Nikon Zf Manual Focus: Steal Like an Artist?
There’s no such thing as a new idea.
Nikon’s secret plan to launch the Zf had all the benefits of second mover advantage.
Vintage design like Fujifilm? Yes but make it full frame.
Reap the R&D benefits from your pro lineup like Sony? Z9, Z8, Zf, along with massive firmware upgrades.
Collaborate with third party lens manufacturers to give users more choice like Canon? No wait…
These moves are somewhat predictable, but Nikon also tried to “out-Leica Leica” in manual focus?
Nikon may have just pulled it off.
All because they stole like an artist.
I’ve grown tired of shooting with 35mm. What was once a favourite now feels stale, and I’m considering travelling without a 35 for the first time in a decade. In last week’s photowalk I tried to steal from 3 sources to get reacquainted with 35mm.
Old school manual focus lenses.
Nikon Zf’s innovations in manual focus, and
Alex Webb.
Austin Kleon’s “Steal like an Artist” outlines 5 steps to start creating:
Step 1 is to find a creative muse.
Step 2 is to copy their work.
Alex Webb’s famous for many things - moving from black and white film to saturated kodachrome, yellow and teal, light and shadow, but what I’m stealing from him today is how to compose with 35mm.
Alex Webb uses split-framing - a physical object or line dividing two parts of the frame - better and more consistently than anyone I’ve seen. Sub-frames within sub-frames, built in contrast as you move from left to right and back again. It’s one of the cleanest solves for visual layering - compartmentalising what’s on one side of the frame so you can focus on the other. Divide and conquer, and suddenly this makes the width of 35mm more palatable.
The manual focus experience has not improved in decades?
Auto magnification when turning the focus ring works if you have native electric contacts, but it’s not been something the sector has cared about much... except Leica. Like many Leica shooters I am a snob when it came to manual focus, and thought nothing could beat the lag-free experience of the rangefinder - until I tried the Zf.
It uses subject recognition to predict what you’re trying to focus on - face, pet, car, or plane, and automatically zooms in to the subject as you start focusing. If it’s picked up a face, a small square box with indicator arrows shows up, only turning green if you’ve nailed focus on the eyes. This is much faster than squinting at the center-locked rangefinder patch while focusing, only to then have to recompose.
Other than Leica, (and maybe Fujifilm?), I’ve never seen a brand pay this much attention to manual focus. It’s no surprise that Voigtlander has been pumping out native Z-mount glass, because Nikon has somehow out Leica’ed Leica in this respect. It isn’t perfect, although one accessory gets us close, but is the manual focus experience enough to justify a switch to Nikon?
Step 3 of “Steal Like an Artist” says it’s not enough to copy others.
You have to share your copied work in public, which will inevitably lead to step 4 - failing.
Nikon’s First Gen Z6 and Z7 were a letdown. One card slot, subpar autofocus, an “uninspired” collection of f1.8 primes on launch. But Class-leading image quality? It was there, all along. Tracking autofocus? Caught up in one generation - Z9, Z8, and now the Zf - all amazing. Those F1.8 Z primes? All light, compact, balanced on the Zf, with almost no optical compromises for photo or video. Nikon set its mirrorless strategy into motion all those years ago, but it took public embarrassment, relentless R&D, and now the Zf for it to all start making sense.
My favourite manual focus settings on the Zf are all in the “photo shooting menu” at the top.
Subject detection set to auto. MF subject detection area set to “all” - covering the entire frame.
Then in custom settings menu under A12 focus peaking set to on, peaking sensitivity of 1 - the lowers, and I like blue as my focus peaking highlight color of choice.
Under the Setup menu - “Non-CPU lens data” - is where the experience falls down. For manual lenses using a dumb adapter - you need to go here to enter the focal length, not just for EXIF data but to optimise IBIS. You lose the subject detection and eye tracking that makes manual focus on the Zf so sweet.
Enter TTArtisan’s 6 bit M to Z adapter. All metal, very little play on both camera and lens mounts, and a wheel on the side to set the focal length to transmit to the camera automatically. Subject detection, eye tracking, IBIS, everything works automatically, and I can use my M-mount lenses - Leica and voigtlander - no problems.
I wish Nikon made its own licensed version - say an MTZ adapter - but it’s pretty amazing a third party accessory brings this much extra functionality.
There’s a difference between outright plagiarism versus a respectful homage.
The most impressive thing about the Nikon Zf lies in this delicate balance. It’s without a doubt a Nikon, yet takes the best parts of other brands and just does them a little differently, even better in most cases.
I definitely didn’t shoot with 35mm better than Alex Webb by the end of that photowalk, but Step 5 of how to “Steal like an Artist” is simply iterate and improve. I found a few split-frame compositions I was happy with.
For me that’s enough.
Happy shooting everyone, talk soon.
Jack.
Want to support the channel? Affiliate links for my photography and videography gear can be found here.
