Viewfinder and Rear LCD
Nikon made a number of small changes to the Nikon Z9’s displays – both the electronic viewfinder (EVF) and rear LCD – that add up to a more enjoyable experience. I’ll go through those improvements in this section of the review.
Nikon Z9 EVF
At first glance, if you’ve used a full-frame Nikon Z camera, you probably won’t notice many differences in the Z9’s electronic viewfinder. But after using the camera for a while, there are some things you’ll grow to notice and appreciate.
The biggest headline improvement is the jump from 60 Hz to 120 Hz refresh rate (Firmware Version 2.0 and up). This affects the apparent smoothness of the Z9’s viewfinder as you move around the camera, and 120 Hz does perform a bit better in this regard than 60 Hz. The lag and flickering on the Z9 are also extremely minimal, making for a headache-free experience (at least for me, and I’m pretty prone to headaches from bad displays).
Beyond that, some of the features that don’t show up on spec sheets make an even bigger difference. For instance, the Nikon Z9 has no dark frames when shooting bursts of photos (at least under most conditions) and doesn’t go into “slideshow mode.” There is no lag or loss of viewfinder resolution when focusing. It adds up to a more pleasant experience even compared to most competitors’ cameras.
However, any reports you’ve seen that say the EVF is totally lag-free, blackout-free, and asterisk-free (i.e., no lowering of viewfinder performance regardless of conditions) are not true. If your shutter speed is 1/6 second or longer, the Z9 has blackout during the entire exposure.
Likewise, there are sometimes skipped frames in the EVF when you shoot a burst. It’s mainly visible at shutter speeds longer than 1/250 second, although it can appear regardless of your shutter speed, depending upon your memory card. (I was using the Lexar Professional CFExpress Card, which is fast enough to support 8K 60p RAW video, but not the fastest available choice for the Z9; read more on our “High FPS” page of this review.)
Even at its worst, the bursts never became a slideshow for me – but the EVF did look less smooth when I took multiple photos per second, even on continuous low. It wasn’t actually lag, just skipped frames, so it remained easy to follow along with fast-moving action. At faster shutter speeds and fewer frames per second, the impression improved more and more.
It may sound like I have a negative impression of the Nikon Z9’s EVF as a result of these skipped frames, but that’s not true at all. Every fast mirrorless camera on the market has some EVF issues when shooting bursts or even just focusing, and the Z9 holds up very well by comparison. I would characterize this as Nikon’s best EVF yet, and one of the best EVFs on the market today for following along with action.
A final thing to note about the Z9’s viewfinder is that Nikon added a “finder display size” option in the setup menu. This lets you shrink the viewfinder’s magnification, which won’t be the choice of most photographers, but is a big deal for people who wear glasses – making it possible to see the entire EVF image at once, much more comfortably.
Nikon Z9 LCD
The most obvious change to the Nikon Z9’s rear LCD is the addition of dual-axis tilting capabilities. Somehow, this is the first time we’ve ever seen dual-axis tilt on a full-frame Nikon camera, whether DSLR or mirrorless. (A few APS-C Nikon cameras have fully articulating LCDs, like the D5600 DSLR and Zfc mirrorless camera.)
It looks like this:
This is something I’ve been hoping to see in an advanced Nikon body for ages. Single-axis tilt screens are useful when the camera is low to the ground or held overhead, but the additional left/right axis makes the Z9’s LCD much more versatile. The most obvious benefit is for tripod-based vertical photos, since the LCD finally tilts to a comfortable viewing position for low-angle vertical shots.
I’ve even found it useful for horizontal photos. At the landscape below, my chosen composition required me to put my tripod legs partway underwater in a lake. With the left/right axis tilt of the LCD, I had no problem composing the photo while keeping my shoes dry on shore.
Nikon’s flagship DSLRs – the D4, D5, and D6 series – never had a tilting LCD of any kind, even single-axis. Nikon implied that this was due to weatherproofing and build quality concerns. It’s true that flagship cameras tend to see heavy and aggressive use, and a weak tilting LCD could be a point of failure.
However, I’ve rarely, if ever, seen complaints from Nikon D850 or Nikon Z7-series owners about the single-axis tilting LCD being flimsy – and those cameras get beat up quite often, too. In practice, it hasn’t been the problem that some photographers feared it might be.
Granted, the Z9 user base is going to be pretty demanding and put this camera through the wringer. So, the dual-axis LCD may still end up being a point of failure for some users. But I think it’s a clear net positive overall.
As for other changes on the Nikon Z9’s LCD, the one that I’m happiest about is the clean LCD option directly on the DISP button. This has been one of my longest-standing issues with Nikon Z cameras: the inability to hide all the shooting data in order to compose the image cleanly. Nikon partly fixed the issue on the Z6 II and Z7 II, where you could assign a button to the clean display mode, but now it’s finally part of the Z9’s normal DISP options, as it should be! Nikon got it right this time, probably thanks to listening to a lot of user feedback.
Finally, the rear LCD improves upon previous iterations of the touchscreen by adding a “glove mode” to the options in the setup menu. I don’t know what Nikon did behind the scenes to make glove mode work, but the touchscreen really does respond when you’re wearing thin gloves. (When you’re not wearing gloves, it can be a bit too sensitive, responding to inputs when you’re hovering over the LCD and not even quite touching it!) With thicker gloves, the touchscreen wouldn’t respond, but that’s to be expected; the display isn’t pressure-sensitive, after all.
Conclusion
Nikon has added their best-ever EVF and rear LCD to the Nikon Z9. Even though the changes are evolutionary rather than revolutionary, it adds up. The Nikon Z9’s displays hold their own even among sports-oriented mirrorless cameras, and using the camera is a natural, headache-free experience. Granted, there’s still room for improvement – especially with the occasional skipped frames when shooting a burst of high-FPS photos – but the Z9 shows a lot of thought and refinement when it comes to the quality of its displays.
On the following page, I’ll dive into more detail about using the Nikon Z9 for high-FPS photography, including the buffer performance and various limitations you might face. So, click below to go to the next page of our Nikon Z9 review, “High FPS, Buffer, Memory Cards.”