Nikon Z6 II
I’ve been shooting a Nikon D810 body for five years. I have two complaints:
1. It’s noisy. This is bad (in my view) for indoor school shows, which is half of why I keep a DSLR around anymore.
2. It’s relatively slow (frames per second, FPS). Not great for sports. Not great for dancing schoolchildren.
So last week, on a lark, I went to Buy&Sell on FredMiranda.com to see if someone was selling a Z6 II. I want that over a Z6 for its autofocus improvements and faster shooting. I want it over a Z7 II for its better low-light sensitivity (or maybe it was low-light AF) and its faster shutter speed. I don’t need those big ol’ Z7 II images.
I found one. Nice seller on FredMiranda.com. I bought it. Z6 II plus a 24-70 f/4 Z lens for $1650 shipped. Good deal. Best new price ever for this body was late 2022 at $1,699. Regular price is $1,999. Lens goes for a grand, but it sells all day used for $350.
I’m okay with this deal. ~12,000 shutter actuations on the body.
Interestingly, I wasn’t excited about this. But I’ll use it and I wanted it.
I’m more excited about glass.
Note: I didn’t have enough whatever, so I paid $15 to FredMiranda to be able to buy on the site. Worth it.
Nikkor 70-200 f/4.0
One surprise is that I now don’t have a tele zoom to use for school shows with this lens. I have a Nikkor 100-400, but it is not AF-S. So… lens time. I didn’t realize that when I bought the Z6 II.
I bought a mint-condition specimen 70-200 f/4.0 from robertscamera on eBay. I’ve been buying from them for a while now and I trust them. I got my 200mm f/2 VR II from them.
This lens is tiny! So thin! And I love that it is internal-focus. Nothing sticks out as you zoom or focus. I had no idea this lens was so skinny when I bought it. Zero. And it’s super light. Even if I buy a 70-200 f/2.8 some day, I think I’d keep this little guy for when weight or size matters. It’s just lovely. Plus I bought an RRS ring and foot for it, so I basically invested in it.
This lens would be good for shooting basketball, too. The 200mm f/2.0 is so sharp and I don’t mind the weight, but it’s not a zoom.
I bought an FTZ II adapter via eBay. And a Nikon NC filter, as always, for the lens below. And a Nikon MB-N11 battery grip from someone else on FredMiranda.com. Plus a couple extra batteries from Amazon.com. These things eat batteries, according to the specs.
1 July 2023 Update: These don’t eat batteries. I shoot a few thousand photos and only make a dent in one battery. Very nice. But I keep the back screen off, which certainly helps.
Canon R6 II
While researching price, I found that Canon’s R6 II does 40FPS. Whoah. That beats the 12FPS or whatever I can get out of a Z6 II. And I read that the R6 II is completely silent (or has such a mode). $2,500 right now to get one.
And I’d buy a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM (link). That lens would, I think, replace:
- Nikkor 200-500 f/5.6
- Nikkor 70-200 f/4 I bought the same day I bought the Z6 II body.
I think I could just have that Canon body and one lens. But I don’t want to get rid of some of my lenses (like my recently acquired 200mm f/2) and I don’t know that I need 40FPS. 12FPS, the top speed of the Z6 II body, is much faster than my D810, so I plan to just see how that goes.
I put the 200mm f/2 on my Z6 II (sans battery grip) and brought it in to show my wife. She laughed and laughed.
Now my D810 is my backup. And something I can shoot my non-AF-S lenses with.
I’ll probably sell a ton of AF lenses. I only shoot the telephotos.
But this Z6 II is a nice little body. Maybe I’ll walk around with it? Probably not, but we’ll see.