It's been awhile since I've written anything on this Blog. This is due to having busy summer out taking photos, spending time with friends and work has kept me busy with projects leaving only a few very rare days (like today) where I am sitting at the office waiting for replies to things I sent out without much else going on.
So to get back into the swing of things, I thought I'd touch base on two topics that are often lumped together when you try and talk to other photographers or camera stores to decide "What's a Good Camera" and that is a crop sensor vs a full frame sensor and a mirrorless vs DSLR. I have touched on both on their own in the past but the line for most people becomes blurred that they need both "Full Frame" and "Mirrorless" to have a good camera; and only having one of those somehows makes their equipment inferior.
Before I get too far into this, know that at the time of writing this I do have a Full Frame Mirrorless camera ordered and being shipped; a Nikon Z5 which I will likely do a seperate review on when I get a chance to go out and shoot it.
Most people would be in the Mindset of "Well you just upgraded to the best so you should just get rid of your old equipment" but for those who have read my Blog know, this will NOT be the case for me.
The Z5 will be a tool, specifically used for Indoor Event Photography as its primary purpose. It's also a complimentary camera to the Nikon Z50 I own which I am NOT just trading up to (and keeping both) and still cannot say enough good things about that little lightweight powerhouse of a camera.
For Event Photography I always bring two cameras: a Primary camera and Secondary camera which is often smaller and act as my sidearm for when I just want to run around with a prime lens and take some quick wandering photos without being weighed down by 20 lbs of equipment. The Z50 and 24mm DX 1.7 prime fit this sidearm niche beautifully.
When I was shooting my last indoor event a few weeks ago, I had brought an APS-C Mirrorless and a Full Frame DSLR camera as my two cameras I brought with me; my Nikon Z50 and the Nikon D610.
The one topic I will not cover nor debate in here is "High ISO Performance". This is always what people jump on "You must get Full Frame to be good at this"when it is often a Myth and never an Absolute.
Some APS-C cameras such as the Nikon Z50 and newer Fuji X-Trans sensors are incredibly good at High ISO noise to a point where it can be a lot closer to a coin flip between what an entry/mid level FF camera can pull off vs them.
First off we'll start with my experiences with the Nikon D610. If you remember the review I did of this camera I did late last year, this is the camera that sold me back on the notion of taking Full Frame seriously again as a tool to have available when I want to have that particular look.
As a DSLR, the biggest thing the D610 has going for it is the Optical Viewfinder. This makes the D610 incredibly powerful as a Landscape camera for two reasons: Your eye has higher resolution, better low light visibility (once adjusted) and better magnification then any Electronic Viewfinder. This makes low light Tripod mounted Landscape photos like the following examples ideal on this camera:
A Full Frame sensor will often render more edge detail clearly and in focus out of wider angle shots even if there can be also more noticeable distortion of vignetting or "perspective warping" to go with it on ultrawide angle shots such as these. This combination makes the D610 with the combination of an Optical Viewfinder and Full Frame sensor the King for Landscape and Nightscape Photography of what I currently own
Where the D610 does not excel at: really distant subjects such as wildlife (as you don't have the 1.5 or 2x crop factor) and instances you need a fast, accurate Autofocus that can easily track a moving subject. This makes it a poor choice for Sports, Action or Wildlife photography over the Z50.
A few other things to mention about the D610: It has Dual Card slots (where the Z50 only has one) making it ideal for a situation you either worry about one card corrupting itself or running out of shots on a card so you can keep shooting without having to pause to switch out and potentially format a new card. I have found the later actually to be a bigger boon and a bigger use case for me with a camera that has two card slots.
In addition, it has a larger battery and draws significantly less power then a Mirrorless camera. If you ever plan on being out on a trip with no access to electrical outlets to charge the batteries at night (such as a camping trip) a DSLR can lend its strength in being extremely power conservative in situations like this.
Lastly, while it may not be a huge consideration a DSLR has some level of protection of the sensor with the mirror flipped down while switching the lenses. There are some Mirrorless cameras that have a curtain shutter that will protect the sensor when it is turned off; however this feature is only avaiable on the more expensive higher-end models.
Let's move onto the Nikon Z50. This is a more modern APS-C Mirrorless camera. It has a much more Advanced Autofocus system then the Nikon D610 which is going to be its biggest selling point. Once you've experienced Autofocus with a relatively responsive Mirrorless camera (and I'm not even talking a Flagship Model like a Z9 or Canon R3) it is hard to go back to the more limited and often slower AF system in a DSLR.
Seccond as a Mirrorless camera it is a lot more compact then the Nikon D610 and the native lenses (such as the prime lens photoed on it) are smaller and lighter too.
This makes it a great kit to carry as a second camera with an alternative focal length attached as a "side arm" without a big change in weight. It's also nice to have that more compact design when you want something lighter to carry around all day, or using for Street Photography when it will draw a lot less attention then a "huge Professional Looking DSLR camera"
The Nikon Z50 does offer a F to Z mount adapter allowing you to put older, more affordable DSLR lenses on the Z50 which still will often focus faster then they would on a DSLR except for lenses that have a compatibility issue when being adapted (mostly older 3rd party lenses.
Another thing to note is the APS-C sensor itself. This effectively gives you the power of having an automatic 1.5x teleconverter without having to sacrifice the loss of quality, Autofocus speed or accuracy, or amount of light that hits the sensor for exposure.
While many people will likely still debate you that "Full Frame is the Best At Everything" I still maintain that if you are going for Nature photography having that extra effective optical reach out of the box without having to either crop heavily in POST or halve your sensor resolution in "DX Mode" is a very nice thing to have for photos like these:
There are a few more advantages to a Mirrorless camera worth mentioning, and those are "back screen/hip shooting", exposure simulation and focus peaking.
In situations where you as the photographer need to be more aware of your surroundings (such as at a Dance at an event) or need to be more discreet, being able to quickly compose and focus without raising your camera all the way up to make use of the Viewfinder is a major advantage of both Mirrorless cameras and fixed lens "pocket" cameras both.
Many DSLRs do offer a "Live view" focusing mode that will allow you to emulate this experience on a mirror flipper; however you will have even more limited/slow to respond autofocus (certainly a lot worse then any mirrorless cameras).
Shooting a DSLR also means having to rely on a light meter and praying it is telling the truth to you to get a good exposure, or at the very least gets it close enough that you can make recovery in POST without taxing the Dynamic Range of the sensor's limit.
With a Mirrorless camera, as long as you have exposure simulation turned on your "live view" video feed will give you a good indication if your exposure without having to rely as heavily on the light meter (though its still useful to know how to use and tweak this manually). This makes getting an even exposure under many situations a lot easier.
In low light situations however, the feed from EVFs with Exposure simulation turned on can be choppy and laggy, and cause visible on-screen ghosting if the camera does not have enough light to let in a fast enough shutter speed to allow for smooth video (generally no less then 1/25th of a second in rolling shutter for the liveview video feed.
Lastly, there's Focus Peaking. Focus peaking is a relatively new technology which works as a focus assist in Manual Focus. This allows you to use vintage or manual focus only lenses more effectively on a mirrorless body as well as situations where the camera has a hard time focusing and Manual focus is your best bet (IE through fence or glass).
Focus peaking works by using the Contrast Detect found on Mirrorless cameras (that is used to control or assist with autofocus) and will highlight what the Contrast Detect sees as in focus in a visual representation back to the display you are using to compose the photo. These colored outlines will not be displayed on the photo itself when it is taken but only on the live preview.
So now onto my experiences with shooting the two cameras at the event I recently covered from the two cameras. Since I am still early into editing photos from the event I do not have any example photos to share, and since I already did a longer description of the sensor and format in depth between the two; I will simply break my experiences shooting both my DSLR and Mirrorless camera to the event, and then state the overall winner in shooting experience (again I can't judge the differences in Image Quality yet) and why I felt the way I did.
Nikon D610:
Pros:
-Balanced better with larger lenses (IE the Nikon 70-200 F2.8)
-Dual Card Slots for Redundancy or Overflow
-Had to swap/charge batteries a lot less
-Superior for Portrait Studio work (with the OVF)
-Able to shoot most of my lenses "Natively" without needing the Mount Adapter
Cons:
-Sluggish Autofocus especially of moving targets (IE people dancing)
-Shutter would not fire if focus was not "locked" - While I'm sure this feature helps avoid out of focus shots it becomes very frustrating to have to re-aquire AF several times before the camera would allow the shutter to be pressed a number of times.
-Slower Burst Rate
-Always had to shoot through Optical Viewfinder- Liveview shooting to pokey to be useful at an event
-Hard to shoot at a high or low angle (see shooting at eye level through viewfinder)
Nikon Z50:
Pros:
-Overall much more responsive then D610
-Much lighter weight especially with the 24mm prime or kit lens
-Autofocus was a lot faster and more accurate especially in both low light (dance) and with subjects that were moving.
-Faster Burst Rate
-Easy to shoot one handed at a high or low angle
Cons:
-Only one Card Slot
-Worse but still tolerable battery
-A little unbalanced with heavier/adapted lenses
Overall Pick/Winner: Nikon Z50
While the D610 did an adequate job, and I'm sure I'll get enough photos off of it that turned out to be happy with it very much felt like I was restricting myself to using something a lot slower and less responsive when I didn't have to. I wound up shooting mostly the native Prime lens on the Z50 because I liked the way that balanced and honestly having that 1.7 apeture was nice esp as neither camera has IBIS.
Why I bought the Z5:
After this event it did make me realize that there were features from both cameras I enjoyed having. The better battery life, larger size (for DSLR lenses) and dual card support from the D610 and just overall better handling and responsiveness of the Z50.
I mentioned earlier that I always shoot events with two cameras in case one runs into issues (Runs out of batteries, breaks, etc), to allow being able to quickly switch from wide to Telephoto (by having two different focal lengths attached) and to have more options on what I can carry and still get content.
This said, I decided the Z50 defiantly has a solid place as my secondary/backup/sidearm camera. But after reviewing my thoughts about how my shooting experience at the event was, I came to the conclusion there would be huge benefits in having a larger body, dual card slots and IBIS (which is something I only have in a few of my older non-event grade kits).
I used to be a stick in the mud about needing a top display, but after shooting Mirrorless enough I have gotten comfortable without it (as my only mirrorless body with the top display is the G9 and I find I don't use it nearly as much as I used to) so that consideration became off the table.
My choice then became to wait for Nikon to make a "Higher end" APS-C Mirrorless camera that has the larger body, dual memory card slots and has everything I want as a direct upgrade for my Z50 which may be released next year, may be released in five years or ultimately never happen.
But when I looked at what I actually wanted from my next "event" camera the Z5 checked all the boxes I felt the Z50 was missing other then being Full Frame. It had Dual SD card slots (No CFExpress BS- I'm not buying new memory cards and I prefer having both cards the same type anyways) and the IBIS the Z50 was missing.
At events, having a "longer reach" is not needed. There is a purpose to have up to about 200mm equivalent worth of reach but past that, I can just move closer. I have that range covered in a Full Frame lens, so that makes the crop-factor no longer a necessity for this niche of a camera.
So ultimately, the Z5 will be a specific tool mostly for event photography. I will still leave Wildlife photography to my newer APS-C and Micro 43rd kit.
Looking Forward to the Future:
Ten years ago I had a bad experience with both a lackluster FF entry level camera (Canon 6D mark I) and hypocrisy of some "Full Frame" shooters left a bad taste in my mouth, to the point where I swore I would die on the APS-C and Micro 43rds hill and always be that photographer who "goes against the flow and does not submit himself to becoming a Full Frame Zombie like "everyone else".
Last year after picking up the D610 I really took some time to re-evaluate my position on Full Frame. Add to the fact it's really hard to not be a hypocrite myself for "hating Full Frame photographers" when over half of my Photographer friends shoot Full Frame, so..
I have enjoyed shooting the D610 enough from a camera standpoint independent of the sensor size in the body that I was willing to give FF another chance. I have been enjoying shooting the D610 and it works great for Landscape photography and will likely remain my camera for any Landscape/Nightscape content (which I hope to do more of).
I really enjoy shooting my Panasonic G9 and Nikon Z50 for Wildlife photography. Someday I might upgrade to the G9 II (when it comes down to about 1/3 the price it is going for now...) or upgrade the Nikon Z50 if Nikon actually gets their head out of the sand and releases a flagship APS-C "Canon R7 killer" that they have been resistant to do but many people want. It may happen, but I can't count on it.
For the moment, I am happy with my current Wildlife kits and the performance of both the Z50 and G9. I was running into a wall with the D610 as an event camera, so this is a direct upgrade for that camera.
Full Frame is a tool in my arsenal no more important or useful to me then APS-C, Micro 43rds or hell even my ZS100 with a 1" sensor since I can take that anywhere. I also won't be selling the Nikon D610, or any of my older cameras any time soon (but trading may be on the table) because I still enjoy the feel and challenge of shooting with older equipment as well, and reviewing strange obscure cameras that a lot of people have likely never heard of.
That part of my photography hobby won't be changing any time soon.
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