Switching to the Nikon Z8

[Andrew Reid]

It's nearly time for a spring clean where 4 or 5 cameras turn into 1!

I have decided to divest in L-mount. The Sigma Fp-L is staying but I'm moving on from Panasonic and the L-mount lenses with no plans to get more. When the Sigma BF comes out I'll certainly consider swapping the Fp-L for it but want to see if it retains Cinema DNG raw video.

Nikon Z8 used prices are now under $3000/3000 euro.

So it's a cheaper option than the Panasonic S1R II, with a much more flagship design of body and very nice chonky EVF. Of course the autofocus is in a different league and the sensor is a lot faster.

I thought about returning to a Sony a1 and selling my a7 IV along with some Fuji stuff. But the a1 prices are still as high as 12 months ago and well above what I'll find a Z8 for.

Nikon Zf mount has the nifty Leica M autofocus adapter (latest version) from Techart, and the MegaDap Sony E mount adapter which serves all my autofocus needs without requiring a $15,000 investment in Nikon Zf lenses. Thank the lord.

Whereas with the S1R II and L-mount, options are very limited for adapters.

Sigma 35mm F2 ART for Sony E-mount on a Nikon Z8 is a tempting duo.

Build quality tip top and not too big.

Ergonomically fantastic.

8K RAW video and super fast.

One of the best range of H.265 codec options and some very good crop modes.

4K/120p full frame mode.

So I think it's time to get into Z mount in a big way and commit to it.

Would you go for the Z8, or something else for $3000?

[D Verco]

I already got the Z8 an love it. I do think the xh2s still has nicer log profile (it's basically the same as arri) and open gate, but the Nikon is a lot more reliable in every other way. 

[ND64]

Just keep in mind to get "cool" cfexpress cards. Z8 has no serious overheating issue, unless you put a card that consumes a lot of power. There is huge gap in efficiency between some of these cards that nobody talks about (one of the reasons a reviewer says I got 1 hour and another says only 20 minutes). Angelbird CFe v4 1TB is rated 3.75w, but v2 that is slower is rated 2.4w. v4 sustained write speed is 2100MB/s (insane in such a small package) and v2 is 1300MB/s, meaning you get 60% higher speed for 56% more power consumption, which I don't think a good tradeoff, considering 1300MB/s is already fast enough, and I dont think you take too much 8k60p shots at highest bitrate. 

[ND64]

46 minutes ago, D Verco said:

I already got the Z8 an love it. I do think the xh2s still has nicer log profile

A Chinese youtuber said that nraw in redcine-x with red log applied shows more room for highlight recovery, if I understood correctly (it also doesn't have the blue clipping issue thats is still unaddressed in resolve). But at the moment redcine-x doesn't support lens correction for nraw. 

[Emanuel]

@Andrew Reid Nice to know : ) Curious to see your findings ;- )

[MrSMW]

This would be a 'maybe' for me.

What do I like?

The body. I think it's best in class for size, weight, ergos, build etc. It's Goldilocks for me from that perspective.

For video, easily nails my needs.

For stills, it would cover it, just... I'd rather have another 15 or so mp as with my A7RV, but...

Lenses is a bit of a tricky one in two regards.

1. I think the native Z line is still a bit thin. It has some of the rebadged Tamron lenses, but not all of them and the Tamron lenses, specifically the trio of 20-40, 25-75 and 70-180, all f2.8 and in their latest spec, are insanely good for their size & weight with no discernible real world difference to their fatter 24-70 and 70-200 equivalents.

2a. Adapted lenses. I wouldn't trust the adapted M lenses as far as AF goes and all the tests vindicate that as in it's 'OK' at best, in good light, but you would not rely on it for anything critical. But for using manually, I think adapting M glass is superb. Voigtlander especially for quality vs cost.

2b. Megadap. For video use, possibly less of an issue. For stills however, because there is no in camera correction that native Sony lenses provide, you can get some weird distortions that are almost impossible to correct. This is mostly in regard to verticals. I know because I used all 3 adapted Tamron lenses listed above on my Zf for 4-5 jobs at the start of last year and though it was not an issue or noticeable in over 90% of shots, especially outdoors, for indoor work, not so great.

AF though with the Megadap is very good. It's not quite native, but it's not that far off. 

I think for me as a user of currently 3 systems; Sony + Tamron for stills, LUMIX + Sigma for video and Nikon Zf for 'less serious' stills, ie, a foot in all 3 camps, the system that makes the most sense for my needs would still be L Mount with Sony & Nikon tied for second, Sony for stills and Nikon for video.

To be honest, I'd be happy with any of them and have come so close to pushing the Z8 button myself other than what it would cost for me to do so because any future changes for me, I want to go all in on one single system. Financially, that is currently beyond my means.

[Walter H]

20 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

One of the best range of H.265 codec options and some very good crop modes.

I would be very interested to read your experiences on this front specifically. Where it not for reading in various internet spaces about poor H.265 implimentation resulting in compression artifacts, I'd likely be swayed (and might overlook the lack of a mechanical shutter). I think everything else about the camera is stellar. 

But I'm consistently unclear if H.265 10-bit is 422 or 420. The manual says the latter but 422 is referenced online repeatedly (perhaps due to people making assumptions about 10-bit?). 

This is obviously mute if your intensions are to live in NRAW and ProRes-land. If so, I think this would be an incredible camera and a good if not the direction to go given your Lumix misgivings. It would be my next pick.

[Ilkka Nissila]

On 3/2/2025 at 7:43 AM, ND64 said:

Just keep in mind to get "cool" cfexpress cards. Z8 has no serious overheating issue, unless you put a card that consumes a lot of power. There is huge gap in efficiency between some of these cards that nobody talks about (one of the reasons a reviewer says I got 1 hour and another says only 20 minutes). Angelbird CFe v4 1TB is rated 3.75w, but v2 that is slower is rated 2.4w. v4 sustained write speed is 2100MB/s (insane in such a small package) and v2 is 1300MB/s, meaning you get 60% higher speed for 56% more power consumption, which I don't think a good tradeoff, considering 1300MB/s is already fast enough, and I dont think you take too much 8k60p shots at highest bitrate. 

This is an important point, and has been widely discussed in other forums. The Z8 works well in terms of temperature management as long as you choose one of the coolest running CFexpress cards. Card temperatures have been tested a few years ago in https://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/cfexpress/delkin-black-cf-express-type-b-512gb-memory-card-review/4/ though not specifically in this camera.

I have the 325 GB Prograde Digital Cobalt card and it's excellent (it was originally preferred by Nikon when the Z9 came out, as their developers found it to perform the best in the Z9), but Delkin Blacks (which are a newer card series) are very popular among the intense-shooting crowd and can be cheaper than the Prograde Digital Cobalt. If you need larger capacity than is available in Delkin Black, then Delkin Power can be considered. Note that the series have been updated by Delkin and the newest cards may be different, but I haven't heard anything negative about the new series.

The Z9 has a larger body and better temperature management than the Z8 but the Z8 also does fine as long as one chooses the right CFexpress card for the extended video recording.

[Andrew Reid]

15 hours ago, Walter H said:

I would be very interested to read your experiences on this front specifically. Where it not for reading in various internet spaces about poor H.265 implimentation resulting in compression artifacts, I'd likely be swayed (and might overlook the lack of a mechanical shutter). I think everything else about the camera is stellar. 

But I'm consistently unclear if H.265 10-bit is 422 or 420. The manual says the latter but 422 is referenced online repeatedly (perhaps due to people making assumptions about 10-bit?). 

This is obviously mute if your intensions are to live in NRAW and ProRes-land. If so, I think this would be an incredible camera and a good if not the direction to go given your Lumix misgivings. It would be my next pick.

There is a 700Mbit/s mode in NRAW at 4K 24p which could be good half-way house between too much compression and the huge file sizes of the 8K NRAW and Prores modes.

This is among the smallest file size for RAW shooting on any camera, alongside C-RAW Lite 6K on the EOS R3.

I have seen this test which shows the compression in the red channel with H.265.

What's a bit frustrating is the lack of info about what bitrate was selected and so on...

I assume it was graded from LOG.

According to Slashcam the H.265 bitrates in MP4 are tiny.

https://www.slashcam.de/artikel/Test/Nikon-Z8-in-der-Praxis--Die-bessere-Z9-fuer-Video--8K-RAW-50p-Bolide-mit-Feinschliffbedarf--alles-.html#

Will certainly see some compression in MP4.

But what about the H.265 MOV mode?

[Andrew Reid]

I think I have answered it myself...

The compression in H.265 is the result of bad tests.

They are using the MP4 mode which has extremely low bitrates.

In MOV we have 8K H.265 10bit 422 at 400Mbit, similar to the Sony a1's 500Mbit 8K mode post firmware update. This I have experience of and it was a match for N-RAW as far as the lack of compression, great shadow detail and a fine noise texture goes.

There's also a Prores 422 HQ 700Mbit/s mode in 4K/24p, so a reasonable step up from 400Mbit.

Remember however that H.265 long GOP at 400Mbit is equiv. to H.264 at 800Mbit so if you see a ton of macro blocking in that I'll be surprised!

The ProRes codec has the advantage of being ALL-I though.

According to Newsshooter where you can see the full breakdown of bitrates, 4K in H265 MOV is 190Mbit, so equivalent to 380 H.264.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2023/05/10/nikon-z8-announced/

Aside from the wide range of bitrates...

I like the fact it has no crop in 4K/120p plus the option of DX and 2.3x crop.

The 2.3x crop is nice for Super 16mm lenses.

Plus the high-res Zoom option for pretty much any crop factor between 1 and 2.3

One last thought, it seems Nikon did agree with the Canon 70d that the right place for the stills/movie mode is under your right hand.

[Emanuel]

2 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

This is an important point, and has been widely discussed in other forums. The Z8 works well in terms of temperature management as long as you choose one of the coolest running CFexpress cards. Card temperatures have been tested a few years ago in https://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/cfexpress/delkin-black-cf-express-type-b-512gb-memory-card-review/4/ though not specifically in this camera.

I have the 325 GB Prograde Digital Cobalt card and it's excellent (it was originally preferred by Nikon when the Z9 came out, as their developers found it to perform the best in the Z9), but Delkin Blacks (which are a newer card series) are very popular among the intense-shooting crowd and can be cheaper than the Prograde Digital Cobalt. If you need larger capacity than is available in Delkin Black, then Delkin Power can be considered. Note that the series have been updated by Delkin and the newest cards may be different, but I haven't heard anything negative about the new series.

The Z9 has a larger body and better temperature management than the Z8 but the Z8 also does fine as long as one chooses the right CFexpress card for the extended video recording.

I wonder on the limits of length for 8K 60p...

[Andrew Reid]

There's no CFe card with the capacity to give you 8K/60p RAW continuous for loooong continuous takes.

In 8K/30p H.265 it's a 125 minute limit.

[Walter H]

Interesting and a few things that still give me pause regarding the Nikon stacked sensors... From the linked Newsshooter article: 

"Because of the aggressive nature of the N-Log curve, it tends to crush the shadows down to try and limit the noise. The problem with this is that you don’t get a lot of information to work with in the shadows."

"The other real-world issue with N-Log is that if you use View Assist it doesn’t in any way reflect what the N-Log LUT looks like. If you expose based on what looks correct on the LCD screen or EVF you will quickly find that your N-Log image is underexposed. The last thing you want to do when shooting N-Log is to underexpose because the N-Log curve certainly doesn’t give you much headroom in the shadows. Underexposing leads to severe image noise in the mids and shadows if you need to lift them up." (my emphasis added)

I don't think I would describe the VLog coming from the S1 as "agressive" and my opportunity to push around shadows and midtones in post is - to my eye - pretty remarkable. If I was shooting in controlled environments, I wouldn't fret about it but recently I photographed and filmed a full day of moving cattle from from a penned area to outdoor pasture, which included a lot of time in the poorly lit barn/trailer with huge barn doors on a bright sunny day. 14 stops of range? 16? 

I was thanking the S1 for how little noise it introduces and how well it held highlights as I worked up the images. I have zero confidence in the Z6III in this scenerio even with it's recent firmware update. I think the only reasonable thing for me to do would be to rent a Z8 and use it for several days in the environments I usually work.

[Django]

Yeah I was so set on a Z9 but after doing some tests I got very frustrated with N-log. Exposing it right, grading it. Such a struggle I ended up using the baked profiles like flat or neutral. Maybe I didn’t find the right workflow but log footage was all over the place with often very little latitude. Call me biased but Clog is just so effortless to work with in comparison. N-log really killed my GAS for switching to Nikon..
 

 

[Walter H]

1 hour ago, Django said:

Yeah I was so set on a Z9 but after doing some tests I got very frustrated with N-log. Exposing it right, grading it. Such a struggle I ended up using the baked profiles like flat or neutral. Maybe I didn’t find the right workflow but log footage was all over the place with often very little latitude. Call me biased but Clog is just so effortless to work with in comparison. N-log really killed my GAS for switching to Nikon..
 

 

Thanks for confirming this! It's been my impression from afar but without directing working with the files, I certainly didn't want to declare anything. 

[ND64]

4 hours ago, Walter H said:

The last thing you want to do when shooting N-Log is to underexpose because the N-Log curve certainly doesn’t give you much headroom in the shadows

Why should it be a issue if you shoot raw? If its raw, the data is there. 

[ArashM]

5 hours ago, Walter H said:

I think the only reasonable thing for me to do would be to rent a Z8 and use it for several days in the environments I usually work.

This is the only way for me to test out a new camera, shoot along the normal and see how the new camera compares against the same footage!

[Andrew Reid]

The deal is done, thank you Foto Meyer Berlin.

Sold some stuff, as I realised I didn't need it anyway as the Z8 does it all, pretty much.

Z8 has been out about a year already, which is crazy. Still I think 3099 given it's still current is quite generous. Like many of you guys I was waiting to see what Panasonic would come up with after so long.

But the S1R Mark II is not for me and S1H Mark II remains missing. I won't pay $3.5K / 500 euros more than the used Z8 for a cost-cut S5 body, no top LCD, worse AF, worse rolling shutter, and a worse mount. Also the S1R II internal RAW codec bitrates are too massive, ProRes RAW only, no 700Mbit custom RAW format like Canon/Nikon are offering with Canon RAW Lite and N-RAW. Although hey, at least Panasonic has internal RAW unlike Sony!

Z-mount is equal or better than L-mount for many reasons, primarily:

Megadap Sony E mount adapter opens up the entire Sony range of which there is a lot plus allows Sigma full frame lenses in by the back door. Lovely 35mm F2 is small and perfect for Z8. Also the Techart Leica M autofocus adapter is IMHO a must have, and this ain't available in L-mount. Plus Sigma APS-C lenses are in Native Z mount anyway so when I need to go for a very small zoon, 18-50mm F2.8 fits the bill perfectly and the Z8 has enough resolution in Super 35 mode to do it justice.

I could not wait another 12 months to 7 years for a Panasonic flagship. S1H Mark II might be really nice... who knows. They're not communicating.

Panasonic did not even so much as email me about the S1R Mark II.

But the main reason I am out of the Panasonic ecosystem is that the competition is both cheaper and better.

[D Verco]

17 hours ago, Django said:

Yeah I was so set on a Z9 but after doing some tests I got very frustrated with N-log. Exposing it right, grading it. Such a struggle I ended up using the baked profiles like flat or neutral. Maybe I didn’t find the right workflow but log footage was all over the place with often very little latitude. Call me biased but Clog is just so effortless to work with in comparison. N-log really killed my GAS for switching to Nikon..
 

 

If you use an external monitor with the new red luts it shouldn't be a problem, but yeah hopefully they give us firmware updates with IPP2 soon

[Walter H]

@Andrew ReidLooking forward to your experiences and impressions of the footage.