I love cameras, and with that comes the awful realisation that I will never own all the cameras. At some point you have to make a decision about what gear you actually need, and what's a nice-to-have.

I've either owned or rented the top-end cameras in every current mirrorless platform, and as of the summer of 2026 I have finally settled and made a decision: Nikon Z mount is the only one that makes sense for me.

Now I always seem to get angry responses when I criticise equipment over on YouTube, but as nobody will likely read this article I can summarise the current market as such:

Canon

Canon's R5II is an excellent camera with a frankly pants lens ecosystem. I've been wholly unimpressed by the Canon RF lenses I've tried, especially when it comes to features vs price. That Canon continues to remove weather sealing from any lens under £1000 is mental, considering Chinese companies are now offering such features for very little. Canon's autofocus is, at least, very good and equal to Nikon's for my use-cases.

I rented the 28-70mm f/2 L lens, supposedly one of their top models and intended for things like wedding photography. It just isn't very sharp - at distance it falls off massively. Lens design is about compromise but other companies are putting out better optics right now. For their long telephoto primes Canon just rammed a mount adapter onto their DSLR lenses, whereas Nikon redesigned them from scratch. It just smacks of the comfortable laziness of having a huge marketshare.

Sony

Oh boy. I had a lot of angry responses when I criticised Sony's autofocus last year but I stand by it. Sony makes unergonomic, boring cameras, with extremely irritating autofocus quirks. Sony has a huge influencer system and it shows - there's a lot of people around who rave about their cameras but very few who push them to the limits. And it's such a shame as their technology is excellent, but the tradeoffs make no sense to me; you can have the fastest burst rates with the highest resolution but it's worth nothing when the AF just picks a tree and sticks on it forever.

Sony does have the best lens ecosystem, albeit with what, in the long term, will be the most limited mirrorless mount due to its size and flange distance.

L-mount (Panasonic, Leica, Sigma)

Now we get to my pet frustration: why on earth is there no professional-grade camera in the L-mount system? And by "professional", I mean one that is competitive with Nikon's Z9 - of which nothing in L mount is. The Leica SL series is fine if you're only into portraiture, but the lack of speed is a problem for me. Same with Panasonic, and that's by design: both companies use the same feeble processor that hobbles the throughput on their cameras. 70 FPS burst rates are pointless when it takes 2 minutes to clear them to the memory card.

Sigma are doing their own thing, as usual, and I'll always have time for them. I do own a Bf after all. If only they'd bring out a high-end camera, they'd probably do a decent job of it.

L-mount has an excellent lens selection, which makes the lack of pro-level cameras all the more infuritating. I've recently divested myself of much of my L-mount gear, having finally given up on the system as a professional platform.

Fujifilm

I can always be tempted by a Fujifilm camera, but when I previously owned an X-H2S I did break it remarkably quickly. If I concentrated on a smaller subset of disciplines, I'd probably be quite happy in the X mount.

Similarly, the GFX system is tempting, but when you look at the prices of the cameras and lenses and compare them to a full-frame system, they don't really make sense for me. The lack of a fast camera means I'd still need something else to go with it.

Micro Four Thirds (OM System, Panasonic)

I have a lot of time for the M43 system, as there are some huge advantages regarding weight, size, and things like macro capabilities. However as an all-around system for me, considering my wide variety of work and particularly my low-light requirements, it unfortunately doesn't make sense as a system for me right now.

Too many people dismiss the system based on the size of the sensors, but I still maintain that the OM-1 II is the best birds-in-flight camera, the best macro camera, and probably the best all-around travel and adventure camera on the market.

Nikon

And so we come to Nikon. What camera do I take with me when I'm on a job? Photographing fast-flying birds? Up a mountain in the snow? It's the Z9, of course. Though I do have a few minor quibbles:

1. The lack of another camera in the Z mount that I liked (aside from the Z6 III, which broke)
2. The lack of Sigma lenses on Z mount
3. The lenses have no design panache, even if they're excellent
4. The Z6 III sensor issues kinda dulled my enthusiasm for a bit
5. The switches are still a bit sticky after I spilt beer on it

Now #2 may eventually get resolved, but I recently resolved #1 myself by just buying a Z8. It's the Z9 but smaller, so it's pretty much perfect. Why had I not done this before? Well, primarily because of YouTube. If the Z8 has one failing, for that use-case, it's that it doesn't have a screen that flips out for filming yourself. Otherwise I'd have bought one ages ago. As I've drastically reduced my filming for YouTube and changed how I approach videos in future, it finally made sense to switch.

There's a lot to like about Nikon's revitalisation in the Z-mount era:

1. They've been listening to customers
2. They've been publishing constant firmware updates
3. They've opened up repair manuals and parts for DIY repairs
4. The Z mount lenses they've put out are phenomenal, if rather huge
5. The Z9 is a tank, and behaves predictably

And that last one is probably my main point of this article - it behaves predictably. The Z9 is the most predictable mirrorless camera I've used, and that's what I want from a professional camera body. It's all well and good having the latest natty features, but I want to know what the camera is going to do when I'm using it. If I'm photographing a wedding, I want to know how the autofocus will behave and how to recover it if it goes wrong. Nikon has made this easy and reliable, and they've clearly built off decades and decades of experience building professional equipment.

The 24-70mm f/2.8 II is easily the best zoom I've ever owned

It helps too that the Z mount lenses are some of the finest ever made, and with such a sensible product lineup. The 24-70mm f/2.8 II is ridiculously good, and their range of reasonably affordable f/1.8 S series primes has no equivalent on most other platforms. It makes for a professional platform for people across many budgets, not just at the high-end.

When I take the Z9 or Z8 somewhere, I don't worry about the camera being unable to cope. Low light? Great. Action? Great. Random lights in a venue running at 45hz instead of 50hz for some reason? No problem. They are cameras for people who need to deliver work.