Not that it ever wasn't, really, but...After many years of crop-sensor cameras, I went full frame in ~2018 with the Nikon D750. It's a great camera, though I didn't use it much during the pandemic. The full frame lenses are really heavy, though, so photography felt like more like work instead of recreation.

A few months ago, I became a professional photographer, using the D750 and a Sigma 14-24 2.8 Art to do real estate photography. That setup has been great, no major issues, but if something happened to the body or the lens, I had no backups. And while it's still a capable camera, the D750 is a bit long in the tooth these days. In particular, its video capabilities are just not up to what my clients want (4K 60fps).

Last month, I bought a Nikon Z8 with the adapter so I could still use the Sigma F-mount lens. Then, last week, I bought the Nikon 14-24 Z lens to go with it. I've taken nearly a thousand pictures with the Z8 + Sigma lens, but almost all were for my real estate work.

First...wow, this is a light lens. It's unbelievable how light it is. The Sigma is 1,140 grams, or 2.5 lbs. The 14-24 Nikon Z is 650 grams, or 1.4 lbs. The difference is astounding. It's like going back to my D7000 with the 18-140 DX lens (490 gram, 1.1 lbs), but having a high quality, full frame 2.8 lens. It's easy to hold and handle.

Second, I love the results, so far. The picture is from Niagara Falls, and the haze you're seeing is mist from the waterfall. There's a nice rainbow at the bottom. The observation tower on the right is clearly distorted, but that's a normal artifact for a wide angle lenses. I'll play with Darktable some more to see if I can get it any better.

I'm really liking the Z8. It's faster than the D750 - first, picture taking is faster, because it doesn't have the mirror to move for every shot, and it doesn't have a mechanical shutter. But it's faster in other ways, too, like being better at focusing, especially in low light situations (i.e., it's better at finding focus, so I spend less time playing with the focus point location). Those things are only a few seconds per shot, but that does add up over the course of a shoot; even a few minutes of buffer can really help if traffic or other issues interfere with my schedule.

I think my wife was a little annoyed with me this week. I have a 24-70 2.8 and a 70-200 2.8, both in F mount, so I brought the D750 and have been using the 24-70 on that body, while the 14-24 Z has stayed on the Z8. There have been times I've been swapping between cameras, and at one point, I had both slung around my neck. Hey, it's nice not having to swap lenses around and worry about the FTZ adapter.