Ruminations on Gear, or Thoughts on the Nikon Z7 – Part 1 of 3

This begins a 3 part series in which I’m going to both discuss my experience renting a Nikon Z7 and flesh out some of the thoughts I have been pondering when it comes to photographers and their relationship to gear — ever the mercurial debate of this pastime!

Those that know me or have read pieces I’ve penned like, The Stove, know that I have a complicated relationship with photography gear. Indeed, sometimes I can seem almost bipolar when it comes to the topic of gear discussion. More and more, I’m realizing that’s because it’s a complicated subject. The all-knowing Internet would have us believe that we can simply distill gear discussion down to simple aphorisms. I think deep down we all know better than that, even if we’d all like to think that, “it’s the photographer and not the gear that makes the photo.”

I’m reaching a point of equilibrium about it all, though. There are quite a few things I’m recognizing about myself, my needs, my wants and my desired output. Some of this I’ve known for awhile and some pieces of the puzzle have been fairly new revelations. Most recently, this weekend rental with Nikon’s Z7 and a reading of Thom Hogan’s article, Chasing Gains further clarified points enough that I’m finally feeling kind of at peace with myself and the gear that I use, the gear I desire and the gear that I can more easily pass by without the pangs of missing out on that one thing that will make me the next great.

Before we delve too deeply into my recently defined gear philosophy, I’d like to discuss my decision to spend some time with the Nikon Z7. For Christmas, I bought Amanda a workshop with one of her favorite painters, Nancy Medina. The workshop would be held in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. One of Amanda’s Christmas gifts to me was a gift certificate to LensRentals. I decided that the road trip to Texas would be a great time to rent the Z7 and try it out.

Mirrorless digital cameras have been around for quite awhile now. In 2008, the Panasonic G1 introduced the mirrorless concept for interchangeable lens digital cameras to the world (I’m going to exclude singular cameras that lacked mirrors like the Epson RD-1 and Leica M8 that were available before the G1) and its been refined ever since. Sony brought a full frame sensor to the mirrorless world with the a7 and a7r back in October of 2013. Recently, their exclusivity to the full frame mirrorless market ended with announcements from Nikon, Canon and the Panasonic/Sigma/Leica alliance (again excluding Leica and their SL; given the price exclusivity of Leica, I’m willing to call Sony’s previous efforts exclusive to 99% of us).

Last year felt like one of those milestone years when the industry took a definitive move in a new direction. I liken it to the appearance of the Canon Digital Rebel in 2003. While there were a number of digital SLRs prior to the Rebel, its arrival marked the point when the masses really started moving towards digital in a meaningful way. It makes sense that the industry will move towards mirrorless in a similar fashion. Mirrorless cameras are far, far less complex than equivalent DSLRs. The Nikon D850 and the Z7 share a lot of similarities and are priced similarly as well. If we ignore the R&D costs to develop the Z series and just looking at manufacturing costs of the two cameras, it should be very clear that there are good financial reasons for Nikon to pursue mirrorless technologies. Gone are complex, parts and labor intensive mirror assemblies and multiplicities like separate sensors for autofocus and metering functions. While there are new elements like the electronic viewfinder, the Z7 is still a far simpler camera. Having a simpler camera at the same price point means more profit for the camera maker. Additionally, it also offers the camera maker the option of getting really aggressive with pricing. Witness Canon and the EOS RP.

With all of that in mind, I felt like it was finally time for me to come to grips with mirrorless. Not that I had ignored it in the past. I have tried a number of mirrorless options in the past. None of them ever quite felt right. Fuji’s offerings came closest to meeting my needs and exciting my inner gear head but the X-Trans sensor was never something that appealed to me. My workflow is not optimized for X-Trans. Before the angry Fuji mob comes after me, please note that I am not faulting Fuji or the X-Trans sensor; I’m just saying that it is not the right fit for *me* (foreshadowing: this really plays into the new gear philosophy that I’ll define in part 3).

There was also something deeper at play, though. I’m really torn between my inner gear nut and my desire to ignore the gear and focus more intently on the artistry of photography. While I won’t claim that this trip offered up any epiphanies that suddenly gave me clairvoyance on the matter, I will say that I’m more comfortable about where I stand on the whole debate.

In part two, I plan to focus on the Z7 and my time with it. Look for that in the next day or two. Shortly after that, I’ll publish part three where I plan to discuss my refined gear philosophy and talk about future plans for myself in balancing the gear head and the artistic soul.