Nikon Z6 III Dynamic Range Review: TESTED

Most likely, Nikon compromised dynamic range to improve the readout speed of the sensor. They might have reduced the well capacity of individual photosites to pack in some other type of circuitry to temporarily hold the charge from an exposure, similar to the way the Sony a9 III achieved a global shutter.

Tony Northrup takes real test shots to show you how much the difference is so you can decide whether it’s good enough or if you’d rather choose a camera with better dynamic range but worse autofocus and video performance. Everything is a compromise, but you deserve to make educated choices.

[Calibr]

This is how fast sensors perform. The z6iii has no noise reduction. If you compare it against the R6 mark ii in electronic shutter mode (which has no noise reduction) you’ll find the R6 is worse. R6 with mechanical shutter bakes in noise reduction into the raws for better test results.

[hughbyrne]

Oh boy. Quite the misnomer to state that the Z6III has a "serious dynamic range problem". It would be far more accurate to state the engineers traded off half a stop or so of dynamic range for a much faster readout speed and far superior autofocus. That's a compromise that works for me. I upgraded from the Z6 II and I am glad that I did. The Z6III is a worthy companion to my Z8 and Z9. (I shoot a lot of pro sports )
Modern software can do wonders as to reducing noise, but no software can fix rolling shutter, missed focus, or missed in the moment shots because the camera was too slow to wake up.
It may be just my perception, but i think the auto white balance works better as well. The files are a joy to work with in Lightroom btw.
I sold the Z6II before I took delivery of the III so I can't compare them side to side, but practically speaking, I don't notice a whole lot of difference in noise at ISO under 10, 000. It is not a noisy camera.

[JasonLorette]

I've been using mine for the last three days on a trip and am absolutely loving this camera so far!

[ElGrecoDaGeek]

Tony, you called the Z8's DR "standard" in a comment. I know that YT creators don't get notifications for nested comments, so I thought I' d leave my reply here as well for you to consider:

First off, I feel your analysis is sound, however, I feel you're also over stating some aspects of this slight drop in DR and understating others.

Starting with the understating: As far as DR and the Z8/9 go, standard is not accurate for these fully stacked sensors. Compared to the D850 and Z7/ii, the Z8/9 have a similar drop in DR between base ISO 64 and ISO 400 (ISO 500 is the 2nd native ISO of all of those 45mp sensors). At ISO 100 the Z8 has a 1/3 stop less DR than the D850/Z7/ii. That widens to half a stop at ISO 160 thru ISO 300 and then jumps to 1 full stop of diff in DR at ISO 400.

Meanwhile, the Z6iii has about 2/3 a stop along its first native ISO range (100 - below 800 with ISO 800 being its 2nd native ISO). The greatest gap is at ISO 100 where it stands at just over 3/4 a stop of DR so opposite the Z8 which has less of a gap at lower ISO. At ISO 800 and above the Z6iii overtakes the DR of the Z7ii and the Z8 and is only a tiny fraction below a Z6/ii (sandwiched within a tiny sliver).

In short both partial and stacked sensors have a drop in DR compared to their non-stacked counterparts, so calling it standard is not accurate.

Meanwhile, the DR of the 6iii is on PAR with the Z8 save for the Z8's base ISO 64 and above ISO 800 it exceeds it. I suggest putting the D850, Z8, Z7ii, Z6ii, and Z6iii into PhotonsAndPhotos to observe this.

As far as the situations you noted go I feel there was a bit of overstating that went on.

IMHO, candid, minimal/no flash, wedding photography lives at higher ISOs, those where DR is essentially the same. That high ISO requirement is care of the fact that most weddings occur in the late afternoon/evening. As far as flashes go, few things are more annoying at a wedding (reception) than a photographer taking ALL the photos at the reception with flash. One it blinds the guests and it also results in artificial looking results. Higher ISO, even grainy ISO, result in more pleasing images.

As for the bird situation you described (dark birds against a bright lit sky): This is also going to be a bit different than your controlled low (ambient) light studio result. Point being, the QE (Quantum Efficiency) of the Z6iii is certainly higher than that of the Z7/ii given its larger photo sites. That means it will be better at capturing _any_ available photons. While the bird in the unprocessed images may be dark in comparison to the sky, unlike your studio, the ambient light will certainly result in far more available photons bouncing off the bird. Those extra photons can then be collected by each photo site resulting in a far less noisy mess when you recover, at least in comparison to your low-light studio example. Case in point, I have photos taken with my 5Diii, with far inferior DR than any recent Nikons, and I'm able to recover far more detail in a few shots that compare to your proposed situation than I would in your controlled setup.

Same goes for daytime landscapes - more photons are collected even if you don't see them in the un-processed photo if you go with a longer exposure.

Nighttime photos are either in the high ISO/high shutter realm or slow shutter/low ISO realm. The former is an equal playing field across all these cameras in terms of DR, the latter increases the time to collect photons which will help the Z6iii produce a cleaner image.

That leaves the first valid use case - nighttime photography with subjects in mixed lighting. While a valid example, your 6-stop difference is certainly a very large gap in lighting that narrows the likelihood of the use case. The only examples I can think of are a bright light source with people standing in front of it who are in shadow (fireworks, bonfires, etc). The low ambient light at night will limit the number of photons and as such you will certainly see a difference between the Z6iii and Z7ii if you're shooting within their 1st native ISO range.

Your example of sunrise/set photos is also valid but will also be highly dependent on how intense the sun light you are shooting into is (i.e. how far above the horizon) as well as the overall terrain. Shots where the sun has already set or is low in the horizon, will be less of an issue regardless of terrain even if exposed for the highlights than if the sun is still in the sky.

In my experience, shooting even with an old 5Diii in the distant past, this really only starts to be an issue if you are shooting __into__ the sun while it is still very bright (i.e. 20 min - 120 min before sunset or after sunrise). In over 30 years of photography, while I have many such photos, they are a small percentage, especially amongst my sunset photos which tend to favor the last 10 or fewer minutes before sunset. Among those photos I either expose for the highlights and then leave the terrain in shadow or I split the difference and minimally process. Sunsets and sunrises where the sun is only a few degrees in the sky are far more common as far as shooting into the sun goes and less likely to cause issues with the sliver of difference in DR. While my old 5Diii can pull some solid detail from the shadows save for those very harsh lighting situations, the Z6 and the D750 were both champs and I don't see the Z6iii being that much worse given the Z6iii is a full 1.5 stops better off than the 5Diii.

The only exceptions would be perhaps mountainous terrains, but as you noted bracketing or even the much-enhanced NR we have in LR now do a great job. Even then, the intensity of the sun is very minimal. I have photos of the 2012 Venus transit taken with my 5Diii that I was able to recover all sorts of detail even though the sun had yet to set.

I only mention this because most people don't understand the science of photography the way you do and may see this "warning" as a "do not buy" hurting an otherwise very well-rounded camera that may have served them well. Far too often people seek perfection and, in the process, miss out on better setup. In any case, please do what you do and deliver the messages, but do so without hyping it up more than it deserves.

[alexbormanbou]

From a Canon user. Even with a semi stacked sensor Nikon DR is similar to Canon. Which does not speak well for Canon.
Good to know Nikon is pushing to be back.
I'm an hybrid shooter and Nikon was behind all these years.
My first camera was am FM2, my father bought it to me, so it will always be in my heart.
Go for it Nikon!

[bk]

The Z9/Z8 had worse DR than the Z7II, yet here we are years later and no one seems to care. This is a nothing-burger. Most people are going to bracket and HDR Merge if they need this much shadow recovery. Also AI Denoise is so good these
days.

As for the content... Z7II is one of the best DR on FF cameras of all time, so not really a fair comparison.

And Z7II for weddings? No, AF sucks on that thing (especially in low light). You'll miss the moment, and that's way more important than a bit better shadow recovery.

[Ausknutz]

It´s pretty obvious a haf stacked sensor has a DR penalty, just like the Sony A9III with its global shutter. Don´t act like this is a Nikon problem, it´s simply a technology problem.

[waveland]

As someone who shoots a lot of video, the ISO6400 in N-Log is a huge upside for this camera. Plus the low light focusing is exceptional and the fast sensor (at a reasonable price) does make a big difference with fast action situations. For $2500 we were going to give some ground in one area or another, and particularly in this day and age of AI assisted noise reduction, I would rather give a little in DR than be held back by a non-stacked sensor.

[gp_]

No serious photographer would consider keeping or working on a photo requiring the amount of shadow recovery shown in this test. The examples all look horrible, there is no winner. I am more than sure that in real life scenarios the difference is pretty much insignificant.

[nrice]

Can you do this comparison vs z8 or z9? Curious to see the difference btwn partial and fully stacked sensors.

[JamesBurton-lo]

Thank you for finally being the one to mention bracketing
In most scenes I'll definitely use brackets for a majority of my work . You buy this camera for the faster read out and better focus . I just hope one day a manufacturer will give me a true dedicated stills camera with no video
Great focus and solid dynamic range and take care of long exposure noise .
I could care less for videos and I know a majority of people want a camera to do everything but I want a stills camera a true stills camera where the entire focus is centered around great performance and image quality

[cynvs]

For landscapes, I'd totally recommend the Z7 (II) over the Z6 III, but for weddings and other professional use cases? I don't know, man.
A slightly more noisy image is better than an out of focus image, I'd absolutely recommend the Z6 III over any of the older cameras below the Z8.

[wallystellmacher]

It‘s a problem of all stacked and semi-stacked sensors.

[harvey]

this video is stunned as a bag of hammers. The Z6iii has about the same dynamic range as the Z8 and Z9 at ISOs 100-400. Not too many folks whined about that. But ignorance is bliss. Besides, who pulls their shadows up 6.5 stops?

[lesgregory]

I know a few wedding photographers and they have started using the Z 6lll and loving the results. In fact one also has a z 8 and Z 9 and has now decided to get another Z 6lll for his second wedding camera, Loves the files and ergonomics of the camera. Says the autofocus is great as well

[gameshoes]

Something to also consider is how much editing latitude you have after applying lens corrections. A lot of modern lenses have some significant vignetting which can rob 2-4 stops of light on the periphery of the image. Trying to lift shadows from an area that already has been lifted that many stops will have you run into issues quickly.

We really do need DR to improve to compensate for the craze of smaller optics that have worse and worse vignetting.

[outofabook]

For me, I'm totally okay with losing a stop of dynamic range as a trade off for better auto-focus and faster sensor readout in video (ie less rolling shutter), all for $2500. So there's definitely a market segment for this camera and I think it'll be a hit. But yeah, Nikon should have been more upfront with this from the get-go and this would have been a non-issue, instead of turning into a big story on the internet.

[chuckhatcher]

Remember back in olden times when fill flash was a thing?

[sbeckmesser]

I hope those of us who don't often shoot outdoors or under controlled studio lighting conditions -- my main work is performances on stage and in nightclubs, the latter with widely varying and downright weird and dim lighting-- aren't dissuaded from checking out the Z6 III. The photonstophotos site shows that at ISOs above 800 the Nikon falls in line with other contemporary full-frame cameras, such as the Sony A7C II that I currently use. Gerald Undone's tests gave similar results. For reference, my usual nightclub work ends up with shutter speeds around 1/200 (to freeze rapidly moving drag queens), apertures full open at either F2.8 or F4, and ISOs starting at 1600 and going up (sometimes very up). Nightclub work is like birding but with wretched lighting. My main interest in the Z6 III is how much any rolling-shutter effects remain in electronic-shutter mode by use of the partially-stacked sensor's fast readout. I don't have the $$ for a Sony A9 III to eliminate the problem entirely. And I have yet to see a Z6 III review that covers this aspect adequately, at least for stills.

[johnbanks]

The dynamic range on the Z9 is just as shit compared to th Z7ii, why aren't you talking about that?