Mark Comon of Paul’s Photo called me to talk about this, but I had already noticed it myself: Nikon isn’t exactly making a compelling case with its marketing of the Z8. There’s a heavy reliance upon technical jargon and specifications, but very little emphasis on user benefit. Mark’s comments to me came after his first try-and-buy event at the store, where he found he was answering a number of the same questions from “unenlightened” (by marketing messages) users.
Back in my Silicon Valley days we had a marketing shorthand:
- Feature : Benefit
Sometimes we reversed that:
- Benefit : Caused by Feature
But it goes deeper than this.
A few years ago I began talking about the “best all-around camera.” My reason for this was simple: most of you are only going to buy/own one camera, and it has to be ready for anything you might need your camera for.
In the digital era, Nikon has made a long sequence of what most anyone would consider excellent all-around cameras: D100, D300, D700, D500, D850. And now the Z8 (and arguably, Z9).
Nikon’s marketing issue boils down to this:
- D850 owners: are there convincing arguments that a move to the Z8 is compelling?
- Z7/Z7 II owners: are the reasons to move to bigger/heavier in a Z8 compelling?
- D500 owners: can you convince DX users to move to a more expensive FX camera that is also a better DX camera?
A common complaint I get from that group of users is “the Z8 doesn’t solve a problem for me.” First, I’m not sure that’s true—users don’t always recognize their “problems” until they’re solved ;~)—but also that would tend to indicate to me that they didn’t need a best all-around camera in the first place, that their camera use is fairly specific (and satisfied by what they have).
But the most common comment I’ve been getting is "$4,000.00 plus the other costs that would come with converting is just not in this retiree’s budget right now. I will just slug along for a while trying to make good photographs with the best DSLR Nikon (or anybody else) ever made until I can save up enough to buy a Z8.” Basically, the push back I keep getting is simple: "Nikon already sold me a very good camera; the cost of getting the latest one is too high for what I perceive to be the benefits.”
My response to most of those talking to me about this is simple: are you starting to grow out of your old camera (e.g. D850)? If so, you should consider a Z8. If not, then continue growing into your D850.
Bonus: I decided to go back and look at my D850 review to see what I complained about:
- The double-sampled Medium and Small NEF sizes to save file space. The Z8’s High Efficiency raw formats do a better job of saving space, and have far fewer compromises.
- To get to 9 fps you had to spend US$900 extra. That cost has come down since then, but you spend a lot of money to get 2 extra fps. The Z8 gives you 11 more fps without having to buy anything other than the camera.
- The lack of dual XQD slots. The Z8 has the same problem, but at least it can make full use of fast CFe cards in the first slot. Even a CFe card in the D850 is buffer limiting and slow compared to in the Z8.
- Focus stack feature. The Z8 has the same issues.
- The lack of a true 8K Time-lapse. Yes, you could use interval instead, but the Z8 completely fixes this issue.
- The poor focus/crop highlighting, lack of grids. The Z8 pretty much gives me all the fixes I was complaining about, including rule of thirds grids (among more choices) for a change.
- SnapBridge connectivity. It improved on the D850 since I wrote my review, and it’s also good on the Z8. But the Z8 goes further with a much more flexible connectivity capability.
- Not great bit rates for video. The Z8 fixes all that, gives us much better/friendlier compression choices, raw video, and of course, as much as 8K/60P, which is state of the art.
- No pop up flash. The Z8 doesn’t have one, either.
- Viewfinder blackout time. Yeah, the Z8 doesn’t have any. The D850’s is significant, and that impacts tracking focus.
- Not state-of-the-art buffer. The Z8 can go to infinity at 9 fps ;~).
