Have you ever wondered what one of the best cameras for photography (opens in new tab) looks like on the inside? You might be about to find out, thanks to Alex Mirchuk over at Kolarivision (opens in new tab), who has taken to the internet to show off his tear-down skills. He took the latest Nikon Z9 flagship camera and pulled it apart to see what was inside.
Just think of this like a massive Kinder egg, but it's a $5,496 flagship camera that's build to keep dirt, and quite frankly other people out of its internals.
The reasoning behind why this guy just dismantled probably one of the hardest cameras to get your hands on is a mystery to me, but if you study the images closely it is remarkable just how much technology goes into making one of the best flagships on the market today.
The amount of wiring, circuit boards, processors, solenoids... you name it – it is all packed inside the Nikon Z9. What is also interesting to see is the inspection marks on the magnesium-alloy body.
One fact that Mirchuk remarks on is that the connection between the battery and the main board is easily accessible. Do the Nikon engineers foresee a problem in the future, or does it just makes their lives easier when a Z9 comes in to be repaired? I am not an electrical engineer and there might be a valid reason for it... only time will tell!
Mirchuk also suggests that the connection ports on the Z9 are soldered directly to the board itself, compared to the Sony A1 (opens in new tab), which has ports that are connected to the board via detachable flex cables. It's an interesting insight and there is a reason that each manufacture choses a certain process to design and build, but some could see the Nikon Z9 internals as built to last or built to be replaced.
Anyhow, it is all rather interesting to see inside one of the most spoken about cameras on the market and probably the most difficult to get your hands on. Hopefully none of the owners will ever end up like the unfortunate camera at the start of the Mirchuk blog post.
Read more:
Best Nikon lenses (opens in new tab)
Nikon Z9 review (opens in new tab)
Best Nikon Z lenses (opens in new tab)
Best Nikon portrait lenses (opens in new tab)