With the Nikon Z8 being the hottest thing in the camera world right now, Nikon invited us and other selected media to come down to Sol & Luna at CapitaSpring to get a good look at what’s looking to be one of the company’s best camera yet.
While we won’t have a full review till later this month, I did have quite a while to play around with the Nikon Z8’s menus and take a few shots. I’m not going to mince words; I’m smitten with the Nikon Z8.
As a user of the Nikon Z5 for years, the Nikon Z8 handles like a dream.
If you’ve held a Nikon Z series body, you’ll be instantly at home with the new camera. The locations for the buttons are nearly identical on the other Nikon Z bodies, though like the higher end models, the Nikon Z8 also has a small LCD display on the top of it.
Interestingly, the Nikon Z8 will make use of Nikon’s EN-EL15C batteries found in the Z5 and other cameras, and not the EN-EL18D ones used in the Nikon Z9. Considering the pricey nature of those, I think it’s a wise choice choice by Nikon to go for the smaller capacity (but cheaper) EN-EL15Cs.
As an incentive, if you’re using a camera that uses those batteries, upgrading is now easier since you can reuse your old batteries with no issue.
One thing that struck me as very odd is how the LCD display on the back of the Nikon Z8 is not fully adjustable.
Having used Canon and Sony offerings, which have screens that can pop out and rotate 360 degrees, this is a head scratching move. If you use a gimbal with a Nikon Z camera, I guarantee that you’ve cursed the fixed displays. Nikon had a chance to wipe out the naysayers with the Nikon Z8 but chose not to.
WHY?!
To be fair, the LCD does have better extension than the regular one I’m used to on the Nikon Z5. It pops out further, can tilt more…which again begs the question, why not just do a fully adjustable display?
Mobility issues with the display aside, the LCD screen is top notch.
It’s bright as hell, and looked great reproducing the shots I took with the 24mm lens Nikon supplied. Response time with the camera is also something I loved! The autofocus in particular was simply astounding.
It’s leagues faster than what I was used to on the Nikon Z5, which isn’t really surprising considering most of the hardware in the Nikon Z8 are from the flagship Nikon Z9.
I also love that Nikon went the split route with their memory.
Instead of forcing everybody to move on to CF Express Type B (or XQD) cards, the Nikon Z8 caters to those who want fast storage and cheap storage. Yes, SD card storage is also included with the XQD storage. It’s honestly a win win!
If you need both cards slots to be the faster CF Express Type B, then obviously you need the Nikon Z9.
With all the great things the Nikon Z8 has going for it, one wonders what Nikon will price the camera locally.
With the Nikon Z9 body going for around SG$7,000 and the Nikon Z7 II body going for around SG$3,600, the sweet spot for the Nikon Z8 will have to be around SG$5,500.
Considering that the US price for the Nikon Z8 is US$3,999, it might not be that far off…but hopefully Nikon surprises us all and announces a sub-SG$5,000 price tag!
Let’s see if I’m right in the next few days.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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