Nikon Z-fc - Grey Day

But dry at the time I went outside the Murray Street Store. Sometimes you can luck it. The opportunity to try the new-to-me Nikon Z-fc was too good to miss, so I took the spare SD card out of the gadget bag and plugged it in. Thus was the point at which the Nikon muscle memory kicked in and I was able to dive into the menu and format it. That's not just bumpf. A lot of cameras operate on menus and instruction sets that have been devised by their own staff. They may have configured the things quite differently from those of other makers, and it can be an Indiana Jones adventure to try to find the pathway in the menu that will lead you to the command you wish to exercise. Quite a few camera makers employ poison dart shooters and giant stone balls to discourage you from finding their treasures. Just getting to " format " can be a feat. The choices after that for sizes, shapes, renderings, colour, and such are pretty much standard between each camera in any one maker's line-up - but here again between factories they can discover new words. I went with the vanilla option here - I set the camera as much to default and auto as I decently could. I knew the RAW option of the NEF files would probably not decode properly on my Lightroom program - and that has proved to be the case. I need to upgrade the OS on the computer to upgrade the Lightroom's scope of new Adobe Camera Raw profiles. I'm still driving the old vehicle - but every old computer will decode jpegs, so this was a chance for Nikon to show what they could do straight out of the tin. The day was dull - Murray Street is not the most vibrant of thoroughfares at the best of times - and there were no strange goings-on in front of the handbag store. So I contented myself with some street shots to test perspective and resolution and one long shot at the Rio Tinto building. Then I popped inside to Wanderlust to see if I could find colour. This can be problematical with testing as the lighting of most shops is all over the place. However, that is a test in itself for the AWB of a camera - if it can cope with halogens, tungstens, and fluorescents all adding their tints, you can at least get something from tourist venues. The jpegs are good quality - I can see the details clear to the corners with good definition, and there is no chromatic aberration in silhouetted branches. The lens itself is a tad long for me, but there is a similar 16-50 extendable one for the Z system that would be perfect. In the retro line, there is a very film-styled 28mm that would make a perfect tourist lens. I will be curious to see if Nikon will extend this styling decision into more lenses for this smaller camera. The retro aspect would sell it to many. One cavil - I'd like a better on/off switch that would not - like my Fujifilms - be in danger of turning on just as you thrust the body into a camera case.