Five Years Later, the Nikon Z9 Remains the Best Hybrid Camera on the Market

Today, I'm not talking about the newest camera on the market. But I'm talking about one of the best. And, in the end, that's kind of the point.

I'll admit, I've been struggling a bit in the last week — not on a personal level, but on a practical level. I've been reviewing a lot of gear lately, and there's one particular piece of camera gear that I'm working on a longer series about. That camera is terrific and has plenty of pros (along with some cons). The problem I'm having is not with writing about that camera product in a vacuum. The problem comes when I start to think of it within the larger ecosystem of cameras already in my collection.

In many ways, this is an indication of good fortune. I've been a professional filmmaker and photographer for over two decades now, and it's been a long time since I gave any thought to buying my first camera. That doesn't mean that I've always had the fanciest or most expensive camera on the market. But when making purchasing decisions, it's been a long time since I was operating from zero.

I mention that because it alters my purchasing decisions from someone who is just starting their journey into a sea of options. Instead, when I buy a camera, it's less about trying to imagine the elusive and non-existent "perfect camera" and more about asking a fundamental question: "How would this product fundamentally solve an issue that is having a tangible impact on my ability to serve my customers?" Or, at least, that's the question I should be asking.

Of course, I'm human too, and am just as susceptible to brand hype and YouTube gear lust as everyone else. So when a new product comes out, especially one that breaks ground by offering new features that my current gear doesn't possess, I get tempted. But what a camera can hypothetically do for your workflow versus where it ultimately ends up landing in your camera lineup are quite often two very different things. And in my decades of making camera buying decisions, if I'm being honest, the number of new bodies that genuinely added sustained value to my workflow, versus the ones that just made minor and ultimately insignificant upgrades, has been pretty minimal. In retrospect, the smarter thing to do is to always take time to cherish what you already have before going in search of greener pastures.

D850

Actually, my journey with the Nikon Z9 started at a very similar period to where I find myself now. Nikon has always been my home base of choice, and I had worked my way up through a long line of DSLRs until eventually landing on what I still, to this day, think is the best DSLR ever made: the Nikon D850.

That camera was absolutely perfect. The perfect number of megapixels. Great focus speed for my use case. The right ergonomics and body type. Legit, that was the tool that helped me create what I still feel was one of my most fruitful periods as a professional photographer. So much so that, even just last week, I found myself perusing the used sites and wondering if I might one day leave mirrorless cameras altogether and return to shooting with a DSLR.

The D850 only had one significant drawback: the video capabilities were just so-so. I definitely shot videos with the D850, and I did have other cinema bodies I could rent for my filmmaking. But the D850 was existing at a time when mirrorless cameras were really in the ascendancy and driving video innovation in a small form factor. Nikon, my legacy brand, was slow to the party. It took them a while to introduce their first mirrorless cameras and, even then, the early models were lacking in the video department compared to much of the competition.

That mismatch led to the first serious impulse to see if there might be a better product on the market that would suit my needs. I even flirted with the idea of leaving Nikon altogether. Unthinkable.

All this introspection led to a series of misguided — and expensive — camera purchases. I was determined to fix this perceived hybrid photo/video gap in my camera lineup. So, again and again, I kept putting down my credit card every time I saw a new camera released with better video specs.

But something else happened again and again as well. Every time — every single time — I bought a new fancy camera, I'd repeat the same pattern. I'd immediately thrust it into action and relegate my D850 to backup work. I'd push the limits of the new camera, trying in vain to maximize its technological capabilities while suppressing simmering thoughts that, regardless of the specs, I simply didn't like using the new camera. Then, inevitably, within two or three months — usually just long enough that I couldn't return the new camera for a refund — I finally would accept the fact that, regardless of specs, the D850 was simply the better camera for my particular workflow. It may not have been better on a spec sheet, but in terms of how I personally get the best images out of a camera, the D850 was head and shoulders above the rest. The lack of video specs was real. But in actual practice, the benefit of purchasing a new camera was not even remotely close to what I was losing by not shooting with the D850.

Enter the Z9

Years went by and, purchase after purchase, this pattern of yearn, purchase, regret, return to D850 continued to play out. By this point, I had a hodgepodge of disparate camera systems cluttering up my kit. And when it came to brand loyalty, I truly had one and a half feet out of the door.

But then came the Z9. It was Nikon's first mirrorless camera that legitimately had the internal video specs that I needed to truly consider it a hybrid camera. Some of the earlier Nikons had additional features that you could get by sending signals out to external monitors or other accessories. But the Z9 was the first time everything I needed was built into the same body with zero jerry-rigging necessary to get it all to work.

While much has been made of Nikon's excellent firmware updates that, in the five years since its release, have really made the Z9 into an entirely new camera, the Z9 — even with its initial firmware — was one of those rare cameras that came out of the box already optimized for my work.

Usually, "hybrid" cameras are better in one area than the other. Or they have a lot to offer but intentionally leave out certain features to protect that company's cinema line of cameras and prevent internal cannibalization. Even without artificial hindering, most mirrorless cameras make sacrifices versus more specialized cameras. They are "hybrid" after all, so you just have to live with some compromises. But the Z9? There were no compromises.

It had the same-sized sensor for stills that I'd grown accustomed to with my D850 — megapixels, check. It shot up to 8K video in a 4K world, so any concerns about video resolution went out the window. Even better, the Z9 could shoot internal raw video without needing an external recorder. That was one of the biggest drawbacks I was having with my earlier mirrorless experiments. The moment you put an external monitor on a tiny mirrorless body, it stops being tiny. Even worse than the overall size, the ergonomics of handling a mirrorless body with a mounted EVF never quite worked for me.

Speaking of ergonomics, this is where the Z9 delivered in ways that I wasn't expecting. I had always had the mid-sized Nikon DSLR bodies like the Nikon D750, D800, and D850. I'd never owned the larger built-in grip chassis like the D1, D2, etc. In fact, had the Nikon Z8 been released prior to the Z9, I probably would have opted for the smaller Z8 body. It's only because the Z9 came out when it did — right on the precipice of me potentially moving to another brand altogether — that the purchase became essentially one last Hail Mary pass to keep me in the system. But immediately upon getting the Z9 into hand, I discovered that I absolutely loved the larger body. In theory, one might think it heavy, but it really wasn't. Furthermore, because of the uber-comfortable grip, the slightly heavier Z9 is actually easier to hold for long periods of time versus its smaller counterparts.

https://vimeo.com/684419294

The other low-key hero in the Z9 story? The battery. Don't get me wrong, Nikon has always been pretty good about battery life. But in the mirrorless world, the Z9 was on a level all its own. Being able to shoot entire video production days and maybe change the internal battery once was a legitimate game changer. Remember earlier how I mentioned that a new camera should actively solve problems? Improved battery life means fewer battery changes, which means fewer breaks in production, which means more setups per day. That's a tangible benefit.

The Z9 also addressed another key issue I'd been having. When I said that I sometimes still dream about going back to the DSLR days, that mostly has to do with the optical viewfinder. My transition to mirrorless was most stunted by my inability to adjust to staring at that little TV screen inside an EVF instead of seeing an optical image through a traditional viewfinder. Just the digital blackout alone was actively making photography harder when capturing fast-moving subjects, which is a large part of my stock and trade. The Z9 solved this issue by implementing a dual video feed EVF. So what was happening with the sensor and image capture wasn't going to interrupt what you were seeing through the EVF. Suddenly, it felt much more like operating with a traditional optical viewfinder. Problem solved. Improved shooting experience. One more tangible benefit.

The list went on — from the camera's focusing speed to its refusal to overheat, its physical durability, and how easy it was to balance larger lenses on the larger body. Setups that felt increasingly front-heavy in my D850 setup suddenly felt comfortable and balanced in the Z9 era. The Z9 was the camera that finally allowed me to enter the mirrorless camera world. It was the camera that finally was, objectively speaking, a big improvement to my workflow that solved legitimate obstacles to providing service to my clients. It was, unmistakably, worth the upgrade.

Long Live the King

All of which leads back to where I started this article. Trying to take an honest look inside a vacuum at a new photo tool is difficult when you've already found the perfect fit. It's not that the newer tool is worse. Rather, it's that the Z9 still seems to do it better.

Some of that could be written off by the price. The Z9 is the most expensive non-RED camera in the Nikon line. But is it? When I think about how much money I've spent on the Z9 over the last five years versus how much money I've spent on less expensive cameras that ended up being more expensive due to the number of external accessory purchases I needed to make in order to have them be as usable as the Z9, the oddity is that the Z9 has ended up being one of the cheapest cameras I've ever owned. Everything you need to work is just kind of there. And if you do feel the need to build it up — either to rig it more heavily for video or just add a simple external monitor — the Z9's basic girth is such that it can grow in size without sacrificing stability.

Again, it's not lost on me how fortunate I am. With the Z9, I legitimately purchased the best camera I've ever owned. In fact, while struggling to review a new camera the other day, I realized that I had unknowingly placed the product in a no-win situation. I realized that, in addition to the Z9 being my favorite all-around camera of all time, the Nikon Zf being my favorite "personal camera" of all time, and the RED KOMODO being my best "cinema value" camera of all time, I was currently in possession of three of my all-time favorites at once. So every new camera entering that ecosystem is going to be compared against a mature system with something of a gilded hierarchy already in place. Hard to compete with that.

But that realization also reminded me of what a successful gear purchase really is. It's not about always having the best specs available on the market at any given moment. It's about finding the right combination of tools to form an overall ecosystem that makes you as effective at your craft and as efficient in your business as possible. Adding a new piece of gear isn't about adding incremental specs. Investment is better served by identifying practical shortcomings in your workflow and finding ways to address them with tools that work seamlessly within that environment. The grass isn't always greener on the other side.