Speed is an all-important factor in high-end photography. While most of us normal camera nuts rely on our phones to snap birthday party photos or shots at the soccer match, it takes a real camera like the Nikon Z6III to capture professional-level photos in an instant.
I put this to test in my review over several weeks, attending multiple events as the main photographer volunteer, capturing the moments on stage and with the crowd.
Nikon Z6III main features
The Nikon Z6III is an excellent low-light full-frame camera that has a killer auto-focus. Nikon says the AF is 20% faster than the previous Z6II model, and I could tell right away. The auto focus can identify faces and focus in a split second, so fast that none of my event photos were blurry at all. I experimented a lot with shooting crowd photos where the foreground guitar player during an event was blurred on purpose.
For video, the Z6III is the most capable camera I have tested recently. This model captures in N-Raw and ProRes Raw and the short video clips I captured at the events really shined as being both crisp and ultra-colorful, like something you’d film with a RED camera (a company that is now under the Nikon fold).
Through all of my testing, I never felt like the camera was too complex for someone like myself aspiring to have amazingly colorful and bright photos captured at events by someone who does not do this for a living. My ultimate realization is that the camera made me seem like a professional, and that’s quite an accomplishment.
Nikon Z6III extras
A few other important things to mention at this point. One is that you can now sync photos to the cloud, using the Nikon Imaging Cloud service., I can’t say enough about how this changes the dynamics of a full production process, where you can snap photos like me at events and then offload quickly to someone else who edits and processes the photos, posting them on social media or for a website. It’s a true gamechanger, although I will say since this is a new feature, if you do buy this camera, make sure you check out the quick tutorial about using it.
The camera captures at 6K/60p RAW for video, so if you are syncing to the cloud, be ready to connect a very high-speed connection to sync faster.
Another new perk in the Z6III has to do with the viewfinder. I knew Nikon had upgraded the viewfinder before my test, but I noticed it looked brighter and crisper than normal. I compared the viewfinder to a Canon Mark IV and there is a noticeable difference. That makes it easier to line up your shot, get the right angles, and capture something special.
Overall, I felt like the Nikon Z6III was the most impressive camera I’ve tested in quite some time, competing easily with other full-frame models. It even made a non-professional like myself seem like I could up my game and capture more pro photos with ease.