All of you who got up early on October 10th, were caught by a Nikon surprise — a completely obsolete new APS-C Z mount camera!
So far, Canon was leading by far in jokes how every four years it delivers a new obsolete camera. Now Nikon takes the lead again. Just announced Z mount APS-C, Nikon Z50, would be a top camera in 2015. Today it has… well… Z mount! Everything else is just disappointing.
- Does it have the best resolution? — Actually, it is worse in that regard comparing to all of its direct rivals from 2018.
- Does it have the best autofocus? — It is not even close to Sony. As a ‘bonus’, you DON’T have an easy way to chose your focus point! While everybody else are putting joystics to the lower models, Nikon is cutting everything except the price!
- Does it have the best video? — No, but it has a serious 1.5 crop at 4K.
- It’s a bit bigger than competitors, it must have a better battery life, right? — Nope.
- It is mirrorless, so it must be a discrete, and have quiet mode… — Hey, it’s a Nikon! They don’t do such stuff.
- But then it must be the cheapest of the crop, right? — In your dreams…
| Spec. | Nikon Z50 | Canon M50 | Fuji X-T30 | Sony A6400 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount | Z | EF-M | X | E |
| Res. (Mpix) | 20.7 | 24 | 26 | 24 |
| ISO | 100 to 51200 | 100 to 25600 | 100 to 12800 | 100 to 32000 |
| Quiet Shutter | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Rear screen | Flip down | Fully articulated | Flip | Flip up |
| Video | 4K, 24, 25, 30p | 4K, 24p | 4K, 24, 30p | 4K, 24, 30p |
| Video AF (rate) | 7 | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Batt. rating (LCD/EVF) | 320/280 | 235 | 380 | 410/360 |
| Price (body) | $857 | $629 | $799 | $898 |
| Price (kit) | $997 | $649 | $899 | $998 |
| Kit lens | Nikkor Z 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 | Canon EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3 | Fujinon XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6 | Sony E 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 |
It cannot be that bad…
But there must be some good things in it. Nothing is perfect, so it cannot be a perfectly bad camera. Well, the picture is good. Colors are almost as good as Fuji’s, but ‘Special Effect Modes’ are a pure gimmick compared to Fuji’s ‘film simulations’. And it is good that you can have one mount for APS-C and FF lenses…
So far we only have two cheap DX plastic Z-mount lenses. Now we just have to wait a few years for the promised APS-C lenses on the wide side. You can imagine the competition will not sit and wait for Nikon’s lens roadmap. Canon already have a better model than M50 — it is an excellent EOS M6 Mark II, which is still in the Z50 price range, and it has 32 Mpix sensor, 14 frames-per-second for all file types and that’s with Servo AF (continuous autofocus) support. And beautiful Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology. And several dedicated EF-M lenses…
Sony has a6600 ready for your wallet, and Fujifilm has registered three more camera names until Photokina next May, and gives unreal discounts for the X-H1 model with battery grip (sorely lacking with Z50) and a choice of a brilliant Fuji optics. You can build your own bundle before the X-H2 announcement.
Oh, yes, there is one more ‘positive’:
Flip down selfie screen… totally unusable if you have a tripod or gimbal. Just a little bit better from that atrocious idea made up on the Fujifilm X-Pro3.
Verdict:
As much as I like Z-mount specs, I hate the blackmailing ways Nikon (and Canon) are trying to extract money from their most loyal users. This may not finish as bad as Nikon 1 series, but if your wallet itches… wait until the price falls to the D3500 level.
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