Nikon Zr is coming

[ND64]

Video oriented cameras is always a niche. Especially in this economy and what we see in AI developments. Look at this pretty serious response of a pro video shooter:

I predict two years from now many of these folks will just give up. Budgets are already so low that they're bean counting the price of CFe cards they have to buy.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

21 hours ago, stephen said:

 

Once weakness Nikon Z6 III and Zr have and also Z8 is the fact that if you want the best video picture quality you have to shoot in RAW. NLog used in ProRes and x265 internal codecs is not as good as Sony or Panasonic Log profiles. x265 codec is 10bit 4:2:0. Shooting in RAW would require more time and work in post production as de-noise and lens correction have to be done in post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyTnnbszZg

 

 

This is (for me) the biggest flaw of the camera. As I said, I saw this as a "creator camera" that could be used with caveats as a cinema camera.

These people usually have fast turnarounds and having a h265 almost done take is a must - not even counting the massive file sizes of RedRAW. Lots of them never used any RAW video even having cameras that could do it.

But probably the H265 encoding would overheat the camera pretty quickly.

[Danyyyel]

40 minutes ago, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

This is (for me) the biggest flaw of the camera. As I said, I saw this as a "creator camera" that could be used with caveats as a cinema camera.

These people usually have fast turnarounds and having a h265 almost done take is a must - not even counting the massive file sizes of RedRAW. Lots of them never used any RAW video even having cameras that could do it.

But probably the H265 encoding would overheat the camera pretty quickly.

I have not tested the Nikon ZR, but every Nikon cam that I have used before, from the Z6 to the Z9, H264-H265 have been very very good. You might not get the whole DR etc. but they have been really solid, even the D750 1080p 24mbs has been solid. LOL.

Now, one thing I have been doing with my Z9 is use the 4k NRAW, which is only about 350 mb/s at 24 fps and also very good. The ZR also has a 4k NRAW/Redraw mode. Which would bring this type of bitrate. I also hope they also bring a lighter redraw mode. If not, you sill have the NRAW naming hack. Where by renaming NRAW to RED files, it is recognise by resolve as REDraw and process as if it was the same. It seems you can get a better Dynamic range and noise reduction like in the video below, where it even works on Nikon z8 nraw.

 

[ND64]

Size comparison site updated their list.

ZR vs. FX3

ZR vs. S9

And C50

lol

[Ilkka Nissila]

If I'm not mistaken, the issue is that what Nikon calls extended oversampling is not available on the ZR. Extended oversampling would mean the camera is able to resample the 6K sensor feed to 4K with full sensor width at 50-60 fps. The 24, 25, and 30 fps video is oversampled by default. So the quality from h.254, h.265 and Prores 423 HQ 4K modes should be fine as long as fps rate is 30 or below. These have much lower data rates than 6K RAW. Note that I do not have the ZR. I am just guessing that 24-30 fps 4K are oversampled without extended oversampling as it is the case in the Z8. If they are not oversampled, this could indeed be a major quality issue.

[Danyyyel]

18 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

If I'm not mistaken, the issue is that what Nikon calls extended oversampling is not available on the ZR. Extended oversampling would mean the camera is able to resample the 6K sensor feed to 4K with full sensor width at 50-60 fps. The 24, 25, and 30 fps video is oversampled by default. So the quality from h.254, h.265 and Prores 423 HQ 4K modes should be fine as long as fps rate is 30 or below. These have much lower data rates than 6K RAW. Note that I do not have the ZR. I am just guessing that 24-30 fps 4K are oversampled without extended oversampling as it is the case in the Z8. If they are not oversampled, this could indeed be a major quality issue.

I think if you are using h265, you are going to use the full 6k resolution anyway. What I was saying is in RAW, you can half the data if you go from 6k to 4k. It is a compromise, but for me 4k native is already very good. I don't need more resolution. The only thing that would be really practical for me, would be to reframe the shot like in an interview setup in the video below. So I can simulate a 3 camera setup with only two cameras, which is so much easier to do.   

 

[Jahleh]

Didn’t the ZR have a setting for H.265 NR  in the menus? Could it be be that on pre production models it is set to stonger setting than on other Z bodies. 
To my eye H.265 on Z6iii is good, better than S5ii’s 4:2:0. 
Thought about Z8 too, but according to Cinematools Z8’s 4k120p has worse quality than Z6iii’s in DX mode, and I find the ability to crop 1.5x quite handy. Z8’s 4k 2.3x would need changing some of my lenses to wider ones. 
 

Played more with NEV to R3D trick, and still prefer Nikon colours and Raw controls to Red. In addition R3D Media management in Resolve does not work, it does not export trimmed clips. If you trim the NEV clips and export, NEV to R3D trick does not work any more. Usually fill a 2TB card in one day, so working trim is a must to save only the important parts. 
 

Tried ProresRaw too and file sizes are just huge and Raw controls not so good. With NRaw I can color correct basicly from the Raw panel quickly. 

[mkabi]

I'll be honest. If anyone is starting from zero (including myself) - we'd all jump on this...

In fact, if anyone asked me... "which one should I go for".... this is it.

Its the same price as a Canon R7 (more or less, no matter where you are coming from with more features).

[Danyyyel]

On 9/21/2025 at 2:30 PM, Jahleh said:

Didn’t the ZR have a setting for H.265 NR  in the menus? Could it be be that on pre production models it is set to stonger setting than on other Z bodies. 
To my eye H.265 on Z6iii is good, better than S5ii’s 4:2:0. 
Thought about Z8 too, but according to Cinematools Z8’s 4k120p has worse quality than Z6iii’s in DX mode, and I find the ability to crop 1.5x quite handy. Z8’s 4k 2.3x would need changing some of my lenses to wider ones. 
 

Played more with NEV to R3D trick, and still prefer Nikon colours and Raw controls to Red. In addition R3D Media management in Resolve does not work, it does not export trimmed clips. If you trim the NEV clips and export, NEV to R3D trick does not work any more. Usually fill a 2TB card in one day, so working trim is a must to save only the important parts. 

One thing I saw, is that the R3d hack, give a more pleasing highlight rolloff, or preserving the highlight better, resulting in some more DR.

[D Verco]

On 9/20/2025 at 11:43 PM, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

But probably the H265 encoding would overheat the camera pretty quickly.

I saw this posted somewhere else and it definitely wouldn't. R3D NE is the same as N-raw, which has different compressions rates.
H.265 with Red's Log3G10 would also require the same processing power as doing it with N-log. It's simply switching out the logarithmic function and the colour profile that's applied.

You would lose the chroma noise reduction and highlight recovery that's done in post though (unless they did it in camera - but that actually would require additional processing - although they already do some noise reduction in camera so it depends on the techniques). I'd like to see their next gen cameras doing that in camera along with a 14bit readout like the Fuji xh2s. 

[zerocool22]

What are the datarates with h265 vs nraw?

[Jahleh]

10 hours ago, Danyyyel said:

One thing I saw, is that the R3d hack, give a more pleasing highlight rolloff, or preserving the highlight better, resulting in some more DR.

It depends whether you like having presets to quickly set tonemapping and highlight rolloff in R3D or manually changing exposure, shadows and highlights in NRaw. 
R3D’s presets seem a bit limited compared to what you can do with Nraw’s -100% - 100% sliders.

For example R3D with tonemapping low is too flat in the shadows and with hard has too much contrast. With medium and highlight rolloff set to very soft it can look ok, but if you overexpose just before clipping point while shooting highlights are too bright still with R3D. 
It can provide pleasing looking results too. 
 

ZR’s R3D 6k50p High is 3160 Mbps 23,7GB/min and Z8’s NRaw 8k50p Norm is only 2890Mbps 21,67GB/min. Kind of tempted to try ZR, buth with these data rates, double the NRaw Norm it is a no go, and even Z8 8k data rates would be more tolerable. At least you have more options to choose from now. 

[Danyyyel]

So this is a very good test of the ZR. I don't know if the english AI translation is 100% correct, but anyone can try it. He was ecstatic from the start about the DR of the camera and did a latitude test, using middle grey and overexposing and underexposing to see the level before clipping the highlight and the noise barrier.

This test is very good for the ZR as DR/Latitude test have been a bit all over the place. If you watched the CVP test, it was like 6 at best 7 stops of latitude!!! The ZR was clipping even before the Z6III !!! My guess is most of the test were done before Davinci last update to incorporate REDraw NE etc. And the guys were using REDsoftware to convert the files in Tiff etc. and it might be that file did lose some information. He is getting 5 stop over and 3 to 4 stop below. So, a 8 to 9 stops of latitude, at nine it is huge. If you watch CineD lab test, you are in the RED raptorX, Panasonic S1ii territory. The Z9 approaches that, but most of the other Sony cameras (but mostly in compress format) like the Sony A1, Sony Venice (RAW) etc are at 8 stops. In their test, their is only the Sony Burano, Alexa LF at 10 stops and the Alexa 35 at 12 stops!!!

His complain is like everyone about micro HDMI, and huge file size. I sincerely hope Nikon does give us a lower bitrate REdraw. He also says the h265 is bad, my guess it is that when you get use to that RAW, you see everything around bad. Matti Haapoja had the same reaction when comparing the ZR side by side with the Fx3. He then changed after using the h265 a bit more and said it was at least equal to the fx3 or better. Nikon Zr is its on worst enemy, when people compare its h265 to the raw, because the raw is so good, they feel the h265 is bad. But in the end very very positive about the camera.  

 

[EduPortas]

On 9/20/2025 at 7:43 AM, Marcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

But probably the H265 encoding would overheat the camera pretty quickly.

 

How about ProRes? The ZR has ProRes HQ and ProRes RAW.

That should be easy to edit on a Mac, right?

[MrSMW]

Someone above was asking about the data rates I recall.

For Red Raw ‘Lite’ they are as follows:

6048 x 3402 :
59.94p (3780 Mbps), 50p (3160 Mbps), 29.97p (1900 Mbps), 25p (1590 Mbps), 23.97p (1520 Mbps)

Compared with S1II 6K open gate at 200Mbps it really hits hard.

As much as I love this camera (the Zr) now I have had more time to think about it, I’d want to use that Red codec and both the 25p and 50p options but that’s 8-16x the data rates…and that would be nuts for my kind of work.

Nikon is still the best lens platform however at this time.

[Ilkka Nissila]

6 hours ago, EduPortas said:

 

How about ProRes? The ZR has ProRes HQ and ProRes RAW.

That should be easy to edit on a Mac, right?

Prores RAW has an even higher data rate than R3D or N-RAW on the ZR. Nikon lists ZR data rates for Prores 422 HQ 4K 25 fps at 820 Mb/s (102.5 MB/s) and 6K at 25 fps at 1600 Mbps (200 MB/s). Thus the Prores options for 6K are even bigger than the R3D or N-RAW, but the 4K version of Prores 422 HQ is a bit more manageable than 6K. Prores 422 HQ may be easier to edit than RAW in some ways (at least distortion and vignetting profiles are applied in-camera so there is less post work to be done). I use Prores 422 HQ 4K on the Z8 as my go-to format. I love the colors and image quality. 

[Django]

13 hours ago, Danyyyel said:

Matti Haapoja had the same reaction when comparing the ZR side by side with the Fx3. He then changed after using the h265 a bit more and said it was at least equal to the fx3 or better. Nikon Zr is its on worst enemy, when people compare its h265 to the raw, because the raw is so good, they feel the h265 is bad.

I've noticed this in a couple reviews. Kinda surprised because the h265 on Z8/Z9 is quite good, even when compared to NRAW. So I do wonder if the h265 on ZR is somewhat "bad" maybe perhaps as noted above to circumvent overheating. I like having options on a camera but if the h265 is horrible than yeah that means this is an ultra high bitrate cam only. 

..which kinda leads me to ask who would prefer the ZR to a Z8? both are around the same price here in EU.

[Ilkka Nissila]

31 minutes ago, Django said:

I've noticed this in a couple reviews. Kinda surprised because the h265 on Z8/Z9 is quite good, even when compared to NRAW. So I do wonder if the h265 on ZR is somewhat "bad" maybe perhaps as noted above to circumvent overheating. I like having options on a camera but if the h265 is horrible than yeah that means this is an ultra high bitrate cam only. 

..which kinda leads me to ask who would prefer the ZR to a Z8? both are around the same price here in EU.

Are they? The Z8 is 3999€ in Finland (discounted from 4799€) and the ZR is 2449€.  Likely the ZR will be similarly discounted in a few years, maybe sooner.

 

h.265 4K 25 fps 10-bit data rate is 190 Mbps on the ZR and 190 Mbps on the Z8, so the image quality should be similar.  The ZR has an optical low-pass filter though and the Z8 does not, so details in the ZR footage might be ever so slightly softer. What the ZR does not have is "extended oversampling" so the 4K footage at 50 and 60 fps is likely of lower quality than the Z8 (when extended oversampling is turned on in the latter), and this indeed could be left out of the ZR to prevent overheating in the much smaller body. At 4K 24, 25, and 30 fps the h.265 image quality should be quite similar between the two cameras (apart from the OLPF difference).  However, if you record 6K in h.265 this should not be an issue as there is no need to do oversampling and you can convert the footage to 4K using your method of choice in post.

 

Summary: I can see that there would be a quality loss at 50-60 fps at 4K but the image quality should be fairly similar in h.265 between the ZR and Z8 when recording 4K 24-30 fps. This can hopefully be verified when the camera is out on the market. 

 

The Z8 is much larger and heavier which makes it less gimbal-friendly (or at least you need a much heavier gimbal than the ZR, potentially leading to body strain and discomfort, and eventually one is not able to continue). The ZR supports digital audio via the hot shoe (future products will support it, including tascam's) and 32-bit float, which are useful features for recording on-location audio. The ZR has a larger back display.  I imagine only those who always record video on a tripod would be happy using the Z8 or Z9 while those who hand-hold or use a gimbal often, and those who simply need a lower-cost solution for video would prefer the ZR. The Z8 and Z9 of course are capable of high-resolution stills, with high frame rates, and have much less rolling shutter in stills shooting than the ZR (which has lower rolling shutter in video mode). So, many stills shooters will prefer the Z8/Z9 if they can afford it and justify the cost and weight. 

[Danyyyel]

2 hours ago, Ilkka Nissila said:

Summary: I can see that there would be a quality loss at 50-60 fps at 4K but the image quality should be fairly similar in h.265 between the ZR and Z8 when recording 4K 24-30 fps. This can hopefully be verified when the camera is out on the market. 

Perhaps this is the reason, but for h265 it is 5.4 k and not 4k until 50-60 fps. Could those .6k make that much of a difference!!! I would have liked the impression of a z6iii shooter on the h265 format. I had a pre order for a z6iii with my reseller in my country. And I changed it to the ZR. I hope the h265 is good LOL. I was also very wary about the overheating as I live in a tropical island, but just saw another video, from a Vietnamese shooter, who said no overheating. I think he was one of those who filmed one of the launched video.  

 

[ND64]

8 minutes ago, Danyyyel said:

Vietnamese shooter

Nikon gave this camera to so many different people I wonder how they did even find them. Some just have 500 followers, but are locally known in their country. Maybe Jarred Land is behind this.