Nikon Zf Firmware 3.0 - Film Grain, and so much more

Last night, Nikon dropped Firmware 3.0 for the Nikon Zf. While we knew that Film Grain was the main feature coming, I was pleasantly surprised by quite a few of the quality of life improvements. Below are the ones I am most excited for, and where to find them.

Film Grain

Menu > Photo (Camera Icon) > Film Grain Options

Nikon has finally given us not 1 but 18 options for fine tuning baked-in grain for our JPEG images. Of note, this setting lives somewhat outside of standard picture control settings, and applies to any active picture control you toggle to. You select a grain size (Small, Medium, or Large) and then select an intensity from 1 to 6. Play around with these 18 combinations to determine how lo-fi you want your final image to be, since you can never remove this type of grain later!

Framelines

D16 [Grid Type] for 4:3 and G14 [Grid Type] for 9:16

Added to our existing list of framelines are now 4:3 and 9:16 for still and video respectively. This is exciting because 4:3 for stills is becoming more and more desired as it matches the aspect ratio of medium format 44x33 sensors. 9x16 will help you frame up vertical content for social media as well.

Max Aperture Liveview

A13 > Set to ON

Max Aperture LV will permanently set your lens to its widest aperture during composition and live view. This allows for more light to hit the sensor for better autofocus acquisition and stickiness. Of course, your final photo will be at whatever aperture you have set, so make sure to inspect your photos once in a while to ensure the depth of field is what you want it to really be!

Focus Limiter

A15 > Set to ON and set Nearest and Farthest distances either manually or with Autofocus)

Focus Limiter can be thought of like Zone focus but with autofocus…you are telling the camera to only release the shutter and focus between certain pre-set distances. This is very handy if you are stationary, shooting a scene and waiting for a subject to enter from outside the frame. You are ensuring your focus will not rack anywhere where you don’t want it to, increasing your keeper rate.

Exposure Compensation and ISO on command wheels

G2 (Set Command Wheels)

This allows us to now control exposure compensation and ISO values with the front and back wheels in video mode while shooting in full Manual mode…a very nice addition that doesn’t require us fiddling with the top dials!

Camera Sounds

Setup > Set to ON (Pick Sound and Volume)

We now have the added option for shutter release sounds when using electronic shutter modes like high speed burst and pixel shift! Select your sound and volume in the menu.

Focus Peaking Only While Magnified

A12 > Only During Zoom > Set to ON

Folks with unchipped manual lenses will love this…you can now have focus peaking ONLY active while magnifying the image…now you can freely compose your scene without the shimmering of focus peaking blocking your view…punch into mag to confirm focus, and exit to confirm your composition before capturing the photo. Great add!

Imaging Cloud Recipe Download Improvements

Nikon has trimmed down the steps to get their approved Nikon Imaging Cloud recipes to your camera…now it’s only a 2 step process. It does appear that your camera may need to be re-registered with Imaging Cloud after applying Firmware 3.0 however.

Non-CPU Lens Aperture Bug Fix

There was a widely reported bug that Non-CPU Lens slots 18 and 19 would not display aperture correctly for unchipped lenses…that has been fixed!