Unfair Fun Shootout: Nikon P950 vs. Nikon Z7 II 

I came here expecting a shootout and you compared one image from both cameras. One image of a street sign. I stayed because I thought there might be a comparison montage or something similar at the end, but no, I was tricked by a click bait title into watching a completely uninformative video. This “shootout” isn’t even mediocre at its best points.

I have two P900s (yes two) and I won't give them up!! I use them for the far away shots that I can't reach with a DSLR. Yes the image quality isn't as good as a DSLR but most of my pictures that I post are on my Facebook page and normally my friends are looking at my pictures on their cell phones and they aren't going to see any IQ issues with the P900 photos. I feel I would rather use the P900 even with a lower image quality, than not taking the shot, especially if it was a very unusual situation. Best wishes Duane

I have the p900 and the p1000. As a person with mobility issues who loves to take wildlife photos, the bridge cameras are a much better option for me than a DSLR. Without the extra long zoom of the p1000 I would have gotten very few waterfowl photos last year or this year as the birds were farther out on the lake. As mentioned, with a DSLR I would have to get 4 times closer for the same shot. The long zoom of the Nikons enables me to get the photos without having to sneak up on the wildlife or stress the wildlife. And they are in fact fun cameras to use. And for me photography must be fun as a hobby. I will say that the p1000 was more difficult to master than the p900 (and probably the p950). They may have the same sensor but they are very different cameras to use. Think 'telescope with a good camera attached'.

I gave up my canon kit because of shoulder problems and for this reason i bought the P950 and find it as good as the canon kit.

Great watching you both as always - this was a fun video, hope to see more!

That was fun indeed! TFS..you guys are fun to watch..love the interactions and info provided at the same time

The P950 is the 1st camera i have used for birding for the last year and i have to say the superzoom is amazing and does allow you to see distant birds and it has wetted my appetite to say the least 👍

I love these crazy comparisons! Thanks!

More people need to understand the merits of a small kit. Different sensor sizes all have their places for people with different needs.

Entertaining video, but they glossed over the price difference. Dave said he didn't want to talk about it. Maybe $15,000 to $20,000 for his setup vs sub $1000 for 950? I have P1000 and it is ideal for wildlife in good light. Before that I had a G3X with 1" sensor and 600mm...P1000 blows it away at full zoom. Even some pros carry a 950 or 1000 to get shots they would otherwise miss. I used to think a small sensor was a non-starter. Not no more. Keep Topaz Studio handy as well.

I started out with a Panasonic 12x travelzoom compact camera. The lens was/is fantastic and images are good in bright light. It quickly degrades in less optimal lighting. It was much more fun to carry on vacation than my mirrorless camera though.

With most images going straight to social media nowadays the P950 is just fine. The high resolution FF cameras are a waste of money and size for a lot of people. For small birds and animals the long zoom range is very handy not because they are far away but because they are so small and no atmospherics to get in the way.

You should have made 5-6 images side by side from P1000 v P950. There was less comparison shown other than a single yellow image. I have P1000.

Wildlifers, birders just go for it... Dont think about sensor size and all negative reviews..

i am using the P950. It is a very good enterylevel camera for wildlifephotographers

What a fun video. While I shoot exclusively DSLR now, I have recommended the sibling (the 900) to a friend who just wanted long zoom and reasonable picture quality. And there is certainly something to be said for light weight kit. As much as I love my 150-600 lens, it is a beast to shoot with. :-). Thanks for your great videos.

I got absolutely nothing from this video except entertainment. So good job!!!

I seek a point and shoot for a range of 300 feet and for high speed objects. What do you recommend?

Nice!👏. Yeah I'm leaning towards the P950...getting back into it after a minute. Had the backpack full of lenses n bodies n really don't want to spend or carry that much anymore. Yet, I'd like to do some Macro work...some landscapes, some portaits...so yeah I think the P950 could do it all in the hands of someone that can spin the dials! Thnx for the Unfair comparison!

This doesn't seem at all like an unfair shootout, just a comparison of cameras that do very different things for very different niches of photographers. In fact, this video convinced me to buy the Nikon Coolpix P950. I was on the fence, but this video showed me how much longer the range is of the Coolpix, how heavy the comparison equipment is--and doing a price check of the heavy gear sealed the deal. I'm already using one bridge camera, and this one would fill in the gaps by offering greater zoom range and 4K video. It would have been nice if rather than just saying that the Coolpix doesn't take good photos, they had shown more actual comparisons. The one photo they did show of the sign, the Coolpix definitely didn't come out on the losing end. I'm absolutely positive that the more expensive gear gets better quality photos within its range--but it has a much more limited range and it requires a tripod. For those of us who aren't professional photographers trying to sell 16x20 prints, the Coolpix looks way more than capable of getting good shots from a long distance. For macro and shots within 20 or 30 feet I'll use the camera I already own. But for those shots across the lake, this looks like just what I have been wanting.

Thanks for sharing... Enjoyed your comments & comparisons...cheers..

The P950 would be great for taking with me to concerts as over here in the UK of the camera has a a fixed lens then they let you use it but if it is a DSLR then you are not allowed to. I tried to take photos using my 3100 and long zoom lens and was told it was a PRO camera so I had to put it away or they would send in the Daleks to get me, hey it was a Doctor Who Symphonic concert.

I own a p-1000 and a Z5, and everything you say is spot on. P-1000 is just plain fun! wasy to use and learn. My Z5 w/24-200 picture quality blows the P out of the water, but dont count them out. They take good pics and the macro is really the impressive part for a 3000mm camera (125X) Oh I love the Z5 as I do zero videography.

If you're interested in a bridge zoom like the P950, get a good monopod. It will help you more than you imagine. I put one on my FZ300 (only 25-600mm equiv) and I get a LOT more keepers. You don't even have to put it on the ground, just the weight of it works well as a balancer/stabilizer. When you do ground the monopod, you almost always get a keeper shot.

just upgraded from the B700 to the P750 (extra 0.5kg). i backpack travel the world a lot with a focus on wildlife so the bridge camera trade off on sensor vs portability is a no brainer. on my B700 i got some super pleasing wildlife photos (for me) - so hoping the P950 can improve upon that.. i never bother with the full opti range other than as a telescope type function. i easily walk 15-20kms+kms / day thru towns and wilderness exploring so the bridge cameras work very well for me.

Interesting choices for an "Unfair Fun Shootout". I think with processing the RAW files with Topaz Labs GigaPixel AI or the new ACR "Super Resolution" would make an interesting addition to this "CameraStoreTV"video. Just the same, I enjoyed this video and it has me pondering once again whether or not to acquire the Nikon P950. FYI I own a copy of the AF-S Nikkor 200-500 F5.6E ED VR. Great lens both on and off the tripod. Keep up the good work! Thank you.

Fun video for sure. My wife and I took a 6Dmk2 with 100-400L and the Nikon p900 to Tanzania a few years back. Were not impressed with the Nikon. Zoom was too slow and the autofocus would not work very well, either. Next time we travelled, my wife left the heavy lifting to me and snapped great photos with her iPhone. :-)

p950 rocks, now we need medium format 6mm-2000mm f0.7 apochromatic aspherical optical stabilized with built in teleconverter and built in nd filter weather sealed pancake lens.

She should have had a tripod, to equal things out a bit.

I wish there were more of those all in ones with a good zoom range, but better sensor than 1/2,3“. Olympus z8080 was a great camera with 2/3“ sensor, back then.

You should have done the Nikon P1000 which has a 125x Optical Zoom = 24mm - 3000mm.

I have the P950, awesome camera. Cheaper than a cell phone these evil days.

How about RX100 VII vs A7III with Tamron 28-200?

Put a 1" sensor in the P1000. Weatherproof seal it. Then add an audio device jack. With that, I would have my end all be all camera and most likely would never buy another one again. I take video and stills of Grizzly Bears in the wild. I need this type of camera more than 99% of all photographers out there. "Who needs 83x zoom"? Uhhh...........ME, obviously. And give me the 125x zoom while your at it!

Honestly I love that Nikon continues to make the P950 and P1000. I am a sometimes birder and I use a Panasonic G9 and the PL 100-400mm. I have known birders who started out with the P900 or P1000 and loved the camera. My main issue is speed. It simply doesn't allow you to take very many photos in a burst. But IMO you can't beat it for the price. I have a Sony RX10IV as my small kit camera but I would consider a P950. I would give up speed and great autofocus but in return I would get zoom. Lots of zoom.

I have the Z7 with the Nikon 200-500, and the Sony RX100 vii. The Sony gives me 24-600mm plus a nice Zeiss lens and really good autofocus. I find that I grab the Sony 80-90% of the time. It works well on general purpose hikes with its manageable size and weight. If I know I’m going on a outing specifically for birding, I will take the Z7. Good video.

On a FF, you would need 1/2000 to shoot at 2000mm typically, right? Then, on this small sensor to shoot at 1/2000 with a small aperture, your only choice would be bumping the ISO very high, and thus affecting the final image quality. Is this right?

Great video and comparison . I have a P950 which is great for wildlife , the moon etc . However I think it's very versatile for your everyday run and gun shooting particularly in good light for macro , taking to a game to get close up's of your favorite sports stars and some landscape & urban. Sure it's not gonna give you the quality of a full frame or APS-C sensor, but many people shoot for social media , where this quality is more than good. I enjoy my P950 and goes everywhere with me, saving me time from from having to change lenses on my Fujifilm X-T30. You hit the nail on the head with this video , great stuff

Because of the image quality, I would go for something like the RX10III or IV. I love the quality you get out of these 1“ sensors. For my private stuff, I mostly just carry a Canon G5X II with me and leave the A7rIII at home. I would like to have a bit more extra tele, so I consider a RX100 VI/VII or the RX10III/IV

You actually have 8000mm on the p900, because of the 4x digital zoom on top of the 83x

This is interesting, because I have a D750 and I had a D7100 but I sold that. The longest lens I have right now is my 70-200/4, and on fullframe that's not very long. I never really considered getting something like a P950. I don't need 2000mm either. But I would like to have more reach than what I have now, for wildlife. It's not something I do every day so I also don't want to spend too much money on it. In the end, I think I'd go for a DSLR based setup because of the image quality and the fact that I don't need 2000mm. But I still need to work out what exactly I want in terms of bodies, lenses and possibly TC's. Because also, I don't want to end up with too many options to choose from before I make a trip somewhere.

flatearther's Evelyn .. flatearther's need 83x zoom!

How about Sony Mark 10 4 against 950?

Yeah what is the price difference? Also I wish they showed more side by side photos. It’s cool to take your word for it but I wanted to see some comparison shots

Greetings from Calcutta, India. I have Nikon D850 and Nikkor 200 500. I have decided to sell 200 500 and buy a Nikon CoolPix P 1000 because I cannot carry this 200 500 behemoth. I am not well built like you. I will compromise the quality a bit for the covenience. Your prudent video has prodded me further.

Thank you. However, there was almost no comparison between those two.❤

I have Nikon B700. Image quality of photos is not very good but 4K video looks good.

Thanks. I live those unfair shootouts!!! Means photography is a mix of gears, skills, composition, art… but you need to go out with the gears you have, to enjoy photography, to learn and improve yourself. Photography is not only a sum of specs and gears. This bridge is the king in its own category (Massive focal length not seen and offered elsewhere). Hope #Nikon will put a touchscreen in the next iteration of this camera. A good tool for birders, “curious” people (peepers are not encouraged anywhere) and for neighborhood watch. Are you interest with other “unfair” shootouts?  Panasonic: o FZ2000/2500/FZH1, FZ1000II vs S5 & S1 with the last S 70-300 F4.5-5.6  Leica: o V-Lux 5 vs SL2 & SL2-S with the 90-280 F2.8-4  Canon: o Powershot G3 X (24-600 mm) vs R5 & R6 with the RF 600mm F11

They say the best camera is the one you have with you and there is NO WAY people carry around 9 ponds of gear and swap lenses every day. It is truly unfair since you are far more likely to carry the P950 around.

It is time to improve the sensors quality and in that case there might be no need for huge and heavy cameras. But that will upset the camera industry! :))

P1000 or p950??

Love your Unfair Comparison videos, highlighting strengths and weaknesses of each type of camera. My first digital was the Canon S3 IS with 12x optical zoom, running on AA batteries and it was great, But that 83x optical zoom...wow. You know we need different cameras for different uses, right? 😉

I'm in the market right now for a better camera and considering the P950 being is that it's currently under $1k. All I know is point and shoot with a 15 pro max. I plan on using it for aviation photography. I also like the Sony RX10 iv but way above my spending for a first camera. A lot to consider right now, just unsure where to begin.

P950 I voted

Great video! Please use metric innated of that archaic British system

I am not a professional and I think P950 is good enough for me :) ...However I think professional cameras a way better than p950

My P950 camera was only $700. How much is Dave’s camera setup cost? There’s always cons with a lot of camera that I watched on reviews.

Years ago CCD sensors provided much better image quality compared to CMOS sensors. Nowadays... almost all cameras have CMOS :/

Wow, youtube compression really butchered quality on this one. Even Jordan's K-01 footage looked better.

I had a Panasonic FZ1000 super-zoom for a while next to my Canon 5D. It was a very capable camera and I was happy with the image quality for my hiking and vacation photos, but these power-zooms are just not for me. Too slow to start up (because the lens has to extend), too slow to zoom from the wide to the long end and when you don't use it for a short while, the lens retracts and you'll need several seconds before the lens is at the tele end again. In the end, after just one vacation I always took the 5D and eventually sold my Panasonic. I would never buy a power-zoom lens again.

But the RX10 from your last test in this way has at least an 1" sensor :)

P1000 is great for those of us who are newbies or don't have thousands to spend on equipment.

Of course you can buy a camera that has it all. 33-7020mm/F1.7-8, high quality and a lot of other features, the big FF camera can't offer. It's a bit heavy tho. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RkTaMyatsTo.html Could be used in some really unfair shootouts.

Should had done p1000

I have the p510. I love it so much. My mark II is great, but I need a tripod for that beast.

I think the big difference between something like a Z7 II and a P900/P950 is field of view at comparable effective zoom. The Z7 II is a full-frame mirrorless and so a 500mm lens is "native" 500mm. The field if view is large, making it fairly easy to acquire the subject at full zoom. You crop to a close-up in post-processing. The P900/950 at 2000mm has a MUCH smaller field of view, making it much more difficult to acquire the subject, or to maintain it in the FOV when the camera is shaking. I switched a Sigma 50-500 from a D500 (crop frame) to a Z7 II (full frame) and I could notice the difference even there. I've traveled with someone who shot a P900, and his biggest problem was staying on the bird to take a picture because of the small FOV.

Geweldige camera Nikon P 950❤

I enjoyed the video learnt a bit but no video comparison shots between the cameras. Its not about you but you made it about you.

Do this with the P1000 !!!!!!

Is it only me or this video is highly compressed?

You can't really compare the difference between a DSLR and a Point and Shoot bridge Camera. DSLR obviously brings way better image and manipulation of the shot. But I think you can agree as technology matures, these bridge compact cameras have become very good over the last few years and will do most of the tasks a DSLR can in a single package without needing all the add-ons. I hope to get the P950 as an upgrade to my D3100 and L830 that I've been using as my primary cameras for the last 6 years because I would like to bring 4K recording to the table once I've the money to.

Not much on the Z7II.

Must upgrade to the P950 from the P900

Are serious? An "unfair shootout" WITHOUT A COMPARISON OF THE PHOTOS! There was only a single comparison in the whole video. Is this a joke? I could read the specs instead of watching this video and it would give me more information.

Vladimir won!

I see... It all depends how you want to have the fun, pure professional yes SLR all the way, if its about those few shots you want to have at its best. But going in the woods / forest and sometimes with open areas and views from high up, all the way for the P950 for sure, you will have 2000+ photo's for a 1h walk trip, while the SLR its much more havy and big, you are more lazy and hesitating to take it up, theinking already 'this ain't a thing to shoot for this camera...' The thing I want to know both camera's like they are in this vid, what about macro takes ? Like bees , little flowers, if the SLR is almost as not existant... then its not exiting to take with you on a hike in nature, for me the most fun is flowers and insects in the first place

I sold the P950 on, it was much larger than I thought, zooming past 1000mm (I could argue past 500mm) was a bit gimmicky as the picture quality suffered in some way. If you go into a shady area, not even dark, just moderately shady, the grain becomes real and can obliterate your images. SO in short, it's bigger than it needs to be as half the range isn't usable for quality pictures, and it can't handle anything but pure daylight. It's super limited in use. better off with a m43 zoom and cropping in for the rest. I can see some niche scenarios where this camera could be great for people. Increasing ISO feels kind of like other cameras "extension mode" but starting from base ISO, it was terrible noise.

Science fact number 1. Its flat.

"shootout" * Shows exactly one comparison image wtf

bla bla bla... all we need are some pictures taken from a distance compared.

Where are the comparison photos? The promised crop? Bokeh? Noise? Sharpness? Your RX10 shootout was very helpful, but this video feels just like a commercial for the P950. Unsubscribed.

waste of time....useless camera vs video....