When the DCW team was picking their favourite cameras of 2023, mine was the Nikon Z8. In fact, I've been lusting after it since it launched, and while I had the opportunity to pick it up with a saving of AU$1,000 over the Black Friday sales last November, I'm glad I didn't.
That's because the price has gone down further and I'm now saying goodbye to my savings. If you head over to Amazon AU, the Nikon Z8 body is now down to AU$5,637.26, plus there's a coupon code you can redeem at checkout that slashes an additional AU$300 from the discounted price. You end up paying only AU$5,337.26! That's a massive discount of AU$1,661.74!
But you will have to hurry as there's very limited stock left and I'm not at all surprised – at this price, the Nikon Z8 is a right bargain if you want a camera that can do it all.
I'm not the only one who's fallen in love with this mirrorless marvel. Our reviewer liked it so much that our Nikon Z8 review got a full five stars. It won the 2023 EISA Camera of the Year award. Need I say more?
Forgive me for gushing about this camera, but it's definitely praise worthy considering it's essentially the mammoth Nikon Z9 professional sports shooter squished into a more compact body, so you're getting the absolute top-end features possible from a Nikon camera at a price that's arguably better than some of the other high-res full-frame mirrorless cameras out there.
So, what do you get for you hard-earned cash?
For starters, there's 45.7MP of full-frame resolution on tap. This CMOS sensor is capable of blistering fast readouts that makes a mechanical shutter redundant, so there's only an electronic shutter here. And that, in turn, ups the shutter speed that's now able to hit a top of 1/32,000 of second (in comparison, other premium cameras top out at 1/8,000 second).
If you want to capture action, there's up to 120fps continuous shooting speed at your disposal, although you will have to sacrifice resolution at this top burst, with the final result dropping to just 11MP stills. But it's the full sensor when shooting at 30fps, which is more than enough to not miss any vital moment. And this is with autofocus and autoexposure engaged between frames.
To match, its buffer memory can save over 1,000 RAW frames at 20fps to the memory card before it stutters, and it won't stop saving JPEGs at 30fps till the card is full.
There's 493 autofocus points on the sensor, and the Z8's intelligent AF system will track your subject well, so results will be excellent. And its image quality is just as magnificent.
There's in-body image stabilisation here, of course, with up to 5.5 stops of compensation for camera shake for most lenses, although a select few will get you a maximum of 6 stops.
Want to talk video? It's capable of up to 8.3K/60p 12-bit internal recording in both N-RAW and ProRES RAW HQ formats.
The only complaint I'm going to have with this camera is its battery life as it still uses the same pack from the Z7 bodies, which is rated for about 275 shots. That said, there's plenty of savings here to not just pick up an extra battery, but a standard zoom lens as well.
Savings like this don't come often, so hurry if you don't want to miss out.
