As more and more details became publicly available in the run-up to the Z9 announcement, the commentary on the Internet became a little insane.
I'd characterize what happened in the rumor-fueled run-up as Nikon loyalists willing the brand to succeed, Sony loyalists denying that anyone else can play their game. What happened in that clash is a lot of nonsensical hyperbole on both sides.
One (now) Sony user who's a key influencer went so far as to posit that Nikon was lying about how sticky the focus system was because the displays in the teaser videos had to be faked. Faked or not, how sticky and how good the focus system is can only be ascertained by testing, not by confirmation bias guessing. Given that this particular influencer has long criticized the Z System focus abilities—despite the fact that the Z6 II was arguably better than the A7 Mark III at the time he made some of those remarks—his recent comments seemed like a desperate attempt to validate his deteriorating viewpoint. Or as it is called: click bait.
But it seems the Sony loyalists are most upset about the Z9 image sensor. Either they're shocked that Sony would sell such an image sensor to Nikon—and again, I don't believe the Z9 uses a Sony image sensor—or they tried to make claims that Nikon was lying about "world's fastest scan rate." Some even made the claim that only Sony Semiconductor could make stacked sensors, ignoring the fact that all three major camera companies have active license participation with the originator of the technology. Virtually everything in an image sensor these days is consolidated from iterating on groups of licensed technologies, and putting it into production requires the support of one of the three companies that make steppers: ASML, Canon, or Nikon.
And if it wasn't the image sensor, it was the EVF. Sony's use of a 9m dot EVF on the A1 remains the "top" specification out there, though few of us use it at the full resolution due to interaction with the frame rate. Nikon's clearly gone a different way with their EVFs in the past and continues to do so with the Z9, favoring clarity and brightness over pixels. But you know, crude numbers are proof of superiority.
Everyone wants their brand to win, it seems. As someone who spent decades in the tech industry, I think of things differently: competition is good, as it drives both innovation and iteration.
I was particularly struck by one comment: "Nikon is the uncrowned king of useless specs and has been so before I switched to Sony from them." If I were to counter that thought, I'd say that "Sony is the crowned king of footnotes to specs that dilute their impact." But in actuality, neither thought is particularly useful. As I've written for many years: what user problems are being solved, and how well are they solved?
The Sony A1 solved quite a few user problems for me that I had with previous Sony cameras. Bravo. It's why I'm so positive about the camera in my review of it. Because I haven't yet used a Z9 I can't yet say the same thing for it, but based upon what we now know about the new camera, I suspect it does exactly the same. So, a tentative Bravo.
This year I was reminded several times of Bill Gates' famous statement: "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten." While I'm not sure about the precision of his numbers (2 and 10), the basic implication is indeed true. You can even look backward to see verification of this. Two years ago I saw people predicting things that still aren't true (global shutter, for instance). Ten years ago people weren't predicting a top camera would have 45-50mp, stacked sensors, 30 fps, no mirror, new lens mount, AI focus technology, and so on.
The trick in developing technology products is to have a team that is 100% looking at what might/will be available five to ten years out, and to start the R&D process for figuring out what user problems those technologies would solve. Apple is probably the best company I know at that. Not perfect, but a solid track record. Sony is also very good at it, but with a not quite as solid track record. Nikon, being a far smaller company, gets underestimated at this, but they've proven many times that they can play the game well. D1, D3, V1, Z9 being just four examples where they pushed technology forward to solve user problems.
While I'm writing this on a brand-specific Web site, I don't particularly care what your brand loyalty is. I've long written that Canon users should probably stay Canon users, Nikon users should probably stay Nikon users, and so on. Yes, there will be times when your brand feels a bit behind at something (and conversely, times when it feels ahead). But look at the track record these companies have been compiling. If we conflate Minolta and Sony, all three of the big camera brands have 50+ year track records of moving their products incessantly forward.
As a customer, that's what we want.
So...ignore the rumors, ignore the influencers looking for attention, ignore the people who haven't actually used the product in question. Have enough patience to get validated information about how a product performs, and then act on that information.
Most of you reading this don't need a Z9 today. Of course, most of you reading this probably want one ;~). The good news is that the Z9 simply shows Nikon is still being Nikon, and moving our tools forward into the future. That's all you really needed to know about the Z9 announcement.
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Update: here we are four hours after Nikon's introduction, and the Sony fora are mighty quiet.
