We’ve recently received a Nikon Z8 to let us complete our review and rushed it straight into our testing studio. We’ve shot and processed the daylight and low light stills and uploaded the Raw files to let you compare them with its peers. As you might hope, it appears to be a direct match for Nikon’s pro-grade Z9.
Studio scene
Our test scene is designed to simulate a broad variety of real-world subjects with different colors, textures, and levels of detail across the chart. We capture images of it across the ISO range and in bright and low light to assess overall image quality.
Video comparison stills
We’ve also shot the video stills that help inform our video assessment of the camera. While these stills can’t tell us anything about how the camera handles movement, it helps us see how the camera is sampling the scene and how much detail it’s able to derive.
As you’d expect, the camera’s 8K footage is derived from 8K capture. Unlike Canon’s EOS R5, the Nikon shoots its 8K video in the 16:9 aspect ratio, rather than the wider 1.89:1. Even in 8K mode, readout is a very respectable 13.6ms
4K capture is very detailed with the detail level dropping in the 60p and 120p modes. However, it’s worth noting that the Z8 has the ‘Extended oversampling‘ option that was added to the Z9 in firmware 2.0. This derives 4K/60p video from the full 8K capture, so give a performance comparable to 4K/24, albeit with faster battery drain.
We’ll be conducting the rest of our tests on the Nikon Z8 in the coming weeks as we finish our review.
Author:
Richard Butler
Source: Dpreview
