Over 20 years ago, when I started my professional photography career, I shot exclusively with Nikon. Back then, I had zero intention of switching brands, but eventually I was forced to.
When I co-founded Fstoppers.com I began shooting video more than stills, and at the time, Nikon was not keeping up with modern video features. For a while, we kept using Nikon for stills, but Panasonic took over for video thanks to their unlimited recording times. Eventually—about six or seven years ago—we made the full transition to Sony. Their cameras did it all: they were fantastic for stills, shot incredible video, had no record time limits, and their autofocus was a game changer.
I hadn’t touched a Nikon camera since the D850 launched—seven or eight years ago. That was the last Nikon body I had in my hands. So when I recently got my hands on the Nikon Z8, along with two of their pro lenses, I was both excited and curious. What had I missed in all this time?
Nikon Z8, My First Impressions
Pulling the Z8 out of the box, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. It felt a lot like my old D850. The grip, especially, was much more substantial than my Sony bodies—and for my large hands, that alone was a welcome change.
Unboxing the lenses, I was immediately impressed. The 24-70mm f/2.8S had an incredibly smooth zoom ring and a digital display built right into the lens. The 70-200mm f/2.8S was even better—maybe the smoothest telephoto zoom I’ve ever used. Everything felt solid and premium.
The Viewfinder
Once the battery was charged, I took it out for a spin. The first thing I noticed was the digital viewfinder. It’s good—definitely better than the older Sony models I still own—but it can’t match the Sony A9 III I recently reviewed. That camera’s EVF has nearly three times the resolution of the Z8. Still, the Z8 holds its own—it’s the third-best EVF I’ve ever used, which is no small feat.
Autofocus: Finally Competitive
Autofocus, especially while recording video, was one of the areas where Nikon really lagged behind in the past. Not anymore. The Z8 has auto subject detect and eye detect autofocus, and it’s incredibly effective. Unlike Sony, which often makes you choose your subject type (people, animals, cars, etc.), Nikon just figures it out for you automatically. It’s a subtle but brilliant user experience advantage.
I tested the 70-200mm lens at a tennis match and was blown away—every shot was tack-sharp. That said, it did struggle to recognize the eye of an iguana during another shoot, which Sony handled effortlessly. For extremely fast movement, my Sony held focus better than the Nikon, but for realistic use cases, the average user may not see much of a difference.
Pre-Capture: Cool but Clunky
One of my favorite features on the Sony A9 III is pre-capture—it silently buffers images before you press the shutter, then saves images taken a set amount of time in the past them once you do. Nikon has a similar feature on the Z8, but it only works in JPEG, not RAW, and you’re forced to use the shutter button to initiate it. I miss the ability to assign it to a custom button like I can on Sony. A small thing, but it makes a big difference in practice. Nikon, if you’re listening—a firmware fix here would be huge.
Image Quality Hasn't Improved In 7 Years?
The Z8’s sensor is completely new technology terms of read speed and lack of a mechanical shutter, but the image quality, dynamic range, and ISO performance are nearly identical to the D850, which is now seven years old. I was hoping for a bump in ISO performance, but we might just be reaching the limits of what’s possible with this sensor size and resolution.
Silent Shooting & Flash Sync
The lack of a physical shutter is a huge win for event shooters. I’ve shot plenty of weddings in churches where shutter noise was a problem. Now? Total silence. On the downside, this isn’t a global shutter like the A9 III, so the flash sync is still limited to 1/200s unless you go into high-speed sync.
Video: A Big Leap
Video is the reason I left Nikon, so I had high hopes here, and the Z8 mostly delivers. It can shoot 8K, subsampled or downsampled 4K, and even internal RAW. I bought the fastest Lexar card I could find—3,400 MB/s write speed—and even then, I could only record five minutes of 8K 60fps N-Raw. That’s a terabyte every 20 minutes.
To make matters worse, Premiere Pro can’t even read the footage yet. Only DaVinci Resolve supports it (and not particularly smoothly). Thankfully, Adobe announced they’ll support it later this summer, so maybe I'll revisit N-Raw then.
The 8K image quality? Stunning. And there’s one really slick touch: smooth exposure transitions. When you change aperture, the light ramps up or down gradually, rather than adjusting abruptly. It threw me off at first, but it’s actually a brilliant feature for video.
My Biggest Complaint
My biggest complaint with this camera is the screen on the back. It's got a gigantic bezel, making the usable screen area extremely small. It does tilt up and down, and side to side, but it doesn't flip out to the side or flip forward, which means I can't easily frame and film myself (something I have to do all the time). I own other cameras that have screens that can't face forward, but I can easily control them with my phone. I tried to use Nikon's iPhone app for almost 30 minutes, and after failing/crashing/freezing 7 times, I gave up.
Final Thoughts
The Nikon Z8 is a fantastic hybrid camera. Will I switch back to Nikon? No, I'm still very happy with my Sony gear. But if I were still shooting with Nikon, I'd definitely buy this camera. If I were trying to decide which brand to buy into, the Z8 would definitely make me consider Nikon.
The truth is that the cameras that Nikon, Sony, and Canon are producing are extremely similar, and they're all incredible these days. When I first got into this industry, it always felt like whatever brand I didn't own had some incredible feature that I needed, but today, every camera can do everything.
If you've been considering a fast, high-resolution camera that can do it all, absolutely consider the Nikon Z8. But if you don't shoot video, and you don't shoot fast-moving subjects, you could get the exact same image quality out of the 7-year-old Nikon D850, and you'll save thousands of dollars.
I wish Nikon would stop neglecting their APS-C line of cameras. While they have been doing decently on the full frame side of things, for APS-C, they have done nothing but fail for multiple years.
The Z50 II still uses an outdated sensor where even when dinosaurs were still around, they found that sensor to be getting pretty outdated. They could have at least gone with a newer 26 megapixel APS-C sensor.
They keep forgetting to add IBIS, while at the same forgetting to add OIS to their many of their primes and standard zoom non-kit lenses.
I get where you're coming from very rarely do they add OIS to prime lenses I can't remember the last prime lens that had stabilisation built into it unless it's a longer lens
It's funny. I was a Nikon D850 user for a long time, probably about five years and I absolutely love that camera. It was the hardest thing to do to sell that camera. I wanted to try some mirrorless cameras but for the life of me I could not enjoy the Nikon Z7 - Z7 ii cameras which I hired and tried over a weekend. initially at that point the Z8 had not been released. I really like the menu system in Nikon cameras. It's relatively easy to use for my brain but everyone is different so how did I end up in FUJIFILM? Well I just bought a small Fuji film camera which was an ex camera to play with as I've heard about the colours it was the little S-10. It cost me about 900 bucks and I've been with FUJIFILM ever since and now with GFX and the GFX image quality blows away anything that the Nikon Z8 can produce now it is a much much slower system, but I can still shoot semi action with it as I have the new 100s ii. I love Fujifilm colours and I barely need to edit the files. I really don't do much video and if I do do video, I've got a FUJIFILM XT5 that I can use for that. I do think the Nikon Z8 is a great camera from what I've seen and read and the guys that have used it. I would much prefer a Nikon Z8 over a Sony camera. I simply cannot use Sony cameras. I teach photography in my local community and seen many of the images out of Sony cameras and I don't mind them but they have a look that I don't like and I can't quite put my finger on it but everyone is different and to be honest is really not a bad camera these days. Now that I've been with Fuji for about two years the other thing I love about Fuji is the community great bunch of people and it's a smaller very enthuses artistic bunch of people. I would say if you don't shoot fast moving objects check out Fuji GFX as it's never been more affordable and please understand the size of the system is not much bigger than a Z8 with a NikonZ lens on it. In terms of image quality there was virtually no difference from the Nikon D850 to the Nikon Z series cameras. There was no change in image quality and they were 45 megapixels around about that so I wasn't expecting a huge leap but I was expecting some there was no improvement in image quality. And call me vain but image quality is important to me in my equipment.
Lee, that Z8 you were shooting? Same sensor as the D850; same as in "The Z8 sensor is also 7 years old." In fact, all the full frame Z series use that sensor. So essentially, the 1st gen Z camera shoots the same images as the Z8 and Z7II, just without the extra bells and whistles. When Nikon picks a camera part out, they pick the very best.
I recently moved to Z8 and agree with pretty much every point you made. Its a great camera and in some ways it is best in class but Nikon is still playing catch up in some key areas. Compared to something like the Z7II the Z8 is a massive step up in focus performance but compared to flagships from Sony or Canon, it is still a step behind.
I was also kinda chaffed to discover pre-capture was jpg only, particularly that it is limited to jpg "norm", you can't even shoot at jpg "fine", as far as I'm concerned that makes the feature kinda useless as I'm never not shooting raw.
That said, I think we are in truly a magical era where all 3 main manufacturers are producing sensational quality cameras and incredible glass to go with them. There is no clear winner anymore in any area and I feel that is an incredible thing for the consumer.