Your Stories
Alan Williams got his hands on the new Nikon Z 7 full-frame mirrorless and couldn’t wait to try it out in the wilds of Ethiopia
Two more tall tales told by two proud Nikon owners
Mission: Photograph the weird and wonderful wildlife of Ethiopia Photographer: Alan Williams Location: Formby, Merseyside
Kit used: Nikon Z 7, Nikon 70-200mm f/4, FTZ adapter
Istarted photography over 60 years ago, in the era of black-and-white roll-film cameras, and from the very beginning was enthusiastic about photographing wildlife. My first Nikon, around 50 years ago, was the excellent Nikkormat FTN, and I’ve stayed with Nikon ever since. Recently I’ve been using the D810, a fabulous camera, but I found it decidedly heavy out in the field. So when the mirrorless Nikon Z 7 was announced, I just couldn’t resist buying one.
Soon after, on a wildlife-watching trip to Ethiopia, I took just the Z 7 and one lens
– a 70-200mm f/4 Nikon zoom, plus the
FTZ adapter. These made for a lightweight combo, enabling easier handheld photography. I also knew they would both deliver superb sharpness. Although other people there had zoom lenses with longer reach, I was confident I could work at 200mm and crop the images to achieve a larger subject size without losing too much quality. This worked very well.
Out on safari
We visited many different wildlife habitats in Ethiopia, but I started by photographing the black-winged stilt at a Rift Valley lake [1].
I had plenty of time to choose the best exposure and consider the composition, so I tried to ensure that I captured the elegance of the stilt. Throughout the trip, I used AF-C, in this case with single-point AF, and used AF-ON back-button focusing.
The marabou stork was taken near one of the lakes, where the storks gathered around local fishermen [2]. These are large, relatively slow-flying birds, so 1/2000 sec was more than enough to freeze them. Thankfully the Z 7’s continuous autofocus was also very effective in locking onto the subjects that I was shooting.
The spotted hyena was altogether more of a challenge [3]. We gathered one evening to watch these animals emerge from a cave. It was dark before they appeared and almost impossible to even see them. But as I ramped up the ISO on the Z 7 it brightened up the image in the electronic viewfinder and the hyena could be seen quite clearly. My actual photos weren’t brilliant because it was so dark
– this one was taken at ISO8000 and with a handheld exposure of 1/15 sec, at f/4 – but none of the other cameras there (a mixture of DSLRS and compacts) came close to getting such an image.
A major objective for this trip was photographing the gelada baboon, found only in the Ethiopian mountains, and this was one of many photos I took of a male [4]. The environment was very dusty, and although the Z 7 generally handled this well, dust reached the eye sensor above the viewfinder and stopped the automatic display switching between this and the monitor. But this was just an irritant, and was simply fixed by removing the rubber eyecup and cleaning the sensor.
Overall I was delighted with how the Z 7 performed! With the 70-200mm f/4 zoom, it was a much lighter combination than some of the DSLRS others had, the results it delivered were amazing and its usability in low-light conditions was spectacular!