but its size and price have proven

to be serious barriers for many shooters.

So now Nikon has this, the Z8,

which is basically a Z9 with the latest firmware,

but at 30% smaller and nearly 30% cheaper too.

What's not to like?

Let's get undone!

♪ Gerald Undone ♪

♪ He's crazy ♪

What's happening, everybody!?

I'm Gerald Undone and every second

that you aren't running,

I'm getting closer.

As usual, for disclosure,

Nikon lent me this camera to make this review,

I don't get to keep it,

no money changed hands,

and Nikon does not get any input

on this video's production

or get to preview it before it's posted.

This video does have an actual sponsor though

and that's iFootage.

Now I don't like to make videos

that I've already made

and since this is fundamentally a Z9,

I'd like to think I already made two videos

on this camera.

So if you wanna know about the regular stuff

that's mostly unchanged,

I suggest you watch my initial review.

And I also have a video about

the 2.0 firmware and the Nikon Raw.

So instead, today we're going

to be focusing on what's been improved

and talking a bit about the 3.0 firmware

that I never covered,

because this camera comes

with those latest features at launch.

So let's start with what's different about the body.

It's smaller, which means a smaller battery

and less heat dissipation than the Z9,

which we'll get to in a second.

Ergonomically though, it's a big win for me.

It's not nearly as heavy as the Z9

and feels more like DSLR body.

It's still large for a mirrorless,

but very comfortable if you're used

to something like a D850.

And it's very spacious and forgiving

if you've got big hands.

The LCD screen is great.

It doesn't flip out,

but it's 2.1 million dots and gives plenty

of mobility for tilting in both orientations.

The button layout is mostly the same

for better or worse and the experience

is extremely familiar.

The body isn't as weather sealed as the Z9,

but it's still highly resistant to inclement weather.

It still features 3.5 millimeter headphone and mic jacks,

a full size HDMI port,

and a USB-C port for power delivery,

but now they have a second USB-C port

just for communication, which is nice,

because lately I've been rigging out cameras

and running into issues where I can't use

the USB-C port for power if I want to use it

for anything else.

This isn't a problem here, which is cool.

The card slots are different than the Z9.

You now have one CFexpress slot,

which is backwards compatible with XQD,

and one SD card slot.

Normally I would complain that this limits

our ability to do backup recording

with higher bitrate codecs,

but Nikon still hasn't implemented redundant

recording in video anyway,

so the different card types isn't really

an issue for video shooters.

However, I did complain a lot about the card door

on the Z9 and I'm happy to report that this door

is much easier to open.

Although it does take some getting used

to because part of the grip opens with the door,

so you have to reposition your hand.

As I mentioned, the battery is the smaller EL15c,

the same form factor you'd find in many other Nikon cameras,

but it does mean we take a hit on record times.

Now as usual with any overheating tests,

it's important to keep ambient temperature in mind.

I can offer advice for shooting

in a climate-controlled environment or outdoors up

to about 24 Celsius or 75 Fahrenheit,

but beyond that,

your mileage may vary and very likely decrease.

Also, remember that Nikon now has a temperature

threshold setting in the menu.

They advised me that when it is set to STANDARD

you can expect about 60 minutes of 8K recording

and when set to HIGH,

you'll get closer to 90 minutes.

And I found those numbers to be reasonably

accurate in my environment.

When set to 8K24 with the H.265 codec,

I recorded for one hour and 35 minutes

before the camera overheated,

and after letting it cool and recording again,

I got another 19 minutes before the battery died.

So about one hour and 54 minutes

on the battery in that mode.

In 4K24, which is oversampled from the 8K,

I recorded for one hour and 58 minutes

without overheating before the battery died.

In both modes, I got a "Hot Card" warning

after about 20 to 30 minutes.

This is because I was using the CFexpress slot.

You likely wouldn't see this with the SD card recording.

Now it's interesting to note that you can extend

the battery life in 4K24 recording by plugging

in USB-C power delivery,

but this camera still possesses

the two hour and five minute recording limit.

I've asked Nikon why this exists multiple times

and I've still never gotten an answer.

In a way, you could say it works out nicely

that it will either overheat or the battery

will die before that two hour mark anyway,

and at that point you could just do a card and battery swap

every two hours,

which will also help cool the camera.

But it's just important to remember

that if you need to record long, uninterrupted clips,

you'll need to hook up an external recorder,

which should also reduce the overheating too.

Speaking of cooling off the camera, though,

let's talk about the hottest mode, 8K60 raw.

In this mode, I got a yellow temp warning at 11 minutes,

a hot card warning at 12,

then a red temp warning at 15 minutes,

and then a red warning with the word high at 23 minutes.

It's funny how much information Nikon tries

to give with the overheating.

You end up with a lot of stuff on your screen.

And then when it finally overheats it starts a countdown,

which is stressful, but helpful.

Anyway, I made it all the way to 24 and a half minutes,

but then my card was full.

This was using a 650 Gigabyte ProGrade CFexpress card

and I was using the more compressed raw.

If you use the high quality raw,

you get less than 15 minutes with 650 Gigabytes at 8K60

Anyway, I quickly formatted and started recording

again to keep the temperature up on the camera and the card,

and was I able to record for just over

another 23 minutes before it overheated.

So that's about 48 minutes total of 8K60 raw

with a quick format halfway through.

If I let it cool for one minute,

I could record another 10 minutes.

If I let it cool for five minutes,

I could fill the card again

with another 24 minutes of recording.

When recording in 4K60 on this camera

you have the option to enable extended oversampling,

which lets you oversample beyond the usual 4K24

and do it up to 4K60 as well.

In this mode, you can expect similar performance to 8K60,

since that's basically what the camera is reading at.

In my test, the oversampled 4K60 overheated at 56 minutes.

If, however, I recorded 4K60 in the binned

or line skipped mode with oversampling turned off,

then I didn't experience any overheating.

Lastly, let's say you record a more modest 8K24 Raw,

well first I only got an hour of card space on

that 650 Gigabyte card,

but I did manage to quickly format

it at that one hour mark

and record again immediately

and do that until the battery died,

which for me was one hour and 53 minutes total,

which logically is similar

to the 4K24 oversampled performance.

So what's the verdict?

Well, you're limited to two hours recording

either way unless you record externally,

and many of the modes can get you almost

two hours of battery life without overheating.

The modes that do overheat more quickly should

still get you close to an hour in a studio environment

and at least 50 minutes at 24C or below.

But it also cools down quickly,

so if you're just recording clips,

I don't see this camera being an issue for you,

but if you want really long takes,

you're gonna need to buy an external recorder,

and at that point, there's probably

better options for the money.

Now while we're talking about

all these different recording modes,

let's talk rolling shutter,

because I didn't have my strobe

when I reviewed the Z9,

so now I can give you some actual numbers

regarding the read speeds of this sensor.

So if you record using the full 8.3K sensor

whether that's for an 8K recording

or an oversampled 4K recording,

you can expect about 14.5 milliseconds,

which is slower than something like an a7S III,

but probably the fastest of these full frame

8K hybrid cameras.

If you shoot 4K120 or the line skipped 4K60,

the read speed drastically improves to 4.9 milliseconds,

which is extremely fast.

I really like how Nikon gives us the option

between a slower, but higher quality 4K60,

or a fast-reading, non-oversampled 4K60

for when we need that.

I wish more brands would do this.

If you switch to the DX crop,

which still does some oversampling,

but from a lower resolution starting point,

the 4K up to 60 frames per second reads at 9.6 milliseconds,

and 6.6 milliseconds if you shoot at 4K120.

This suggests that there'll be some minor quality loss

when comparing the 4K120 to the 4K60 in this mode,

as it can only read faster

if it isn't processing as much data.

But overall, this is a fast sensor.

Again, probably the best in its class.

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Now let's talk about dynamic range.