[ad_1]
While Nikon has no shortage of admiring users and fans, the company has also been overshadowed by some of its rivals.
This may have changed a bit at this year as the camera maker racked up several awards through different events for the quality of its devices and technology.
For starters, there were the TIPA Awards, at which Nikon snapped up four different prizes. These were quickly followed by the Red Dot Design Awards, in which the brand won four more awards.
At the 2024 TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) Awards, Nikon and Sony both did twice as well as Canon for the quality of their imaging products. Nikon itself was given two awards for its cameras and two others for its lenses.
Specifically, the Nikon Zf was named Best Full Frame Expert Camera while the Nikon Z8 was awarded as the Best Full Frame Professional Camera.
The Nikon lenses that got a prize were the Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8S Plena, which was named Best Professional Portrait Lens and the huge Nikkor Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR as this year’s “Best Super Telephoto Zoom Lens.”
Almost a month after these victories at the TIPA Awards, Nikon competed in the Red Dot competition and won four prizes again.
Curiously, three of these were for the same exact products as those that gave Nikon prizes in the TIPA Awards.
Thus, the camera maker was given a prize for its Zf camera and its Z8 camera, and lens awards for its Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8S Plena and its Nikon Z 600mm f/6.3 VR S. Note that this last lens is different from the 600mm model that got awarded at TIPA.
In case you’re wondering, here’s a quick breakdown of what each of the three double winners has going for it to merit being awarded twice in two different competitions.
The Nikon Zf
Nikon’s Zf has a distinctly retro design that belies its very sophisticated internal workings for making it a top-shelf mirrorless full-frame camera.
Since being released in October of last year, this model has become one of Nikon’s best sellers, possibly due to exactly that combo of retro style and serious performance. It features a 24.5MP sensor along with an Expeed 7 processor for extremely precise AF.
The Nikon Z8
Nikon’s Z8 went on sale in May of last year and offers a particularly solid package of features from the brand’s flagship Z9 but with a more compact body and a considerably lower price.
This is a 45MP full-frame pro camera with a stacked CMOS sensor with notably great image quality and excellent shooting speed. It also offers up superb dynamic range.
You could argue that there are better full-frame cameras with similar sensor size and features on the market from other brands, but it’s easy to understand how the Z8 could have won against them.
Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena
Nikon’s Nikkor Z 135mm f/1.8 S Plena lens is the camera maker’s flagship portrait glass. It’s designed to deliver superb image quality and excellent, soft depth of field. Internally, it comes with an 11-bladed rounded aperture for achieving the above performance.
Notably, this lens’s 135mm focal length and f1/8 aperture deliver strong subject separation for a particularly high portrait photography quality.
While it might seem a bit odd that Nikon should win top prizes at two different major awards just weeks apart from each other for the three same products, it’s plausible. The cameras and lens in question are all genuinely superb.
[ad_2]
