Photo news of the week: Nikon's luxury zoom and tuned Hasselblad

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Do you buy the body of a Nikon Z6III or just the new Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S II for just under 3000 euros? That's a question you might ask yourself if you still have some of your vacation money left over. Although expensive lenses from the original manufacturer of a camera are a matter of course, Nikon has once again – – really shaken up the price structure.

A fast 24-70 millimeter zoom is an absolute standard tool for many photographers, portrait, landscape, some available light – can do quite a lot with it. Asking 2900 euros for it is perhaps justifiable considering the improvements such as weight reduction, higher focus speed and internal zoom. There is simply no other lens with these features, the details can be found in our detailed report. But: Compared to what the market demands purely for the same optical data, this is quite excessive.

Three times the price of third-party lenses

The 28-70mm f/2.8 zooms from Sigma and Tamron, which were developed for DSLRs and are therefore larger and heavier, now cost only a third of Nikon's new lens when new. The biggest disadvantage is that the autofocus cannot keep up with the rapid frame rates of modern mirrorless lenses. And Nikon has been generally unfamiliar with third-party lenses lately.

However, there is some hope for more reasonable prices, as the predecessor of the now updated Z-Nikkor came onto the market six years ago with an RRP of 2500 euros and is still available for less than 1800 euros. Since then, however, the world has been hit first by a pandemic and then by customs chaos, meaning that such developments cannot be directly transferred to today's market.

Firmware 2.0 for Z6III with numerous new features

There is another point where Nikon is reliably not letting itself down: major firmware updates with numerous new functions have been available for several years, and not just for the top models. The upper mid-range, to put it mildly, in the form of the Z6III, is almost completely overhauled after a good year. The firmware 2.0 brings around 70 new or improved functions, as Nikon told DPreview. Of course, a complete "feature count" would go beyond the scope of this column, so here are a few highlights. The complete list, including the sometimes crude German names, can be found at the previous link.

The "Auto Capture" feature introduced with the Z8 and Z9 is a significantly enhanced focus trap. Among other things, the camera can trigger with adjustable sensitivity when an object enters the image area. Or its distance changes. However – see third-party lenses – this should only work reliably with Nikkor Z lenses. A previously set subject that the AI autofocus notices can also lead to a shot. An example: If only a person on a piece of sports equipment is to be photographed at a race track, and not an animal that happens to be passing by, the Nikon should only take a picture of the athlete. The function does not recognize its own motifs, for example, from photos. However, since the direction of a movement and the subject can be combined, this is not a problem for sports: a person comes from the right, through these focus fields, then releases the shutter. If a bird flies past, no picture is taken. Because the Z6III has always been designed as a hybrid for photography and filming, "automatic capture" also works for video recording.

C2PA and better pixel shift

The ownerless Nikon at the racetrack is also an example of "NX Field". This is Nikon's app, which is only available for iOS devices and can be used to control multiple cameras remotely. A large iPad is best suited for this, as it can also be used to keep an eye on preview images from many Nikons. NX Field is only free for the Z9, for a license for other cameras you have to contact the Nikon Professional Service. The Z6III has already been able to use NX Field for some time, and is now better supported with firmware 2.0 –, including remote-controlled white balance. What is free of charge, however, and actually overdue, is that the camera now also works as a webcam via USB without any additional software.

The digital authenticity seal according to C2PA, here called "Nikon Authenticity Service", is also more of a function for professional photographers. To teach this to the Z6III, you have to use the Nikon Cloud, which is used to synchronize the data of published photos. Functions that are not only useful for professionals: Higher resolutions than the 24.5 megapixels of the sensor can now also be composed from exposure and focus series using Pixel Shift. However, this is still only possible on the computer; the camera does not automatically stitch the images together.

Hasselblad with real HDR

Those who are not afraid of costs and weight have been able to take particularly high-resolution images for decades with cameras from one brand in particular: Hasselblad. Three years ago, they introduced the X2D 100C with a 100 megapixel sensor in medium format. However, this camera did not feature AI autofocus, which had already become standard at the time. A year later, however, competitor Fujifilm offered it with the GFX 100 II, so Hasselblad urgently had to follow suit. This has now happened in the form of the X2D II 100C. A colleague in the editorial team noticed that the new name contains an allusion to a small droid if you spell it in English: "X-Two-D-Two".

It seems as if Hasselblad, once the brand for absolutely specialized tasks, wants to create a universal camera here. This is not only supported by the new AI autofocus, aka scene recognition. The sensor is also said to have been modernized with the same resolution: 16-bit colour depth and HDR are an announcement, the rest of the specs can be found in our report on the X2D II 100C. The promised high dynamic range deserves a closer look in this photo news.

A wealth of detail for landscapes and portraits

If Hasselblad's numerous sample photos – on a suitable display – are to be believed, the many colors and brightness levels and the wealth of detail are simply fantastic. It is not possible to judge from the images how much post-processing has gone into them, as some metadata is missing in many of them. They are only available as JPEGs, but with a combined 24-bit color depth for all channels. Some of them are also somewhat cropped, so they don't show all 100 megapixels, but it's still impressive, partly because some pretty good photographers and models were at work. So right from the start: Hasselblad's gallery is our recommendation for a long click on the weekend.

Unlike Nikon with its new standard zoom, Hasselblad has turned the price screw in the other direction: the X2D II 100C comes onto the market with a recommended retail price of 7200 euros, while its predecessor, the X2D 100C, appeared three years ago for a whole 8700 euros –. The competition from Fujifilm has probably had a significant impact. However, all medium format cameras also need suitable lenses, and the new XCD 2.8–4/35–100E from Hasselblad costs 4800 euros. HDR and extreme resolution are therefore more a matter for specialists, even for beginners.

(nie)