Introduction
As you will know if you read my articles; I use very strict shot discipline in my pictures and because of this, I am a huge proponent of base ISO dynamic range shooting. It is obvious that Nikon do not consider the new Z6iii to be a landscape camera, it has - low resolution by modern standards, and a significant drop off in maximum dynamic range compared to the Z6ii. Despite this, I see many proclaiming that it is “amazing” for this task, so let’s look at the evidence as to why it is not the best tool to task for this genre.
A Significant Erosion of Dynamic Range
Because the Z6iii incorporates a partially stacked sensor (the first of it’s kind I believe), early testing shows that the camera pays a price for it’s faster readout speed over the Z6ii. Photography website Petapixel have stated they reached out to Nikon about Bill Claff’s sensor test results on the camera and they of course gave the usual “newer is better” rhetoric. If their response is the be believed (I’ve no known reason to question why Petapixel would make this up) it is a response straight out of the management damage control handbook. If you have a brain inside your skull and are willing to test the Z6iii against the older Z6ii, you will see that this is a complete lie on Nikon’s part. There are many tests now online that back up Bill’s sensor data, the camera is far nosier in the shadows when you have to balance exposures in post. (Not that we needed this, Bill has clearly a track record of delivering in this regard and only a fool would be questioning his results at this stage in the game).
Let's examine the facts from photonstophotos.net. Maximum dynamic range compared to the flagship Z 8 is a difference of approaching one stop - 0.82 EV. (And it is about same difference between the Z6ii and Z6iii). That's significant if dynamic range is a priority when someone was / is already shooting with the Z6ii. Which, I might add, if you are a landscape shooter, it damn well should be. Otherwise, why not just use a tiny sensor camera or a phone, right? Why lug a huge full frame camera about to have dynamic range that micro 4/3 can obtain? There are plenty of DX cameras that have this dynamic range or better! We cannot always bracket in all circumstances and having access to the best dynamic range and RAW file malleability always helps when processing. Looking at the data again, we can see that the Z7ii is even slightly better, making the distance between those two reach over one stop. Therefore, the difference between the Z6iii and ii is obvious and someone pushing their exposures, (trying to eek out all the data from a single RAW) will notice it. I would certainly call it significant because the human eye / brain can interpret around 20 stops of light, so any erosion of near a stop is a real backwards step when currently, the best in class in 35mm format is the d850 at about 11.62 EV, hence the following is what we see:
The Z6ii vs Z6iii photographic dynamic range
Z6iii maximum -10.46
Z6ii maximum 11.28
Z 8 maximum - 11.32
Z7ii maximum - 11.60
I must say that it is frustrating to see an important image quality marker degrade for speed in ML land (this isn’t any problem on dslrs as they don’t require fast read outs). We are taking one step forward and two backwards with some mirrorless cameras in order to achieve fast readout speeds. It is clear that this engineering problem has not been solved. However, I think that it is obvious and Nikon are well aware and not expecting landscape shooters to buy this particular camera. However, as usual youtubers’ that are landscape photographers (and the rest) have the camera and are reviewing it.
Of course, this lot are all part of the marketing machine, with their affiliate links, ready to tell you, step right up; buy, buy, buy! You must have this, I bought mine from here and you can too! I emplore you to ignore anyone that receives product from a company to review pre-release, or an ambassador of any product on a companies’ pay roll! Think about this for a second. They have a vested interest to obfuscate. If they are too critical, fat chance they'll receive anything else in future which would mean it will affect their youtube channel. I almost laughed writing this; however it is the reality of the situation. I watched several youtube videos for research before I wrote this piece and it was the usual hyperbolic nonsense -“I didn’t think the Z6iii would be good for landscape photography; but it is amazing honestly” (paraphrasing). Not a mention of dynamic range or the like. Yes as you can probably guess, I found most of these videos painful and cringy to watch. None of the many videos I watched touched on dynamic range with this body…perhaps they know to keep their mouths shut if they know what’s good for them? Some big photography websites came out and clearly stated the dynamic range issue this camera has, then walked it back recently saying it didn’t matter, really! Some even commented on how “amazing” the Z6iii is for wildlife shooting? Did they forget it is full frame (which isn’t always what wildlife shooters want), has a substantial backward step in dynamic range and is, relatively speaking low resolution for wildlife standards? Every camera I see being reviewed or previewed - whatever they want to call it, is ‘amazing’, ‘fantastic’ or ‘must have’. So what does that make the previous? It’s amazing how judgement and integrity goes out the window when money is involved, isn’t it? But glittering prizes and endless compromises; shatter the illusion of integrity…
Dynamic range is one of the wider reasons I'd love to see a mirrorless landscape camera optimized for something like ISO 16-400 with an as slow as you like readout speed, that doesn’t care a hoot about high ISO. Sensor tech has hit a wall for a long time now though and from where I stand, people are completely obsessed with high ISO. Most photography forums have endless, boring debates about high ISO and noise reduction. Many shooters are mistaken that aperture doesn’t matter now because of high ISO abilities in modern cameras are as they proclaim “so good now”. I mostly never go above ISO 500 for any camera* because I understand the ISO invariance for each one I own, and if I am in true low light situations, I always use fast aperture lenses. Photonstophotos.net is an excellent resource for discovering how you can best use your camera for maximum image quality.
*There are some caveats to this when shooting deep sky style astrophotography images. Read more about this in my shooting guide here.
Compared to the D850
Let’s look at the class leading D850 compared to the Z6ii and iii. The Z6ii was doing very well to approach the D850 so closely at it’s base. The rest of the chart is hair splitting at best. It is pertinent to note; that the Z 8, which I do own has a slightly inferior dynamic range to the D850. This is slight (around 1/3 of a stop difference) yet still I’d prefer not to move in this direction if possible. I think in time, we won’t see this trend. What caught my eye with the Z 8 were the multitude of upgrades I had been looking for years for and my general dislike of the Z7 and Z7ii cameras stopped me from adopting any Nikon mirrorless - read more about this here. If the dynamic range erosion was almost a stop, I really would not have bought the camera. It doesn’t enamor me moving backwards, rather than forwards. The most important item is the end result, so extra bells and whistles will always factor lower in the equation for me than the resulting end image file; which has no regard or care for if it were obtained with a dslr or a mirrorless camera.
RAW File Malleability
For Landscape Photography, the below picture is a good example of why singular RAW file dynamic range matters. This was shot in 2012 with a Nikon D800. A six minute exposure capturing the beautiful low lying cloud streak across a November skyline at this iconic location. The light was gone after the six minutes. Bracket you say? I’d like to see you try, and personally I’d rather not have to when I don’t need to. Rather, I relied on the huge D800 dynamic range and double processed this file in RAW development to capture the range of light in the sky right down to the shadows. The less dynamic range a camera has, generally speaking the much less malleable it will be. We don’t want this for this genre, or indeed really any genre that values the sort of principals I am speaking about here. This is why when you hear someone waffling on about the Z6iii being a good camera for this genre, I believe you should take their advice with a huge grain of salt:
Scotland’s West Coast at Gourock with the Nikon D800 - Singular RAW file development
I read all the time about newbie photographers who seem to think that they don’t need to pull files much to get results. I would like to see their images! Because the linear RAW file data presents itself in a way that does not look lifelike to me. Shadows need pulling and highlights need taming, then there are the midtones to think about in order to even begin to approach what my eye is seeing; this is despite whatever picture control is being used in camera / post-processing. Regardless of whether a shooter wants realism embedded in the final result or not; it can only be considered a pro, not a con to have this option of better RAW file malleability. (The D850 remains to this day the best camera on 35mm format I have ever used for this, the Z 8 is a close second).
So what is the Z6iii for? People who wish better autofocus and better video performance over the ii at the sacrifice of dynamic range. It is clear that Nikon felt they had to push the rather slow readout rate upwards from the Z6ii camera which has lacklustre autofocus capabilities, and problems with rolling shutter in video. These are issues that did not face DSLRs for still imaging - I would rather shoot with a D800, D810, D850 or D750 over this camera and it’s compromise. I’d honestly rather pick out a old dslr that can be had for peanuts, mint and second hand without this compromise to it's function whilst we seem to remain in this transition between mirrorless cameras without compromises such as we see in the Z6ii. Or just hang on to your Z6ii until they are done piecemealing the tech to us. All companies do this, and only the shmucks are in there every generation updating their kit for stuff like this; it’s even worse this time that it is a backwards step. There are so many competent options now that compromises like this do not impress me one iota. Some websites are stating the old ‘oh people are not comparing apples to apples’ when talking about maximum dynamic range. Well, I am afraid we are. They are all cameras, and the maximum dynamic range metric at base ISO is an important one. It is irrelevant whether that camera only achieves base at 100, or ISO 64. We want to know what the absolute maximum attainable dynamic range is, and we can compare that across cameras. Forget about the settings. Just the maximum achievable dynamic range. It has also been stated that the difference is only half a stop between. This is completely wrong. As I have shown, between the Z6ii and the Z6iii it is an erosion of approximately 0.82 EV.
Of course someone could “make the Z6iii” work for them, and get around this in certain situations. If they ever have to rely on a singular shot and push it, like I have shown, the results will be less than ideal and you will have nasty amount of noise (no, don’t think AI noise reduction is the way to go - it simply isn’t). Why select tools that are clearly just a product of piece-mealing that include a backwards step in technology to move something else forward? I dislike this approach. Before you rush out to buy; getting caught up in the hype I am seeing on so many internet forums, consider that the camera you already own could indeed be besting it. This won’t shift any stock on amazon, or boost any youtubers’ view counts though…