Nikon Z6 & Z7 - the TRADE OFF that Nikon HAD to Do 

Would like to see your views of the newer Z6II out now.. with 2 cards. I’ve lost a couple images that I didn’t care about on SD cards…. So never bothered to try to recover…. Did you end up getting a Z6 or Z6II?

I'm gonna just point out here that the Z6 and Z7 cameras are quite a bit larger in size than the sony cameras. There are size comparison photos out there. That said, the Sony has dual card slots AND a bigger battery. Full disclosure, I am a sony shooter, but really wanted to see Nikon and Canon release cameras that would force Sony to respond, and to be blunt, the Nikon camera is not that camera. Canon, please learn from Nikon and ESPECIALLY Sony's mistakes and release a camera that will force innovation and competition in the mirrorless space because if they can't, we can only hope that Sony will stay on top of pushing forward alone, which if you watched the CPU market of the 2000s with Intel and AMD, then you know how that ends up working out for technology and the consumer.

I seen one of the youtube video its says that nikon didn't put 2nd card slot because of camera weather sealing like D850. Because weather sealing on these cameras also limit the space to install 2nd card slot. (correct me if I am wrong) Sony camera are not weather seal as these two new camera.

Nikon probably believed they had to match the small size of the Sony and felt the single card slot would help them reach their goal. But that causes a lot of pro shooter issues. We’d rather have a bit more weight/size for the sake of ergonomics and full features. For me I’d feather it be more ‘Nikon’ and less Sony by being a bit bigger, having two XQD slots, ruggedness, button backlighting, a tagging button and voice annotation (those last two may be available but hidden, haven’t figured that out from my reading so far, but if they are there I’d like them to not be hidden). I am happy they choose XQD with an eye on CF Express in the future. One thing that some are missing about XQD is the fact that they are wicked fast on the transfer to the computer. Might not mean much to a landscape or wedding photographer but it’s vital to a sports photographer who has less than 20 minutes at the halftime of a football game to transfer everything from multiple cards and prep 15 pix to FTP back to the client. Every second counts to getting done and back on the field without missing action. So 440 vs 300 MBs means a lot to sports shooters. Arguing price about the XQD card format is a bit off to my thinking as SDXC at 300MBs is about as expensive as XQD - $100 SDXC vs $140 XQD (64gb each card) today’s price. I’d strongly prefer to have the faster (and I believe more rugged in general) XQD card and don’t mind a $40 premium. Summarizing, I think Nikon tried too hard to match Sony in size when Nikon shooters (at least this Nikon shooter) would like a little bit bigger and fully featured mirrorless camera and complained loudly about a single slot for numerous reasons that boils down to being used to having dual slots. Here’s the thing though, Nikon will still sell a lot of the new cameras and then produce generation 2 cameras. Bet they will have two card slots by then not to mention some other innovations and fixes.

I have pre-ordered a z7 with FTZ and 24-70 f4. I have about 30 Nikkors and shoot landscapes. The very real issues with this first Nikon ff mirrorless do not affect me. I am moving from a D750 and mostly Ai-S lenses. I plan to sell my D750 and most of my old lenses as I replace them with the new smaller, lighter and better S series. I am super happy about the new mount, the light weight, the viewfinder and all the new tech in this camera that will make me much lighter, higher iq and much more creative (image stack, 8k time lapse, smooth 4k video, etc.) Absolute no-brainer to get an early copy of the very first z-mount camera ever! Still stoked after 40 years shooting Nikon.

I read through your description and could not find an affiliate link to the desk that you use as part of your studio. Would you be kind enough to share it or maybe a BTS Studio Tour as a future video? 🙂

Matt, I am a long time Nikon sports shooter. A year ago, I retired from sports and sold my sports gear. Mainly my D4 and my 300 f/2.8. However, I was so spoiled by the 10 fps that for retirement I bought a D500. There is so much hype about the single card slot. That is not a deal breaker for me. What is a deal breaker for me is the 9 fps for the Z7 & 12 fps for the Z6 issue that people seem to over look. Both the Z6 & Z7 will "only" do the high frame rate if the exposure is locked in or set to a constant exposure. If it is not constant, both cameras revert back to only 5.5 fps. Yes, these are not really sports cameras. However, when I go to the park with my grand-kids and shoot their fast action, in broad daylight, you will need to be in aperture priority to allow the camera to adjust from shaded area to sunny areas. Thus only 5.5 fps as the camera changes the exposure. Yes, if shooting basketball in doors with set lighting, you will be in full manual and thus the 9 &12 fps will work. But, for the every day shooter expecting 12 fps on the Z6, while shooting their family at the park or their little league games, it won't happen. I think Nikon's advertising is misleading and more information should be disclosed as to the reality of the frames per second. Only a couple of you-tubers have brought this issue out to the public. A big, big over site to me.

Could you do a show on the new Z mount? I have heard good things.

Don't forget that Canon started implementing Cfast cards in some of its cameras, so its an industry thing with companies implementing next gen technology today to keep ahead. Also while the slow cards work with 4K footage is a valid argument for consumer 4k it doesnt take into account bit rate and while low bit rate cameras work fine with slower cards, speed becomes important as bit rate increases so the argument for faster cards being needed for video still stands if you want to record in higher bit rates and higher quality output like 4.2.2 or raw video.

Good points about the memory cards...but we (I) require two. Also, agree with you about the battery life--significantly understated by Nikon per initial testers.

I do like the topics talked about on this is video. Does makes sense, just no one will use these Nikon's for wedding photography. But I don't mind that one slot for my use. Yes to better batteries.

agree with you matt, i think the single xqd card slot was a bad decision. sd cards are evolving as well, i don't see the need to switch to xqd. btw, the northrups mentioned in one of their videos they know people who had xqd cards fail on them...

Is if possible that the decision was based on temperature & temperature management? Its well known now that to fix the Sony overheating issue, and more specifically the issue when shooting in 4k, that a faster card will greatly contribute to fixing this. Ive never had dual card slots so I dont see the big deal - I've never had a card fail so I dont really think redundancy is an issue and I'd much rather opt for a more compact camera(especially if it also makes the camera a bit cheaper) and you get that 10bit feed for external recording if its really thought to be an issue.

You are my favourite camera & gear reviewer on youtube.

Going from a potential 300mb/s to 400 mb/s is a very significant speed increase. A 33% increase. This is the difference between clearing 9 files off the buffer at a time and clearing 12 files at a time. It means you dont need as large a buffer, and you the time you have to wait for the buffer to clear is going to be significantly less. In the end, it means you end up with the potential for more shots per minute over all. What I've heard from folks who have used these devices, the buffer clears so fast you can shoot again as soon as you take your finger off the shutter release button. I'd rather take 10 shots, wait .5s, then take 10 more shots over taking 30 shots then waiting 7 seconds for the buffer to clear.

I always use only XQD card for D850 with overflow to SD card, not backup. Two cards just bothering me in deleting. Single card is appropriate for cameras like Z7 aiming lighter weight and smaller size. Also, single card will slow battery discharge. I think the Nikon engineers already fully discussed about Pros and Cons of the number of cards.

No matter how stable the XQD's happen to be, that's no excuse for not putting in dual card slots. Even if the XQD had built in redundancy it still would not safeguard against material faults or manufacturing errors. Single card slot will always be a level below 2 slots regarding safety. Nikon will probably step up to the plate eventually, releasing a professional grade camera. The Z6 and Z7 seems like a panic response to the growing mirrorless market, but I'm still glad they finally took the step as competition is sorely needed.

(1) CARD TYPE: SD cards are classified as UHS I, UHS II (UHS III specs are out but are not yet manufactured). UHS I (slowest) ARE FAST ENOUGH for 4K uncompressed 14-bit RAW @30p, as max. throughput needed is 30 MB/sec (UHS I are capable upto 90 MB/sec). The only requirement of faster cards is for SPEED OF CLEARING BUFFER when taking rapid-fire large still pictures (Z6 24MP maximum uncompressed RAW picture file size is approx. 51MB, @ 12 fps is 612 MB/sec! Even UHS II's 400 MB/sec is not upto the task). People who have actually handled the camera say the buffer in the cameras is really small, but CLEARS TO XQD FAIRLY QUICKLY. (2) SINGLE CARD SLOT: According to Matt Granger, there was no redundancy with film (but film never failed!), nor in Leica or PhaseOne (MF) which have one card slot, and they are used in professional work (but not by wedding photographers; it is only in one-time-event paid shoot that redundancy is needed). (3) BATTERY LIFE: In black and white this is about 300, but I saw one video where photographer (yes he is a shill, so further verification needed) said he could take 500+ shots and still battery charge was left. (4) EVF: It is almost unanimous that the quality of EVF in Z6, Z7 are the best so far in mirrorless cameras. There are brief blackouts (unlike A9). (5) Z-mount lenses released have modern look, though plasticky in build, are among the SHARPEST WIDE OPEN among Nikon lenses tested. (6) AUTOFOCUS: In stills and video DEFINITELY QUICKER than Nikon DSLRs (though I could not find conclusive comparison with Canon or Sony cameras). According to the Northrups it is jerky, but there are two 7-step internal adjustments in the menu to modify AF speed. Need further confirmation. (7) QUALITY of pictures and videos as shown are excellent (but this is linked with AF).

I think it will only come down to one thing. How good will the adapter work with the f mount lenses. If nikon has found a way that these lenses will wotk like native glas these cameras will sell like crazy.

The problem with Sony FF cameras is that they are too small to allow for good ergonomics. A little bigger camera would have been a reason to buy the new NIkon cameras and dual XQD slots would have been possible.

Matt, I just want to add that once you’ve shot a D850 and filled the buffer you learn to appreciate the XQD very quickly. In addition SD, even if it’s getting faster will always be limited by the bus structure. XQD is PCI-Express. PCI-E bus speed is theoretically limited to 32 GB per second. That means the bus is never going to be the problem so a card can sustain 400 MB or 1 GB without being slowed as we see with SD hence the 300 MB being variable on the SD side. So, correct me if I’m wrong but the PCI-E interface is vastly superior and a very good choice when shooting 50 MP files at 9 FPS. Just my 2c. I think reliability of the card structure is very important as well. SD cards break if you look at them funny.

Can Nikon just use the USB-C port to connect an external SSD or memory drive to record to? I think that would solve the redundancy issue.

But the buffer size is very small! So much for XQD being there for a big buffer!

I wonder if Nikon will introduce eye focus sometime in the near future.

I'm fine with the XQD card. It's a lot cheaper than rolls of film and there tougher than the SD. I preordered a Z6, adapter and two lenses.

Is the buffer hardware or software related? If its a software then we could expect a firmware update to resolve it, Or could it just be that the code was not optimized to simultaneously flush the images to the cards rather than on the release of the button - hope this is resolvable. I am sure a company like Nikon will not get these wrong, esp. When they plan to use the same body/motherboard for multiple cameras.

Just to make a point, for the SD-Cards those speeds are only reached at high bandwidth (extreme huge files) not at continued sustained writes (multiple files - I mean bursts). The other ones use PCI-Express for sending data (higher output) to the RAM buffer and thus higher writing to the card in both sustained and burst write than any SD card. It's like comparing NVMe drives to the fastest HDD or to the early stage SSDs. It's all about marketing, no-one is reading the underline and no-one is doing any real life tests as the cameras don't support both XQD and SD on Sony ... what one could do, is test in the D850, then again sony will complain that they are using a totally different operating system and a different writing mechanism for putting the files on the media thus making impossible for a real life test ... It's all marketing, but like I said, SD cards are still in the early SSD stages while XQDs use PCI-express lanes making them comparable with NVMe drives. (+ or - the marketing hipe that we all shouldn't take serious, as if we do, we the consumers are at loss).

Dpreview has just uploaded a Z6 v A73 comparison - they are neck and neck - in fact as a hybrid shooter I'm happy with the areas the Z6 comes out on top. Well done to Sony for creating competitive value in the camera market and we'll done to Nikon for responding so well.

I for one do not like the SD card at all. I have a ton of them, never had one fail me but i have broken quite a few myself while swapping them out in the field and back home in the card reader. The XQD does seem like a more robust card that would be more difficult to damage and i like that. That's a massive plus for me. I'm not saying anything about the single card slot, only that i like the new card's form factor.

They needed to put XQD because they insisted a tiny buffer. Z7 - 45MP x 9fps = 405MP/s Sony A7RIII - 42MP x 10fps = 420MP/s Sony manages a pretty decent burst with SD cards because the camera has a usable buffer

Bottom line is we still prefer two card slots and the the competition elsewhere has it. No amount of excuse can bail Nikon out of this one.

i don't think it matters for this first gen Z camera. seems like its for guys who already own nikon glass (who probably already own XQD cards), and they want to go mirrorless. this looks like nikon's best camera for video, maybe they will shoot video with their nikon glass. for stills, lots of vloggers still see d850 as the pro cam. i'm gonna wait for canon's announcement before i decide which full-frame mirrorless i want to invest in. currently using crop sensor fuji, i'll might just stick with them if x-t3 turns out to be good.

The controversy over the XQD card, focus problems, and battery life has forced me to put the brakes on and wait for the next gen Nikon mirrorless, if there is one.

Like every paid PRO uses the second card for a backup...many use it for overflow

I agree Matt! The big worry is XQD itself. People seem to forget what happened to memorystick!!! Here we have s format first approved in 2011, and to this date appears in no Canon consumer stills camera, no other mainstream still cameras to my knowledge. As you say other formats are coming. The reason the cards are expensive is that production has not achieved the economies of scale of SD cards. Canon still makes mainstream cameras with CF and SD cards. They have had ample opportunity to adopt XQD but have not done so. Likewise Sandisk the major quality memory card manufacturer is not making them....they have had years to adopt them!!. If something else comes along XQD could be bypassed by the mainstream the way memory stick was. But this is not the main point! The main issue is that i don't want a storage format that will perform in my camera in 2022, I WANT ONE THAT PERFORMS TODAY FOR A REASONABLE PRICE. By 2022 I will be buying another camera.........I think Nikon should have done what they did with the D5....give us a choice!

I'm sorry, but I get the feeling your hedging as this goes along. When I watched your original video you were saying speed wasn't an issue. You were essentially saying the MicroSD cards were good enough and pointing the expense of XQD being the issue. But now you seem to be saying SD XCII cards as being the solution. Last I checked, a 128GB SD XCII card is about $20 higher than that of 128GB XQD card. Granted, you can buy the 32 GB version and the SD is about $30 cheaper than XQD. Either way, the SD solution is slower. So I ask, can you be definitive in your opinion? Is your position on the memory slot about speed, expense, or something else. As a sports and wildlife shooter, buffer clearing is important to me. Especially if the camera is only going to allow 20 or so images before it starts backing up the buffer. Personally, for what I shoot, I can agree that the single slot is not an issue. However, if I start shooting paid events, then it would become a deal breaker. I believe being a professional means you insure yourself, both in terms of liability, and equipment as best you can.

For me, an articulating screen would make me forget about all the issues with the camera. Somebody please slap an articulating screen on a full-frame mirrorless camera!

I appreciate that unlike many others you are not saying the single XQD is an epic fail and nobody should buy the Z6 or Z7 because of it. Personally I hate SD cards. I’ve only had one fail on me, but I have lost several and I prefer a more robust and larger form factor with no exposed connectors that does not slip out of my hand so easily. And I do think the extra speed does make a difference (you were wrong on the 25%, it’s actually a 33% difference from 300 to 400). The question I have is whether the cameras will truly make use of the extra speed, especially after the update to CFExpress. Supporting the protocol doesn’t necessarily mean the camera will write faster, although it will open up the choice of vendors for sure.

What is the point of XQD on a camera that is already slower than a camera with dual SD cards? It's like putting a titanium hi flow exhaust on a car with a 100hp engine.

You seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about when you keep saying they should’ve put sd cards in them! And the battery listing was well discussed by others.

MAT- THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO- YOU REALLY WORK HARD-

These companies are too obsessed about size. Make the cameras as big as you need to. If you wan ta small camera get a small chip. If you want a big chip, then expect a big camera.

XQD vs SD! I suppose there was once an debate between DVD and BlueRay. I really don't like that there"s is only one card slot but maybe Nikon is future proofing their first MFF. I only wish they had EAF! I was really looking for that from Nikon!

Rest In Peace. 😞😢

The biggest problem with them is a price, because they feels like a pass by cameras, and if Z6 is may be more or less can be compared with price of A7III the Z7 difinetly can not be compared with a price of A7RIII, add some shorter battery life and the price for not so amazing lenses as it seems, if fact they had to give this camera to existing Nikon users with lots of F lenses, for people who may be need video af working in their camera, but for a new users this camera can not fight A7RIII because of the price, even though i'm a real Nikon fan, but i was waiting for something in the end it's not too bad but not so amazing camera came out, i was planing to change to full frame so i need to buy 24-70 anyway no matter which one i choose, but here for the price of Z7 with f4 lense can get Sony camera with f2.8, even though as i'm not a professional i would still care to have dual slots for back up because you lost something you will never get back, and card fails happen to me before, pro lost money, but sometimes you go out for travel sometimes just for pictures, and you spend not so small money on it, but even this i can may be let to pass by, but the situation is like this, even though they made a new mount ok great you invest in your lenses for a future, but here no lense, so basicaly i want 24-70 f2.8 i has to wait for one more year, or buy and old one with F mount and use it with an adaptor (what with this price seriously? i have to buy an adaptor too?), or buy this 24-70 f4 which you will have to change for another one later, it would make more sence if they would just make some cheap kit lense like f3,5-5,6 where you atleast do not need to pay for a lense you just buy for one year, i was about to buy D850 when the rumors about Nikon mirrorless to come out and though oh great i wait and see what will happen, but now it feels kind of dissapointing and started to seriously think about selling my F mount lenses and go to buy Sony...

I used my old D200 for over a decade with a single CF card. I never had a failure. I used the original card I bought with the camera the whole time I used it.

Since one can't see inside the camera, a lot of what people say has no real merit when they say there is room for two.

Hi Mat Im still struggling to figure out who these cameras are aimed at! They also put these cameras into the hands of Pro Photographers during the press launch to pick up on your last point. So if it is not aimed at Pro's who is it aimed at. The price is certainly not consistent with the Pro-am market (If there is such a thing) I priced the XQD over here in the UK 128gb quality card nearly £300 and you will always need an extra card or two. They now announce a battery pack (not a grip) god knows what the price of that will be. Camera design over the past five years (at least) has led us, rightly or wrongly, to two card slots because that is what everyone wanted. There was such a noise made when Sony originally started in mirrorless with one and, now Nikon produce a mirrorless with one XQD. Maybe it is just me as I'm getting old and slow but the whole thing is farcical unless there is a clever reason behind this? Who knows. Jim

Future proofing is nonsense, these bodies will never be able to shoot faster than sd cards. It helps nikon though because it allows the camera to have a cheaper buffer and test xqd for future faster bodies. But buyers of z6 and z7 are paying the price now. My biggest problem is the cost of xqd means that I couldn't continue to store old cards like negatives and if I reuse the same card I suspect a card failure is certain at some point.

I get that there are some very fast SD cards out there. Cards that are almost as fast as XQD. But how do you make sure people only use the fast cards? I think that’s part of the issue. With XQD Nikon is assured of good card performance so they can skimp a bit ion the buffer to cut cost. And all reports are that XQD is far more reliable than SD. Now personally would I have minded SD? No, not at all. SD isn’t the greatest format (let’s face it, it’s pretty flimsy) but it’s nice that if you are out on a shoot and have an issue you can just head to the nearest Walmart and pick up a card. Try doing that with XQD.

potrait grip (battery grio) with no button, the first in the world?

The whole "we didn't want to increase the size of the camera" is lame as the direct competition has two slots and isn't any bigger. They simply need to accept they screwed up and simply didn't listen to their customer base. They have the reputation for arrogance and this is the result.

If xqd has no failure and Sony having the rights, don't you think a7 series would have done this in the first place instead of putting two slots...just a thought

Man I look at it like this. They got there sensors from sony. I know off 1st hand that the reason they didn't put there cards was not because they didn't work but when the tested on product people dont like change. They also couldn't get others to buy into xqd so that's why it's been a fail. So on my opinion I believe the may have worked a deal on the sensors in order to get them in rotation in Hope's that more people look to pick them up. The less companies pick them up the less stores have them. Sd cards are accepted buy every one and are very abundant. If you forget ya card you can go to your nearest Walmart. Xqd has to get more people to play so I believe sony is doing an excellent job. If this goes well they will and mark my word start using their own tec.

I would rather a bigger camera anyway I find the Sony's hard to hold with my larger hands and an f2. 8 zoom

Looked into crystal ball and canon mid range camera market leader sony pro market compact mft difficult to predict canon is shooting itself in the foot by being slo mo stingy !

Here's the problem with your 300 Mb/sec SD card idea.... 99.9% of the people buying and testing the camera won't have one of those cards.. so the tubes would be full of people bashing the camera for being laggy when it's the slower SD cards they are using... But if you require them to use the faster XQD then they will have a better experience overall.

No second card slot = unprofessional, with a computer science degree and as a wedding photographer I backup everything. I backup everything daily to a NAS, weekly to an onsite external drive, and monthly off site. I always run both SD slots for a real time backup. Even if you get to the reception and realize you have a card failure, you lost the entire ceremony and portraits. I had a sandisk pro card fail last year. XQD is no more resistant to failures, and honestly has not be widely adopted and will probably be obsolete in a few years. Just like VHS and Beta, Sony lost even know beta was superior, and SD card has become the standard and has caught up in speed. If dual slots are a waste, why does the d850 have them, for fun?

Nikon has not launched the Z6 and Z7 as professional cameras. They have admitted that they are working on a z9 which is the D5 Mirrorless. This is why there is 1x slot in the XQD in the Z6 and Z7. This also explains the issues with AF, AF continuous, AF Tracking issues, Buffer issues, FPS falsely advertised, Metering issues, Battery issues etc. However the true disappointment is the lack of f1.2 and f1.4 lenses at launch. This is just not right. Nikon would have had a better launch if they just concentrated on the FTZ adapter and push that more, to give it justice, however now they are launching with sub par lenses. This is not a Nikon move we know. This is a Nikon mistake. Because the Z Mount is larger and the distance is closer to the lenses, they should have capitalised on having BETTER NEW GLASS! What I have seen from the launch and the people I have spoken too that have used the cameras and lenses, Nikon marketing has launched too soon and more than likely bypassed developer concerns voiced at Nikon that the firmware was NOT ready. Videos have shown v0.5 and v0.53 for the firmware. When firmware is ready it is either v1 or v1.1 and so this shows that Nikon marketing as usual has hurt Nikon and they should have listen to their developers and get that firmware very very close to the final release. Now their launch was dismal and did not show off the potential of these cameras. As someone from Nikon talking this is not objective. Talking is cheap. SHOW US! SHOW these features. Show the results NOW!\ However as usual, when things don’t go the way of a company at a soft launch, marketing usually back pedals and releases statements of delays due to high volume sales. This is a usual sales spin that ensure damage control, however the world has woken up and people are smarter and they are not fools and don’t take BS anymore. Now, as we say the proof is in the pudding! If Nikon does the following BELOW, will for sure dominate, however if not, Sony and Canon and Fujifilm will trample all over Nikon very quickly: - Fix the AF - Fix the AF Continuous - Fix the AF Tracking - Fix the Metering - Fix the Battery issues *if any - Fix the Buffer issues - Fix the FPS as they are not as advertised - Somehow release the code to third party manufactures to allow NEW lenses to come out and give bigger sales to Nikon, rather than waiting for Nikon lenses. - ***BIG ONE*** Have frequent firmware updates to build this ecosystem and build this Z mount system to make it better and better *take queues from Fujifilm - FIRE the marketing department and hire photographers that can re-build the image of Nikon as the people’s choice of cameras, lenses and creativity because the current marketing dept is just lying and just not genuine. - Sadly yes only 1x XQD slot however photographers can work around this. * This is the innovation Nikon missed out on: Build a camera with INTERNAL SSD and 1XQD slot. This would smash the speed of XQD and any other camera, provide redundancy from SSD to XQD and also bridge the camera between semi-pro and pro photographers. Sony is certainly moving that direction. - Price, Nikon has overpriced the Z7 (sub par camera from the D850 so why buy the Z7?, so its too expensive for semi pros and does not work well enough for pros. These changes above will absolutely allow Nikon to dominate, and slow the rest down.

This ‘argument’ that because these two cameras are not ‘professional’ is bogus. I see folks shooting ‘professionally’ with IPhones, MFT, APSC, etc; with and without two card slots. The issue I have against purchasing either of these cameras, is that there are much better options, bang for the dollar (more feature rich), then what we have with these two cameras.

it's not the consumer's fault that Nikon can't design a good camera and want to charge $2k for it.

to be honest by looking at lots of other reviews images what i understand is Nikon try to give a very well built quality camera , lens quality and adaptors are really good and weather sealed . and specifications are good enough . maybe they could do 60fps 4k but everything else look good .

This Nikon issue seems a lot like criticisms you see with Apple products. People bitched about the removal of the headphone jack, then the notch, then the high price and all those iPhones still sold. Ditto for the MacBook Pro. Nikon will sell more than enough of these cameras to keep people in the Nikon ecosystem, then they can see what Canon is going to put out, then what Sony will do next and then for gen 2 potentially come out with something that kills both of them or is as good. I'm not a pro, or wedding photographer or anything like that, but I like Canon so if Canon's mirrorless is good enough, I'll get it and I have no reason to believe it won't be and there's a lot of people like me out there. LOL

They are non-standard cards, I want to be able in an emergency go to a store and get a replacement card............

Transfer speed via 801.11ac will be much faster between XQD card and computer or phone! Nikon is not going to build a perfect MILC camera first iteration. Case closed.

Nikon didn't have to do any trade-off. 2 UHS-2 card slots offering 600mb/s in write speed would have cleared the buffer faster than any XQD card can today.

Most cell phones have internal memory storage, why don’t camera companies do the same thing? 1 internal one and 1 external card. All set:-)

The only people standing up for this ridiculousness are Nikon Ambassadors or people who have a vested interest in Nikon doing well (like those that write third party manuals for their cameras maybe?) Between the missing card slot and the "it's not a grip, it's a battery pack", you have to try pretty hard to defend a company who should know better. If this was a D5xxx replacement, people wouldn't have a leg to stand on. As soon as they put this anywhere near the world of the D850 they asked for it. It'll also be interesting to see how well the thumb support on the back (which doubles as the card door for some horrible reason) stands up over time. Seems like a bad idea to not make that anchor for your thumb be a part of the chassis, given the bulk of a large system and its lenses.

The Z6 would've been my camera 2 if there were 2 XQD slots. I can't shoot weddings with a one card camera. XQDs haven't given me any trouble but failure happens. Nikon still has time to remedy their mistakes while the D850 is still the best in the league

The Z6 looks like the better camera for video. 4k 10 bit log Fullframe. The Canon C700 has these features at $30k!! I don't care about XQD, it cost too much. I will be shooting to an Atomos SSD. Much cheaper.

CFexpress is 4-5 times faster than XQD.

The only thing I wanted was body stabilization for some older manual lenses (for low light situations). Apparently that's only 1-2 stops at best. Now, IF (big IF) the Z6 has proven, not just on paper, low-light performance above the D850 with color-neutral recovery, that would make it 3 stops in practice. But I can get the A7iii which has also eye-AF (and dual cards), at the same price. As far the Z7, it looks like it can't focus in low light so it's defective and needs be recalled asap. Nikon recorded a huge success in 2017, and the biggest embarrassing failure in 2018 with these two cameras. I actually think Nikon just hit the famous iceberg.

It's actually 440 vs 300

SD is better!

The main issue here is the fact that you can buy a BETTER D850 for less price than the Z7. Z7 has worse batterylife, worse focus, only 1 card slot and and extra expensive mediocre glass at launch. And this is EXACLTLY why the Z7 is a total failure for the price of a pro level camera. Cause it isn't a pro level camera!

Maybe there will be 2x XQD cards in the Z9. But that will cost $6000 or $7000. Just a rumor i heard.

What's wrong with a couple millimeters bigger camera? Why does Nikon have to follow Sony's footprint? Be different! Every professional photographer know the benefit of a dual memory slots provides redundancy, automatic switching to a second card after the first one reaches capacity and ability to write different file formats to different memory cards. Vblog and professional photographers out there have every right to criticize the idiotically decision of NIKON's Z camera!

The camera is a beta product and the lenses and ho hum

The thing about size is that the Sony A7 range is toooooo small, put your hand on the desk with a slight curl and that is as small as the camera should be!! Had Nikon done a 2 x XQD stack and made the body half an inch taller it would have made the ergonomics even better. Don't match Sony, innovate and learn from the mistakes Sony made!

What a total and utter bullshit Matt. If this was about buffer then why do Sony a7 and a9 work perfectly with BETTER buffer than the Zs at the moment? They use SD cards and work perfectly fine. Stop trying to create excuses for 1 card slot. It's not working!