After Nikon discontinued the Nikon D500 camera earlier this year, I decided not to wait for Nikon to come out with the D500 mirrorless equivalent. Instead, I ordered Nikon’s flagship mirrorless camera, the Z9. At the time, I figured I would not receive it for months. Much to my surprise, it showed up about a month later in early October.

The Nikon Z9 has a Z lens mount which is not compatible with Nikon’s FX or DX lenses which I own. Nikon knowing this developed an adaptor for their lenses which I am happy to report works perfectly. I did not notice any difference using the Nikon 80-400VR lens I used this past weekend then when I used it on a D500.

Being mirrorless, the Nikon Z9 does not have a physical shutter. Less moving parts is a good thing as I have had to repair a couple of my cameras in the past for shutter issues. The Z9 is also my first Pro body camera. No need for an extra battery grip, it is all built into the Z9’s body. The Autofocus (AF) technology is far and away more advanced than any camera I have used. I have been reading and watching many a youTube video in preparation for my first outing with it.

That outing came last weekend when I photographed a local High School football game. I was also lucky in the unusually warm and dry conditions so I did not have to worry about weather. It was a day game so I did not have to shoot crazy high ISOs either.

I learned a few things. The Nikon Z9 can shoot RAW images at 20 frames per second (fps) which is twice as fast as the D500 I am used to. The RAW images are much bigger as the Z9 has a 45 Mpix sensor size. Before I knew it I had shot nearly a 1,000 photos in the first half and over 50% of the 64GB card I had in the RAW memory card slot. Going to need a bigger card to mimic the famous line from Jaws. Without a shutter, the Z9 does have a sound for every shutter “click” but it was not very loud so I will need to increase it for the next time. Maybe it help me keep the number of shots down.