Nikon releases free “Wildlife Edition” Professional Settings Guide for Nikon Z8/Z9
Mar 21, 2024
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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It used to be that when we got a camera, we had a manual that showed us how the functions worked. Beyond that, we were pretty much on our own. Things have changed in recent years, with manufacturers putting out educational extra documentation for their gear.
Nikon has released several Professional Settings Guides for its cameras over the years. And they’ve just released a Wildlife Edition guide for the Nikon Z8 (buy here) and Nikon Z9 (buy here). It’s available to download for free, too.
Nikon Wildlife Edition Professional Settings Guide
Wildlife photography is one of the more popular genres of photography amongst the general public. Even if we don’t all dedicate ourselves to it, we’ve almost all given it a go at some point. But when you’ve never done it before, it can be difficult to know where to start.
While most Nikon Z9 owners will likely be quite experienced before even buying the camera, many are buying the Z8 as their first camera. And Nikon’s new guide is designed to help all of us, regardless of our starting point.
The book begins with recommended lenses for photographing wildlife and some things you’ll want to consider before heading out. It then dedicates a number of pages to actual camera settings that will make your life easier.
But because it’s not all just about the settings, the book goes into techniques that will help you get better shots and how to get keepers more often. And it’s not just photography principle. It also talks about the things you can do to keep yourself and your subjects safe.
Download for free
The Wildlife Edition of the Professional Settings Guide for the Nikon Z8 and Z9 is available to download for free. So, if you’re curious and think it might be able to help, there’s no cost to find out. Even if you don’t think it will help, what do you have to lose?
Even if you don’t shoot Nikon, you still might pick up a trick or two. Sure, the specific settings like Auto Capture might not be relevant, but the general principles and techniques might just help you out.
You can download the Wildlife Edition Professional Settings Guide for the Nikon Z8 and Z9 in PDF form from the Nikon website. And if you want to check out the documentation for all of Nikon’s cameras, they’ve got the whole archive online for you to browse.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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3 responses to “Nikon releases free “Wildlife Edition” Professional Settings Guide for Nikon Z8/Z9”
Anything for the Z7 ?
This identifies a serious problem with recent cameras from many manufacturers: the depth, complexity and ergonomics of in camera menu systems. Some of these are now a real impediment to fast set up changes in the field, slowing us down and causing missed shots. Not only are some important selections buried multiple sub levels down from the root, the menu system reverts to top level after a change. This means that a change to test a new setting has to be navigated twice if it needs to be reverted to the pervious setting.
It’s time manufacturers got into the modern world. One way they could do this is by creating an emulation app to allow presets of commonly used configurations to be created on a tablet or PC – with much bigger screens – before being uploaded and stored in camera. The presets could then be selected with only one or two clicks on the camera back. This would allow us to create configuration presets at our leisure, without the pressure of needing to get the shot.
I agree with you. I’ve been thinking this for years. The custom settings menu dials on some cameras are invaluable for this, although they’re not foolproof if you still need to tweak things (and then need to remember to re-tweak them if you turn your camera off and back on again in the middle of a shoot).
It’s one of the reasons I’ve ended up wth so many cameras, so they can all be configured and set permanently for different uses. Then when I need one for a particular shoot, I can just grab and go without having to worry about it. Expensive solution, sure, but it works. :)