Nikon Z5 II First Impressions

This Friday, I set my alarm for the early hours to catch the peak of bird activity. I’ll admit, I was also very curious to see how the newest member of the Nikon cameras family – the Z5 II – would perform in the field. I still need to test a number of things more thoroughly before I can offer a fully objective opinion, but that will take a bit more time. In this article, I’d like to share my fresh first impressions of the Nikon Z5 II.

Thanks to Nikon’s Czech office, I had the opportunity to try out the Nikon Z5 II the very first day it arrived to Czechia. Although I originally went to the office for the Z5 II, I ended up leaving with the Z6 II in my backpack as well. Just for comparison. That’s because the Z5 II might be closer to the retro-styled Zf in terms of specs, but feels much more like the Z6 III in terms of ergonomics. But will the Z5 II’s performance be sufficient for speed-oriented genres, like the Z6 III surely is? Let’s take a closer look.

Focus Performance

The first critical feature I wanted to test: autofocus. The original Z5 from 2020 was starting to feel a bit dated in that department, and I wouldn’t have recommended it for wildlife photographers. Photographing birds in particular with that first-gen AF system was more an exercise in frustration than photography. (For the price, the Z50 II would have gotten my wildlife recommendation instead.)

I’m happy to report that autofocus is one area where the second generation has seen a dramatic transformation. The Nikon Z5 II can detect all the usual suspects: people, vehicles, airplanes. But what I found especially pleasing is that within the camera’s Subject Detection options, there is the option to choose between feathered creatures and others – birds and animals.

For comparison, the Z6 III tosses all creatures into one big basket. It doesn’t distinguish in the camera’s menu whether you’re aiming for a deer or a wren. Fortunately, it still manages to tell them apart very well in practice. But the additional level of control allows me to select “birds” and know that the camera and I are on the same page, even when the bird made an unusual pose.

And indeed, I had bird detection enabled the whole morning for the Z5 II, and the camera performed very well. The Z9 still feels slightly ahead in this area, but let’s not compare apples to oranges. If we stick to just the subject detection abilities of the Z5 II and Z6 III, I’d say both cameras perform very similarly. And even though the Z5 II is only on its first firmware version, the AF points had enough “glue” right from the beginning. Even in a fast series, it did not fall off the eye of the bird I was photographing. (You may remember that I didn’t feel the same way in my first impressions of the Nikon Z6 III, although Nikon thankfully fixed this with their early firmware updates.)

Overall, AF on the Nikon Z5 II felt snappy and responsive, and in a side-by-side comparison with the Z6 III, I couldn’t detect a speed difference. That said, I’ll still need to test it more on birds in flight, so stay tuned for our full review.

Buffer Test

Another key metric for speed-oriented cameras is buffer depth. So, I ran the classic buffer test: I dropped a rock and counted the seconds until I heard the splash. Okay, not really. I used a high-quality Sony UHS-II SD card in the Nikon Z5 II. I mounted the camera on a tripod, set the shutter speed to 1/1000s at f/4, turned off stabilization, and set AF to AF-S. I shot in lossless compressed RAW. I tested both the Continuous High-Speed and Continuous High-Speed (Extended) modes.

The maximum number of shots per burst can be set to 200 on the Nikon Z5 II, while the Z6 III has no such cap. In practice, this limit is unlikely to bother anyone – unless you’re specifically testing buffer depth or card write speeds. I kept the Z6 III settings the same for my comparison.

So, how did the cameras do?

The results were actually quite interesting:

• Nikon Z5 II, Continuous High-Speed: 200 shots in 28.5 seconds (representing 7 FPS). No slowdowns noticed.
• Nikon Z6 III, Continuous High-Speed: 200 shots in 24.5 seconds (representing 8.2 FPS). No slowdowns noticed.
• Nikon Z5 II, Continuous High-Speed (Extended): 145 shots in 13 seconds (representing 11.2 FPS) before slowdown begins.
• Nikon Z6 III, Continuous High-Speed (Extended) with SD card: 110 shots in 7 seconds (representing 15.7 FPS) before slowdown begins.
• Nikon Z6 III, Continuous High-Speed (Extended) with CFE card: 15.7 FPS sustained indefinitely.

In short, the Nikon Z5 II and Nikon Z6 III are both capable of long bursts at high speeds. With either camera in Continuous High-Speed mode, you could shoot a 200-meter sprint from start to finish, even with expressions of joy when crossing the finish line. The buffer on the Nikon Z5 II does fill a little earlier than the Nikon Z6 III, though, mainly due to the CFExpress card on the Nikon Z6 III. If only a UHS-II SD card is used in both cameras, they perform more similarly.

Other Features

Birds live life at a very different pace from us. Their movements are often so quick that waiting for the classic “decisive moment” before pressing the shutter will likely leave you disappointed. That’s why wildlife photographers pay so much attention to continuous shooting rates. The first-generation Z5 wasn’t exactly a sprinter in that regard. Its 4.5 FPS might be fine for shooting a snoozing nightjar, but you’d probably miss a starling feeding its chicks.

Nikon clearly recognized this weakness, and the Z5 II’s burst speed has been dramatically boosted. With a mechanical shutter, it now shoots at 11 FPS – which is essentially on par with the Nikon D500, a camera I’ve always considered very fast. The Z5 II also gets a bump with its electronic shutter (15 FPS), but I’d be cautious using that for fast-moving subjects. The readout speed on the Z5 II seems typical for a non-stacked sensor (putting it around 1/20 second, pending further tests). The result can be unwanted warping from rolling shutter effects if your subject is moving very fast.

Meanwhile, the Z6 III squeezes out a bit more with its mechanical shutter (14 FPS) and electronic shutter (20 FPS). Thanks to its partially stacked sensor, the Z6 III also has a faster readout speed of 1/70 second, which is enough to minimize rolling shutter most of the time. Although, it’s still not as fast as the stacked sensors on the Nikon Z8 and Nikon Z9 that are capable of a 1/270 second readout speed.

One thing that made me especially happy with the Nikon Z5 II was the ability to customize buttons just like on my Nikon Z9. Gone are the days when entry-level cameras lacked meaningful button customization. Aside from a few minor differences, I was able to program the Z5 II’s buttons to match the muscle memory I’ve developed on my top-tier Nikon.

Just like the recently announced Z50 II, the Nikon Z5 II also has a dedicated Picture Control button. If you shoot RAW, you’ll probably reassign it to something else, maybe Save Focus Position or My Menu. There are plenty of options: fifty-four, to be exact. Just pick your favorite.

Beyond ergonomics, another crucial aspect for me is how good the viewfinder looks. Nikon’s electronic viewfinders have never set records on paper, and the 3.69-million-dot resolution certainly won’t make jaws drop. But numbers are one thing, what matters is what you actually see. And in the case of the Z5 II, the EVF looks very good. It’s bright, big, and clear. In a direct comparison with the Z6 III, which currently has Nikon’s best viewfinder, I couldn’t even see a noticeable difference. Remember the claustrophobically tiny viewfinders on entry-level DSLRs? Those days are gone.

I’m also happy that Nikon wasn’t stingy with adding their newest features to the Nikon Z5 II. Take image stabilization, for example. The Z5 II delivers a very impressive 7.5 stops of IBIS and offers focus point priority, which even beats the current flagship Z9. I’ll leave a practical stabilization test for a future, more detailed review. Same goes for image quality. Unfortunately, the software I normally use for RAW editing doesn’t yet recognize the Z5 II. But once I’m able to process RAW files the usual way, I don’t expect to be disappointed – it seems just as good as the Nikon Zf’s image quality, which would make it best-in-class among today’s 24 megapixel sensors.

Overall, from what I’ve seen so far, the Nikon Z5 II strikes me as a very capable camera with an excellent price-to-performance ratio. In fact, the more I think about it, Nikon doesn’t really have an entry-level full-frame camera right now, because the Z5 II definitely doesn’t feel like one.