Giving Up The Mirror – Day 1

Well, bugger me, I’ve only gone and done it! I have taken the plunge and ordered a Nikon Z7ii – Nikon’s flagship entry to the emerging world of mirrorless cameras.

I’ll be honest: today has been a bit of a royal cockup. Firstly, I managed to forget to tick the ‘Next Day Delivery’ box. Annoying. Luckily the lovely people at Wex Photo forgave me and upgraded my order to include the faster turnaround. Well, once you’ve ordered it, you want it NOW, right?!!!!!  

Then, I realised (stupidly) that I needed the FTZ adapter to go with the camera as, now let me see, I own precisely zero, zip, nada, none Z-Series lenses. So back onto Wex Photo, a little clicking around and then, dammit, cockup number two; I accidentally ordered two of them. Aarghhh!

Honestly, you couldn’t make this up.

Once again, the lovely people at Wex helped me out and corrected the order. If any of this arrives tomorrow I will be amazed – and even more so if it’s the right stuff!

But, faltering though it may be, this is the first, small step into the world of mirrorless.

And I could not be more excited!

I have been holding off making the transition and, if I am honest about it, I’m still not quite going the whole hog just yet.

Yes, I am putting the Z7ii into my camera bag, but the lenses will have to wait until I am 100% convinced that I have made the right choice.

I might have switched when the original Z7 was released, but Nikon chose to only put a single memory card slot in the unit for some inexplicable reason. One slot? One flipping solitary slot?! What the hell? There is no way any professional photographer should be relying on a single memory card at any time. I speak from hard-learned experience having had memory cards fail at all sorts of inopportune moments, luckily always with a spare in a second slot to fall back on – you would not catch me dead relying on a single-slot camera!

Being a professional means just that: being professional, thinking of all the things that can go wrong and making sure you have it covered. One memory slot doesn’t do it. Nor does having only one camera or one lens. 

But, sadly, my trusty D5 is drawing to the end of its serviceable life (a nice note from Fixation during its most recent service suggested it’s time to replace the mirror and shutter mechanisms as soon as possible) so I had a dilemma:

• Retire the D5 and get a D6.
• Pump money into the D5 – still a fantastic camera – knowing that probably I am delaying the inevitable.
• Buy something cheaper but with incredible image quality – I am thinking of the D850 – 
• or close my eyes, hope for the best, and dump the mirror

And, now that, finally, the Z7ii has dual slots, there is not too much to stop me.

Of course, I did look around at the other options: Sony, Fuji, Canon or Olympus primarily but given I can use my existing lenses with the Z7ii, it made sense to stick with my beloved Nikon.  

 I am the proud – and somewhat geeky – Nikon’s Compendium owner – a weighty tome of literally everything Nikon had made up until the point the book was published.

I love the glass, the handling, the interface and the reviews I have read or watched of the Z7ii suggest the interface is every bit as good as I could hope.

Well, we shall see.

Tomorrow – assuming I have caught and corrected all of my cockups – it arrives. A Nikon Z7ii, a Z-series 24-70mm lens, an FTZ adapter (I am not giving up my classic glass just yet!) and a whole load of extra batteries: already, I know that you can only get 400 or so shots from a single battery and, when I’m used to being able to get 3000 or more on my D5, I suspect this is going to drive me mad!

So here we go—the diary of a man giving up his mirrors.  

Albeit slowly.

I will keep you posted.