Z 8 with Zoom Lens | Professional full-frame mirrorless hybrid stills/video hybrid camera with 24-120mm f/4 lens | Nikon USA Model

I shoot basketball games and purchased the Z-8 with that in mind. Did after speaking with a colleague about his experience with the Z8 and I have been very happy. Prior to the Z-8 I used a D4S, D500, Z-6 amongst others. I absolutely love the Z8. The autofocus is fantastic, very fast and picks up focus well. The viewfinder is very fast and responsive so no flicker or blanking while shooting - really just like shoot with a DSLR so it's very easy to track the action. The images are sharp. ISO range is good and works quite well at higher ISO - allows me to shoot using an F4 lens that I have instead of having to use my 2.8. The auto-iso seems to work pretty well though I don't need it for indoor basketball with fixed lighting and manual shooting. I do enjoy the specialize focus for where it can grab the eye point for focus. I use that more for non-sports. Not heavy and not too big, easy to carry. You can add a vertical grip to make it more like a Z-9 but it's basically the same camera without the vertical grip (so I understand). This is the best camera I own now. The autofocus is really good from what I have scene and I don't think anyone would be disappointed if they purchased one.

Excellent Z8 PRO CAMERA but at a high price. Superior focus, great sensor, and super video. Reasonable size and weight for travel photography. It offers an array of modern technology and produces top quality still and video in the hands of a serious photographer. Battery life is less than optimal but fine with an extra battery on longer shoots.

Excellent camera on paper but in reality, it's more marketing than anything else on many aspects! The video image quality is superb but that doesn't make it a video camera but more a very good camera! So yes, the technical sheet makes you dream, 8k60 nraw, pro res raw, 4k oversampled, 4k120 without crop, almost zero rolling shutter, very good in low light and robust body but in reality and me who was looking for a camera for video mainly, I turned to Nikon, after having moved from Sony and Lumix but what a mistake! in my opinion and according to what I'm obviously looking for, Nikon is an excellent brand but they are years behind Lumix for video, autofocus on a gimbal with fast rear movements, are a disaster even with a native lens and specific settings, the Z8's autofocus is far behind Lumix S5IIX in video, except in low light, the body is made of plastic so it heats up a lot! I tried several types of cf express but where I am it's hot it's impossible to film a video shoot outdoors! In short Lumix's strong point is to make their cameras compatible with SSDs but Nikon will not do it because they will not be able to do it on their range above Z9, in any case for me it's a first on Nikon and the last time, paying 4000usd for a video camera, which limits you in your actions, it's not worth it. Bad AF video, overheating, cf express too expensive, N-log to rec709 weak compared to v-log and s-log3, believe me stay away from Nikon cameras for the moment!, I'll come back one day maybe but not now. UPDATE> Ok, I'm coming back to the z8's autofocus, I almost sold it and I still decided to buy the 50mm 1.4 z, a latest-gen native lens, to see how the AF works and I have to say that in video, it's now very, very good! it manages to surpass my s5IIX in autofocus, after some research, I saw a lot of possibilities to improve the camera that heats up, like a Zitay SSD to the express cf or Exascend pro or element pro cards for example with lower voltage 1.25v at 400mb/s, so this card should be the best for this camera, I'll get back to you on that soon but in practice in h265 or Nraw 4k 30p, you can film for more than 2 hours without the camera emitting a signal which is a pretty good sign! I also improved the Nlog to the rec709 on Davinci resolve because the one given by Nikon was bad! with just a few options on the software and the use of RED luts, it becomes very very good. in short, with patience... so I change my rating, only morons don't change their opinion.

Long time Nikon shooter and they really out did themselves with this camera. Amazing, light weight and powerful. So much to relearn even after shooting for 30+ years. The options it offers from focus stacking, the quality of the image to the new lens speed and clarity, topped off by the 8k video or the 4k 120 options in Nlog or regular video shooting mode. This camera is worth every penny IMHO. If you have the $$$$ and are on the fence, believe me you will be so happy you got it. I have only had it a month or so and I am over the moon and soon I will be taking pictures of it. :D

Paired with my Z9 it’s a pleasure to use. Since the settings are almost identical to the Z9, it’s easy to use in a professional environment with ease.

I've been a Nikon user for decades and come from the D850. The D850 is a great camera but the weight and clunk the mirror makes make it a problem at times. The Z8 solves those issues. It is also very nice that I can use all my D850 batteries. I got the Z 14-24mm f2.8 which is amazing. I will now refi my house and sell my fist born to get other Z lenses. I upgraded the software to version 2.0 which went smoothly. I set about configuring the camera to the way I shoot. The options for setting the way the shutter, viewfinder mode, histogram display and monitor interact are quite complex. I called Nikon when I got stuck. They have live help which I appreciate. They told me about the viewfinder mode button which I did not know existed. Beyond that they could not answer my questions and said that they would get back to me. They never did. So I went and did a flowchart of how all the factors noted above modify the camera's behavior. It took me about five hours of hard work but I got it all figured out. Hint: it all starts with setting playback menu > picture review on. Now, the photo I just took appears in the viewfinder which is great because on a sunny day, the monitor is hard to see. I can also press the ok button and see a histogram. Its hard to imagine that the Z8 could not be set up to satisfy even the most demanding user. The "user's manual" the camera comes with is a joke. It's tiny and contains only the barest information. You will need to go online for the real manual. There is a problem here. In many places, the manual refers to a "G Button" followed by "A" and "U". There is no such thing. It means nothing. I called and they told me (after a lot of "checking") that it was a "typo." Seems to me that a $4K complex camera from a big manufacturer could put more effort into the manual. I love the camera. It's a big step up from a DSLR.

Upgraded from a Z5, and have been using this Z8 camera for 2 months now, shooting north of 7,000 photos since, high res JPG, no RAW, mostly scenes in interior halls and rooms, think VIP's, surrounding people and gatherings. I change some basic settings in the setup, throw the camera in fully automatic mode and just focus on finding the best angles and capture expressions and interactions discreetly, without having to worry about the technicalities. The fact that you can change your audible shutter options is a wonderful upgrade from the 5. The Z8 stacked image sensor is amazing, capturing images that are arguably sharper, better color, greater pixel count resulting in more detail, excellent dynamic range, and almost miraculous high-speed performance. Really impressed. The included kit lens is very good, but will give you depth of field distortion at higher zoom values, more so than on the Z5 with it's NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR kit lens. But the F4 all the way on this lens is great, giving fantastic shots. The natural light setting allows for really amazing shots indoors without flash, with excellent results. Battery life is as expected. Not much of a learning curve if you come from the Nikon family of cameras, everything is intuitive and so customizable. The Speed of the autofocus is outstanding, so is the sharpness of the images. Love the "touch the screen, focus and take photo" feature in one easy finger movement. Definitely heavier than the Z5 but the results are worth the extra weight for sure. I use a wrist strap instead of a neck strap, that helps with weight support. Not a fan of the XDC-card slot, as I don't use the camera to capture video at all, but the SD-card slot is what I prefer. Miss the dual SD-Card setup on the Z5 but worth the tradeoff. Price here was right, and the 5 stars are definitely earned by this lovely, well built piece of equipment. Well done, Nikon.

Very impressive indeed. Slightly lighter than my old 810. The zoom lens is also lighter than similar older Nikon lenses. The pictures are sharp and (of course) very high resolution. Autofocusing is fast and accurate. The faster sensor makes high-speed shutter possible making even hand-held shots sharp. On the downside, the camera is very complicated. Many controls "main selector", "subselector", "multi selector", "main command", etc. making it difficult to remember where your choice lies. Most of the in camera image processing seems unnecessary and would be better left to the software. The battery life is surprisingly short. Make sure you have a spare fully charged. Finally, because it's mirrorless, the viewfinder is actually a small display. Unfortunately, the resolution is pretty low making fine tuning of focus difficult, especially on patterned subjects. You can zoom the display, but one more bit of tedium there. Hopefully more experience will relieve some of the startup issues. At any rate, a fine camera.