In all my years in photography, I don’t think any camera has had as much buzz leading up to its release as the Nikon Z 9. There were many reasons for that, both good and bad, but now that the camera’s here, does it live up to the hype? After one week of using it, I think so. (Disclaimer: I taught Nikon School for Nikon – as a contractor – from 2002 to 2018, and was paid to moderate one of their Facebook groups for the past three years. At this time, however, I have no connection with them.)

I received my Z 9 the evening of Dec. 29, and spent that and the next night working my way through the camera’s 900+ page “Reference Guide” PDF, Thankfully, as a life-long Nikon user, most of the controls and menus were familiar to me. So what I was looking for were the new things, or improvements to current features. I found plenty of those, some of which I’ll be using right away, some occasionally, and of course, some never (because the camera’s not made just for me).

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