Nikon Z50 First Impressions.

[OldMacs4Me]

Bit of a conundrum. Been mainly working with the 50mm macro, thinking I might want to go with the 105. I am quite happy with the 50. However I've just discovered that the initial reviews I was reading on the 18-300mm super zoom were for an older lens. The new one is about the same contracted size as the 18-140 but of course it has a double barrel extension. It is also 240 gms heavier.

The 18-140 balances absolutely perfectly in my hands. The 18-300 is about 75% heavier, and may not feel as well balanced. So now I am trying to give this zoom a good workout as I have about 2 weeks before I have to trade. The 300 is only $100 more so price is not a factor. The lens I have covers 98+% of what I'd like to do. So is slightly more than doubling the reach worth the weight gain and possibly not feeling as comfortable?

Anyways a shot that was in as close as the 18-140 lens will go, extended to the 140 length. Aperture was ƒ-22, ISO was 6400, second image is just a crop of the first. Effectively at 50% resolution.

 

[AlmightyKang]

Urgh I wish you hadn't mentioned the 18-140. I've been trying not to buy that for weeks now! 🤣

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Urgh I wish you hadn't mentioned the 18-140. I've been trying not to buy that for weeks now! 🤣

It's a very sweet lens, and I am leaning towards keeping it. That said the decision is still pending.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

An interesting experiment. Had a Spiratone 67mm +4 close-up filter in my collection and decided to give it a try via a 62 to 67mm step-up ring.
At the 18mm end it brings the closest focus to 1:3.6 as opposed to 1:6.5 with this result. Moire effect is from the website downsizing. Should be clean if you view at full resolution.

At 140mm it's 1:1.6 with this result. It's 1;2.6 without the close-up filter.

If you want to leave the macro at home or don't have one. The corners are a bit soft but adequate for photographing bugs and so on.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

BTW 450 frames on that battery before I started to see red. About 8 sets of 5 shot outside at -20°C.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Sunsets from color negs leave a bit to be desired.
Follow the normal routine in Affinity Photo and they come out looking something like this:

This one involved a lot of creative license on my part. Since the neg is 20 years old and I can't find a print, I have no idea as to how close I came. It will have to do. OTOH my collection of sunsets is already super extensive.

At some point I will try scanning this string, but at the moment the film strip carrier is being used as part of my copy set-up.

 

[AlmightyKang]

Looking good 👍

Incidentally the 18-140mm Z DX is arriving tomorrow. Nikon had some refurb ones at a respectable discount! Damnations to this thread! 🤓

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Looking good 👍

Incidentally the 18-140mm Z DX is arriving tomorrow. Nikon had some refurb ones at a respectable discount! Damnations to this thread! 🤓

I think you'll love it. BTW I decided to stick with mine.

Just got back from the camera shop and having them show me how to clean the sensor. Thankfully he did it for free, but I did buy the kit for the next time. The sensor is not protected when you change lenses and sooner or later dust will stick to it during a change. Sooner for me. Just makes sense to have a single Swiss Army kind of lens to keep swaps to an absolute minimum. Under no circumstances would I go the 2 lens 16-50, 50-250 route. Too many swaps when you're out and about.

 

[AlmightyKang]

I think you'll love it. BTW I decided to stick with mine.

Just got back from the camera shop and having them show me how to clean the sensor. Thankfully he did it for free, but I did buy the kit for the next time. The sensor is not protected when you change lenses and sooner or later dust will stick to it during a change. Sooner for me. Just makes sense to have a single Swiss Army kind of lens to keep swaps to an absolute minimum. Under no circumstances would I go the 2 lens 16-50, 50-250 route. Too many swaps when you're out and about.

Totally agree. I had to swap lenses a lot in Iceland and it’s pretty windy and dusty there so I ended up with some spots. Fortunately they blew out with a rocket blower when I got home but I had to clean up a few images in Lightroom. The 18-140 would have done the job nicely there.

You can see the spots and gunk on this unprocessed image above the water on the sky.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

^^^
Pretty much what mine looked like, except they were in the lower third of the frame. Did not show except in areas where there was no detail. Also did not blow off. The smallest speck was so stubborn, I got to see all three stages of the cleaning procedure. Anyways the kit is good insurance as it was about half the price of gas for a trip to the big city.

 

[AlmightyKang]

^^^
Pretty much what mine looked like, except they were in the lower third of the frame. Did not show except in areas where there was no detail. Also did not blow off. The smallest speck was so stubborn, I got to see all three stages of the cleaning procedure. Anyways the kit is good insurance as it was about half the price of gas for a trip to the big city.

I used to work in a semiconductor process lab so I'll clean my own sensors 😂

Well it arrived and I rather like it! Will have to go out now and play. Looks untouched. Definitely was worth going for the refurb.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Time to more or less wrap it up.

Quality wise this camera is head and shoulders above anything using the teeny tiny sensor. Once you get to the 1-inch sensor, improvements are more marginal. Here the most noticeable improvements come at higher ISOs. The other bonus is the much wider aperture range as compared to a Lumix ZS 200 or the Sony equivalents.

Been doing 1/3rd stop exposure bracketing going from -.333 to +1. Pretty much everything works best at normal or -.333. Occasionally +.333 does provide some benefit, especially with snowy scenes. Straight from the camera the color balance is quite close when working from the JPEGs. Any tweaking I've done has been minimal.

Did one print today and I'm convinced most images from this camera will easily produce excellent 16x24s.

For me the Z-50 is a really comfortable camera to use. YMMV. For everything except copy work, I've been using the EVF almost exclusively. Continuous shooting maxes out at 11 fps, using JPEGs. Slow compared to some APS-c cameras but more than adequate for many if not most users.

As with most modern cameras the menus are an exercise in navigating mazes. Thankfully almost every setting you're likely to want to manipulate can be found and tweaked in the i-menu. The exception is auto-bracketing. If you use it put it in the my-menu. I find the 2-step approach to activating and getting out of bracketing very annoying.

Forget auto selecting ISO. Whatever maximum ISO setting you pick is the one the camera will grab until you reach the minimum 1/4000th second shutter speed. If you shoot aperture preferred, pick the lowest ISO that will give you an adequate shutter speed. For most daylight shooting ISO 200 or 400 is plenty fast.

I've mentioned that the tip, tilt levels only work horizontally. With its semi articulated display, this would be the perfect camera to use for hand held table top copy work, if that flaw were addressed. As is, the Z-50 is pretty useless for this chore.

The unprotected sensor is the other bug bear. Best bet is to use this camera as a single lens camera in situations where it is difficult to keep the sensor dust free when you swap. And learn to clean it your self. With that in mind the 18-140mm or 18-300mm zooms might well be a better choice than the 16-50mm 50-250mm combo that Nikon promotes.

 

[bunnspecial]

The unprotected sensor is the other bug bear. Best bet is to use this camera as a single lens camera in situations where it is difficult to keep the sensor dust free when you swap. And learn to clean it your self. With that in mind the 18-140mm or 18-300mm zooms might well be a better choice than the 16-50mm 50-250mm combo that Nikon promotes.

Does the shutter not close when you power down/take the lens off? I thought this was something the Z cameras did, and even the shutterless ones like the Z8 and Z9 I thought had a dust cover that did this.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Does the shutter not close when you power down/take the lens off? I thought this was something the Z cameras did, and even the shutterless ones like the Z8 and Z9 I thought had a dust cover that did this.

Sadly no. I've been turning it off then removing the lens. Sensor is staring you right in the eye after the lens is removed. If there is another step to bring down a dust cover I'm unaware of what it is.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

I mentioned the #4 close-up lens earlier. If you like razor thin field of focus, this is your puppy.
Lens extended to 140mm, not quite as close as possible. Vertical was then cropped from 3700 to 2700 pixels and reduced to 1000 pixels in PSE. Final sharpen in Preview. ISO 3200, 1/60, ƒ-22

 

[bunnspecial]

Sorry, I see none of the Z cameras do that. For some reason I thought they did, but looking around maybe Canon is the only ML brand that covers the shutter power off?

I can say that I've had my X-T5 for about 9 months now and have yet to clean the sensor on it-in fact the only sensor cleaning I've done recently was a D3X(and I've got to tackle that one again and really make an effort to get it done-it's not mine, although I bought one from the same guy, and I've had it since the beginning of December. There's a spot on it I may have to call defeat on). I need to do my D800, especially since it's primarily been a macro camera for me and I have a perfect storm of circumstances for sensor dust to show(small apertures and often with relatively neutral backgrounds).

My X-T5 mostly lives with the 16-80 on it, and it's a "WR" lens, which Fuji uses to mean that they threw extra weather sealing at it(for whatever that's worth). I have 3 primes for it-the 23mm f/2, 35mm f/2, and 58mm f/1.2, none of which are WR(but IIRC do have mount gaskets), but I don't use them a ton. I have had my X-T5 at the beach, although I went with a filter on the lens that stayed the whole time and also used an auxillary shutter release button(popular for the Fuji cameras and other cameras with threaded cable release sockets like the Nikon ZFc and Df) which I don't normally do but did there since it has an O-ring to "seal" the cable socket and keep sand out.

That said too, sensor shakers, which all the Nikon DSLRs I use regularly save for the D3X have, do make a big difference. They won't keep you from ever having to clean the sensor, but they at least keep a lot of the dust under control. Sensor shakers move the sensor a lot more violently than IBIS, but I can't help but think that the constant sensor motion of active IBIS(my X-T5 can be set to run continuously any time the camera is on) helps a bit on doing low level cleaning. Of course I don't know of any camera with IBIS that doesn't also have sensor shaking-I suspect the mechanisms are the same, just that IBIS is a lot more measured and controlled.

It's unfortunate that Nikon left both IBIS and a sensor shaker off the Z50. In fact when I was shopping for an APS-C mirrorless back in April/May the lack of it on the ZFc(which is more or less a Z50) was one more point in favor of the X-T5.

 

[AlmightyKang]

I don't think you need IBIS on the Z50 - all the decent lenses have VR which is very effective.

 

[bunnspecial]

I don't think you need IBIS on the Z50 - all the decent lenses have VR which is very effective.

IBIS+in-lens stabilization is even more effective. I'm often amazed at how good the combination is in my X-T5.

Also, how many primes have VR? Nikon in the past has been pretty reluctant to make short to moderate FL primes with VR. The only thing shorter than 200mm I can think of are the micro lenses, and even in F mount to get a stabilized 200mm prime you need the huge and expensive 200mm f/2.

 

[AlmightyKang]

IBIS+in-lens stabilization is even more effective. I'm often amazed at how good the combination is in my X-T5.

Also, how many primes have VR? Nikon in the past has been pretty reluctant to make short to moderate FL primes with VR. The only thing shorter than 200mm I can think of are the micro lenses, and even in F mount to get a stabilized 200mm prime you need the huge and expensive 200mm f/2.

Yeah my 28mm f/2.8 does not have VR. But it was cheap as hell and that hasn't been a problem for me. It's mostly a luxury - I spent most of my life shooting on cheap East German cameras onto film. That included some somewhat lengthy telephone lenses.

 

[therationalist]

Finally caved in and ordered it.Should be here in a couple of days. Had some credit in my amazon account. Will let everyone know how it is.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Yeah my 28mm f/2.8 does not have VR. But it was cheap as hell and that hasn't been a problem for me. It's mostly a luxury - I spent most of my life shooting on cheap East German cameras onto film. That included some somewhat lengthy telephone lenses.

Given the Z cameras tendency to select ridiculously fast shutter speeds, I suspect even the shakiest among us could hand hold an equivalent 42mm lens and see rock solid images, with no camera or lens stabilization.

The extreme close-up above was shot at 1/60th. Was using an ISO of 3200 to offset drab lighting, and an equivalent aperture of ƒ-32 (#4 close-up lens attached). Lens was extended to 140mm, and the camera aperture set to ƒ-22. Hand held. Field of focus may be very thin, but what is in focus is sharp. Sharper than I was expecting when I released the shutter. The combination of usable high ISOs and the lens VR is a winner in my books.

BTW this was an earlier attempt that grabbed 1/13th of a second using an ISO of 800.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Finally caved in and ordered it.Should be here in a couple of days. Had some credit in my amazon account. Will let everyone know how it is.

Have fun. What lens(es) did you order?

 

[AlmightyKang]

On fast shutter speeds, 250mm DX hand held with VR in the dark out of my living room window in the middle of London, UK.

ISO 400 / 375mm equiv / f/6.3 / 1/500s.

Image is unprocessed just heavily cropped.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Did this blue sky shot just to reassure myself that the sensor was perfectly clean. Then did an extreme crop on the contrail to 100% resolution. Except for resizing, as it came from the card. Shot with the 50mm macro@ƒ-11.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Currently the camera is set-up for the next round of copy work. So I have not tried this trick. Would be great if it also works on the Z-50. To be super safe you might want to first remove the SD card.