All of you who got up early on October 10th, were caught by a Nikon surprise — a completely obsolete new APS-C Z mount camera!

So far, Canon was leading by far in jokes how every four years it delivers a new obsolete camera. Now Nikon takes the lead again. Just announced Z mount APS-C, Nikon Z50, would be a top camera in 2015. Today it has… well… Z mount! Everything else is just disappointing.

• Does it have the best resolution? — Actually, it is worse in that regard comparing to all of its direct rivals from 2018.
• Does it have the best autofocus? — It is not even close to Sony. As a ‘bonus’, you DON’T have an easy way to chose your focus point! While everybody else are putting joystics to the lower models, Nikon is cutting everything except the price!
• Does it have the best video? — No, but it has a serious 1.5 crop at 4K.
• It’s a bit bigger than competitors, it must have a better battery life, right? — Nope.
• It is mirrorless, so it must be a discrete, and have quiet mode… — Hey, it’s a Nikon! They don’t do such stuff.
• But then it must be the cheapest of the crop, right? — In your dreams…

Spec.	Nikon Z50	Canon M50	Fuji X-T30	Sony A6400
Mount	Z	EF-M	X	E
Res. (Mpix)	20.7	24	26	24
ISO	100 to 51200	100 to 25600	100 to 12800	100 to 32000
Quiet Shutter	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Rear screen	Flip down	Fully articulated	Flip	Flip up
Video	4K, 24, 25, 30p	4K, 24p	4K, 24, 30p	4K, 24, 30p
Video AF (rate)	7	8	8	10
Batt. rating (LCD/EVF)	320/280	235	380	410/360
Price (body)	$857	$629	$799	$898
Price (kit)	$997	$649	$899	$998
Kit lens	Nikkor Z 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3	Canon EF-M 15-45mm f/3.5-6.3	Fujinon XC 15-45mm f/3.5-5.6	Sony E 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6

It cannot be that bad…

But there must be some good things in it. Nothing is perfect, so it cannot be a perfectly bad camera. Well, the picture is good. Colors are almost as good as Fuji’s, but ‘Special Effect Modes’ are a pure gimmick compared to Fuji’s ‘film simulations’. And it is good that you can have one mount for APS-C and FF lenses…

So far we only have two cheap DX plastic Z-mount lenses. Now we just have to wait a few years for the promised APS-C lenses on the wide side. You can imagine the competition will not sit and wait for Nikon’s lens roadmap. Canon already have a better model than M50 — it is an excellent EOS M6 Mark II, which is still in the Z50 price range, and it has 32 Mpix sensor, 14 frames-per-second for all file types and that’s with Servo AF (continuous autofocus) support. And beautiful Dual Pixel CMOS AF technology. And several dedicated EF-M lenses…

Sony has a6600 ready for your wallet, and Fujifilm has registered three more camera names until Photokina next May, and gives unreal discounts for the X-H1 model with battery grip (sorely lacking with Z50) and a choice of a brilliant Fuji optics. You can build your own bundle before the X-H2 announcement.

Oh, yes, there is one more ‘positive’:

Flip down selfie screen… totally unusable if you have a tripod or gimbal. Just a little bit better from that atrocious idea made up on the Fujifilm X-Pro3.

Verdict:

As much as I like Z-mount specs, I hate the blackmailing ways Nikon (and Canon) are trying to extract money from their most loyal users. This may not finish as bad as Nikon 1 series, but if your wallet itches… wait until the price falls to the D3500 level.

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