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Kevin McAleer often builds robots, but he's turned his talents toward photography for his recent Pikon Camera project. The camera is built around the Raspberry Pi and incorporates an interchangeable lens design. The Pikon Camera also includes a large touchscreen interface.

The camera's core is the 12.3MP Raspberry Pi HQ Camera module, which uses a Type 1/2.3 (6.3 x 4.7mm) Sony IMX477 sensor with a C-mount on the front. With various C-mount adapters, you can mount a wide range of lenses to the Pikon, including Nikon, Canon and M42 lenses.

The 3D printable camera chassis can house a Raspberry Pi 2, 3 or 4, but McAleer uses the Raspberry Pi 4. The 5000mAh battery sits within the chassis and charges via USB. The camera's large rear display is a Waveshare 3.5" panel with resistive touch control. It's not an especially high-res panel, with only 480x320 resolution, but at under $30, it's affordable. Aside from 3D-printed parts, there are only five off-the-shelf components. The Raspberry Pi HQ module is the most expensive part, which is around $50, if you can find one for MSRP.

Of course, you could use a different camera module, such as the Arducam 64MP autofocus camera module. That module is significantly more expensive, but it's also a much higher-res camera, plus it has autofocus.

As for the Pikon project, it looks great and is versatile. McAleer admits that there are some software issues he must work out, but given that it's built around a Raspberry Pi, it's easy for users to tweak it to work with the Linux software of their choice.

On McAleer's website, he offers a full breakdown of the components and includes the different STL project files for download. The project requires just a few M2 nuts and bolts plus a couple of M2 screws to put together. As for the software, McAleer is working on building a Python app that runs on Raspberry Pi 4 and can add video recording, photo filters and livestreaming functionality.

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The clip above compares ungraded and graded 10-bit video captured using the Mini 3 Pro's D-Cinelike color profile.

In early May, DJI released the third iteration of its sub-250g drone, the Mini 3 Pro. While we rated it highly for being the first drone in its class to offer up to 4K/60p footage and how it ably handled high winds, it was missing the ability to capture 10-bit video footage.

DJI listened to customer feedback, and one week after the May 10th announcement (and after our review was published), a firmware update was released to Mini 3 Pro owners. One of the significant improvements included is the ability to record 10-bit footage with the flat D-Cinelike video profile.

The Mini 3 will tell you when it's recording in 10-bit D-Cinelike mode on the remote.

Why would you want to record in D-Cinelike mode? With 8-bit color, RGB is confined to 256 levels per channel, while 10-bit color gives you 1,024. If you don't plan to edit your footage extensively or plan to do a bare minimum of color grading, shooting in 8-bit will suffice. However, if you want to make significant tonal or color grading changes or lift shadows, 10-bit helps keep your options open. Because more information is retained in the scene, you're less likely to expose gaps in the captured tonal data when manipulating exposure or adjusting color in post.

Let's take a look at some ungraded, straight-out-of-camera 8-bit footage for comparison:

8-bit footage shot with the DJI Mini 3 Pro shows much less shadow detail and has less flexibility for editing.

Additional brightness levels in each channel are also useful when applying LUTs, or lookup tables. LUTs take footage and apply a specific look by enhancing the brightness, darkness or colors in your video footage, like a preset for photos. Color banding can occur with lower-bit footage if these changes are too dramatic, so 10-bit, with its wider gamut of tones, can produce smoother results and tolerate more adjustment when color grading, LUT or otherwise.

D-Cinelike isn't as flat as the D-Log system used in DJI's Mavic series, which is specifically designed to maximize how much editing flexibility is preserved. However, it gives the Mini 3 Pro much more flexibility in post-processing than it used to have, and overall the 10-bit D-Cinelike profile is a handy addition.

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After a brief hiatus, Gordon Laing of Cameralabs is back with a new Retro Review, this time focused on Nikon's landmark DSLR, the Nikon D1. First released in 1999, the D1 was the first DSLR Nikon designed and built by itself, following prior Nikon digital cameras built around Fujifilm bodies, like the Nikon E2 and E2S.

As Laing points out, the D1 also wasn't the first DSLR on the market in general, nor the first to include a Nikon F-mount. Kodak released DSLRs using modified Nikon film SLR cameras, like the Kodak DCS 460, which has an industry-leading 6.2MP image sensor that had only a 1.3x crop, a minimal crop factor at the time. Granted, when that camera hit store shelves in 1995, it came with a $35,600 price tag, which is nearly $70,000 when adjusted for inflation.

The Kodak DSC 460 may not have been a Nikon camera, but it set in motion plans within Nikon headquarters to release a DSLR of its own, one at a much more affordable price point. Nikon's E2-series, which had Fujifilm guts and smaller image sensors, weren't quite satisfying pro users either. Nikon's consumer-oriented Coolpix cameras, like the Coolpix 900 released in 1998, afforded Nikon a chance to refine its digital imaging technologies before it announced the D1 in September 1999. However, the D1 wasn't readily available until 2000.

Nikon D1 image, straight from the camera. Image credit: Gordon Laing / Cameralabs

At $5,500 – nearly $10,000 in today's dollars – the D1 wasn't cheap, but it was within reach for professional photographers. The price also significantly undercut its competition at the time, the 2MP Kodak DSC series, which cost at least $12,000. In our review, we wrote, 'The D1 is everything the professional photographer could need and a whole lot more, build quality is second to none, image quality is excellent with a few funnies which, as long as you know, you can work around.'

Nikon D1 image, straight from the camera. Image credit: Gordon Laing / Cameralabs

The Nikon D1 was undoubtedly good at the turn of the 21st century, but Laing wants to know, is it still good now, 23 years later? While the 2.7MP CCD sensor produces dated-looking images these days and delivers somewhat odd colors due to a lack of standardized color spaces and strange color processing, Laing was 'struck by just how good it still felt and how quickly I could get shooting.' Considering it was Nikon's first in-house DSLR, the D1 was surprisingly refined in terms of design and operability. When doing his Retro Reviews, Laing often must contend with archaic controls and usability, but the D1 still feels decidedly Nikon.

Nikon D1 image, straight from the camera. Image credit: Gordon Laing / Cameralabs

The D1 broke a lot of new ground when it launched. The camera captured JPEG images at 4.5 frames per second with a 20-shot buffer, which was supremely quick at the time. It also shot 12-bit raw images. Considering its performance, price, design, and the rich catalog of F-mount lenses it used, the D1 wasn't just a triumph for Nikon, it set into motion a significant change in the DSLR market. Along with Canon DSLRs like the 1D and D30, which were released after the Nikon D1, Kodak's undisputed place at the top of the pro DSLR market was shaken. Kodak eventually pulled out of the DSLR market in 2004, and it's impossible not to see the role the Nikon D1 played.

To read Laing's full thoughts on the Nikon D1, read his Nikon D1 Retro Review. There you'll find more photos and many more details about the D1. You can also see more of Laing's videos on his YouTube channel, Dino Bytes.

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All images courtesy of Gordon Laing / Cameralabs

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Abraham Lincoln's image was an altered version of an image of John C. Calhoun. (US Library of Congress)

A picture used to be worth a thousand words. Today it can be worth millions of votes, to spark a backlash against immigrants or lead to having your work showcased on a stage to some of the world's most photo respected editors and curators.

Visuals are powerful, and weaponizing visuals to spread misinformation is as old as the medium itself, from false advertisement to propaganda, to passing on doctored visuals in good faith as satire and art or doing it as a prank for the lulz. With the prevalence of cheaper and easier-to-use technology and the threshold to manipulating photos and video becoming lower, it brings with it new tools for creatives and new opportunities for bad actors to manipulate others for their own goals.

One may think it's a modern problem, but history is peppered with examples. After his death, Abraham Lincoln's head was pasted onto the body of John C. Calhoun and passed off as an authentic image. Over a century later, TV Guide would do the same to Oprah Winfrey's head and Ann-Margret's body.

In 1989 TV Guide published this composite image of Oprah Winfrey's head over a publicity shot of Ann-Margret. The photo comes from a 'Rockette' special Ann-Margret did about ten years prior. (TV Guide, Rockette)

Recent examples have involved the malicious editing of Parkland High School students speaking out against gun violence to make them appear to tear up the US Constitution, adding smoke to make the aftermath of a 2006 Israeli air strike on Beirut to make it appear more dramatic, or the misuse of an image of Barack Obama as proof of #pizzagate.

Then there are others who have used these tools in creative ways, such as to playfully recast Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland in Back to the Future, or when they want to get something across that is totally cereal.

The old meme, pics or it didn't happen, no longer applies

Sony recently announced a new update to Sony a7 IV camera systems, allowing commercial customers to implement in-camera forgery-proof photo technology designed to help secure images against unauthorized manipulation and guarantee provenance. This isn't the first foray into a tech solution to verify original visuals from edited, or doctored, if your intent is malicious, images.

In the video above, YouTube userr EZRyderX47 recasts Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland in the lead roles of Back to the Future. If you were seeing this clip for the first time, would you be able to tell that it had been manipulated?

Canon's Original Decision Data, a cryptographic system then used by the AP and law enforcement to verify images as authentic, was cracked in 2010. A few months later, Nikon's Image Authentication System, which courts and police used, was also cracked. Like Sony's current effort, both of these technologies aimed to address a growing problem that has only exploded since the mid-2000s.

It remains to be seen if Sony's new process is a hardware or a software solution and if it'll fair better than earlier industry efforts. Still, the continued attempt to address the issue hits on a common underlying question: How do we ensure that seeing is believing as technology has advanced?

As a photojournalist and filmmaker who has also run departments at major publications, the fear of a future where we can't be certain what we're uncovering can be verified is troubling. Ethics are a cornerstone of journalism; it's how we transparently earn the trust of readers and viewers that what we present is verified, trustworthy, unbiased reporting. When journalists run the risk of having our work altered without our knowledge, or we are unable to verify work and lead to believe it is authentic, it undermines our credibility. It erodes the trust you have put into us, and without that trust, we can't make informed decisions on the things that affect us and are at the whim of bad actors who aim to use us to get to their own means.

Ethics are a cornerstone of journalism; it’s how we transparently earn the trust of readers and viewers that what we present is verified, trustworthy, unbiased reporting.

A means to create tamper-proof verification technology allows photo agencies and journalists to verify images, will enable courts to enter images as evidence, allows businesses to protect their copyright, allows public figures to protect their reputations and empowers viewers to know how to check for misinformation.

In addition to the camera makers, others are attempting to address the gap. In partnership with Twitter and the New York Times, Adobe launched The Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) in 2019, an open-source, cross-industry effort to establish tools for securing image metadata and verifying authenticity. With partners from the AP, Getty Images, BCC, The Washington Post, Stern, Microsoft, Leica, Nikon and others, the effort is built from the ground up with journalists and consumers in mind.

Unlike camera maker efforts, which have been proprietary and business-driven ('Hey oil company, use our cameras and host your own database of certificates so you can issue takedown notices if an activist group uses your photos.'), the CAI effort considers transparency a tool for the public to verify independently, while also taking into consideration journalistic concerns over the safety of photojournalists and the privacy and protection of our sources.

These efforts from Sony and the CAI fascinate me, as I wonder if they will be viable options to verify photo manipulation and fight misinformation. These efforts also bring us to a philosophical debate, why does it even matter?

What is truth? And further, why is truth worth the effort and investment?

We've lived through a massive era of the democratization of media creation and information access. All it takes is a smartphone and a Wi-Fi signal to create media, and these same tools make every photo, video, text and bit of information available to us in seconds. Want to know who took the photo of the first moon landing? In three seconds, we see it was Buzz Aldrin's double-horizon shot of Neil Armstrong. Want to know what your friends are up to? Pop on to social media for real-time updates. Want to learn about climate change and get sucked into a conspiracy theory? We got that too. Are we living Star Trek or Black Mirror? Who knows right now, but we do know we can find it online.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin explores the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. (NASA)

With information everywhere, it becomes more important to check our sources and verify information, which is where tamper-proof verification tools come in handy. With these tools, as a reader, you can quickly verify that it was actually Neil Armstrong who took a picture of Buzz Aldrin (gotcha!) or that the conspiracy theory about climate change is manipulating you with doctored photos.

As truth becomes subjective and lies become acceptable, so long as the ends justify the means, the tools to verify become more crucial.

In his book Why We Did It, Tim Miller outlines how the former Republican political operative and his colleagues weaponized information and blurred truth to win political races by any means.

Tracing a path from the aftermath of Watergate, which inspired the likes of Roger Ailes to establish a news outlet to control the narrative, through the 1980s, when politics started to become flashier and more produced as spectacle, through to 'alternative facts' and our present-day demonizing of journalists, Miller walks us through how he and his peers produced a zero-sum game and made it culturally acceptable to lie to win.

Photos and video have a lot to say about our culture. A sweaty Richard Nixon may have lost the election to a camera-ready John F. Kennedy.

This shift also extends to the algorithms that decide what we see and hear, and today you can find your own version of the truth within echo chambers of like-minded people.

You may be thinking now, why are we talking about politics, and 'I didn't come here to get political.' Well, dear reader, the political landscape has a lot to say about our culture, and it even extends into photography and video and how we use and consume images. Mannie Garcia's AP photo of Obama became a rallying cry for Hope when artist Shepard Fairey adapted it. A sweety Richard Nixon may have lost the election to a camera-ready John F. Kennedy. Mr. Big passing out on a Peloton sent the company's stock into a dip. Images have the power to shape our opinion on matters ranging from who you vote for or where you eat.

The power of images to shape our thinking is one I think of often. As a journalist, you can imagine why I would be invested in ensuring what we publish is accurate and ethical. Without your earned trust, built through years and years of accurate and verified reporting, journalism's foundation starts to crumble.

Enter disinformation, 'fake news,' 'alternative facts,' deep fakes, the blurring of lines between opinion and news, and technology capable of quickly altering images, metadata, and more, and you can see why so many are invested in safeguarding the authenticity of visuals.

If you don't know what truth is, then it's easier to give you your version of the truth in order for the provider to lead you to the outcome they seek. 'The ends justify the means.'

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My personal Z9, complete with yellow identifying tape and RRS arca-style modular plate with adjustable L-bracket.

All photographs by Barnaby Britton

First, a confession, because I know it’s going to come up. I don’t need a Nikon Z9. I bought one because I wanted to (and because I don’t have a mortgage or any children). The Z9 was my ‘resigning from DPReview after 13 years’ gift to myself if you'd like to know. And if you didn’t know that I’d left DPReview, well, now you do.

Now that I'm not writing about cameras for a living, I’ve found to my delight that I actually have the time and desire to get out and take photographs. I’ve used the Z9 for several personal projects in the last six months, including a continuation of a low-light clam digging project on the Pacific coast, lots of portraits, and (totally new to me) even some amateur astrophotography. In every one of those environments, the camera has met or surpassed my expectations. When things went wrong, it was almost always because I’d messed something up – which is exactly what you’d hope for, in a camera designed for professional use.

Before the Z9, my last extensive, extended experience of a flagship Nikon interchangeable lens camera was the D3S, released in 2009. I’ve written about the D3S and its closely related predecessor the D3 a lot on DPReview. Here. Are. Links. After that, I owned a D810 for several years before switching to a Z7.

The Z9 is considerably bigger than the Z7 I'd been using previously, but it's considerably more camera, in virtually every respect. For one thing, the large integrated grip houses a powerful EN-EL18d battery, which is good for thousands of shots on a single charge.

When I made the move to mirrorless in 2018, I more or less swore that I’d never go back to the days of big, heavy, integrated grip DSLRs. The Z7 was much criticized when it was released for offering less customization and fewer autofocus options than its DSLR near-equivalent the D850, but it was a lot lighter – a significant selling point, in my book. That, plus its superior ergonomics, its stunning sensor with cross-sensor autofocus coverage, its built-in image stabilization, and its detailed, immersive viewfinder made a convert out of me quickly.

I loved my Z7, and still do. It’s a photographer’s camera, and built like a blockhouse. But its limited setup options and zero provision for vertical controls in an ILC that cost over $3,000 always rankled a little bit. Credit to Nikon for improving both the Z6 and Z7 considerably via firmware in the years following their release, but firmware can’t add a vertical control grip, any more than it can remove a tacky exposure mode dial.

Enter the Z9

The Z7 II improved on the original Z7 in many respects, but it was obvious that Nikon would eventually release a truly professional-grade mirrorless ILC. And sure enough – after a bit of a wait, no doubt extended a little by a pesky global pandemic – we got the Z9.

The Z9, pictured alongside Nikon's first professional SLR, the Nikon F. The F became an icon of mid-20th Century photojournalism, particularly in the Vietnam war-era 1960s and 70s.

Autofocus astounds

Although it offers essentially the same image quality as the 4-year-old Z7, the Z9 is the first Nikon camera in my opinion that can really make the most out of its resolution, thanks to its AF performance. Specifically, I find that I really can trust it to nail focus on eyes, with a remarkably high success rate, even when shooting at the long end of a slow telephoto or wide open on a fast prime lens. The Nikon Z9 just loves eyes. It can’t get enough of them. Big, small, side profile, animal or human, it almost doesn’t matter. And once it’s found an eye, it can generally be relied upon to quickly get it in focus and keep it there.

This little fella knew I was looking for him, so he only popped up above ground for a moment. But that was enough for the Z9's Eye AF to lock on. Nikkor Z 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 S + 1.4X extender | ISO 1250 | 1/800 sec | F9.0

Just for fun, while house-sitting in Oregon for DPReview editor Dale Baskin, I spent an afternoon stalking a marmot outside his kitchen window. When the little critter finally popped into view, the Z9 nailed focus on its eye immediately, allowing me to rattle off a few shots before it went to ground.

When taking portraits with the Z7, I became used to employing a fairly traditional ‘move AF point, lock focus, take a picture’ method of shooting. Tempting as it was to activate face and eye-detection AF in continuous AF mode, the hit rate was too low to rely on. The Z9, on the other hand, can find and focus on eyes with uncanny accuracy, even when (like here) your subject might be backlit, wearing sunglasses, and in motion. Nikkor Z 24-120mm F4 S | ISO 720 | 1/320 sec | F4.0 (grain added in DxO Film Pack 6)

My experience of shooting ‘sports and action’ may be limited, but a recent weekend spent with the new Nikkor Z 800mm F6.3 VR S provided an opportunity to try the Z9’s automatic subject detection and tracking prowess on, variously, high-performance jet fighters, low-performance seaplanes, and fairly average performance (I’m not an expert) geese. The experience was an enlightening one, and a salutary lesson in basic physics: No matter how good your camera and lens, distant objects shot on hot, hazy days will still look soft.

The Z9 tracked the Blue Angels display team fine (I shot with a 1.4X extender, just to make the camera’s life even harder), but while my shots are good enough for use online, close inspection provides a case study on the resolution-destroying effects of thermal distortion.

Air display teams are great to look at, but hard to photograph. I used an 800mm lens with 1.4X extender to get close to the Blue Angels during their recent appearance in Seattle, but the distance, and the hot, hazy air of a 90-degree day, really take a bite out of critical sharpness. Nikkor Z 800mm F6.3 VR S + 1.4X extender | ISO 800 | 1/4000 sec | F9.0

Despite the challenging situation, the Z9 still did an excellent job of finding and tracking the planes, and while not all of them are critically sharp due to heat and haze, my shots are easily good enough for most uses, short of large prints. Nikkor Z 800mm F6.3 VR S + 1.4X extender | ISO 2500 | 1/4000 sec | F9.0

The only situation on that sunny day that seemed to fox the Z9 was when the jets moved in front of the distant landscape, at which point the camera struggled to distinguish them against the low-contrast background. I experimented with 3D Tracking and Auto Area AF and found that both modes worked well, with 3D Tracking being generally a better choice when focusing on a single jet, and Auto Area AF more reliable for mixed formations.

The Z9's autofocus system is trained to recognize multiple types of subjects, including airplanes. I smiled when shooting airliners leaving SeaTac when I saw the camera's AF reticule identify the cockpit of this plane (in effect its 'eyes') as the ideal point of focus. Nikkor Z 800mm F6.3 VR S | ISO 220 | 1/500 sec | F8.0

When shooting some larger and more sedate airliners leaving my local airport SeaTac that evening, I was struck by how, after identifying its target as a plane, the Z9 automatically narrowed the AF reticule and positioned it over the cockpit at the front of the aircraft - its ‘eyes’, in effect. Even more impressive considering the planes were moving away from me.

This autofocus prowess isn’t news, of course; it’s one of the main reasons why the Z9 has been out of stock since almost the day it was launched.

Other noteworthy improvements

Autofocus is definitely the biggest and most important improvement in the Z9 for me, but there are others. For starters, the battery life is insane, especially when shooting bursts. The day I shot the Blue Angels, I ended up capturing more than 9,000 images, but the Z9’s battery was still going strong, at 46% charge remaining.

Proof that if you're shooting bursts, you can capture more than 9,000 photos on the Z9 and still have almost half of the battery capacity remaining.

The amount of customization possible over the Z9’s operation (expanded further in FW 2.0) is another very welcome upgrade over previous Z-series cameras, exceeding even what I was used to with the D3S and D810, and finally unlocking the full potential of an ‘everything by wire’ system. With 14 customizable control points on the camera body and a further six or more custom control options on high-end Z-series lenses, the Z9 is the most flexible camera that Nikon has ever created. How you set up your Z9 is of course a matter of personal preference, but if you're anything like me, the first thing you'll want to do is to remap the lock/Fn4 button to initiate playback, to match previous Nikon ILCs.

My shooting and custom settings banks

The first day I owned my Z9, I spent several hours with it on my couch, going through the menus, selecting and saving options, and learning what all the various settings meant. One of the first things I wanted to get to grips with was the shooting settings and custom settings banks. The Z9’s shooting and custom settings banks have been improved compared to earlier iterations (the most significant change is that AF modes are now counted as a ‘shooting’ setting).

If you're anything like me, the first thing you'll want to do is to remap the lock/Fn4 button to initiate playback, to match previous Nikon ILCs

I have the LAN/mic button on the rear of the camera assigned to select the shooting menu bank, and with that button depressed, I can quickly scroll through the four banks, A, B, C and D, with the rear command dial. I also have 'shooting menu bank' and 'custom settings bank' saved to the Z9’s ‘i’ menu, allowing me to change both from there. The most confusing aspect of the Z9’s shooting settings and custom settings banks is figuring out what distinguishes them, how to set them up, and how to use them in a complementary manner. Once they’re saved, recalling the banks is the work of seconds.

For now, I have shooting and custom settings banks A, B, C and D set up to complement one another. For the sake of space, I've listed only the most salient settings below.

• A: General photography
  
  • Raw: High efficiency*
  • Photo flicker reduction: On
  • Focus mode: AF-S / Single point
  • White balance: Natural light auto
  • Vibration reduction: On - normal
  • 30fps and 120fps release modes: Disabled
  • High fps viewfinder display: Off
    
    
• B: Low-light photography
  
  • Raw: Lossless compression
  • Focus mode: AF-S / Single point
  • White balance: Daylight
  • Long exposure NR: On
  • Extended shutter speeds: On
  • Vibration reduction: On - normal
  • AF assist illuminator: Off
  • Warm display colors: Mode 2 (+3 brightness)
  • Starlight view: Assigned to Fn3
    

• C: Macro / product photography
  
  • Raw: Lossless compression
  • Photo flicker reduction: On
  • Focus mode: MF + focus peaking
  • White balance: Flash
  • Vibration reduction: Off
  • AF assist illuminator: On
  • View mode: Adjust for ease of viewing

• D: Sports and action / Portraiture
  • Raw: High efficiency*
  • Photo flicker reduction: On
  • Focus mode: AF-C / Auto-area AF
  • White balance: Natural light auto
  • Vibration reduction: On - normal
  • 30fps and 120fps release modes: Enabled
  • High fps viewfinder display: On

So, for example, when I know I want to shoot some product photography for DPReview, I switch both the shooting settings bank and the custom settings bank to ‘C’, and I’m all set. The biggest ‘gotcha’ is that if you’re shooting in a particular settings bank and you change one of the settings for whatever reason, this change will overwrite the originally saved setting in the bank. For this and other reasons, the implementation of the shooting / custom settings banks can be hard to master, but it’s a powerful feature when used correctly.

If you don’t need quite this level of flexibility, the ‘recall shooting functions’ (RSF) custom setting allows you to quickly recall up to 12 key settings at the press of a button (they can either activate while the button is held, or toggle on and off with the button). This might be all the customization most Z9 shooters ever need, for example allowing you to quickly enable 3D AF Tracking + 20fps, if required to capture some spontaneous action. You can't, however, use RSF to recall focus mode, ie., AF-S or AF-C. Confused yet?

Adventures in astrophotography

As a fan of ultra low-light imaging, I jumped at the chance to shoot the Milky Way during a recent period of clear weather. I’ve attempted astrophotography many times, but never successfully. I know now that my previous failures had less to do with the equipment I was using, or even my technique, than with my incomplete knowledge of the night skies and poor preparation. Shooting alongside a friend who ventures out multiple times a month, has all the apps, watches all the forecasts, and knows all the good spots, was an eye-opener. The night we went out to capture the Milky Way, she did most of the hard work – I just followed instructions.

The Mount Rainier National Park, a little over two hours from Seattle, is a popular spot for astrophotography. I used the Z9's 'Starlight' mode to compose and focus this shot of the Milky Way over Mount Rainier. Nikkor Z 14-24mm F2.8 S | ISO 2000 | 10 sec | F2.8

The Z9 is a joy to use in very low light. The backlit buttons make it simple to access major controls, and two low-light ‘Warm display colors’ (d10) modes transform the GUI into a low-intensity ‘red on black’ interface to preserve night vision. The warm display modes aren’t a perfect experience (dark red/black on-screen text overlaid on a dark live-view image is very hard to read – something I hope Nikon can improve) but it does make a difference to viewing comfort in situations where preserving night vision is important.

At 2:00 am in the near complete darkness of Mount Rainier National Park, the Z9’s ‘Starlight’ mode (d9) also came into its own. In this mode, the refresh rate of the live view feed is greatly reduced, in order to provide maximum possible brightness for composition in extremely low light shooting conditions. Depending on the light levels, the resulting live view image can be pretty noisy, but I found it was clear enough that I could distinguish the outline of nearby trees and the distant Mount Rainier, allowing me to frame my shots accurately in real-time without trial and error exposures.

The Z9's rear and top controls can be illuminated if required, for ease of handling in very low light. Button illumination can be activated on demand by pulling the on/off switch past the 'on' position, or you can turn it on by default, via a custom setting.

Starlight mode also engages super-high-sensitivity autofocus, enabling AF on the stars themselves. It’s slow and works best on lenses with a maximum aperture faster than F2.8 (and it seems to prefer native Nikon Z glass), but it does work. As an aside, I use Starlight mode frequently, even in good light, because it has the effect of boosting shadows and midtones in the live view image – something that really helps when composing images in contrasty conditions. In fact, I use Starlight mode so frequently that I have it assigned to the Fn3 button on the front of the Z9.

Meanwhile, the Z9’s extended shutter speeds allow for exposure times of up to 15 minutes in duration, without an intervalometer – great for wide-field astrophotography. And let’s not forget, the 4-axis tilting touch screen can flip out for vertical compositions as well as horizontal, to help nail those Instagram-worthy Milky Way shots. As with so many aspects of the Z9’s ergonomics and feature set, neither long in-camera exposure times nor an articulated screen is unique to the Z9, but both are welcome additions compared to previous generations of Nikon ILCs. Needless to say, the Z9’s massive battery is more than capable of powering a full night’s photography in moderate temperatures.

A vertical shot of the same scene, using a longer focal length to draw more attention to Mount Rainier. The little lights on the side of the mountain are climbers, aiming to summit before dawn. Nikkor Z 35mm F1.8 S | ISO 3200 | 13 sec | F1.8

I’m pretty happy with the results of my first proper astrophotography excursion, and I learned a lot. I shot the Z9 alongside my long-serving Z7, and while I captured decent images on both, the Z9 proved itself much more versatile and was by far the more enjoyable camera to use. The biggest mistake I made was to somehow - and I still don’t know how - accidentally shoot the entire night in the high-efficiency Raw format - the most compressed of the three Raw formats available on the Z9. The good news is that DPReview’s testing has proven that the image quality penalty is negligible, but I’m still kicking myself, if only because my preferred noise-reduction workflow involves DXO Pure Raw 2, which doesn’t (yet) recognize the Z9’s HE Raw files.

The silver lining of that stupid mistake is that I’m much more confident now with the idea of shooting in HE Raw mode – I won’t shoot astrophotography in HE Raw again, but for sports and action shooters who shoot a lot of bursts and want Raw but also want to conserve card space, it’s a no-brainer.

The shortest video section you'll ever read on DPReview

A major part of the Z9’s feature set is, of course, video. While I don’t shoot video for my personal work, I did use a Z9 as part of a commercial video shoot earlier this summer in Berlin, where it fit right in alongside a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K, capturing 4K coverage on busy (and hot) 12-hour days without missing a beat. Our director on that shoot has nothing but good things to say about the Z9, and DPRTV’s very own Jordan Drake waxed lyrical about it in this video and again here. They’re the experts, not me.

Requests, annoyances and final thoughts

So what don’t I like about the Z9? Honestly, not much, but I do have some requests. With the recent astrophotography experience fresh in my mind, I really wish that the chosen Raw file compression mode was clearly indicated somewhere in the Z9’s top-level UI, rather than being buried in the image quality section of the menu system. I wish the protective blinds over the sensor could be activated automatically when a lens is removed, rather than only when the camera is powered off. I wish that the annular lock/on switch on the vertical grip could be reversed to match the main switch so that I don’t keep turning the vertical controls off when I want to turn them on (why Nikon, why?).

The film-era Nikon F4S had a vertical grip, with a secondary shutter button and an annular lock/on switch around it with the same rotational logic as the switch around the main shutter button. For some reason, by the time the F5 (and the ergonomically similar D1/H, pictured here on the right) was released, the rotational logic of the vertical control switch had been reversed. Even after almost 30 years in which to get used to the change, I still find myself locking the Z9's vertical controls when I want to turn them on.

I also wish that the ‘warm’ mode GUI could be tweaked to make the on-screen text more legible. I'd really love a higher-resolution EVF, but that's not the kind of thing that can be added in firmware. I would, though, like to see the Z9’s shooting banks and custom settings banks rationalized even further, and I’d also prefer the interval shooting section of the menu to be written in plain English, rather than its current form where (as with many cameras) it resembles a question on a high school math test. Finally, I’d prefer a D6-style catch to open the memory card door, rather than the ‘push down and pull' lock of the Z9. While it’s unlikely you'll ever open the Z9’s card door by accident, I sometimes struggle to open it deliberately, especially when wearing gloves or in the dark.

The Z9 is one hell of a camera

In the final analysis, though, these are minor complaints. The Z9 is one hell of a camera, and the fact that they're still so hard to find says at least as much about the Z9's desirability as it does about any lingering supply chain issues. There was a lot of pent-up demand for the Z9 from both Z6 and Z7 owners who had been patiently waiting for an autofocus upgrade, and D850 and D5/6 shooters who had avoided ‘going mirrorless’ until Nikon could offer them a camera with equivalent or better AF. I was lucky to pick up my Z9 in January – some prospective owners are still in line. Make friends with your local camera store, if you’re lucky enough to still have one nearby.

For me, like most amateurs, $5,500 is a lot of money to spend on a camera. Despite the financial pain though, I do not regret my purchase. The Z9 might be big, it might be heavy, and maybe it is more than I need, but it’s a camera that delights me and makes me want to go out and take pictures. Who can put a price on that?

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A crop of the full-resolution 67MP image Nikon China posted to social media. Full image embedded below.

Does Nikon have a surprise up its sleeve for the near future? It very well may if a little slip-up in a recent post shared to Nikon China’s Weibo profile is to be believed.

In a post promoting Nikon China’s Creative Camp Live class, Nikon China shared four images, all presumably taken with Nikon Z-mount camera systems. While innocuous enough, one image in particular caught the attention of eagle-eyed readers who noticed the image has a resolution of 6670 x 10000 pixels. In other words, a camera with at least a 67MP sensor could’ve taken the photograph.

The original, untranslated post shared by Nikon China on Weibo.

Considering Nikon’s highest-resolution sensor for its Z-mount lineup tops out at 45.7MP (for both the Z7 II and Z9), this image either had to be taken with a non-Nikon camera or with a higher-resolution Nikon camera that’s yet to be released.

The metadata of the image doesn't reveal much, other than its color profile, resolution and file size.

The image in question, which showcases a fidget toy from More Than A Knuckle (MTAK) surrounded by bottle caps, hasn’t shown any matches in any reverse image search tool we’ve put it through, which means it’s unlikely Nikon is using any kind of stock image.

Click through to see the full-resolution image.

Nikon Rumors and commenters under the original post are suggesting this image could’ve been taken with an unreleased ‘Nikon Z8’ mirrorless camera system. The highest-resolution sensor we’ve seen in a commercial full-frame camera thus far is a 61MP sensor inside Sony’s a7R IV. So, whatever camera (presumably full-frame based on the 3:2 aspect ratio and resolution) captured this image is shaping up to take the resolution crown from the a7R IV.

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