If I lost all my gear and HAD to start over, instead of flagship features I’d focus on fun. The A7Cii or the Nikon Zf, last year I couldn’t decide so I bought both.

Hundred of thousands of shots later, I only kept one, but it wasn’t autofocus, colour science, or the photo vs video workflow that made the difference. Making the switch feels like deja vu.

Sooner or later, it’ll be time to start over.

*Nikon Zf:* *https://geni.us/YOH8bh7*
*Favourite Z lens:* *https://geni.us/sQ55h*

The short answer?

If you do more video than photo, go Sony A7Cii, if you do more photo than video, go the Zf. If you do equal parts photo and video like me the Zf is great, but only if you don’t mind the ergonomics.

If you want the long answer, let’s dive into:

AUTOFOCUS

As a picky Sony shooter I can confidently say on the Zf the AF is fine, maybe even great.

*Sony A7Cii:* *https://geni.us/iMrGu9h*
*Favourite Sony E lens:* *https://geni.us/LBioh*

No matter the lens - first or third party - autofocus is reliable not just on the Sony but also on the Nikon. Single point AF-S is fantastic on both. Tracking continuous autofocus? Stickier on the Sony, you never lose a face or eye once they enter the frame, but if I’m trying to track a tiny object in a low-contrast scene even the Sony loses it at times. Nikon is maybe just a hair slower, Tracking’s less sticky, it’s easier to lose subjects than on the Sony, but it’s usable 95% of the time? Unless you’re shooting very fast action - autofocus speed and accuracy won’t hold you back on either camera.

If you already have lenses from either brand, there’s no need to start over.

Starting over’s been on my mind a lot lately.

The week my YouTube channel hit 13 thousand subs, an ex tropical cyclone hit as well.

Late at night, too much water too quickly. My YouTube studio flooded.

My family? Safe.

The rest of the house? Mostly fine.

But the room I spend 40 hours a week filming and writing, and everything inside it?

Ruined.

HANDLING

The Zf experience can be ruined by ergonomics, but neither of these cameras has perfect handling.

The A7Cii has a grip that’s comfortable enough, but a bit too shallow. There’s two command dials, a few function buttons, but Sony’s cameras encourage you to set it and forget it. Fully auto or aperture priority, don’t need any of these buttons, the AI chip will take care of the rest. The Zf can be used in this way if you like - set the shutter speed and ISO dials to 1/3 step and C, but it does let you customise the user experience more. It is let down by the ergonomics for most, no grip to speak of for anything heavier than the 28 or 40mm lenses, which brings me to my favourite Nikon grip?

There’s no need to start over on this one.

Neewer’s CA079 grip did threaten to take top position, it comes with a free hot shoe cover, shutter button, and a back thumb grip to boot. But it does add quite a bit of heft to what is already quite a wide camera in the Zf, I like the smaller footprint of the Smallrig grip quite a lot more. The silicon hasn’t worn away or got scuffed up too much after a year of use and the best compliment I can give it is that I forget it’s on the camera half the time.

There is a new wooden version of the Smallrig grip, I’d like to try that one next, but for the most part I’ve stopped testing grips because I’m happy with what I’ve got.

The Smallrig matches the look of the camera even with a vintage lens attached.

VIEWFINDER

If you like shooting manual lenses, the ZF is by far the better pick over the A7Cii, and it’s not just because it has a nicer viewfinder.

Something you can’t figure out by reading the specs. A contrastier image at a bigger magnification, even if it doesn’t refresh as fast as Sony’s. The OLED glass Nikon uses and how it looks in low light scenarios makes it a more pleasant experience than Sony’s. Add to that class-leading manual focus assist tools on the Zf using eye detect and electronic rangefinder confirmation with a green box that appears, it’s not really a fair fight for manual focus. Even though there are more E-mount manual lens options available than Z-mount, Voigtlander’s building out their Nikon Z lineup very quickly.

LENS CHOICE

Lens choice is the biggest reason most people go Sony.

They’ve had such a big head start in mirrorless, and of course you can adapt Sony lenses on Nikon with any of these E to Z adapters. But unless you already own Sony glass I wouldn’t go with this approach, it ends up being more expensive lens for lens and there are lots of great Z mount options.

If we compare Sony’s latest primes with Nikon’s latest primes, at first glance Sony “appears” to have the edge. On the standard and telephoto prime end Sony’s f1.4 G masters seem more flashy, but those Nikon f1.8S primes are worth your time.

50, 85, 135, (hopefully there’s a 105 f1.8 S soon). On the wide-angle Nikon has their 20mm and 24mm and 35mm f1.8 S, AND S-line zooms 14-24mm f2.8, 14-30 f4, or the lower end 17-28mm f2.8. This focal range isn’t just useful for landscape shooters, it’s the most popular for content creation where you can hold the camera pretty close to your body and still get a reasonable talking-head vlogging style shot.

But Sony has been in the content creation game the longest, 16-35 f2.8 - two of them, 16-35 f4 - two of them. The 16-25 f2.8m 20mm f1.8, and the new 16mm f1.8.

Sony does have a more flexible lens selection, even if they’re all quite expensive.

I normally keep all my cameras and lenses on display in studio, but last week they weren’t.

I needed all of them in different camera bags to film all my travel gear video, and for that reason alone they were saved from the flood. This close call made me reassess every piece of gear?

What I’d pick if I was starting over.

VIDEO PERFORMANCE

Lenses aside though video performance is close.

Both the A7Cii and the Zf can shoot 4K 10bit log, even though A7Cii is 4:2:2 10 bit versus the Zf’s 4:2:0 10 bit. For both photo and video even in auto White balance the A7Cii has more natural looking colours than almost any of the older Sony cameras? The Zf’s colours look great out of the box.

Both have flip-screens as well, easier to film yourself, the 7 to 8 stops of IBIS also help for hand held B-roll. But together with these upsides there are also similar downsides. A big 1.5X crop for 2 times slow motion, 4K50 or 4K60, on both. Even though the Zf has two card slots compared to the Sony’s 1, video only writes to one card for both so no backup recording. Not the best, not the worst video features?

For content creation both will work just fine.

LOW LIGHT PERFORMANCE

The Sony A7Cii has 33 megapixels, which isn’t appreciably different than 24 megapixels of the Zf, but I still hesitated shooting over ISO12800 on the A7Cii.

It’s not as clean as I like as a primarily night-time street shooter, which is why I sold it for the A7CR. 12800 was my natural limit on the A7CR as well, and at least I had extra megapixels if I want them? Compared to the ZF’s raw files, it’s absolutely ridiculous ISO32000 for colour. I’d gladly trade megapixels for a few extra stops of low light performance. IBIS helps - up to 7 stops on the Sony, 8 on the Zf in real world usage is about the same.

Technically there really isn’t that much that separates these two cameras, so it does come down to taste?

THE LITTLE THINGS

The A7Cii is the most fun Sony camera in the lineup right now.

Amazing size for travel, terrific specs for photo and video - better than the Zf in many respects.

But the electronic front curtain shutter and its loud hollow sound, the average viewfinder experience, and single card slot, even though none of this matters for video, all leaves photographers wanting more.

Even though the Zf is worse on paper, it is a more complete concept.

Very capable video specs and that flip screen, but the little things are all targeted at photographers. Big viewfinder, wonderful shutter sound, clicky top brass dials, and two card slots for photo redundancy. All of these alone aren’t that big a deal, but together they make for a cohesive user experience.

If I was starting over, even though I do photo and video equally, I’d choose the tool that’s photo-first.

It’ll be photo, not video, that I lean on to cope, my office rebuild will be months in the making, but in the meantime I’ve setup a temporary studio?

My YouTube production house will all be in a tiny cupboard for the next few months. I’ll walk through that full setup in the next blog and video.

Happy shooting everyone, talk soon.

Jack.

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