Nikon Z 9 – Action in the Desert!

From cars and flames and sunsets to leaping into the vast blue sky. Vegas based athlete/performer Will Credell did great stuff out in the big nothing of the desert, from fashion to running leaps to a shot like the banner above. For that banner shot,I told him to think of it as an ad for a new cop show on TV.

Wide angle, one light pic, with Will vaulting off of braced apple boxes, as the sun plunged toward the horizon. Kept it simple out there, as I wanted to do so much in the short time I had the camera.

The camera is a game changer for me, and, I suspect, lots of photogs. I’ve always had a division of labor in my camera locker. D5 for action and toughness, D850 for studio and hi res, D500 for knock around. Same thing continues in the mirrorless world. The Z6 II is fast and has great low-light capability whereas the Z7 II is more for high res, portraits, and the like.

Now, everything lives under one roof, called the Z 9.

Raw flash used for these, to match the blazing sun. This set was shot around midday, with the sun well behind Will. Lots of previous cameras would have struggled to find the eye in that sort of backlight. The Z 9 was unerring. And I worked the new 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 like crazy. Great sharpness, and great versatility. Never moved my camera position during this fashion stint.

Using the same glass, I flipped to a running sequence, and then a portrait series.

Will was wonderful in front of the camera. There wasn’t any look I asked for that he didn’t deliver on. The whole desert crew was phenomenal, including first assistants Casey Mathewson and Kyle Thompson, director/cinematographer Andrew Tomasino, sound mixer Jason Mangini, field producer/digital tech M.D Welch, and pyrotechnic effects director René Diamonte running a well oiled production pieced together by the intrepid Lynn DelMastro over a period of about six weeks. Lynn had to drill through BLM permits, fire permits, insurance forms, COVID delays and protocols, transit to the desert…the endless to-do list of the producer. She then entrusted Reno-based photographer M.D Welch with all her careful prep and planning, and he marshaled our desert efforts in amazing fashion. The producers on jobs like these aren’t sung of too often, but without the details being hammered out fully and finally, you can find yourself out there with nothing to shoot.

It was great fun with the crew and M.D managed to quietly grab a bit of BTS…showcased in his IG feed

We made a quick cut from the terrific behind-the-scenes video that Andrew Tomasino shot (and edited by Dalton Tokarczyk) to demonstrate the Z 9 AF since there have been a lot of questions!