New Z8 questions

[raczoliver]

As a sidetrack to the frames remaining counter, did it get more accurate on recent models, or is it still the case that those numbers err very much on the conservative side?

 

I remember on my D700 I generally got close to 50% more shots on one card than what the camera told me I would get, and on the D850 it's even more. What's the situation with the Z bodies? 

[John Di Leo]

14 hours ago, ShunCheung said:

The remaining frame count is about how much memory card space you have left. That has nothing to do with remaining battery power.

Since the D810 is 36MP while the Z8 is 45MP, are you using uncompressed or lossless on the D810 and HE* or something on the Z8?

To measure battery consumption it's either the icon on the display or going into the menu to check on battery info and the percentage, correct?

If there a way to change the battery icon on the display to a % readout?

I have both cameras, the d810 and the Z8, set to RAW (only) at this time.

[John Di Leo]

14 hours ago, ShunCheung said:

The remaining frame count is about how much memory card space you have left. That has nothing to do with remaining battery power.

Since the D810 is 36MP while the Z8 is 45MP, are you using uncompressed or lossless on the D810 and HE* or something on the Z8?

Ahh, ok, apples and oranges for the shots remaining display. The 15 is 1900mAh 14WH while the 15c is 2200mAh and 16WH, so the en-el15 would likely run down sooner.

To measure battery consumption it's either the icon on the display or going into the menu to check on battery info and the percentage, correct?

If there a way to change the battery icon on the display to a % readout?

I have both cameras, the d810 and the Z8, set to RAW (only) at this time.

[ShunCheung]

John, today I read that some of those early Li-ion01 type EN-EL15 batteries do not work on the Z8. Those are from 2013 or earlier. Since the D810 was introduced in 2014, I assume your battery is fine. It should say Li-ion01 or 20 near where the manufacture date is.

P.S. I cleaned up some of those duplicated posts.

[ilkka_nissila]

I got a Z8 today. I didn't have time to charge the EN-EL15c that came with the camera so I used an older battery. The camera worked fine.

 

Very pleased with autofocus with FTZII and VR 300/2.8G II. No jitter, no hunting, it focuses quickly and decisively. With the Z6 II, I experienced that F-mount lenses gave frequent micro-jitters where the focus changes in small steps and made quite a lot of audible noise. With the Z8 the AF behavior is smooth and there is less jitter and it's quieter than with any of my other cameras. Excellent job, Nikon! This means I can use my F-mount lenses without concern on the new camera. I do have my most important needs covered by Z mount lenses as well, but it is nice that they figured out how to get F-mount lenses to focus well on mirrorless as well. There are so many lenses available for F mount that aren't yet available as Z mount lenses. Of course, a 400/4.5 will be much nicer to hand-hold than the 300/2.8 but for indoor sports I appreciate the maximum aperture. 

 

The Z8 is very similar to the D6 in having custom AF area size and shape that can be easily adjusted and combined with subject detection (in the D6, only human faces; in the Z8 other subjects as well). In many ways the configuration and operation is very familiar.

 

I was pleased to find on the Z8 I can set release mode (fps rate) in recall shooting functions (hold). This way I can shoot single shots or low fps normally and if a situation requires, by pressing a function button, I can switch to faster shutter speed and high fps. Returning to slower shooting happens by pressing that button again. Very convenient.

 

I will continue testing tomorrow with some human subjects and see how the 105/1.4 AF works. Also I need to see if the Z8 works reliably with Elinchrom flashes as I will need them to work on a shoot on Saturday. High-speed sync needs to work during a bright outdoor portrait session.

[ShunCheung]

Glad that besides John, Ilkka has joined the Z8/Z9 ownership circle. 😀

[ilkka_nissila]

Elinchrom flashes seem to work OK at 1/200s and Nikon SB-5000's also at higher shutter speeds. I have one Elinchrom flash head which is compatible with high speed sync and I'll do some testing of that as well.  I am happy that the Z8 has the 10-pin connector as it is then in line with all my other Nikons and stuff doesn't stick from the side of the camera where I would normally have the L-bracket's vertical mounting component. However, because the 10-pin connector sticks out diagonally now e.g. WR-R10/A10 mounted to it feels a bit vulnerable when placing the camera body without lens in a bag. I understand the advantages of using the 10-pin interface for flash triggering as it allows the mounting of any on-camera flash which doesn't need to support the radio flash AWL (e.g. SB-700 would be fine) and still one can trigger SB-5000's remotely. Alternatively one can place a third party flash trigger on the hot shoe and have the Nikon trigger in the 10-pin connector and they all fire. McNally demonstrated this with SB-5000's and Profotos. However, I think Nikon should also offer an alternative hot shoe radio trigger because the WR-R10/A10 (or its newer variant which I don't have) seems a bit "exposed".

There is an audible "clunk" when going from LV into playback or turning the camera off. I read that it's the parking of the sensor. That's a little on the loud side considering how nearly silent the camera otherwise is. I read it can be disabled by activating silent mode but then flash won't fire in that mode so I'd have to remember to turn it off when working with flash. I hope Nikon can work on the parking sound to make it quieter in future cameras.

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by ilkka_nissila

[ilkka_nissila]

I suppose the parking of the sensor might be in order to conserve battery power? In the Z6 II I only remember hearing the sound when turning the camera off, but my memory could be inaccurate, and I've wondered if the sound is related to moving the lens focus to default position, or in-camera VR parking the sensor for when it is not being used.

 

Interesting that the protective shutter is not enabled by default. I turned it on as I prefer not having to worry about dust as much when changing lenses.

[mike_halliwell]

In term of grip, is it deep enough to hold comfortably? Does your right little finger go underneath?

The Z9 is very rounded on the right-hand side, but I rarely hold the cam in portrait orientation, still preferring to role my wrist left from landscape. I do this mainly as i cannot go from portrait back to landscape quickly, my wrist doesn't go that way!

I was looking at the wear on my D500 the other day and noticed most is around the rubber grip where the web of my right-hand grips the camera. It's smooth now. 🙂

[ilkka_nissila]

I took some photos in downtown Helsinki where there was a kind of theatrical performance about academic traditions where it comes to formally receiving your PhD, there is a defence, but also a big formal party that one can attend afterwards that is organized once every few years. I took some pics of the musicians and models presenting the traditional costumes. However, I run into a little problem with the Z 70-200/2.8 S when using the Z8 in vertical orientation. The center of gravity is around the manual focus ring and normally I would hold the lens from the barrel in my left hand and adjust the zoom ring with my fingers, but the lens's manual focus ring is so sensitive that it was interpreting that I'm trying to override the autofocus frequently, which wasn't the case. I haven't run into this problem with the F-mount FL version which has this A/M priority where autofocus is prioritised but manual override is available if one makes a clear adjustment to the ring. I guess it was more of an issue with the Z8 because it doesn't have a vertical grip which I'm used to when using lenses of this type. I can (a) turn off manual focus override, but then it would affect how I use my other lenses as well, which I don't want. (b) Another way would be to just diable the MF ring and maybe the control ring can be used for MF override (I heard about this possibility but haven't tried it out).. I would prefer a setting where the manual focus ring is just less sensitive, that there would be more force required to move it, but I guess that might work for people who want to make very fine refinements.  (c) I could put on the tripod foot and rest the foot in the palm of my hand and this way not lean onto the focusing ring (this is probably what I'll do) but then switching between vertical and horizontal shooting becomes more of a project rather than something that is done instantly. Eventually (d) I'll have to get the vertical grip but my store didn't yet have it available. The grip should make it easier to hold the camera with this lens in vertical orientation.

 

Unfortunately, the camera seems to use a lot of battery power. I used up 1.2 x the charge of EN-EL15b/a batteries already in 500 images. I didn't, however, use the c-type battery that came with the camera rather ones that are a few years old and of the a/b variety. I guess carrying and swapping batteries becomes a regular thing with this camera. I'm aware that when familiarizing with a new camera, one tends to spend more time per shot, but still, it's an uncomfortable feeling when the battery indicator seems to be really decreasing in real time in front of my eyes. I am hoping that the c type will last longer. I'll try to get my hands on the vertical grip soon, and get another EN-EL15c.

 

Using the autofocus seems easy and works quite well in terms of getting focus on faces, but when pointing the AF area towards musicians in an orchestra, the camera was swapping the selected subject (human face) frequently, so it didn't seem to be able to decide which of the faces to focus on, and sometimes it would select a violin instead of a person. So it's not 100% reliable in finding the closest face in the selected area but it does a good job of focusing nevertheless. I set the L-FN2 button on the lens to take the camera to 9-point (?) dynamic area mode and that really helped me set the focus on the person I wanted instead of letting the camera decide. Upon review the focus was very good, I just have to get used to the dancing markers if using the custom area with subject detection.

Edited June 1, 2023 by ilkka_nissila

[ShunCheung]

1 hour ago, ilkka_nissila said:

Unfortunately, the camera seems to use a lot of battery power. I used up 1.2 x the charge of EN-EL15b/a batteries already in 500 images. I didn't, however, use the c-type battery that came with the camera rather ones that are a few years old and of the a/b variety. I guess carrying and swapping batteries becomes a regular thing with this camera. I'm aware that when familiarizing with a new camera, one tends to spend more time per shot, but still, it's an uncomfortable feeling when the battery indicator seems to be really decreasing in real time in front of my eyes. I am hoping that the c type will last longer. I'll try to get my hands on the vertical grip soon, and get another EN-EL15c.

When your camera is new, the EN-EL15 needs to charge the internal battery to maintain the clock. Also older EN-EL15 battery may have lost some capacity over the years. I would use the EN-EL15c on the Z8 and perhaps get an extra, as the C has more capacity. My Z9 tends to use a lot of power also mainly because I leave the EVF on for longer, even though I am not actually taking pictures.

[ilkka_nissila]

13 minutes ago, ShunCheung said:

When your camera is new, the EN-EL15 needs to charge the internal battery to maintain the clock. Also older EN-EL15 battery may have lost some capacity over the years. I would use the EN-EL15c on the Z8 and perhaps get an extra, as the C has more capacity. My Z9 tends to use a lot of power also mainly because I leave the EVF on for longer, even though I am not actually taking pictures.

Okay, that explains it. I think I had an EN-EL15b on the camera when I took it out and left it overnight in the camera at maybe 40% charge. When I picked up the camera today it was at 17%. So something was draining the battery overnight. If the battery is really charging the internal battery then this could be the explanation; I had not been aware of this.

 

I put on the 70-200's tripod foot and this does help avoid touching the MF ring when shooting. However, it does take more space in the bag that way, and I normally prefer to take it off for hand-held use on the F-mount version. I guess I'll just keep the foot on from now on.

[mike_halliwell]

Genuine Nikon EN-EL15c's are currently £59>£65 here in UK.

You can get a x2 decoded pack with dual USB charger for £28...

Hummm....😱

[ilkka_nissila]

54 minutes ago, mike_halliwell said:

Genuine Nikon EN-EL15c's are currently £59>£65 here in UK.

You can get a x2 decoded pack with dual USB charger for £28...

Hummm....😱

But will it work on your next camera?

 

I just don't see the point. Will the camera work correctly if the battery doesn't quite deliver on spec that Nikon designed the camera to work with?

 

I agree Nikon original batteries are expensive but I seem to get more than 10 years of use from them (the only one I had to replace was 14 years old when it started misbehaving) and I consider the cost a very small fraction of the total cost of the activity.

 

I'll get another EN-EL15c but I am hoping to use the older ones for 5-10 years still.

[mike_halliwell]

3 minutes ago, ilkka_nissila said:

But will it work on your next camera?

Will the next (Nikon) camera work with genuine EN-EL15Cs? Who knows?

A 4:1 ratio on cost is significant for the Z8 as it, by your paraphrased words, eats batteries and the grip doesn't take the bigger EN-EL18s.

However, if I do get the Z8, I have lots of batts that worked for my Z6II, mostly genuine.

[ShunCheung]

Concerning batteries for the Z8, I have read several reports that 3rd-party batteries that worked with previous Z bodies are suddenly not compatible with the Z8. Also some early Li-ion 01 type Nikon EN-EL15, from 2013 or earlier, are now rejected by the Z8. I still have one of those batteries left from the time I bought the D7000 in 2010, but I have no access to any Z8 body to test that battery with.

[ilkka_nissila]

10 hours ago, mike_halliwell said:

Will the next (Nikon) camera work with genuine EN-EL15Cs? Who knows?

A 4:1 ratio on cost is significant for the Z8 as it, by your paraphrased words, eats batteries and the grip doesn't take the bigger EN-EL18s.

However, if I do get the Z8, I have lots of batts that worked for my Z6II, mostly genuine.

I know Nikon is trying to ease the adoptation of new cameras by maintaining compatibility with recent batteries in the series while upgrading the batteries to provide increasing capacity. It seems that EN-EL15's probably best are not used in the Z8 as it is not officially supported (a, b, and c are supported). I will consider retiring the EN-E15's to be sure I won't accidentally put them into the Z8.  I saw a youtube video showing either that the Z8 didn't work with an EN-EL15 or showed a full battery as having low charge level so this is probably something we want to avoid as users.

 

For sure it is possible that the next camera in the series doesn't work with EN-EL15c but it seems unlikely, as battery compatibility is one important element along with memory card compatibility that eases people into upgrading their cameras. Occasionally there is a disruption in the series, though, but since Nikon has been able to increase the capacity and add USB in-camera charging, I think they'll continue with this series.

 

As for my first experience of rapid loss of charge in the Z8, I think Shun is probably correct that this was due to charging of the internal battery and shouldn't be an issue in the future. I'll report more once I've put the Z8 through some more use.

 

[John Di Leo]

On 5/31/2023 at 1:21 PM, ShunCheung said:

It should say Li-ion01 or 20 near where the manufacture date is.

Li-On 20

Thanks

[ShunCheung]

Nikon transitioned from Li-ion01 to Li-ion20 some time in 2013. At one point I had one each from different months in 2013. But I no longer have that Li-ion01 one, as I exchanged it for a new Li-ion20 type in 2016 as part of the D500 owner program. I still have one Li-ion01 from 2010.

[ilkka_nissila]

I shot a wedding reception on the Z8 today. It went well, I was familiar enough with it so that I didn't run into issues. The EN-EL15c that came with the camera seems to give a lot of shots. I think I won't need more than two EN-EL15c's to go through even the most intense day of shooting The Elinchrom flash worked OK though it was hard to get used to having to wait so long for the recharge time when the camera otherwise shoots so fast. 😉 But I had to use about 300 Ws for the groups which was more than I typically need in portraits so I made the mistake of shooting too quickly several times. 

I still made the mistake of accidentally overriding the focus by touching the MF ring. I am afraid I have to turn the override off if I can't hold the lenses without touching the ring. 
 

The Z8 grip became quite warm to the touch, something I had not experienced before in a camera. The heat seemed to come from the CFExpress card though I can't be sure other parts were not contributing.

 

AF was close to flawless and it certainly holds up to my expectations. It's from a completely different world than the Z6 II. 

 

The EVF I still annoying and mildly irritating. But other aspects of the camera are very impressive.

[ilkka_nissila]

After Saturday's event I had shot on the EN-EL15c for about 1720 frames and the camera estimated it had 17% (charge?) left. This was my first use of the battery that came with the camera. My first use of the camera had been  with 2 and 5.5-year-old old EN-EL15a and b. I guess this concludes the worries I had had about power consumption in still photography.

 

However, it is generally thought that especially EVF viewing consumers a lot of power on mirrorless cameras and not so much actual shots being made, especially on a camera which has a fairly bright EVF and no mechanical shutter. I would guess that 2-3 batteries are needed for events which take the whole day and involve intensive shooting throughout the day. I had shot the ceremony and formals using a DSLR because I didn't want to risk anything by using a camera that I had shot only 600 images with. However, the Z8 can be shot in a very similar way to the D6 (with the custom rectangular areas and 9-point dynamic) and it didn't do anything really unexpected. When shooting in custom group area modes the D6 has (human) face/eye priority and is very similar to how things work in custom af area modes on the Z8 except the D6 doesn't show the faces selected in the viewfinder (it does show them in playback). On the Z8 the camera sometimes focuses on a face that would not have been my choice and in that case I overrode the system with the small dynamic area box. This was very easy to work with. The D6 does tend to prioritise closest subject in custom group area mode wheras the Z8 seems to be more subject detection driven, but the difference is small and both cameras can be shot basically in the same way in these modes.

I used HE* because the SD card I had was UHS-II but not a top-speed model. I figured HE* instead of lossless compressed would mean I wouldn't run into buffer or capacity issues writing on both cards. I am not sure if uncompressing HE* is more demanding on the computer than lossless compression, but going from image to the next and zooming in to 100% does spin up the CPU fan on my PC. I wouldn't say going through the files is slow, but I find that fan slightly annoying. I chose that PC because it allows me to fit in a card that supports my LS-9000. However, if I should some day complete my scanning, I could put in a GPU card that might make some types of editing tasks faster. However, many GPU cards also have noisy fans...

Edited June 5, 2023 by ilkka_nissila

[mike_halliwell]

3 hours ago, ilkka_nissila said:

However, it is generally thought that especially EVF viewing consumers a lot of power on mirrorless cameras and not so much actual shots being made,

I'd second that. Using a long tele, such as the 800mm PF, as a telescope is very hard on the batteries.

If I try real hard, I can eat 1 to 1.1/2 ENEL18s in a long day....... 😱

[Rob Davies]

As has been mentioned before, shot count per battery probably isn't the best indicator of capacity.

It would be better measured as hours of usage, which would be far more helpful.

[ilkka_nissila]

15 minutes ago, Rob Davies said:

As has been mentioned before, shot count per battery probably isn't the best indicator of capacity.

It would be better measured as hours of usage, which would be far more helpful.

Right, though it is difficult to estimate how much of the time at an event the camera was being actively used. Anyway, based on first use, the single EN-EL15c seemed it would last 4 hours of being used for wedding photography.

[Rob Davies]

4 minutes ago, ilkka_nissila said:

Right, though it is difficult to estimate how much of the time at an event the camera was being actively used. Anyway, based on first use, the single EN-EL15c seemed it would last 4 hours of being used for wedding photography.

Which is about the same as I would get with a Z6 (in a wedding/social photography situation).