I have had Nikon’s flagship mirrorless, the Z9, since February of this year, so I’ve see it come out of the box with firmware version 1.10 to the current, 2.11. The jump from 1.10 to 2.00 and even 2.00 to 2.10 has been huge. It truly make it a whole new camera, especially if you use the 8K internal video options. All that aside though, I’ve come here to review the Z9 as a wildlife and bird photographer, discuss my setup and workflow for it as well as my final conclusion on it thus far. So without further nonsense, here goes.
Autofocus – A Game Changer for Me
The Z9 has been a game changer for me as a bird photographer. The autofocus, even with my old F-mount 500mm f/4 lens, is outstanding compared to my previous Z6 and even my D750. While the animal and eye tracking is great, it’s not without its flaws and I knew that would be the case going in so my expectations – and camera – were setup for such. The default autofocus mode that I use is AF-C Wide area – Large. The top two from function buttons – Fn1 & Fn2 – are set for 3D tracking and Single Point AF respectively. This allows me to quickly switch to the AF mode that might best suit the situation to get my subject in focus. As most of my subjects tend to be, fast moving, erratic and small, or might take to flight quickly, this has allowed me to get shots that I might have has to switch to manual focusing to nail the shot. Something that might cause me to miss the shot just as frequently. Further, the top record button, while in still (non-video) mode, is set to 100% zoom. The allows me to check focus on the eye, or in some cases, help with identification.
These settings allow me to overcome most of the shortcomings in the autofocus of the Z9’s system, including those within its animal eye tracking system. However, as this is not likely a shortcoming of hardware, as indicated by the improvements from Firmware version 1.10 to 2.00, I expect that this feature will only get better with time. Will it be Sony A1 levels? I don’t know, but I would hope that so long as the work is put in, it will be, if not surpass that of the Sony cameras. Only time will tell though.
Low Light Capabilities
The low light capabilities of the Z9 are outstanding to say the least. Coming from the D750 and Z6 it’s night an day – no pun intended. While the camera’s ability to find focus properly in extreme low light isn’t as good as my D750, I rarely shoot in those conditions so I don’t personally see that as a downside. What I am most interested in is the high ISO performance and I must say, it’s exceptional. A vast majority of my shooting is done in Manual shooting Mode (M) with Auto ISO and my top ISO cap is currently set at 12,800. That’s a full stop of light more than I was ever comfortable pushing my Z6 and 2 stops more than my D750. For me, as many of the shots that I tend to take of warblers, as an example, are in shade that extra stop of light means that I can get my shutter speed that extra bit fast to freeze any motion. No one likes a blurry photo.
While my cap of 12,800 ISO is outstanding, and I have had a few useable photos with the ISO as high as 25,600, it is worth noting that the useability of the photos is partially dependant on my use of Topaz DeNoise AI. To clarify though, there has to be detail there first, before DeNoise can reduce the noise and further recover any detail. So that’s very important to know. Moving on, it’s also worth noting, that for those coming from a 20-24MP camera to these denser, 45+MP cameras that noise, even at lower ISOs will become more noticable. This is not a flaw if you know to expect it as a result of the significant increase in light-sensitive cells on the same physical size sensor but is certainly something to keep in mind for pixel peepers.
Speed, Speed, Speed
The Z9 is FAST and I don’t mean with just its autofocus, but its frames per second (fps) as well. Both in still and video (4K), this camera can hit 120 FPS in JPEG with pre-record and 20fps in full RAW. Sure, other brands are hitting 30fps RAW but from what I’ve heard and read, the buffers are not as good as that of the Z9. To be quite honest though, I don’t even use the full 20fps; I have mine set to 15fps RAW which has been more than enough. However, the option to easily switch to 120fps JPEG with pre-record is incredible and while I haven’t gotten much opportunity to utilize the 120fps with wildlife, I have used it for a few fun family functions, such as a water balloon fight and the result are fun to look at. These speeds would not be possible though without good cards so I will discuss though next.
Memory Cards
Before I buy anything, especially things with a hefty price tag, and the CF Express (Type-B) cards to the Z9 certainly fit that bill, I do my homework. I read articles, browse through technical data and watch reviews on test for what’s the best for this, that or the other thing. In terms of my card choices after my research I went with 2 Delkin 128GB cards. The one in the primary slot (Slot 1) is a Delkin Black while the one in slot 2 is a Delkin Power. The Black is faster and as a result, more expensive while the Power is just a bit slower. My typical in-camera configuration is to have Slot 2 as overflow or for video and will on occasion, makeit the card for JPEG when I need to shoot RAW + JPG. Since I don’t shoot a lot of video, at least yet, I have not had any issues with buffer for either card, but if you’re doing a lot of 4K 120fps RAW or 8K RAW video, the Black is certainly the best choice. It is also worth noting that I have not had any issue with overheating with these cards yet. While the Sandisk CF Express card that I currently keep in my Z6 would often get quite hot to the touch, even within that camera or when downloading pictures, that has never been the issue with the Delkins for me.
The 128GB cards allow me about 3.3K worth of pictures in High Efficiency RAW which has been more than enough for my outings thus far. If I think I might run into issues, I bring my card reader, my laptop and a 1TB Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD. I have never had to use any of that but it’s nice to be prepared.
Workflow Changes
A full review of the Z9 isn’t complete with discussing the impacts that it has had on how I work, store and cull my photos. First off, I’ll discuss the storage. The massive increase in file size has meant that I have had to reconfigure my NAS (more on my NAS in a future article) from a dual 4TB RAID 1 to a 10.5TB RAID 5. This gives me a lot more backup storage space but only 1-drive failure protection. This can be a deal breaker for some but I also backup my photos to the Amazon cloud (unlimited photo storage with Amazon Prime) as another point of redundancy as well as schedule to replace/upgrade my drives every 3-4 years whether they need it or not. This is a good preventative maintenance practice that I also utilize on my computer as well. Speaking of which, I also have a 3TB internal HDD on my workstation which is where I store all my photos and a 2TB NVMe SSD that I run my OS and Lightroom from. This is also the drive where I store my catalog. This brings me to how I work with Lightroom on my workstation.
With my pictures stored on one physical drive and my catalog stored on another, much faster drive, I utilize the best of both speed and storage capacity. Prior to the Z9, everything was on one physical drive. While slower, it wasn’t markedly slower with the much smaller D750 and Z6 files compared to the Z9 files. That’s what prompted this move – speed – and for the better as now I don’t have a single point of failure. However, the size of the Z9 files has also made me less of a pack rat when it comes to my images. Before, I deleted very little, unless it was just terribly blurry or an oops shot of the ground or sky or a trailing shot from a burst that did not contain the subject at all. I basically kept everything because space was cheap and I had plenty of it. Not so with the Z9. I burn through gig’s without issue. To combat this though, I went through my existing catalog and deleted all the stuff I just don’t want – basically anything not flagged as ‘Pick’. Further, once I upload new shots from my cards, I go through them almost immediately and flag the ones I want to keep, deleting the rest shortly there after. The upside and downside to this is the keeper rate with the Z9 seems to be much higher than with my previous bodies to I really do get down to the pixel peeping – which segues to some of my post processing changes.
The other big workflow change with the introduction of the Z9 to my bag is that I finally broke down and go the Topaz trifecta – DeNoise, Sharpen and Gigapixel. While the latter I prefer to use only for older files that have been cropped heavily, I haven’t used it much with the Z9 due to the 45MP sensor. Sharpen and DeNoise especially, are important parts of my post production process. As I mentioned earlier, ISO noise, even at ISOs as low as 640, is far more noticeable with this 45MP sensor compared to my previous 24MP sensors. The result is that I will commonly run my photos through DeNoise AI to smooth some of that noise out, especially in the background where the detail usually isn’t as important. To be quite honest though, I should have gotten this software a long time ago, but the Z9s files made the purchase that much more important so here we are.
Final Remarks
To put it simply, the Z9 is a great camera. I love how it feels in my hand, its speed, its performance, the multitude of features and the fact that as it is so firmware driven, it’s likely to only get better over the course of its support life. While it certainly has its shortcomings, especially in areas where other camera manufacturers like Sony seem to currently have the edge, it still holds its own in many other areas, especially amongst those in the same class. It’s a great camera for wildlife and sports due to its speed, and can fit well for landscape and portrait due to the big sensor, and I can’t forget to mention is usage as a video platform because it excels there as well. However, unless you came from a similarly large sensor, like the D850 or Z7/Z7ii you’ll likely have a number of upgrades or workflow changes to consider to accommodate these new files. It’s no small task that’s for sure, but if you have a lot invested in Nikon equipement, have the financial capabilities to upgrade to the Z9 but not quite enough to migrate to the Sony platform, for example, it’s certainly worth the jump in my opinion. But don’t take my work for it, do your own research and come to your own conclusion on what is best for you – though I hope this brief article has help inform your decision some.
Good luck and happy shooting!