ZF is here.

[dexdog]

Who knows. One day a young woman riding in her convertible may stop to laugh at my flip phone.

Yeah, may laugh, but much more likely to be completely mystified by a flip phone. As in WTF is that thing?

 

[wlewisiii]

Ya know, I have never really cared about how things look. I am a results guy, and I am willing to forgo/ignore/tolerate things that are different from the old 1950s RF and 1970s SLRs that I grew up using. I like the old cameras, but really love the the old lenses that I can use on my digital Sony, Nikon and Canon mirrorless. I hope that Nikon is successful with the ZF, mostly because it forestalls the takeover of photography in general from cameraphones

Eh, that battle is already lost. ILC's are a niche product to phones as film is to digital or oil on canvas is to photography. Just enjoy what you enjoy.

I love the look and feel of things like my Nikon F4 & S2.

 

[wlewisiii]

Yeah, may laugh, but much more likely to be completely mystified by a flip phone. As in WTF is that thing?

Or ask if you're filming a Star Trek episode 🤣

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I threatened my daughter with "If you lose your phone again, I'll make you use Flippy the Flip Phone"

What's interesting- in her Youth group four of the teen-aged girls asked for Film cameras. Next one given away will be a Konica C35.
Polaroids are the In thing. So is Black and White film.

 

[DownUnder]

First impressions here. This week for the first time, I had a good squiz at the Zf at my local camera shop in Brunei, where I am now.

Initially I thought, meh. Not much new here. Handles okay, ergonomics are good. Looks are fine, nicely retro. Weight (important to a 70+ year old) reasonable. Too bad about the lack of Z lenses, yes I know an adaptor is available and I could use my 10 Nikon D lenses with it, with some loss of functionality. Otherwise, not much there to heat the blood or make me open my wallet and splurge.

Price-wise, a little too rich for my blood (and my budget). Another (again, entirely personal) reason for holding off on buying is, I hesitate to pay that much for a camera not made in Japan. Top range price, cost-economy construction. Not to say Nikons out of Thailand are any less than the older models (which I believe they are, but the photo-PC rules say we aren't supposed to say this), but, well. Well.

Decision, I will wait til a few good demo or secondhand Zfs hit the market. And then buy. Maybe.

This of course is the last thing the folks at Nikon in Japan want to hear.

Why, why didn't Nikon not have the sense that Fuji did with the X-Pro series and do a new line of rangefinders? Many of us oldies can no longer carry the weight of older (Nikon etc) DSLRs and are looking for lighter gear. Let's say a Nikon rangefinder with smaller lenses as they produced in the 1950s, hit the market. I reckon the camera industry would get a massive financial shot in the arm as we all raced to buy. Secondhand shops would do well with the overflow of still eminently usable DSLRs and mirrorless Nikons being traded in. Win-win-win for everybody.

But they didn't. Instead we get a 1980s SLR copy with sort of new(ish) features. Deja vu, all over again. Is this the Century 21 way?

Interesting that in Brunei as in a few shops I visited in Singapore, Zfs are not selling. Many going in to look at and play with them - but no sales. This may change, of course. Time will tell.

Meantime, me and my D800s will go on going on. The damn things get heavier for me with every passing year, but they still produce the goods, which is what I want in a Nikon.

Only my thoughts. Not intending or looking to start another war, enough of those in our sad and sorry planet already.

 

[Pál_K]

I swear, this thread is giving me GAS like nuts.
... But I'm still drooling over the Zf, haha.

Buy it. Otherwise you'll be like me, regretting not getting the Df when new.

...
Looking across the top of the Df I can immediately see exposure mode, F-stop, Shutter Speed, exposure compensation, ISO setting, and shooting mode.
Using the Z5- I need to bring up the LCD and look for some of those things.

Parallel transfer of information versus serial transfer. Fast and easy.

That is an amazingly good analogy!

Why, why didn't Nikon not have the sense that Fuji did with the X-Pro series and do a new line of rangefinders?

The X-series controls are wonderful. So intuitive for manual, full auto, or a selected priority, plus other settings via external dedicated controls Great design - except for the cluster of buttons on the back.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

View attachment 4828330

My favorite Coffee Cup. Rocket Science- the 1980s for me. 9Terabytes was a lot of data back then. I was offered my old Job back just a few years ago.
Movie "Hidden Figures", I converted the orbitology code written for that IBM 7090 to run on the PC, then used it to generated animated graphics as it was running. All assembly language and Fortran.

Awesome. I wrote one program in Fortran and have to compile it on BESM (big electronic calculating machine). It was such a crap. Crashing several times per day.

 

[Archiver]

Buy it. Otherwise you'll be like me, regretting not getting the Df when new.

I just handled one at a shop, it felt really solid and well built. The dials all click with a positive solidity that is not present in the average camera, and the EVF is large and crisp.

Is there an Auto shutter speed setting?? I couldn't find it! Maybe Nikon names their Auto shutter setting something other than A. The shutter is well damped and has a pleasant sound, and the autofocus with the 40/2 is decent, too.

Or do I get something that will actually work with my current L mount / m43 mount systems and help with my work?? Oh, the fun of GAS.

 

[shawn]

A is aperture Priortity. You set the aperture, the camera sets the shutter speed, and ISO if you have it set to Auto ISO.
S is shutter priority. You set the shutter the camera sets the aperture, and ISO if you have it set to auto ISO.
P is program. Camera sets shutter and aperture and ISO if you have it set to auto ISO.
M is manual. You set shutter and aperture and if you have camera set to auto ISO it will pick an ISO that makes your combo of aperture and shutter work. (If Nikon allows auto ISO in Manual mode)

If you have L mount check out the S1/S1R if you can. S1R is a great camera, excellent EVF and just overall a very well done camera with some fairly rare features such as the extra aspect ratios so you can use it like an xPan.

 

[gavinlg]

I just handled one at a shop, it felt really solid and well built. The dials all click with a positive solidity that is not present in the average camera, and the EVF is large and crisp.

Is there an Auto shutter speed setting?? I couldn't find it! Maybe Nikon names their Auto shutter setting something other than A. The shutter is well damped and has a pleasant sound, and the autofocus with the 40/2 is decent, too.

Or do I get something that will actually work with my current L mount / m43 mount systems and help with my work?? Oh, the fun of GAS.

Just the little PASM switch on the left hand side of the ISO dial - easy to miss because it's quite small.

I can confirm the autofocus is stupendous on the thing - it's really at sony a7iv level and in some ways actually better. Coming from years of fuji's and only being able to use single point autofocus due to the auto and zone modes being mostly untrustworthy it feels like an actual revelation on a traditional control dial style camera. I haven't used the ZF in single point AF yet and have had an absolutely negligible amount of missed focus shots. In auto area AF it seems to have an eerie ability to know what I want to focus on, and eye detect is pretty much flawless.

One negative I can comment on is the auto ISO implementation - it's absurd. The 'C' setting that locks on the ISO dial just means you can map another button to use along with one of the command dials to change ISO. It can't be changed to toggle auto ISO on/off. No matter what you have to dive into the menu for Auto ISO. Hopefully Nikon fixes that in a FW update, but functionally for me it's not a huge deal because I never use auto ISO, and the dial itself makes it so easy to change on the fly.

The 40mm f2 is my new favourite lens - it renders a LOT like a zuiko OM 40mm f2 but just better in every way (nicer bokeh, sharper wide open, less flarey).

 

[Pál_K]

Who knows. One day a young woman riding in her convertible may stop to laugh at my flip phone.

Yeah, may laugh, but much more likely to be completely mystified by a flip phone. As in WTF is that thing?

I think these stylish Motorola phones are going to come back. This is mine, from April 1993; $60. This phone model featured prominently in the opening restaurant scene of Reservoir Dogs.

Think of the Zf and Df as digital versions of the F4.

 

[Archiver]

Just the little PASM switch on the left hand side of the ISO dial - easy to miss because it's quite small.

Ahhh I missed that completely! Now I understand, as I assumed it would have an A setting on the shutter speed dial, like Leica M and Fuji.

I can confirm the autofocus is stupendous on the thing - it's really at sony a7iv level and in some ways actually better. Coming from years of fuji's and only being able to use single point autofocus due to the auto and zone modes being mostly untrustworthy it feels like an actual revelation on a traditional control dial style camera. I haven't used the ZF in single point AF yet and have had an absolutely negligible amount of missed focus shots. In auto area AF it seems to have an eerie ability to know what I want to focus on, and eye detect is pretty much flawless.

This... does not help my GAS. I never use anything other than single point AF with face/human detection on Panasonic cameras for the same reason.

One negative I can comment on is the auto ISO implementation - it's absurd. The 'C' setting that locks on the ISO dial just means you can map another button to use along with one of the command dials to change ISO. It can't be changed to toggle auto ISO on/off. No matter what you have to dive into the menu for Auto ISO. Hopefully Nikon fixes that in a FW update, but functionally for me it's not a huge deal because I never use auto ISO, and the dial itself makes it so easy to change on the fly.

I use auto ISO most of the time, and occasionally dial it in manually for specific situations. Interesting.

The 40mm f2 is my new favourite lens - it renders a LOT like a zuiko OM 40mm f2 but just better in every way (nicer bokeh, sharper wide open, less flarey).

Yeah, that lens seemed very nice, indeed. Thank you for the input!

 

[gavinlg]

A few longer term observations and comparisons having used the ZF for 6-7 weeks now (albeit amidst a move back down to Victoria so haven't been out shooting much) -

• The body is pretty heavy. It feels more like an f3hp or F2 than a fm2. It's on the heavier side for my Lance rope strap - not quite as comfortable as a fuji X-T or X-pro body to have cross body all day.
• The ergonomics are excellent (I like flat body cameras).
• The dials are superior to the Fuji dials IMO. Switching mode is instantaneous and the clicky positive feel of the dials is wonderful. The later fuji dials feel plasticky to me.
• I don't really like the flippy screen but leaving it shut all the time makes the camera feel a lot more like a film body.
• I have not minded the lack of aperture ring on the lens, and the aperture display window on the top plate is really functional in use (plus it's quite cool looking).
• At first the threaded shutter button being non-cable release compatible perplexed me, but I realised that I can leave a soft shutter release in it all day without fear of damaging the shutter release mechanism (like people do in the recent Fuji's). Overall a good design choice IMO.
• I love the autofocus - I was going to buy some voigtlander Z mount lenses to go with the body but haven't felt inclined to as yet because the focus with the native Z lenses is just so good that I don't have to think about it. Face tracking is insane. It helps also that...
• the 40mm f2 is superb. It's got oldschool character (a bit of coma, classic bokeh) while still being modern sharp with boatloads of microcontrast (a mere 6 elements in 4 groups). It's not a flat/sterile rendering lens but yet it is dependably sharp and crisp wide open at any distance. It weighs nothing and focuses instantly. Genuinely a must buy lens. I hope nikon do more Z lenses like this one. A 105mm f2.5 would be perfect.
• Nikons colors are really on point with this body and the Z8/Z9 generation cameras. The new processor is doing some cool stuff in getting rich accurate colors without crushing shadows or highlights. Huge improvement from the older nikon digitals. Monochrome profiles are gorgeous - better than Fuji's IMO. All profiles work properly with RAW files in lightroom. In camera tweaks to profiles are also replicated in Lightroom which is super convenient.

Some random snaps with the 40mm f2 Z -

 

[gavinlg]

Mono with the 40 -

 

[Timmyjoe]

Nice shots gavinig

I have a question though, not having actually seen a Zf in the wild, are you saying that the threaded shutter release button on the camera will not take a cable release? If not, then what the heck is it for, decoration? Can't figure out why Nikon would make that a threaded button unless it was for a cable release.

Best,
-Tim

 

[gavinlg]

Nice shots gavinig

I have a question though, not having actually seen a Zf in the wild, are you saying that the threaded shutter release button on the camera will not take a cable release? If not, then what the heck is it for, decoration? Can't figure out why Nikon would make that a threaded button unless it was for a cable release.

Best,
-Tim

Thats right, it doesn't go through to the actual shutter mechanism. It's only as a receptical for a soft shutter button. I work in the camera industry and I can tell you that we got dozens of fuji bodies in the last few years with damaged shutter mechanisms as a result of soft releases being used and damaging the mechanical bits in the shutter release. Not sure why manufacturers can't make them like they used to, but no such problem with the ZF.

 

[Shab]

Thanks gavinic!

I'm a X-T3 user and I think in the ZF + Voigtlander Z lenses... and I would like to know how do you see the ZF's raw files Vs Fuji raw files. Thanks in advance!

This camera looks so beautiful...

 

[agentlossing]

After handling the Zf with 40mm in a shop, I do not need any more pressure to keep thinking about it. It's a very compelling camera.

 

[gavinlg]

Thanks gavinic!

I'm a X-T3 user and I think in the ZF + Voigtlander Z lenses... and I would like to know how do you see the ZF's raw files Vs Fuji raw files. Thanks in advance!

This camera looks so beautiful...

Definitely better pixel sharpness than the x-trans raw files. Colours are less quirky but on the whole quite rich and deep. The ZF doesn't crush blacks like Fuji tends to with their profiles. The Fuji's have more of a 'look' straight out of camera.