I recently picked up a Z6 and wanted to share my first impressions, similar to
this thread from
@Peeb last year.
Diopter adjustment
- This might not be particularly useful for most, but this could have been a deal breaker for me. I wear glasses, really dislike pressing my glasses to the eyecup, and haven't been able to wear contacts for a long time. I've always adjusted the diopter and added a correction eyepiece so I can see through the viewfinder clearly without my glasses.
- I asked in this forum. I asked my local camera shop as well as Adorama. I even contacted Nikon support. They all told me the same thing - the Z6/Z7 use a different eyepiece than SLRs, and the standard rectangular eyepiece accessories will not fit. There are no correction eyepieces available for their mirrorless bodies.
- As it turns out, all of them were mistaken - the DK-20C rectangular correction eyepieces fit just fine. I'm not sure if it interferes with the eye sensor just above the viewfinder, but it fits and it works.
- More importantly, the diopter range on the Z6 is wider than with prior DSLRs I've owned, going all the way to -4.0. This was actually sufficient for me, so the addition of a correction eyepiece was not needed. I just thought I would document that here in case it helps someone else, since I was unable to find this information elsewhere.
Battery
- My biggest question right now is how long the battery will last compared to a DSLR. I've heard everything from a few hundred shots to 1000+ shots and still going at the end of the day. I understand it is more about how long the viewfinder is on than how many shots I take, so I'll have to wait and see how it goes.
- It comes with an EN-EL15b battery, which I understand is basically identical to the EN-EL15 spare batteries I already own, but can be charged via USB. Also, the Z6 does not include the USB charger and I don't plan on spending $60 for it, so there's really no benefit to to this as far as I'm concerned.
- It uses the same MH-25a charger that came with my D500
The first shot
- The shutter has a very quiet muffled sound. I guess a quiet shutter is one of the benefits of mirrorless, but there's just something so satisfying about the solid ker-chunk sound of a DSLR shutter. I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough.
That's about it so far. The one potential deal breaker for me was the diopter adjustment and availability of correction eyepieces, and both turned out to be non-issues. I'm excited to try out the eye-AF, and of course use some of my fast primes on a full frame body for the first time. Additional posts to come as I get up to speed.