I've been looking at the Nikon Z7 II for about a year and a half now and have been lusting for that new 24-120 F4 S line lens since it was announced. So I went and did it. Purchased a Z7 II, the 24-120 f4 lens and the FTZ lens adapter. Not cheap but actually a good value for the money.

First the negatives. The manual for my older D750 is an encyclopedia on thin paper that gives guidance on every feature of the camera. Nikon provided a multi language foldout sheet of paper that tells you how to insert the battery, the memory cards, and mount the lens. For the rest you need to go to the Net. This is an absolutely GIANT THUMBS DOWN from me. Bastards should have spent the money to have a proper manual written. Even the downloads for the Nikon Support site are CRAP. Anyone who purchases one will be spending way too much time on youtube learning how to use the camera. A small bit of good news is the Online Manual is decent, so I emailed the link to my Iphone and saved it as a favorite for future reference.

The good news is that the hardware is excellent. The autofocus is beyond fast, it's damned near instantaneous and I have yet to see ANY Hunting. Image quality is stunning as would be expected from 47 Mp. Out of the box with the color temperature controls set to Auto the color rendition in daylight or interior light is excellent. I will also note that the in camera image stabilization works very well, even with a Mid 60's era Nikkor mounted to the FTZ adapter. Weight of the Z7 II with the new 24-120 F4 S lens is about 1/2 lbs. lighter than my D750 with the older AFS version of this lens. I will also note the image quality of the new version is stunning. One tip, the mode select for the "motor drive" is the small button at the bottom right rear of the camera. The symbol looks like a slightly fanned stack of playing cards. Tap it once and the menu will pop up and you use the left right arrow keys around the OK button to select the rate.

The FTZ lens adapter is a bit of a Kludge. With AFS series lenses with the internal focusing motors in the lens it works quite well, Autofocus works well with good speed and all the other lens/camera interactions work perfectly. Where it falls flat on its face is that with any other lens you are limited to manual focusing and relying on the center spot to turn green for focus with the older CPU equipped lenses such as the Nikkor D series AF lenses. Good news on the exposure front is that Auto Aperture between lens and camera functions perfectly, so you can use Program, Auto Aperture, or Shutter Preferred modes at will. It's just the lack of autofocus will have you wishing for an old fashioned Microprism center to ease focusing. With the older Manual Focus lens is where it really gets a bit hairy. One issue is that red center indicator will never turn green, which means you'll have to rely on a pixel peep in the viewfinder to get a good solid focus. The procedure for a pixel peep is to to zoom the viewfinder (eye or rear screen) to maximum by tapping the +/magnify at the bottom right rear of the camera twice while holding the shutter speed button halfway in. Once you have good focus then release the shutter without wasting time to zoom out the viewfinder. Basically if you want to use an older manual focus Nikkor do yourself a favor and use a tripod, it's not a rig for "action" shots. The other issue is that you either use Manual exposure or Aperture preferred to set the exposure and you actually set the aperture with the ring mounted to the rear of the lens. BTW this a real pet Peeve of mine, aperture controls belong on a ring on the lens, not some stupid dial on the camera body.

Below are a couple pics taken using that 60 year old 50mm f2 Nikkor H set to f4, one a pixel peep at 200% and the other the full image. BTW that 200% peep is equivalent to what you would see in a 54 x 35 inch print, pretty honking huge.

Sorry about that

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Sorry about that

No need to be sorry. As I said I've been looking and wanting that rig for a good while now. Already know where the D750 is going. My nephew has two wonderful little girls and he keeps talking about getting a decent camera but hesitates to spend the money because of 2 wonderful little girls that will someday be going to college.

quote:

That thread on Cameras done cost me a bit of change.

This place has a habit of doing that.

I try to stay away from mirrorless camera ads.

^^^
We really like our Sony A series mirrorless. Smaller size than a traditional DSLR, great features, and lens line that is expanding all the time. It not surprisingly takes excellent pictures.

YOU KNOW YOU WANT ONE!!!

https://electronics.sony.com/i...ds&sortCode=name-asc

A rich attorney like you...

I'll be sticking with my Z7 II. IF I want to try out some Sony lenses there is an adapter for that. And Canon and Fuji lenses. It seems that one effect of going to mirrorless is that it's much easier to reverse engineer an adapter. All you need is a body with a shallow back space and any other makers lenses designed for a deeper back space can be adapted to fit that shallower body.

I've got a menagerie of Sony A mount lenses, and 3 of their DSLRs. I'd like to move to mirrorless / E mount but it is cost prohibitive.

@jhe888, I just saw this. https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...0601935/m/9300097905

@jhe888, I know someone who will give you a great deal on a Canon R6 with a RF15-35mm f/2.8L

I have Nikon SLR lenses. I think if I do anything, I'll upgrade my camera body and stick with SLRs. I have to make all those lenses useless.