Goodbye Mirrorless

I’ve been battling with a Nikon mirrorless camera system for over a year now, and despite giving it ages to setlle in, I’m absolutely unconvinced by its suitability for my everyday business use. The Nikon Z6ii was a purchase dedicated to handling my video requirements as it shoots 4K at 60fps, is light, and can be adapted to use DSLR mount lenses which I already own. In reality, all of these factors have proved to have caveats attached.

I always research the suitability of new investments for yonks, and leave no stone upturned in the quest to find a camera/lens which will do the job at a fair price, and last considerable time. All my research pointed to the low light video capabilities of this model until I started to use it in the field. The 4K 60fps claim only applies when the image area is reduced to a DX cropped frame area, and not the FX full frame format. This means that my 12mm Laowa zero-distortion lens effectively becomes an 18mm lens. I can reduce the recording to HD (1080p) at 60fps and retain a full image area, but it means that any cropping or perspective adjustment introduces quality problems as the software has to make up parts of the frames affected by the stretching.

The FTZ adapter which allowed me to attach F lenses to the Nikon Z camera actually jammed to one of the lenses - resulting in a £500 repair and the discarding of the adapter which cost £200. I won’t be using that method again.

The colour from the Nikon X sensor just isn’t right. All my DSLR’s produce raw files which translate into jpegs with accurate colours, but I can’t get anything decent using any lens with the Z6ii. I’ve tried all the different white balance settings, tinkered with Lightroom profiles and adjustments, and searched a million forums and Youtube posts without success. Maybe it’s a dodgy camera sensor, or maybe it’s just me, but I’m constantly having a nightmare getting colours and tones right with exterior shots. The cheap 24-70mm lens I’m using probably doesn’t help, but in the end it’s causing me grief so it’s going to have to go.

Once I’ve practiced setting up my D850 on the DJI RS3 gimbal, the mirrorless stuff is on it’s way to MPB to be sold. I’ll make a huge loss on the stuff, but it’s driving me mental. The older tech just seems to work perfectly so I’ll probably swap the gear for another D850 which is perfect for my current needs. It allows me to shoot 11mp raw files for real estate work, but can switch to 48mp files for anything more commercial, and can shoot 1080p at 120fps for video.

I’ll try and sort that out next week - as well as trying to get rid of piles of unused lighting gear that I’ve not had the time to focus on until now. I’ll fill thee in once it’s all sorted.