The amazing folk at Beau Photos (https://www.beauphoto.com) rented me a Nikon ZF to try out with the large but stellar Nikon 35mm 1.8s lens. I’ve got it for the weekend and had a chance to shoot a few frames whiles out doing some chores. The world is filled with great reviews so won’t waste time here but it’s “almost” like shooting the old Nikon FM style camera’s which is great! Lens and sensor are amazing and anyone would be lucky to have this!
However so far I’m not in love with it but it is making me love my X100 vi more! Firstly the weight and size is massive (compared. to what I currently shoot with) and it felt pretty intrusive on the street. But my biggest beef with pretty much all modern camera’s is the exposure triangle (aperture, exposure, ISO) is not on the camera in physical dials. On the ZF the ISO and exposure are, but the aperture isn’t on the lens. For me access to the 3 major components that impact the photo seem like a non-negotiable.
As with many modern camera’s I also find the autofocus (although blazingly fast) unintuitive and I couldn’t guess how to make the camera track what I wanted it to. I am sure it’s in the manual, but I’ve made a practice of never reading manuals, and I’m not going to start now. User interfaces are like jokes; if you have to explain them, they aren’t very good.
It’s a beast of a camera though and the quality of the photos is beyond a doubt better than the X100vi.
But for me (so far!) I’m not tempted to switch them out. The Nikon XF is a better camera with more flexibility, but I don’t need the flexibility at the moment and experience is king. However, here’s some photos I took over the past 24 hrs.
