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<\/a>For long-time readers of this site, you may notice some shortening of certain sections of this review. Due to family commitments and an increased level of commitment at work, I am going to be slowly modifying my camera reviews. I have been very in-depth on my reviews for the last 12 years of this site, and all-told, camera reviews have tended to take me upwards of 40 hours to fully write, and I simply don’t have that level of time any more. I will still be committed to providing detailed discussion of items that I feel warrant said discussion (as you’ll see below when I talk about controls and operation), however I will no longer be going deep into every feature a camera offers. Those that stand out or are important to my shooting will be mentioned, but I’m hoping to trim a bit of fat off the camera reviews. Lens reviews will likely be unchanged going forward. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Nikon Zf is a retro-styled mirrorless camera with a design that is reminiscent of the Nikon FM2 from the early 1980s, with a few design elements of the Nikon F3. It’s made predominantly of magnesium alloy, with painted brass dials on top and a black leatherette that covers the midsection of the camera. The camera is a bit larger than I originally expected, and it’s also a little heavier than I thought it would be, at 710g.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The camera feels very solid in the hand, and the brass dials have an exceptionally nice feel and wonderful tactility in operation. The dials have strong, satisfying detents and operate beautifully. The front and rear command dials are also metal and have an excellent feel in operation. However, the buttons feel like any other Nikon camera. They’re fine, and they have a consistent feel and pressure for activation, but aren’t quite as in-line with the retro theming as the dials and power switch are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think aesthetically, the camera really succeeds. It’s quite a beautiful camera, especially when used with one of Nikon’s SE prime lenses, the Voigtl\u00e4nder Z lenses, or an adapted manual focus lens. Beauty doesn’t help you take better pictures, but satisfying design can entice one to go out and shoot. I find myself using the Zf far more than my typical ‘backup’ body, and it has found essentially equal use alongside my Z8 for my personal shooting. A lot of that is due to the design and the manual dials. I just love holding and using the camera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, along with the 80s SLR styled body comes 80s SLR ergonomics, and this is one of the drawbacks of retro camera design. While the Zf has a slight front grip that allows for some purchase, the overall feel of the grip is that of holding a flat brick. It’s a well made brick, but a brick nonetheless. As such, even with lighter lenses, the camera isn’t designed to be held in one hand for any real length of time. If you are using a neck strap, or shooting while supporting the camera with your left hand, the Zf poses no real issues. However, if you plan on walking around with the camera in your hand, it can become very fatiguing very quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thankfully, if you do plan on holding the camera in one hand for extended periods, there are a host of accessory grip options to help, and many of them are quite affordable. I highly recommend picking up an accessory grip with the Zf, as it can dramatically improve ergonomics and long-term comfort when shooting with the body. I did a detailed breakdown of five of these grip options here<\/a>. I personally shoot with the new Neewer grip with the rear thumbrest most of the time, as I feel provides the best overall control of the camera, and is the most comfortable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Nikon Zf has what I would describe as a hybrid control scheme. In one way, it tries to replicate the old manual SLRs of the 70s and early 80s with dedicated dials on top, while in other ways it reverts to some more modern ways of doing things. The main controls are situated on the top plate of the camera, with an ISO dial located on the left shoulder of the camera, a shutter speed dial in its traditional place to the right of the viewfinder hump, and an exposure compensation dial on the right side. Additionally, there are both front and rear command dials, and a smattering of buttons that can be programmed. The camera is turned on by a prominent and great feeling on\/off switch surrounding the shutter button. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This mix of controls is hit-and-miss with regards to effectiveness. Some of that is simply due to the fact that none of the Nikon Z lenses have aperture rings. As such, you’ll always be using one of the two command dials for aperture control, unless you’re using certain manual focus lenses like Voigtl\u00e4nder’s excellent Z mount primes, or are adapting other lenses that happen to have aperture rings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At its core, the Zf’s control scheme is a bit confusing. The camera has a PASM switch, located on the left top of the camera under the ISO dial. This allows you to put the camera in Manual, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or Program mode. However, this switch yields some awkward behavior. In aperture priority mode, the shutter speed dial turns off, ISO is controlled on its dial, and aperture on the front or rear command dial (depending on what you choose). Manual mode is the same, except the shutter speed dial now becomes active. In Shutter Priority, the command dials become effectively useless, and the shutter speed dial becomes active as well. Program mode is the most confusing, as it turns off the shutter speed dial, your command dial controls program shift (but that seems to lag), and the ISO dial is still active. There’s also full auto mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The confusion really comes in when you look at the ‘C’ positions on the ISO and EC dials, and the 1\/3 Step position on the shutter speed dial. The C position on the exposure compensation dial effectively moves the EC function to the command dial not occupied by a changing parameter in A, S, or P modes. However, setting the ISO dial to ‘C’ mode does NOT move the ISO control to that other command dial…it simply disables the ISO dial and allows you to change the ISO by moving ISO adjustments to a separately configured button or the touch screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the relatively few programmable buttons on the camera, this is frankly dumb. There is no way to change this behavior and put ISO on one of the command dials. Also, if you want to activate auto ISO mode, you have to activate it in a menu, as there is no position on the dial for auto ISO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The shutter speed dial has full stop selections from 4 seconds to 1\/8000s, which is very nice, plus a Bulb mode, a Time mode (like bulb, but started and then stopped with a press of the shutter), an X mode for flash sync speed max (1\/200s) and then the ‘1\/3 STEP’ setting, which moves the shutter speed to a command dial in M or S modes, and allows for 1\/3 stop increments of shutter speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, depending on what combination of settings the dials and PASM switch are set to, your dedicated dials may or may not be functional. The whole thing is way more complicated than it needs to be, and a lot of that is simply due to the lack of aperture rings. I think what SHOULD have been done is a move mostly towards how Fujifilm does it. Eliminate the C setting on ISO (or at least allow it to move to a command dial), and add an ‘A’ setting to quickly allow moving to Auto ISO. Get rid of the ‘X’ position on the shutter speed dial and replace it with ‘A’. Now those dials directly control whether the camera controls that function, or the dial does. Finally, change the PASM switch to an ‘auto\/manual aperture’ switch, to control whether the camera automatically selects the aperture or you control it. This would massively simplify the controls and make it consistent across all operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With all that complaining out of the way – I still generally like the way the camera functions. I almost exclusively use Aperture Priority and Manual mode, and I often use lenses with aperture rings (my two Vogitlanders, and my adapted E-mount Sony 35mm f\/1.4 GM, 50mm f\/1.2 GM, and Sigma 85mm f\/1.4) on the Zf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finishing the control discussion, there is one programmable button on the front of the camera, the movie record button (which can and should be changed by most users in stills shooting mode), a programmable AE-L\/AF-L button on the top rear, and the usual array of Nikon controls on the back, with a four-way controller, the i-menu button, magnification, Display, Menu, Playback and Trash buttons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The buttons that can be programmed are the front button, video record, playback, display, OK and AEL buttons. However, since Playback and Display are pretty commonly used, I’d imagine most people won’t change them, leaving just four real programmable buttons. This is enough<\/em>, but I’d prefer at least one more. I have my front button set to change AF modes, the movie record to change drive mode, and the AEL button to magnify. On my Z8, the center OK button of the four-way is used to magnify, but since the Zf has no focus joystick, the OK button centers the focus point on my setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, there’s a switch under the shutter speed dial to switch between stills and video mode, as well as switch directly into a dedicated Black and White mode. This last part isn’t strictly needed, but I find it nice in a camera like this, and Nikon’s black and white profiles are quite excellent as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, the controls on the Zf are sufficient, and I find operating the dials to be very satisfying. As someone who shot Fujifilm for a long time, I’m very familiar with this process…however, it’s also clear that Fujifilm has nailed this control scheme, while on the Zf it still needs some polish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zf features what has become the ‘standard’ Nikon EVF, with one minor change, and is largely identical to the viewfinder the the Nikon Z8. This EVF is a 3.6 million dot finder with a very large 0.8x magnification. While many manufacturers have moved to higher resolution 5 or 9 million dot EVFs, including Nikon on its newest Z6 III, one thing I can say is that Nikon’s 3.6M dot viewfinders are better than their specification. The optics themselves are incredibly clear, and the expansive magnification, high panel quality and clarity make the viewfinder in the Zf an absolute pleasure to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I actually prefer the viewfinder on the Zf to that on the Canon R5, despite the lower resolution. In one slight cost-cutting measure, however, the Zf’s EVF only refreshes at 60 Hz instead of the 120 Hz offered on the Z8 and Z9. Outside of the refresh, however, it is functionally identical to that of the Z8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rear screen on the Zf is a fully-articulated 3.2″ screen with 2.1 million dot resolution. The screen is very clear, bright, contrasty and colorful, and the touch response is quite excellent as well. I personally prefer the dual-axis tilting on the Nikon Z8 to a fully articulated screen, but that comes down to personal preference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zf is the first prosumer grade body that Nikon has released since they first really figured out their autofocus system with the Z9 and Z8. As such, the camera inherits a lot of the autofocus DNA from those cameras, though it lacks the high-speed stacked sensor that increases readout, and it also lacks a few of the more recent subject detection tweaks that the flagship bodies have gained via firmware update. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, I found the Zf’s 273 focus point AF system to focus much more like the Z8 than it does to earlier bodies like the Z7 II or Z6 II. Focus is quick and accurate, and solid even in low light. Subject tracking also works quite well for people and pets, as well as for limited sports work, but it lacks the dedicated Bird AF mode that has recently been added to the Z8. As such, while it will detect birds, its responsiveness in that department is much weaker than the Z8, which is class leading for bird detection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, for the general shooter, the AF system works very well indeed, and finally puts autofocus capability that is competitive with Sony and Canon in the hands of Nikon shooters without having to spend over $3,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as performance is concerned, the Zf was not designed as a high-speed body. However, it is still competitive in that area as well. The camera can shoot 11 frames per second with the mechanical shutter when shooting RAW, or 14 frames per second when shooting JPEG. The buffer is reasonably deep as well, allowing for around 185 RAW frames at 11 frames per second. These are great numbers for a ‘retro’ camera, and competitive with other $2,000 cameras in the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zf is also a responsive camera, gaining the Expeed 7 processor used in the Z8 and Z9, and giving the camera a significant processing edge over the Z7 II and Z6 II, and matching the newer Z6 III. There’s no waiting on the camera after shooting, and everything responds as it should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost every mirrorless camera nowadays features an in-body image stabilization (IBIS) system, and the Zf is no different. What is different is that Nikon has introduced a brand new version of their ‘in camera VR’ as they call it, which pushes the claimed effectiveness all the way to 8 stops. I have almost never gotten anywhere close to the rated effectiveness on an in-body stabilization system, but I can say that the Zf’s IBIS system is excellent, and does show an improvement over the already quite good IBIS found in the Z8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I found the Zf’s IBIS system to quite regularly get me between 4 and 6 stops of stabilization over what I could get hand held, depending on focal length and whether or not 3-axis or 5-axis stabilization is being used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The camera uses 5-stop IBIS when it has distance information to use with regards to focus. This is the case with all Nikon Z-mount lenses, but will not be the case with adapted lenses or most manual focus lenses (including the Z-mount Voigtlander lenses). Without distance information, the camera corrects shake in 3 axes. With 3-axis IBIS engaged, 4 stops is about the maximum I can achieve, while with 5-axis IBIS engaged, up to 6 stops is possible. For instance, with my Nikkor Z 24-120mm f\/4 S, I can get sharp shots as slow as 1\/2 second at 120mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, this performance is a little more than a full stop better than what I regularly achieve with the Z8, and around 2 stops better than the Z7 II, making it one of the most effective full-frame IBIS systems I’ve ever used. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I usually stretch this section into a deep dive of some of the key features, but frankly I’ve grown weary of doing that, so I’m going to simply touch on the highlights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zf has a fairly full array of features, matching or on some ways exceeding bodies that came before it. The Zf inherits all the little goodies of the earlier higher end Z cameras like a built-in intervalometer, auto focus bracketing, starlight view and more. These work very well, and stretch the Zf’s capabilities to make it a very well rounded camera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It also has support for a large number of manual focus lenses, where you can add focal length and aperture data and quickly switch between them when changing manual lenses. For a retro-styled body, this is good. The Zf works really well with adapted manual focus glass, and I think a lot of people drawn to the retro body will want to use older manual focus lenses on the camera. On the down side, as of July 2024, the Zf still uses the old method of entering non-CPU lenses into the camera. That is, you can only select focal lengths that Nikon made at some point. The same with aperture. The Z8 received a firmware update a couple of months ago that upgraded this feature to allow for adding lens names (for EXIF data), as well as inputting any focal length and aperture into the data. This feature NEEDS to come to the Zf at some point in a firmware update. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zf is also the first Nikon camera to feature Pixel Shift shooting, where the IBIS system will shift tiny amounts to create very high resolution images. The Zf’s feature can take 4, 8, 16, or 32 images. The 4 and 8 shot modes create true-color images at each pixel (rather than just a Bayer demosaicing), increasing color resolution. The 16 and 32 image stacks will also shift by sub-pixel dimensions increasing total resolution, resulting in final 96 megapixel images. The 8 and 32 image stacks are the same resolution as the 4 and 16 image ones, respectively, but sample each location twice to reduce noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like a lot of pixel shift modes from other manufacturers, the Nikon Zf’s pixel shift mode requires stitching the manufacturer’s software package, NX Studio. As a result, you can’t preview your final image in the field. Also, Nikon’s stitching doesn’t really do any compensation for motion, so ANY movement between frames, whether it be a gentle vibration from the camera or a leaf moving from a breeze, will show odd pixelated artifacts. As a result, it is extremely difficult to create images that really make the pixel shift mode worth it. It’s really only still life and perhaps indoor architecture shooting that can take real advantage of it, and even then, you need to be ultra still so vibrations from the floor don’t ruin the shot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you were thinking that macro shooting might be a good use for it, well, think again – it’s exceptionally difficult to get a macro shot to actually stitch properly, because even the finest near imperceptible vibrations from air movement and the floor can add very tiny pixel level movements, which will ruin a stitch, as evidenced by the crops of a close up shot of a lens shown above. I tried twice to get a 32 image stitch to work, and both times, tiny vibrations were enough to ruin the stitch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s a longwinded way to say that while Pixel Shift shooting is here, and it works, it’s impractical enough that very few people will ever use it after the first few tries. The AI upscaler in Photoshop is going to be something that is going to have more real-world benefit than worrying about pixel shift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The sensor in the Nikon Zf is a bit of a known quantity. For the most part, this is the same sensor from the Z6 II as well as the original Z6, save for a few small tweaks. However, this is the first camera using that sensor with the Expeed 7 processor, which may add a few small improvements. With that said, performance on the Zf’s sensor should be very much in line with the Z6 II. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sensor quality has reached a sort of plateau over the past 7-8 years, perhaps even up to 10 years ago. As such, the sensor in the Nikon Zf doesn’t break any new ground with regards to dynamic range, but what it does do is maintain the excellent dynamic range that was present in earlier Z6 models. And while the sensor isn’t brand new, it is still competitive with any of the modern 24 megapixel full-frame sensors. And that level is, without question, excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Nikon Zf’s RAW files provide a wide latitude for exposure adjustments, with minimal noise in the shadows, even when raising them significantly. On my recent trip to Italy, where much of my shooting was done in the harsh light of mid-day, the Zf’s files contained loads of information. I often bracketed in these conditions, but only very rarely did I ever actually use the extra bracketed exposures, as the base file contained enough information to fully capture the scene. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Color response is also excellent with the Nikon Zf, and I have been consistently pleased with both the tonal range and color out of the camera.. Colors are natural, yet punchy, and offer loads of flexibility in post. It’s really everything I could want out of a camera with regards to color and dynamic range. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Zf’s 24 megapixel sensor resolves much how you would expect any 24 megapixel sensor to resolve, with plenty of detail to make prints up to around 20×30 inches, and even larger if you aren’t going to examine things up close. While many people feel the mid-range has been ‘stuck’ at 24 megapixels for too long, I honestly find it an outstanding sweet spot. There’s plenty of resolution for making prints, even larger prints, while keeping file sizes smaller and manageable. Even though I love the higher resolution of my Z8 for wildlife shooting and landscape work, if I’m honest with myself, I don’t really need<\/em> more than 24 megapixels for my daily shooting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The sensor in the Zf does control noise very well, with images up to ISO 800 looking very clean, even upon close examination, and ISO 1600 and 3200 shots still being clean enough for most any use, including large prints. The shot above, taken at ISO 3600, does not have noise reduction applied. Higher ISOs are also quite usable, but the visible noise will start to degrade quality a little. Still, I have no qualms whatsoever about using the Nikon Zf at ISO 6400 or 12,800, and even 25,600 if I need to. Noise is fairly strong at that ISO, but still usable, especially with modern noise reduction tools. ISO 51,200 starts to become a bit too far, but it’s extremely rare that I ever need such sensitivities, especially given the outstanding in-body stabilization on the Zf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As anyone familiar with this site knows, I am not a videographer. And in fact, I have only really shot one video with the Zf in the seven months I’ve owned the camera, and that was during the total solar eclipse. The Zf actually has a fairly full featured video spec, but I’m not really the right person to dive into all that. I shot the video below using the standard color profile at 4K @ 30 fps. Some minor adjustments done in DaVinci Resolve. Be sure to select 4k resolution for the menu for maximum quality, though there is still some loss of fidelity to the file due to YouTube’s compression. <\/p>\n\n\n\nConstruction and Handling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Controls and Operation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a><\/a>Continue: Display, Viewfinder, and Performance<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Viewfinder and Display<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Autofocus and Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>In-Body Image Stabilization<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Some Key Features<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pixel Shift<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Continue: Image Quality<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Image Quality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dynamic Range and Color<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/a>Detail and Noise<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n