nikon z9 post firmware 3.0 and best lens set up

8 hours ago, nomadadv said:

It's awesome that nauticam is already ready with a z8 housing but it's a shame that it was expedited so fast. I do believe that for the z8 a housing similar to the r5c with a spare battery compartment would have been a nice touch..... I'm quite curious to see what marelux comes up with they did mention that they are coming up with something on that housing... 

When i read the tests of interceptor on the 8-15 canon mm vs wwl-1 it makes me wonder if the 8-15 mm nikon with a diopter is not the best way to go for the z8/9. 

From what i can see i am jumping on a z8 asap, for me it makes sense yes the cam is not as perfect for uw photography as the d850 if it might not offer more for uw photography it opens to me many perspectives for uw videography capacities but  it is also the best wildlife camera i ve had my hands on. For the first time in my life not only was shooting with a z800m and panning but i was doing it handheld and keeping focus on  small birds, amazing!!!

I have questioned every direction should i move to sony or canon ...  The problem with the sony system is that even if using a  monster ring, sony is blocking the a1 to 10fps  you can 't use a teleconverter either  and that's it if you don't use sony lenses your stuck. Again if you limit yourself to uw, its ok but if you wish to use your cam for multiple activities your done for... At a price of the a1 seems crazy to spend this much money and be stuck at 10fps...

 

thx you 

I don’t mind the smaller housing. If the Z8 housing had the internal battery pack component it would likely be the size, weight and cost of the Z9 housing. Battery life from reviews of the Z8 look pretty good considering the size of the battery, you should be able to get a good couple of dives on a single battery filming 8k 60 clips.. your more likely to be limited based on storage space as there’s only the single Type B card slot.

It would be nice to have angled handles as an option.

Let see getting my hands on one in next few days, according to what i ve seen 60 min of recording times on the battery let's see! the cf type b should be plenty in 2tb i'm more interested in the 4k120 fps  but interested in the 8k as well. I agree for the handles cant wait to take it uw !!! 

10 hours ago, nomadadv said:

Let see getting my hands on one in next few days, according to what i ve seen 60 min of recording times on the battery let's see! the cf type b should be plenty in 2tb i'm more interested in the 4k120 fps  but interested in the 8k as well. I agree for the handles cant wait to take it uw !!! 

 

 

If the battery doesn't support 60 minutes of video, I wonder how long it will be before some sort of USB charger/battery is added inside the housing?   There was some discussion along these lines some months ago about another camera.

3 hours ago, phxazcraig said:

If the battery doesn't support 60 minutes of video, I wonder how long it will be before some sort of USB charger/battery is added inside the housing?   There was some discussion along these lines some months ago about another camera.

 

The problem is lack of space inside the housing.  With more cameras capable of being charged by USB-C I think a potentially good solution is a USB-C bulkhead.  They are already sold by Dive and See.  That company also makes an UW power bank using Sony video batteries.  Here's the USB-C bulkheads they sell: 

https://diveandsee.com/type-c/

On my Z9 the FX 4k120 mode isn’t great. The line skipping leaves weird artefacts in high contrast areas. Especially noticeable when using shallow depth of field where the focal plane is.

There’s a crop version which is great though, It gives native UHD with a 2.3x crop, not the normal 1.5x of DX mode.

I did notice nauticam state it’s got oversampled 4k120 on the Z8 page but this is an error… unless something has changed with the Z8 vs Z9 or maybe (hopefully) I’m missing something.

On 5/9/2023 at 8:48 PM, phxazcraig said:

Flash synch speed.  I can see that making a difference above water, particularly trying to get shallow depth of field in sunlight, but underwater I set my shutter speed to 1/125-1/160th for basically everything.   I don't see a sync speed of 1/200th as affecting me at all.

Many people, including myself, want to get creative and remove as much ambient lighting as possible, often when snooting. 1/250 helps with that, but so does Base ISO 64. Ideally it would have both. Having said that, I don't think it makes too big of a difference. I believe the below to be correct:

• Difference between 1/200 and 1/250 = +0.33 EV
• Difference between iso 64 and iso 100 = +0.67 EV

As the Z8's native ISO is 64, it'll help more than 1/200 or 1/250 in this circumstance. Sony A1 also has 1/200 on their electronic shutter, but faster for mechanical, and much faster in crop mode. 

But really we would have both and it'd make a whole stop difference, which is a fair amount.

On 5/15/2023 at 5:59 PM, nomadadv said:

I have questioned every direction should i move to sony or canon ...  The problem with the sony system is that even if using a  monster ring, sony is blocking the a1 to 10fps  you can 't use a teleconverter either  and that's it if you don't use sony lenses your stuck. Again if you limit yourself to uw, its ok but if you wish to use your cam for multiple activities your done for... At a price of the a1 seems crazy to spend this much money and be stuck at 10fps...

 

I also have this exact use case. I shoot a lot of wildlife topside - I need an expensive camera to be useful underwater and on land, I *want* to put all my eggs in one basket. Many people say to use a different set up underwater and on land, which is always an option, but an expensive one (if I upgrade, I want to sell my old stuff to recoup costs).

I've been thinking about moving to Canon and Sony from Nikon. I do a lot of top side photography, and when looking at Sony, they do not offer *any* affordable prime telephoto glass, like 300 2.8. They will release it later this year or early next year, and it will no doubt cost £4000+. Their current next option to utilise the camera to its fullest is 400 2.8, which costs £10000+ lol!

The reason I did not go for the Z8 (see my other post about this) is that the Nauticam housing is simply too big (it includes space for the FTZ by default. Why couldn't they just sell a separate "FTZ extension ring" and keep the housing smaller?).

Anyway, I've since realised that I could actually go with another brand housing, and go with the Z8. I don't think the Z8 would improve my underwater shooting much at all, in fact I think it may make it worse if I don't pay attention to corner sharpness!  But topside, a Z8 would improve my wildlife photography a lot - imagine only focusing on composition and letting the camera deal with "moving the AF point" - wow.

One day, I will move over to mirrorless. Maybe Canon R5ii with adapted glass and a slim underwater housing, maybe Nikon Z8 with adapted glass and a slim underwater housing... Lets see! But for now, the topside photographer in me cannot accept Sony's lens line up (or lack of), and how they totally gimp adapted glass.

3 hours ago, sinetwo said:

I've been thinking about moving to Canon and Sony from Nikon. I do a lot of top side photography, and when looking at Sony, they do not offer *any* affordable prime telephoto glass, like 300 2.8. They will release it later this year or early next year, and it will no doubt cost £4000+. Their current next option to utilise the camera to its fullest is 400 2.8, which costs £10000+ lol!

The reason I did not go for the Z8 (see my other post about this) is that the Nauticam housing is simply too big (it includes space for the FTZ by default. Why couldn't they just sell a separate "FTZ extension ring" and keep the housing smaller?).

 

The reasoning behind making the housing this way is sound, what they have done is place the flange of the FTZ adapter at the same point as the Nikon DSLR body flange would be in the housing.  This means that with the FTZ adapter the entire Nikon F port chart applies - same extension - same zoom gear.  This helps people bring their lenses and ports across from DSLR to Z series Nikons.  They have done the same with Canon.  I guess they assume it's easier to sell a housing to someone who can bring all their ports and lenses etc across.

As for moving to Canon, I think a strong point for that is there is a good size market in second hand DSLR Canon glass.

As for smaller housings I know at least one shooter here who went mirrorless to save size and weight and decided on Isotta, the housing was much smaller than the Nauticam housing.  They are very happy with their choice.

@ChrisRoss absolutely that would be the reasoning. Unfortunately this makes the entire housing much bigger and I'd rather prefer a much more modular approach. I can easily pack an extension ring and a "ftz zoom ring adapter", but I cannot pack a housing that size.

I'm seeing what the other manufacturers are offering and if I can sue my Nauticam ports at least 

1 minute ago, sinetwo said:

@ChrisRoss absolutely that would be the reasoning. Unfortunately this makes the entire housing much bigger and I'd rather prefer a much more modular approach. I can easily pack an extension ring and a "ftz zoom ring adapter", but I cannot pack a housing that size.

I'm seeing what the other manufacturers are offering and if I can sue my Nauticam ports at least 

If they are N120 you can use them on Isotta - just change to a S&S lug ring.  Isotta ports use the same attachment method as S&S you would just need new zoomgears.  Only works on ports which have a detachable lug ring though, not all of them do.

On size the Isotta Z7II is 126 mm deep while the Nauticam Z7II is 160mm.  Isotta is 282W/185H/126D Nauticam 360W/200H/160D.  Weight is 2.1kg vs Nauticam 3.1kg.   So quite a bit more compact.  Now you just have to wait to see if they make a housing for the Z8.

@ChrisRoss I am considering marelux, but I hadn't looked in to Isotta. I really hope one of the manufacturers make a seriously compact housing. Here's my little comparison chart so far - my concern is that a manufacturer may have done the dimensions with/without the handles (they don't specify).