Nikon Z9
Introductory price €5,999
Rakuten
€4,462.50Nine
Fnac.com
€5,789.00Nine
Amazon Marketplace
€5,789.00Nine
Miss Digital
€5,789.00Nine
Fnac.com marketplace
€5,789.00Nine
Digit-photo.com
€5,789.00Nine
Darty Marketplace
€5,798.90Nine
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After an impressive update to the Z8, Nikon continues to refine the software of its full-frame mirrorless cameras by today announcing new firmware for its flagship Z9. This new firmware, stamped 5.0, brings a host of improvements and small features, the precise list of which can be consulted in a 90 (!) page PDF. A document which details the new features with a precision which will delight nerds owners of a Z9.
However, don’t wait for highly anticipated new functions like Pixel Shift or internal HEIF recording, which are still missing. The Z9 being popular with professionals, we feel that Nikon is moving forward at a leisurely pace to maintain the stability of its champion.
Among the new features, we should note a Picture Control function called Rich Tone Portrait which modifies different settings (emphasis, saturation, etc.) to improve the rendering of human faces.
Let’s also note a slower burst mode at 15 fps which is inserted between H mode and 30 fps mode. Nikon is undoubtedly responding here to the needs of sports photographers who found that 30 fps made their memory cards and hard drives suffer too much. In addition, this burst is close to that of the D6 (14 fps), allowing certain photographers to regain their automatisms.
Concerning HEIF, Nikon performs a funny pirouette. If the Z9 still cannot save this type of interpreted images to the memory card, this 5.0 update brings sending in HEIF. Understand that in the case of a network connection (for sporting events for example), the Z9 can compress the raw or jpeg on the fly and send an 8-bit HEIF over the network. The advantage here is to halve the size of the file to send it more quickly.
All the improvements can be viewed on the PDF document Firmware Update Supplementary Manual available on the Nikon Download Center documentation page.
Firmware 5.0 for the Nikon Z9 is already available on the download center by selecting the Firmwares tab. Note that regression to Firmware 4.10 seems possible since Nikon left this firmware for download.