Sorry for the clickbait-y title.

I've recently purchased a Z7ii and I want to share my experience. Note: it's just my opinion.

I've shoot Nikon for a very long time. I've started with a D90 and went pro for 5 years as a side gig. I used mostly D800 and D810 bodies.

I've been a die hard, DSLR fan and prefered the ruggedness and brutal simplicity of them. Even though I've never actually tried a mirrorless apart for briefly handling them on expos and shops.

I've been that old man sat on a rock complaining about the news kids and their crazy gadgets. I contemplated the tough love a proper DSLR gives you and how good it is a teaching photography.

As a certified DSLR weirdo, I loved especially:

• The round eyesight of Nikon's D700 and D8xx series.
• The brutal, shotgun like sound of the shutter and mirror of Nikon D800. Much discretion, very silence.
• The taming required to understand how a specific camera meters and when it is garbage... to adapt and dial the right settings by instinct.
• The sheer size of a proper "pro" DSLR. "You could probably use this DSLR as a hammer".

(I'm probably far more moderate than that but you get the idea.)

But then, I got a Z7ii. And it changes everything.

The focusing is wild. Coming from a (albeit older, D810 is 10 years old) DSLR, it's night and day. Seriously. Especially from the D800 and it's cursed focus and sometimes crooked focusing system. Yes sure, Z8 or Z9 is probably streets ahead but come on, what a time to be alive.

I have a Sigma 35mm f/1.4 "Art" and each of my 4 DSLR bodies it was the most finicky lens to use. AF motor is not fast on this one. Shooting faster than f/3.2 was a bold move because it would always front/back focus. I've shoot weddings and I've had so much "technical rejects" because of this. Picture is great overall but focus pumped slightly and the nose is in focus and not the eye. I always had to shoot a ton to workaround this. Yesterday I just took pictures of a fast-moving-little-human and the tracking was almost perfect and face detection blew me away. Yes, it sometimes did not, but regular focus is just as good.

It's compact. I'm no longer a pro-photographer. I'm a dad now and I don't see any added value carrying around that big thing. I don't want to compete with the others dads at the zoo on "Who's got the biggest camera bag" (there is always this guy with a D6, and a 400mm and a tactical vest).

It not that much lighter but it feels like it. I always joked that my camera bag (Billingham Hadley Pro) was like Mary Poppins' bag because I could carry 4 lenses, a body and a bunch of things in it. Well, Mary's bag got even bigger.

It's so great with legacy Nikon gear. I don't have Z lenses. So I have the FTZ II adapter. It's great. It's seamless. And batteries. I have a bunch of EN-EL15 awesome that they are compatible.

It's awesome at manual focus. I'm the proud owner of a 135mm f/2 DC. Which is a "D" lense. So, no bueno on the AF with the adapter. This lens is great and I don't really want to sell it. I tried it and manual focus is so easy with the Z7. The focus relief highlight thing is cherry on the cake. The few shots I've done are even sharper than they would have been with the D810.

The image quality. Probably subjective. It's quite great at high lights. I don't know if it's the processing or the move from a CMOS to a BSI CMOS. I've shot some random scenes around my house, and quite a few would have the highlights clipped on the D810. It's hard to explain.

I was processing the pictures in Lightroom. My partner passed behind me as I was working on a picture shot against the light. "Wow, this is better" "The falloff is so smooth". We both ground our teeth on thousands and thousand of pictures from the DSLR when we shot professionaly and it was our immediate gut reaction. It's like it got some more stops of dynamic range. DxO mark tends to say they are quite similar in that regards. Maybe Adobe got better at calibrating over the years. I don't know. It's there.

So, the key takeaway here is: if I was on the market for a camera and wondered whether I should go for a great "pro", maybe older DSLR or a maybe-less-pro mirrorless. I would go for the mirrorless. The technology caught up, it's there, it's just better.

Yes, DSLR are great at teaching how to shoot and to meters and yada yada. But sometimes it sucks. Quite often actually.

Final word for good balance. My D810 is extremely predictable. No surprise, no quirks, no glitch. The Z7ii was a bit weird during my (short) time with it. Got a couple of glitches: it didn't detect my eye and EVF was dark (it's the rubber seal that was bent and in front of the sensor), face detect refused to detect a face slightly blocked by something. That being said, it probably require some taming as well.

EDIT : Mandatory picture of my cat. AF-cat-tracking is working.

EDIT2 : DSLR still got my love. I'll probaby sell my remaining D810 but will keep my first and quite beaten up D800. This one is quite seasoned (sprayed with salt water, carried in a sand desert...) but it's well born (its AF is not crooked) and I know it like the back of my hand.