leica was to refocus when I shifted the initial focus point to the right side. With the Nikon (due to the advantage of its being able to shift focus points in the viewfinder/screen), I did. The whole process took about 10 minutes, so the lighting conditions were pretty much the same (sunny morning, no clouds).

Rather than having you guys play the guessing game, I just named each file what they are. The first set of shots are OOC RAW -- I zeroed everything out in Adobe Camera RAW for all the shots, and these are the results. I purposely exposed them this way to test the limits of each being able to render both the highlights and the shadows, in addition to my subsequent ability to 'recover' detail in each:


Nikon Z 50-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom50-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 50-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom50-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 35-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom35-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 35-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom35-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

Just a recap -- first set of shots are with the 50mm lenses, shot at f/2.8, OOC RAW. First shots focused on the center, then second shots shifted to the right side (though I did not refocus the Leica). Second set are with the 35mm lenses, same procedure.
 
Same photos as above, but 'corrected'. I adjusted all of them to the best I thought I could in Adobe Camera RAW. No sharpening at all, but I adjusted the highlights, shadows, exposure, curves, levels etc to see what could be done with the files. I tried to make them all as close as possible to each other. Additionally I included a tight crop of each shot showing the point of focus (in the case of the Leica 'corner' shots, I just went with the original point of focus that was in the 'center' shots). Here are the results:


Nikon Z 50 Corrected-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom 50 Corrected-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 50 Corrected Crop-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom 50 Corrected Crop-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 50 Corrected-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom 50 Corrected-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 50 Corrected Crop-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom 50 Corrected Crop-2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 35 Corrected-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom 35 Corrected-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Nikon Z 35 Corrected Crop-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Leica Monochrom 35 Corrected Crop-1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
All in all, it looks pretty much the same. Some slight differences in tones (as you would expect for the MM), and small differences in bokeh.

Have you played with the B&W sliders in ACR, to adjust the Z7's tones to try and match the MM?

I think comparing prints would be your next step.

Thanks for posting these!
 
Larry H-L said:
All in all, it looks pretty much the same. Some slight differences in tones (as you would expect for the MM), and small differences in bokeh.

Have you played with the B&W sliders in ACR, to adjust the Z7's tones to try and match the MM?

I think comparing prints would be your next step.

Thanks for posting these!
Click to expand...

No not at all - I've never really used them. Maybe I'm missing out!

Yes the next step is prints, and I also want to try some low light / high ISO photos.
 
oh my goodness
i am startled at what I found I prefered

in your first set of Images quite a number from the Nikon Iprefered
miss Nikon seemed to have a brighter, airier, less muddy, crisper Image
as for ‘correcting imagery’
there were quite a few I preferred untouched...

To my Eye: The Monochrom did great but the Nikon seemed to have a tad more brightness in rendering light, a tad more sharp

I will have to go back and look again but on a big screen computer not ipad ...

Happy 2020!
 
One of the things I kinda like about the Z(6, in my case), is that I can attach a fancy autofocus lens and use all the “pro” photographer tricks, like Auto ISO, back-button focus or AF-C large area Servo blah blah blah.
Or, I can put on one of my old fashioned, manual focus rangefinder lenses on it, and pretend I have an old(er) SLR in my hands and feel like a “real” photographer, adjusting focus and exposure all by myself ( that's a joke, please don’t call or write).
In short, a fun camera to use. I wish it was even more compact, like a film M camera, but you can’t have everything.

Thanks, Vince, for the illustrative tests!
 
One thing I’ve noticed - particularly in the ‘crops’ - is that the ‘grain’ in the Nikon photos is more defined, less mushy. Other thing is that of course the Nikon is sharper when I shift the point of focus to the right side of the frame. Other than that, the tones are pretty close. They both seem to retain their highlights and shadows fairly equally - here again, I’m not sure if that’s saying more about the 24mp CMOS sensor without the Bayer filter, or the 45mp sensor with it (I don’t think I’m qualified to weigh in on those technical matters as I’m not up on all the nuances of sensor construction - my assessments are more ‘seat-of-the-pants’).

Next step is low light testing and of course some prints!
 
oldwino said:
One of the things I kinda like about the Z(6, in my case), is that I can attach a fancy autofocus lens and use all the “pro” photographer tricks, like Auto ISO, back-button focus or AF-C large area Servo blah blah blah.
Or, I can put on one of my old fashioned, manual focus rangefinder lenses on it, and pretend I have an old(er) SLR in my hands and feel like a “real” photographer, adjusting focus and exposure all by myself ( that's a joke, please don’t call or write).
In short, a fun camera to use. I wish it was even more compact, like a film M camera, but you can’t have everything.

Thanks, Vince, for the illustrative tests!
Click to expand...

Of course! I enjoy doing comparisons like this. It seriously does take me back to 3rd year undergrad tech at Ryerson - back then (1992-1993) I did a comparison such as this with three Leica screwmount lenses - the 50/2 Summar, the 50/2 collapsible Summicron and the 50/1.5 Summarit (measured them all on an M3 body). I used the RIT lens test charts for the first round of testing with Tech Pan 2415 film (ISO 25), then did some ‘real world’ tests just like this one at different aperture settings etc on both neg and slide film. The results were rather interesting - the Summicron of course was the overall top dog, but jeez that little uncoated Summar did pretty well too. Both it and the Summicron resolved at 79.4 l/mm at f/5.6. I still have the tests and the rest of the report all these years later. Cool thing was that I sent a copy of it to Hughes Leitz Optical Technologies in Midland, Ontario, and Conrad Stenton, then the Chief Technology Engineer, invited me to come for a personal tour of the facilities. Quite a thrill, to say the least!

BTW just for comparison I weighed the Monochrom and the Summilux lens together against the Nikon and the 50/1.8 (plus Gordy straps on each set). 1109 grams for the Monochrom, 1161 grams for the Nikon.
 
Just made a print of the 6th photo I took with the Z7. Is it a Monochrom-killer? Um....maybe! Well if not a killer, then certainly a formidable rival!

11"x16" print on 13"x19" Epson Legacy Baryta with my 3880. Go on - stick your nose against it :)


Lee's Print Z7 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
Thanks, Vince for doing this. For what it’s worth, I have found the Z7 files to be uncommonly malleable so there is much that can be done with tones without introducing artifacts, if one chooses to do so. I almost bought an updated M9 Monochrom last week, just to do some comparisons, and am personally more interested in the CCD tonality than the CMOS sharpness of the newer Monochrom (another can of worms), but have too many cameras already, and have been very pleased over the last year with the tonal capabilities of the Z7 sensor. Will be interested in seeing how you eventually come down on all this.
The S glass for the Z system are really sharp and well corrected bargains (relatively speaking), the 35 being perhaps slightly less loved than the others, but Nikon’s claims about the optical benefits of the new mount seem legitimate.
Thanks, again.
 
Personally - and I've mentioned this a number of times in other threads - I've never detected that 'CCD magic' that supposedly emanates from the first Monochrom. I've shot both, printed both, exhibited both side-by-side, and I'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and the 246 (perhaps my eyes aren't as finely attuned as others!). On the flipside, I've never really detected much of a superior sharpness to the 246 images over the M9M. Where I have detected an improvement in the 246 is the increased 'headroom' in the files. At base ISO the files are clean - in some cases almost too clean. But that gives me (here again, just talking about my personal working methods) much more flexibility in terms of being able to work with the files. As you say regarding the Z7, 'malleable'. I like that.

Just took this shot of my loving wife - hopefully she won't get tired of all this camera 'testing'! At ISO 1600, with the 85/1.8, shot at f/2.


New Year's Riley Z7 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
Nice addition Larry -- I can't be the only one here!

Doing a tiny bit of low light testing -- normally I wouldn't shoot at these speeds, but interesting to try. My wife again as the test pilot....


ISO 6400:


NYT Z7 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


ISO 12800:


12800 Riley Z7 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

Both shot with the new 24-70/2.8 S (Z) lens wide open. Neither one of these has had any post-production noise reduction applied (though I think I have 'normal' high-ISO noise reduction selected in the camera). I don't mind the 6400 - actually the 'grain' is quite pleasing. I don't think I'd ever have a need to shoot at 12800 - not a fan of the look (reminds me of TMax 3200, which I never liked).
 
Vince Lupo said:
Nice addition Larry -- I can't be the only one here!
.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Vince. I will see what I can do.

I love the lighting in the NYT photo. The hand, obviously, but also the highlight surrounding the “Just trust God” in the paper. Inadvertent, I would imagine, but a detail that adds another dimension to the photo, regardless.
Or, maybe I just watched “Blowup” too many times.:)
 
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