Fujifilm X-H2, Nikon Z 7II, & Full-frame

February 18, 2025

Last summer I bought the Nikon Z7 II with the Nikkor 24-200mm lens. I bought it not because I needed it, but out of curiosity. My current camera is the Fujifilm X-H2, so I wanted to know whether full-frame could offer something that I didn't already have and I saw the Nikon Z7 II as a potential upgrade since it can be similar in price, when on sale, and has a similar resolution. Buying cameras out of curiosity is not a habit of mine, but the summer sales at the time were especially good and a good sale is sometimes hard to ignore. The obvious alternative is renting, which would have been the more sensible option, but this was one of those times where I didn't make a terribly sensible decision, so I was willing to accept some risk to satisfy my curiosity.

HANDLING AND ERGONOMICS

There's not too much to say about the handling and ergonomics of the Z7 II. It has a comfortable grip and easily accessible buttons and command dials. If, like me, you were a Nikon user in the past, it feels familiar and a reminder that Nikon has a consistently good design; no point in fixing something that's not broken. I will say, though, that the X-H2 feels a little more comfortable. The X-H2 is taller, so my hand fills the entire grip profile. It feels more secure with slightly better ergonomics relative to the location of function buttons and command dials. Your mileage may vary. I do appreciate the slimmer profile of the Z7 II in my camera bag, however.

EVF

The X-H2 has a 5.7 million dot high refresh EVF, so I was expecting to be disappointed by the 3.69 million dot non-high refresh EVF on the Z7 II. Surprisingly, the difference was not significant. The EVF on the Nikon renders colors very nicely and I would say more accurately than the X-H2. The EVF is still better on the X-H2, but Nikon's seemingly more color accurate EVF helps narrow some of the differences.

THE LENS

While some may question my choice in buying the Nikkor 24-200mm, I was interested in reducing the overall amount of gear I carry. My Fujifilm lenses are great, but overtime I've grown to appreciate the idea of keeping things as minimal as possible while still achieving acceptable performance. Hence, super zooms. Reviews were generally positive about the Nikkor 24-200mm and the summary seemed to be as long as you kept your expectations reasonable, performance was above average. Overall, I found the lens to be excellent. Image quality softens towards the edges, which is to be expected, but it's not distracting, and images are tack sharp in the center to mid-frame. The lens isn't going to win any design awards, and the plastic housing and controls may not inspire a lot of confidence, but Nikon has a long track record of making excellent, dependable, super zoom lenses and the 24-200mm is no different.

Overall, I liked the Z7 II as a platform. It handles well, has good build quality, and a compact body design with excellent lens options. While there is a great deal to like about the Z7 II, it suffers from an unfortunate issue, EVF latency when using magnified live view.

EVF LATENCY

I'm going to plead ignorance here and say that I did not know that latency can be an issue with EVFs. A large part of that is because I have not yet had a camera where it's noticeable, until the Z7 II. If you're unfamiliar, when manual focusing in magnified live view, latency occurs between turning the focus ring and seeing the results updated on the EVF. When I first started using the Z7 II, I thought the latency was because of some viewfinder refresh setting, but the manual didn't reveal any such setting. I searched through photography forums and learned that EVF latency exists, and it can't be fixed. I recommend reading Jim Kasson's blog post where he measured the amount of latency; it's not insignificant.

I suspect my workflow is similar to a lot of other landscape photographers. I first use back-button autofocus and then confirm critical focus using magnified live view. If I need an adjustment, I use manual focus. I can't say the same for everyone, but I found myself second guessing critical focus often. You would think it would be evident through the EVF whether something is in focus or not, especially if you are using focus peaking, but the latency introduces this weird uncertainty to the whole process that's hard to describe. I more or less settled into a routine by manual focusing slower to allow the EVF to catch-up to the read-out speed, but the more I used the camera, the harder it was for me to ignore the issue.

There are clearly a lot of photographers out there that aren't nearly as bothered about this as I am, but I haven't been able to convince myself that I can ignore this issue and still happily use the Z7 II. In all other aspects, it's a wonderful camera, but this one issue ruins an otherwise good experience, which means, sadly, that the Z7 II is not the right camera for me.

The full-frame sensor, on the other hand, is a different story.

WHAT ABOUT THE FULL-FRAME SENSOR, THOUGH?

A full-frame sensor will have roughly a one stop advantage over an APS-C sensor, which lends itself to improved dynamic range and noise performance. On paper, this difference sounds insignificant, but in practice it is noticeable. Images from the Z7 II were simply better than equivalent images from my X-H2. While the X-H2 has great image quality, the extra latitude in noise, detail, and dynamic range from the full-frame sensor is something that the X-H2 can't quite match.

If you are an existing X-H2 user, or an APS-C user in general, you might be wondering if these improvements are significant enough to justify the extra expense (although the price difference isn't nearly as great as it used to be). In other words, are these improvements only noticeable at detail when zoomed into 100 percent or more? When comparing the images I took with the Z7 II and the X-H2 side-by-side, the Z7 II images were better, but would I have been able to tell the difference between them if I did not know what image was taken with what camera? That's a harder question to answer, but I will attempt to answer it by way of a quote I read in an article—I can't remember which one exactly otherwise I would attribute it here—about how chefs work in a kitchen.

When a chef is preparing a meal, the customer is not going to know whether the chef is using an expensive kitchen knife; the only thing that matters to the customer is whether or not the food is good. So, what purpose does the expensive kitchen knife serve? To the customer, nothing, but for the chef it might make work easier, or the chef might simply enjoy using an expensive kitchen knife. In other words, “it's more for the chef than the customer.” I think this applies equally to photography. A person looking at your photograph will likely not be able to tell if it was taken with a full-frame camera, but if using a full-frame camera provides you with the results that you want and only you can tell the difference, then that's what matters. In other words, sometimes it's more for the photographer than the viewer.

If you have been curious at all about a full-frame camera like me, don't do what I did and buy one. Rent one, instead. A week should be more than enough to decide whether or not it's worth it and if you feel that it is, that's good enough.

PARTING THOUGHTS

If it wasn't clear already, I'll be moving on to full-frame. The advantages are worth it. It will be sad to sell my Fujifilm gear, though. Since I've had cameras from different manufacturers over the years, I can't say that I have brand loyalty, per se, but Fujifilm certainly came close. While I understand the reasons why Fujifilm has never produced a full-frame camera (the GFX exists), it feels like a missed opportunity. I suspect we're unlikely to ever see one, but we're fortunate to have other compelling options to choose from. While the Z7 II wasn't the right camera, despite its brilliant sensor, I'll take the less impulsive route with the next one.