What it’s really like being able to choose between Sony and Nikon in the field

Some photographers have the luxury of owning complete ranges of cameras and lenses from two (or more) different brands. Sadly, that’s not the case for me, so it was harder to compare Sony and Nikon equipment in the field.

I simply didn’t have the equivalent focal lengths for both, so I couldn’t make direct comparisons. In addition, I took almost all my photos on my two recent trips to Africa with my 600mm lens—which is now made by Nikon rather than Sony!

However, I can still compare Sony and Nikon cameras and lenses—based not just on Zambia and Zimbabwe when I had both with me but also on prior experience with my Sony kit before I made my big decision to ‘mix and match’ in June 2024.

I swapped one of my ⍺1 camera bodies, my two teleconverters and my 12-24mm, 400mm and 600mm lenses for a new Nikon Z8 with a NIKKOR Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S lens. The main reasons were to benefit from pre-release capture and the built-in 1.4x teleconverter.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any five-star pictures on either of my most recent trips (!), but here’s what I’ve learned about my old and new systems.

Nikon Z8 v Sony ⍺1

If you want a complete rundown of all the differences between the Sony ⍺1 and the Nikon Z8, the best place to go is probably the CameraDecision website—but you can also read my Mix and Match blog post!

The first thing to say is that these are both very good cameras. I’ve had a Sony ⍺1 since October 2021. I bought it then because I thought it was the best camera on the market for wildlife photography.

That was partly because the new Nikon Z9 (and Z8) hadn’t yet been released, but the ⍺1 still has an unbeatable combination of sensor resolution, frame rate and autofocus. (The Canon EOS R1 has a slightly higher Raw frame rate of 40 fps, but that comes at the expense of sensor resolution, which is only 24 MP.)

In a straight comparison between the ⍺1 and the Z8, there’s nothing much between them in terms of the sensor, frame rate and AF systems. The Nikon’s frame rate is only 20 fps (rather than 30 fps on the ⍺1), but the real difference lies in the Z8’s key feature: pre-release capture.

Pre-release Capture

Pre-release capture is like a photographic time machine, allowing you to take pictures before you’ve even pressed the shutter! You can read all about it here, but the basic idea is that the camera starts buffering images as soon as you focus on your subject—either by half-pressing the shutter or using back button focus.

The big benefit of this feature comes when photographing birds taking off. Normally, you’d need the reactions of a mongoose to capture the crucial early moments when the bird still has its feet on the branch but has lifted its wings into the most photogenic upright position. As a result, most photographers are going to end up disappointed—including me!

However, as soon as I switched to the Z8 for my trip to South Luangwa National Park, Zambia, in July 2024, I found that I just wasn’t missing those shots any more. Sure, there were a few birds that flew off before I’d even had a chance to set up properly, but I managed to capture every other take-off.

This was very good for my mental health! Normally, I get very angry with myself when I miss a shot. It might not be my ‘fault’, but it can be very frustrating—especially when photographing birds. Now, though, I suddenly had the right tools to do the job, which was hugely reassuring. Many guests asked me, “Did you get that?” and I could always answer yes—not too smugly, I hope…!

There’s only one downside, which is that you can only shoot in JPEG format using pre-release capture. That’s not so bad at 30 fps because it’s a full-frame readout, but the file size gets smaller and smaller as you go up to 60 fps and 120 fps, so I stick to 30 fps.

The Z9 version of pre-release capture isn’t limited to JPEGs, though, so I’m hoping there’ll be a firmware update soon that’ll bring that to the Z8…

Autofocus

However, the Z8 doesn’t have things all its own way. The ⍺1 is smaller and lighter than the Z8, and where it really shows its class is in the autofocus system and the customisation options.

Sony has traditionally led the pack in mirrorless AF systems, and the ⍺1 had the best one by far when it was released. Since then, the ⍺7R V has taken over the mantle with a new AI processing chip that gives it the ability to detect the eyes of insects and automatically switch between animals, birds and humans. In addition, Canon and Nikon are getting better and better, and the R1/R3/R5 and Z8/Z9 are almost at the same level…but not quite!

My experience using the Z8’s autofocus system in Zambia and Zimbabwe was disappointing. In Zambia, I spent a lot of time photographing malachite kingfishers fishing from marker posts at a river crossing. I’d put it in one of the top corners so that its probable landing point in the water was also in the frame, press the AF-ON button with my thumb and wait for it to take off.

Unfortunately, the focus would almost always slip off the bird after only a few seconds. It was incredibly annoying, and I had to apologise to my long-suffering guide for swearing under my breath whenever it happened!

The other problem was that the AF system just wasn’t fast enough to retain focus on the bird’s eye as it dived into the water. Now, I admit I had the same problem photographing bee-eaters with my ⍺1, but I was secretly hoping for a better result!

I had similar problems when I visited Mana Pools in Zimbabwe. I spent a lot of time at Long Pool taking slow pans of great egrets, yellow-billed storks and grey herons flying past, and the Z8 kept losing focus.

I hadn’t had the camera for long, so it’s possible that I just had the wrong settings, so I experimented and tried my best to work it out—but it still didn’t work! I’d try to focus on a great egret flying towards me around 50 yards away, but the camera couldn’t lock on. And then, when it did acquire focus, it kept losing it!

I’ve since boned up on the Z8’s AF system by watching a few YouTube videos by Steve Perry and others, but I’m still not confident I’ve fixed the problem. Auto area AF might be the best all-round mode, so I’ve added that to the AF-ON button, but the idea of ‘handing off’ to 3D tracking makes no sense to me. Surely, the Z8’s AF system should simply do its job properly!

The Sony ⍺1 also has problems focusing in certain situations, and I’ve experienced plenty of moments when it couldn’t pick up the eye of an elephant or a pelican, for instance. However, when it gets a lock on an eye, it tends to stick to it like glue, and that’s what I miss with the Z8…

Customisation

One of the great, unsung qualities of the Sony ⍺1 is the quantity and flexibility of the customisation options. Most high-end mirrorless cameras these days give you a certain amount of freedom to change the default settings using custom buttons and dials, but the ⍺1 stands out.

The main feature I miss on the Z8 is the ⍺1’s ability to save three custom pre-sets on the main dial. This is ideal for my kind of wildlife photography as I’m constantly switching between animal portraits (#1), bird-in-flight shots (#2) and slow pans (#3).

When you set up the presets, you can save just about every possible camera setting, including exposure mode, shutter speed, aperture, subject detection, focus area and ISO. That means it’s trivially quick and easy to switch between types of shot, and you hardly ever have to worry about forgetting one of the settings or failing to reset everything properly as it happens automatically.

I’ve even had someone from Fixation disable the lock button on the main dial of my ⍺1 so that I don’t have to waste time pressing it before I change my settings!

The Z8 doesn’t have a main dial, and it has memory banks instead of presets. The crucial difference is that they don’t remember your default settings. That means if you change your shutter speed and then change to a different memory bank before returning to your original one, the shutter speed doesn’t return to the default value.

Initially, I thought this was a huge disadvantage, and I spent a lot of time desperately searching for a workaround. Now, though, I’ve got used to it, and I almost like it. Part of the problem was that some of the advice I read online wasn’t actually true! For example, it seemed to be a very lengthy and finicky process to save the presets, but I’ve since learned that you can simply change your settings while using any memory bank, and the camera will remember them next time.

Other

There are also a few other little differences between the Sony a1 and the Nikon Z8. Here are the most convenient ones—and the most irritating!

Wins for the ⍺1:

• The ⍺1 lets you set up a custom button to toggle between subject detection modes, eg animal and bird. There’s no easy way of doing it on the Z8. You have to press the i button and turn the sub-command dial (or use another workaround).

• The ⍺1 has a main PASM dial to change the exposure mode. The Z8 only has a screen, which is utterly useless if you’re using the viewfinder! To change exposure modes, you have to press the mode button on the left-hand side of the top plate and rotate the command dial.

• The ⍺1 has a dedicated exposure compensation dial, but the Z8 only has a +/- button that you have to hold down while you use the command dial to set the right level of over- or underexposure.

• The ⍺1 has two custom buttons near the shutter button, which means you can set them to toggle between focus areas and subject detection modes. The Z8 doesn’t have any custom buttons there, and the video recording, ISO and +/- buttons can’t be used for subject detection.

• The Sony ⍺1’s viewfinder provides a full-time depth-of-field preview for all f-stops. This is limited to f/5.6 and wider with the Z8—which can be very misleading!

• The ⍺1 very rarely overheats, and I can’t honestly remember ever experiencing that. However, the Z8 often shows me a yellow or red Camera Hot indicator—although I haven’t yet reached the 30-second countdown!

• Z8 images I edit in Lightroom seem to be much less sharp with cooler colours than the embedded previews. This has never happened to me with the ⍺1.

Wins for the Z8:

• The Z8 lets you access the format memory card option by pressing two buttons simultaneously rather than having to dive into the menu system as on the ⍺1.

• The Z8 lets you focus using the AF-ON button while shooting video. The ⍺1 just gives you an error message!

• The Z8 lets you shoot video using auto ISO, but the ⍺1 doesn’t. You have to adjust the aperture, shutter speed or ISO manually to make sure the exposure meter reads correctly.

• The ⍺1 automatically appears to ‘zoom in’ when shooting video with digital stabilisation switched on, making it harder to frame your shots. The Z8 doesn’t.

• The central button on the Z8’s multi selector can be programmed to toggle between full-screen and 100% zoom in playback mode—a very useful feature when you’re checking sharpness. You can’t do that on the ⍺1—although you can use the Fn button.

• The Z8 gives you the option to display everything you could possibly want in the EVF, including the subject detection mode. There’s no way of doing that with the ⍺1—which is very annoying!

• The Z8 uses the CFexpress Type B card, which is faster and cheaper than the Type A card used by the ⍺1 and can be bought with a higher capacity. Mine has 1 TB of storage!

• The Z8 has a slightly deeper (or taller) grip than the ⍺1, which means I can fit my little finger around it. On the ⍺1, it tends to slip off after a while, so I end up putting it underneath the camera—and I often get blisters!

• The lowest shutter speed the Z8 can manage with blackout-free shooting is 1/8 of a second—which is pretty poor. The ⍺1 never blacks out the viewfinder at any shutter speed.

NIKKOR Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S Lens v FE 600mm F4 GM Super Telephoto Lens

As well as pre-release capture, the other reason I bought Nikon kit was to get a telephoto lens with a built-in teleconverter. Sony and Canon don’t have an equivalent product, which is a great shame as it’s incredibly convenient to pack one lens instead of two.

I used to have 400mm and 600mm Sony lenses, but I couldn’t fit both in my camera bag, and it was a pain to have to choose between them in the field. I still needed a 70-200mm on one of my camera bodies for close-up action and when shooting elephants, and I didn’t want to miss out on the reach of the 600mm, so I usually had to leave the 400mm behind. What a waste of money…!

Now that I have the NIKKOR 600mm, I can simply flip a switch on the barrel of the lens to go from 600mm to 840mm. Those are the two focal lengths I use the most, and I remember Steve Perry saying something similar.

At 600mm, the lens is great for most shots of mammals—apart from elephants! At 840mm, it’s equally good for bird photography, subjects in the far distance and extreme close-ups.

The optical quality of both lenses is incredibly good, and the NIKKOR is only slightly heavier than the Sony, which means I can still shoot handheld with it—just about…! It’s also a few millimetres shorter, which means it fits slightly better in my camera bag. It’s the little things…

Verdict

Mixing and matching my equipment is obviously not an ideal solution. I’d much rather be able to get all the features I want from one manufacturer. However, that will always remain a pipedream.

As long as different companies offer products with different features, you’ll always face the same dilemma. Do you stick with one brand so that you can use all your lenses on any camera body and avoid duplicating accessories such as memory cards and batteries, or do you mix and match to get the best of both worlds?

During my recent experiment, I had a chance to compare the strengths and weaknesses of the Sony ⍺1 with a 600mm prime and the Nikon Z8 with a 600mm prime.

The two systems are almost equally impressive in terms of optical quality, but the Nikon one is much more convenient and helpful—especially if you’re a bird photographer. The combination of pre-release capture and the built-in teleconverter is a big advantage for Nikon users—although you do have to put up with a slightly bigger, heavier camera and lens.

At the end of the day, I’ve proved to myself that it is possible to mix and match. As a wildlife photographer, I want the very best gear on the market, and that currently means the Nikon Z8 with the NIKKOR Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S lens.

As time goes on, that will obviously change. I hope Sony gets its act together and offers pre-release capture in the ⍺1 II and builds a telephoto lens with a built-in teleconverter. And who knows? If that happens, I might end up switching back to Sony.

Let’s wait and see…

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