It’s always interesting to see camera reviews from shooters of systems other than that to which the camera they’re reviewing belongs. There is no doubt that photographer Manny Ortiz is well and truly a Sony shooter after switching from Canon several years ago, but he’s started branching out lately to try the other brands and see what they have to offer. In this video, he tests out the Nikon Z6 along with the 35mm f/1.8 Z & 50mm f/1.8 Z lenses as well as the Nikon 105mm f/1.4 F mount lens with the FTZ adapter on an urban shoot in Downtown Chicago. As a Sony shooter, his thoughts on the Nikon are quite interesting.
The video begins the way most of Manny’s videos begin, and that’s with him out on location shooting, talking about what he’s doing while he’s doing it. Rather than just going out and taking a bunch of shots, Manny’s actually telling us what he’s looking for and how he’s using the camera to achieve the result he wants, the challenges he faces and how he overcomes them.
But when it came to his thoughts on the camera, he says that if Sony didn’t exist, he’d be using the Nikon Z6. And Manny’s also tried the Fuji X-T3 and the Canon EOS R. And his reasoning mostly boils down to the ergonomics. In fact, to be specific, he says “Ergonomically, I think it’s even better than the Sony”. Well, to be honest, I don’t think that’s a difficult bar to surpass. But that’s not to downplay the Z6’s other factors, but when it comes to things like image quality, all cameras are pretty amazing these days, especially for the types of things Manny shoots, which is portraits. So there’s no point trying to compare on that anymore. It’s not 15 years ago when Nikon was just switching from CCD to CMOS sensors, the megapixel wars had just begun and people had only just realised that they could take their cameras above ISO200. He particularly liked the touchscreen LCD, the electronic viewfinder, built-in IBIS, and the speed & compatibility of F mount lenses on the FTZ adapter. But it wasn’t all positive. He did mention the lack of Eye AF, although that’s on the way soon, and the price of XQD cards – although those might drop as CFexpress starts to spread – and, yes he does mention the single card slot thing. Given the usual passion of Sony owners towards their brand at the expense of the competition, Manny’s take on the Z6 seems pretty fair to me. He does believe that Canon’s EOS R line might have the better future with the RF mount lens lineup, but if what he said about the FTZ adapter is true, then the Nikon Z mirrorless cameras already have a few hundred F mount lenses available to them that will perform as well as they do on any Nikon DSLR. So, Nikon mirrorless shooters may not need to be in a rush to replace them with Z mount versions. Do you agree with Manny’s thoughts?
