Rodney Campbell's Blog

So one thing I was really keen on seeing with the new Z7 mirrorless was how good or bad the battery life actually was in real life

Cracks in Space

One thing that generally stresses the batteries is doing star trails. Taking continuous long exposures (in this case 61 seconds each frame) eats batteries. The camera is basically on and the sensor active pretty much the entire time. In this case it was essentially 100 minutes worth of exposures

With that I only burned one bar of battery (about 25%) which appeared to be roughly the same as Gerry did with his D750

Admittedly I was using a brand new EL15b vs his old used EL15. However I’m still pretty happy with the result and it does give me confidence of useful battery life during normal long landscape sessions

So back to the image…

We’d planned to shoot these continuous exposures not just for star trails but to capture the Eta Aquariids Meteor Shower.

We setup facing slightly north of east with these marvellous cracks in the foreground

We were pointing exactly where we should have been in the sky for the time we were shooting. Alas we had exactly zero meteors across all the shots. In “theory” we should have been seeing 55+ meteors per hour. So zero was, lets face it, “very” disappointing

Still here we were at 3AM on a cold a windy night doing our damnest 🙂

With some joint light painting for the foreground (a 236 second exposure). Blended with the 98 stacked star trail images for the final result and voila

The first outing for my new Nikon Z7 full frame mirrorless camera

Gerry joined me for a session at Boora Point (Malabar in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs)

Liftoff

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

We’d come out here because I’d somehow convinced Gerry that we’d be able to shoot the Eta Aquariids Meteor Shower

Alas how wrong was I…

Still whilst we were waiting for liftoff we experimented with some light painting mixed with milky way goodness

Gerry was telling me there was no way this panorama would stitch… No wait… that was me telling Gerry that 🙂

1312

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

The milky way was really high in the sky – almost vertical above us. So I really didn’t expect this to work. Angling the camera way upwards trying to include both the bunker at the bottom and maybe the top of the milky way arch above

However here we are – me proved wrong and Gerry right 🙂

Actually Lightroom barfed – but I was able to get it together in Photoshop

The result of eight (8) vertical frames stitched

Today I wish to look at the new Nikon Z mount 14-30mm f/4 S lens with the NiSi V6 100mm Filter Holder. Primarily to assess whether vignetting is going to be an issue with filters with this lens

Z 14-30 @14mm + Nisi V6 Holder (incl CPL) vs F 16-35 @ 16mm + Lee Holder + CPL

The 14-30mm Z lens is seriously ultra wide (down to 14mm). It also has a flat rather than the usual bulbous front element (as found on every other 14mm FX lens). Finally it has a standard 82mm front filter thread

For a landscape photographer this is EPIC!

This means I can finally use “normal” filters. This includes my standard 100mm slot filter system – all with a lens this wide

However my existing Lee filter holder with the large 105mm polariser on front noticeably vignettes on the 16-35 from about 19mm. This meant typically for the vast majority of my landscape imagery I was limited to using focal lengths from around 18, 19 or 20mm

I’d heard that the NiSi filter holder (with the polariser) will definitely work down to 16mm. Possibly even 14mm without vignetting

So I’d ordered the new V6 NiSi holder and today I’ll be testing whether my hypothesis is valid

I shot all of the following with the Z7 on a tripod facing a white(ish) wall, manual focus, ISO 64, aperture priority

All these images are essentially straight out of camera RAW’s, no (lens) profile corrections, etc. The only thing I’ve done is synchronise a white balance between all the shots and taken the saturation down to remove any distracting colour

Lighting was natural light coming in from outdoors. Therefore some slight change in light direction and intensity during the sequence might be expected

First up a baseline shot with just the camera and lens at 14mm

Z7 + 14-30 @ 14mm

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

Next I added the NiSi V6 adapter ring (including the NiSi CPL). Other than the expected exposure change I see no other practical difference (or additional vignetting)

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi Adapter (incl CPL)

To that I’ve added the 3 slot NiSi filter holder onto the front. Again no practical change (or additional vignetting)

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi Holder (incl CPL) (3 Slot)

Next I added 2 stop ND graduated filter (these are 150x100mm slot in filters). I added this filter to the outermost (furthest) of the three slots. Other than the expected exposure change I see no other practical difference (or additional vignetting)

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi + 0.6GND

The only change for this shot is I’ve slid down the grad so that it completely covers the imaging area and becomes a 2 stop ND (rather than grad)

Note: I checked and there’s still easily enough filter coverage for a grad to be used this way even at 14mm. This is great because I don’t need to buy any solid ND’s. I can just continue to use my various grads as I’ve done previously

Z7 + 14-30 + NiSi + 0.6ND

For comparison I’ve mounted my existing 16-35mm f/4 F mount lens on the Z7 using the handy FTZ adapter

I’ll be using this to test the Lee filter holder to show what I mean by noticable vignetting with that holder a even much less wide focal lengths. I can’t mount the Lee holder on the 14-30 Z lens because I only have a 77mm Lee adapter ring

Firstly the baseline shot again with just the camera and lens at 16mm

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 Only @ 16mm

Adding the Lee UWA adapter ring and the Lee 2 slot holder again shows no additional vignetting

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 + Lee Holder (2 Slot)

Here I attach the Heliopan 105mm slim Circular Polariser (CPL) to the ring at the front of my Lee holder. As you can see this is what I mean by extremely noticable vignetting and this doesn’t go away till I get to about 19 or 20mm

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 + Lee + 105 CPL @ 16mm

Even at 20mm you can just barely see the impact on the far right top and bottom corners

Z7 + FTZ + 16-35 + Lee + 105 CPL @ 20mm

Note this isn’t a review of the NiSi filter holder and CPL. I’ll do that separately once I’ve had a chance to properly use it out in the field

Old vs New

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

This is my typical landscape shooting basic loadout. i.e. when going out on a typical landscape shooting session I almost always take the camera body and at least these two lenses. An ultrawide angle zoom – probably my most commonly used lens, and a midrange telephoto zoom

I’d already posted previously the difference in weight between my D-SLR based setup:

D750 (840g) + 16-35/4 (680g) + 24-70/2.8 (900g) = 2420g

and the new Mirrorless kit:

Z7 (675g) + Z 14-30/4 (485g) + Z 24-70/4 (500g) = 1660g

However in the image above you can see in real terms the physical size difference with the two kits sitting side by side

Note that the above isn’t all I take – I’m also carrying:

• a camera bag
• tripod + ball head
• (lots of) filters (which actually takes up quite a bit of space)
• intervalometer/remote(s)
• headlamp/torch(es)
• batteries
• the arca L-brackets you see on the cameras
• and sometimes other things like pano rails and additional lenses

But saving a kilo is saving a kilo, and saving a third of the space in my bag for the base camera kit is still valuable

Note also that the comparison above isn’t exactly apples for apples

The F mount 24-70 is a stop faster at f/2.8 so will be bigger and heavier (thats half the extra weight there). But for landscaping purposes it’s “equivalent) (since I’ll be shooting at f/5.6 or above anyway). Plus everything I’ve seen indicates the Z lens is superior in IQ in every other way to the older F mount lens (and even the newer VR version)

Conversely the Z 14-30 gives me more at the wide angle end. Two extra millimetres (14 vs 16) is incredibly valuable. Whilst a few mm difference at a tele end makes very little difference, a single mm at extreme wide end makes a huge difference. 16mm has a diagonal Field of View (FOV) of 107.1 degrees. 14mm has a diagonal FOV of 114.2 degrees