I've been waiting very impatiently for this little machine.
After much umm'ing and ahh'ing about what camera I would like to upgrade to, I was almost fixated upon the idea of upgrading to a Nikon D7500... but then, after only hearing the term once before, I started seeing articles upon articles about mirrorless cameras. They were everywhere! Tempting me with their words and imagery.
I finally jumped down the investigative vortex of mirrorless cameras and although they were more expensive than what I was seeking, with entirely different lenses that make me weep for my current collection, everything about them seemed perfect for what I was after in a camera.
š· They weighed less.
š· A "what you see is what you get" quality before snapping the image.
š· An overall upgrade to what I consider a more modern technology.
Reading a Ken Rockwell review about the Nikon Z50 sealed my upgrade decision. It's basically a D7500 in a lighter body. The man himself loves this camera. I have no doubt that I will, too.
I ordered from CCCWarehouse as they had the best reviews and feedback of any Australian online camera warehouse I could find. I also used Air Priority Express because I'm anxious and paranoid as hell when it comes to these types of purchases and I wanted it sooner rather than later.
I literally sat with the DHL Express tracking window upon on the laptop and on my phone, refreshing the page constantly. It was picked up in Hong Kong on the 10th of September and was in Brisbane by the 13th. And then it was transferred to a 'third party courier' and I could no longer track the damned thing.
Obviously I was angsty as hell. Waiting. Watching. Leaping up whenever I heard a truck outside.
Finally, on the 15th, today, it arrived.
Honestly, I was expecting it on the 14th since I'm only 3 hours drive from Brisbane. But it is what it is. It's in my hands now, and that's all that matters. I can breathe again. xD For now. Until the next anxiety-inducing moment attacks me.
Enough babbling! Let's open this thing and check it out!
Firstly I'd like to commend CCCWarehouse on their packaging. Before the photo above, it was absolutely slathered in metres upon metres of bubblewrap. My son is going to have a field day when he gets home from school and sees all the bubblewrap ready to pop!
As we open up the lid for the first time, we see the two polarisers I ordered. One for each lens. I'll be completely honest here: I've never used proper polarising filters before and I have no idea about brands for photography gear. Various reviews say that Hoya is good. Here's hoping!
(I've previously used cheap-ass filters bought in a cheap-ass set off ebay. They were godawful.)
Ken Rockwell (yes, I rely on his knowledge for everything CAMERA) likes them. So, so shall I! I hope.
"Hoyas are also the least expensive filter brand, so couple Hoya's low prices with highest quality and I'm sold."
Now we remove the under-lid of the box and there it all is. My new precioussssss.
Everything is nice and snug in the box, ready for me to ravage.
So shiny. So very shiny. And it's light as hell compared to the beast I'm used to carting around. The lighter weight of this thing alone makes me so happy.
No more will my arms be burdened by what feels like 20kg of camera.
Out comes the two kit lenses. A 50-250mm and a 16-50mm.
My current old camera lives with its telephoto lens near permanently attached. I love the thing. Being able to zooooooom in on all the things, all the birds hiding in the trees, boats upon the horizon at sea... this time around I'm going to be more willing to try out the smaller lens too. š
(I just know it's going to also live with the bigass lens permanently attached.) š
And then, with a brief appearance from Charlie, I whip out the rest of the items in the box.
The USB cable, the charger and Australian adapter, and the bright yellow Nikon neck strap that I will be replacing with a wrist strap so I don't drop the brand new baby. I've never dropped a camera in my life, but better safe than sorry, right?
And here it is all together. I freaked out for a split second because: "Where is the battery!?" but then found it in the camera.
Turning the lovely new machine on resulted in a red battery icon. I knew that would be the case but a girl can dream, right? That it would be charged on arrival? š
So I waited and waited for it to charge, like a good girl. I have no idea if certain battery related myths are true or not, but I'm fairly sure that the first charge of a battery is supposed to be a full charge to benefit future battery life.
Or maybe that's just an old wives tale and I could've been playing with this thing the whole time. ANYWAY. Let's take some photos! On this grey, bleak and boring day. Looks at polarisers in SAD. š
Because I'm so used to my D5000, it's taken a little while to get used to the Z50. On the D5000 to switch to the viewfinder, you need to press a button. On the Z50 I couldn't find a button... then, instinct told me to just look through the viewfinder and LO, it detected me and automatically switched from LCD screen to viewfinder.
I'm living in the future!! š¤£
It took me a while to find out how to change the effects with the camera. One of the selling points of the Z50 is that it comes with various filter effects for vloggers to take advantage of.
I still need to understand how to set up my own programmable options. There is a U1 and a U2 that I can save settings to, and I understand how to save them, but I'm having trouble configuring. It doesn't seem quite as straight forward as it was with the D5000. I'll get there.
The focus on this thing is intense.
It auto-focuses, and then allows you to refine what it's already done with the manual ring on the lens. That's fantastic and will save so much time.
I am, however, having a bit of difficulty retraining myself to use these new lenses. The manual ring and zoom ring have switched places? š So I keep going to focus when, oops, I'm zooming in and out. I'll get used to it.
This isn't quite "what you see is what you'll get" as I was expecting. For instance, that flower above is actually quite red and in the viewfinder it was quite red, but in the photo? As you can see it's more of a dark pinky-red.
Obviously editable, but still a sliiiight let down from what I was expecting.
The images it takes, regardless, are fantastic though so I'm still happy. And hey, that's what Paintshop Pro is for.
The following two images are taken with the larger telephoto lens and I was just testing how far I could zoom with it. Turns out I captured a spider and a wasp, so I cropped in on it.
And here is Charlie, just quickly snapped straight from auto, vivid colour settings. No flash. Dim indoors with the only light being cloudy grey light coming through the mostly curtained windows. And with the polariser attached because I'm livin' on the edge.
The weekend is coming up so I'm sure as hell going to be convincing my partner for us to go on an adventure so I can properly test the camera out in the wild! And not just in the front garden and inside. xD
It feels too awkward here. We live on a very, very busy road and I feel like a weirdo roaming around my yard with a camera. Neighbours probably think I'm spying on them.
Here's hoping it's not raining this weekend!
Murphy's Law. Kaelci gets a new camera and it immediately rains for 6 months solid. š¤·āā
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Until next time!!! š·ššš·
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