This year the flowers have been wonderful in our area and the camera and lens that has provided the best results this spring is the Z50 plus it’s 50-250mm lens. Of course spring is not over, but right now the Z50 and this lens are at the top of my results.
The Z50 has to be one of the best smaller mirrorless camera set ups currently for sale. And the 50-250 mm Z mount DX lens gives excellent results as can be seen from the samples in this post.
The Z50 is a combination of good features that made it fairly easy to get good results, and also waiting for a good time to shoot. Good light is far more important than what camera you use. These photos were mostly shot at the base ISO of 100, 130-160mm, f8, and about 1/50 of a second. I used a relatively heavy tripod and a 2 second delayed shutter to get as good a result from the conditions as I could.
I generally shoot raw and jpeg with the Z50. Then review and edit the results using Lightroom Classic. When reviewing the photos if the jpegs are as good as the raw then I just work with those jpeg files. The Z50 at this point usually has very good jpegs, but sometimes when you need to edit more raw files work best. Using a mirrorless camera with flowers I pay close attention to what the viewfinder or back screen says about the image before I take it. Then look at the histogram and make sure the colors are not too bright to blow the highlights. In most cases I shoot this camera for this type of subject in A priority. To my eye the longer Z lens 50-250 mm is excellent for this type of work. It is sharp, works well close up, and the results speak for themselves. I find the out of focus look of this lens to be very good.
Overall the Z50 is in my opinion the most versatile camera I own. I also have a Nikon Z7 and some Z lenses, iPhone 12 Pro Max, Minolta, Olympus, and Voightlander film cameras. The Z50 is significantly less expensive than the Z7 but in my opinion more flexible to more types of photography than the bigger heavier Z7. You can buy the basic Nikon package of the Z50 body and the two standard lenses, the 16-50 & 50-250 and you are set to take family stills or video, close up macros like here, travel shots as this is a very compact easy to cary package, it has a built in flash, and is quite capable for around $1,100 USD. The only things I have added to this are an extra battery, a good camera strap, and a couple of filters. I carry it in an old sling bag with some extra cards and the USB connector wire. I usually edit my stills with Lightroom and the video with either iMovie or Adobe Rush. The Z50 takes very good video. I do have some ZS higher cost lenses. I have used them on the Z50 but the standard lenses work fine and for the most part just use them.
This camera with lenses is very light. With my full frame cameras I generally tend to use my heavier tripod, but with the Z50 my lighter tripods work well too.
The Z50 does not have the mega pixels of my full frame Z7. But that does not seem to be a problem in the photos shown for this post. But, for really low light of when you would crop a lot the extra detail could be helpful. For now these are the best spring flower photos I have from 2021. As spring progresses I will post more results.
Bob Nuttmann 