Nikon Z8 EVF Blackout? Fix it! 

Too much talking for something that could be explained in under 60 seconds

Thank you so much!!! I was so frustrated with the black out issue, missing so many great photo opportunities. This has made my day!!!

Nikon Z8 Ref Guide. Page 134; "When [ON] is selected for photo flicker reduction in the Shooting Menu (457), the shooting display will briefly go dark during burst photography."

8:00 - WOW, this was bugging me too, what an absolute mess of a menu setting - they should give an info under d13 to be aware of this!

This is the consequence of making it to satisfy every photographer's needs, it had to be made too complicated.

Superb hack thanks a lot I was also going crazy

Frustration turned into knowledge, that was a good trade off Frames. Thanks for sharing. 👍

Big thanks for help. Greetings from Poland ❤

thanks for your video. I have a similar problem on my Z8, i thought was related to blackout. But just realized it's about aperture. After setting everything to don't have any blackout (flickering off and no TypeA), could you try to see what happens shooting with aperture down 5.6 and then up to 5.6? with apertures up to 5.6, while shooting I see a small change in my Evf / Lcd, and i thought was about blackout but it's not. I realized this "problem" doing macro photography, it's pretty annoying. Could you check on your Z8 too please? thank u 🙏

Thanks for this really helped me out! I was about to throw my camera against the wall trying to figure this issue out lol!

Why call it a bug?

Ran into same problem. Now i know. Another issue im experiencing is shutter speeds being set with control dial to .01 of second intervals. E.i. 1/1026.3 shutter speeds. Each movement of dial adjusts shutter speed at most by 1 second or less. Not sure why

Mine had flicker reduction off from default so I had no issue at any shutter speed !

Thanks, unfortunately to the instruction do not give an indication of the interaction of the functions.

want to about z8 low light performance in details

Frames!!! This is an amazing discovery - I was victim to the same things and YOU saved me! Thank you! I agree that this is NOT a bug, but I will say that it is strange that Nikon reps don't know this. I think that this should be explained in the help of the d13 custom option - it should state that the camera effectively uses release A whenever the Flicker is turned "on" in the Photo Shooting Menu - again this would not be a problem as long as it was made clear so that it did not 'appear' that the camera is broken when in fact another (seemingly unrelated) setting is making this happen. Thank you again for your tenacious pursuit of solving this problem and for helping me solve this problem on my camera. -PD

Hi, I have watched this video 6 times, and adjusted my Z9 flicker buttons in every way. I never get blackout visuals in my viewfinder nor rear monitor. I really hope this has solved your Z8 issue for you, but if they are the same inside, something just does not add up. It would have driven me mad trying to fix it, I really do hope this is a fix. Best wishes TonyH

Thank you for helping me)

THANK YOU for posting this. ***NOTE*** since this video the menu for the Z8 has changed a little and the blackout setting is now D14. I had the same issue and got into a long back-and-forth email exchange with Nikon which then turned into a LONG phone call with a very kind and patient call center manager who sat on the phone with me and went thru every menu setting to talk about it and he did not once think the flicker reduction was the culprit. he said he would forward this to the Nikon engineers he could reach and said he'd personally get back to me with a solution. some weeks went by and finally after my reaching out again and again he replied and said there was nothing they could find. this is hilarious! THANK YOU for posting this, I was going crazy. I am going to send this to the Nikon guy I was in contact with, Nikon needs to tidy this up somehow, I think. cheers!

Interesting. I don't know if I missed something out, but I believe you mentioned that you had the blackout while shooting birds outdoor as well in which case then there is no flicker. So, the fact that the flicker reduction option causes the blackout even outdoors suggests the existence of a bug that needs to be fixed in a future firmware update.

Why would you prefer to have banding in your photos? Thank you for discovering that this happens, but I would accept it and keep flicker reduction ON.

In my case I did"t experience anything of that sort, after watching your video I checked out but had no such experience.No blackouts in the viewfinder as well as back screen. My settings are AFC, WC1, HFPS on.

You will find yourself tweaking settings and experimenting for months to come but you will love this camera once you tweak it to how you like to shoot. Congrats!

Is it about EVF or the display or both?

Thank you!!

I have received my Z8 today, while browsing through the setup menus I kind of recalled watching your this video about black out. Then I watched the video again. after watching your flicker reduction menu solution I checked my camera, and this was by default turned off. May be Nikon took your suggestion and made it a default settings for next releases of Z8 cameras. Claim your Z400mm f/2.8, I support you.

My man.

Hmm, not sure it is a bug. Hudson Henry mentioned this last year when he provided how to set your Z9 custom settings.

you are genius man.. even i stucked in this same irritating thing.. tried everything out.. finnaly googled n find your video here.. and solved this problem

Listen, this also bothered me for about 2 hours!!! I finally figured the same thing out but like you it’s helped me learn my camera!

Thank you very much! Excellent! 👌🏼👊🏼

get to the f**king point ffs

I had the same issue with the Z9, was going bat crazy until I saw this video. Thanks, you're my new hero.🤩

Thanks FramesTM for the educational video and discovering the setting which removes the blackout . i have one more question, i have observed that my Z8 makes more mechanical sound when i startup the camera and whenever i press the reply button . however on z6 II the same sounds are very minimal ! is it same for you/others on Z8 ?

Thank you Frames! I'm a set it and forget it guy and this would have drove me crazy too. I don't want a default function like that. I like how you played hardball for the 400mm. They owe you two weeks of fun with that lens because you succeeded! Can't wait to get the Z8, have at it man!

Thank you, Much Helpfull!!

Thank you. I have been going crazy all day trying to figure this out myself. So glad I found this video!!

Thanks Frames! Would love to hear your button / AF setup ideas, I’m probably overthinking the “perfect” approach. BBAF vs shutter release etc. But I think I’ve come up with an ideal setup today 🙂

This would drive me crazy, but the learning of setup, saving to SD card is so important, but knowing your settings is most important thing. I get mine today, i know bank use and shortcut use already from D850 as opposed to U1.2.3 in my Z6II, Shooting banks are just so important now in making life fast.

Just get to the point. No need for all the waffle.

Thank you so much ..... my Z8 was fine on Saturday when photographing a football match but today I noticed the same problem you had and I did your fix and its great now. Cheers Quinny

Reset to factory settings, and start over...I hope the fanboy bots don't get on your case because you found a quirk and shared it with us.

Great video! I wish I had found this when I was fighting with blackout in the Z8. Crazy that there are that many settings that can cause it! None of this causes blackout on similar Sony cameras, so this is frustrating!

Glad you figured it out...Enjoy the 2.8 👍🏽

I don't have D13 I WONDER WHY?

You saved my life man!

Frames thanks for the tip!

These maddening menu options should NOT exist. Blackout should just be On or OFF; why do we have to jump over all these clown shows and ridiculous options... these are insane. Thank you for the video to show the menu items that I will never go change but may go haywire and drive me NUTTTTTSSSS.

Nikon really sucks at software! I updated my Z30 to their newer firmware then my screen black out completely and never came back. I sent it to repair factory and they tried to charge me over $350. They really should pay me for shipping to their facility and period when I cannot use it.

the flicker reduction function only works with shutters speeds below 1/200th but nikon lets the blackout on even when one goes above 1/200th. This is a bug from my point of view. It is reported by me and many others to nikon but they don't care about it.