Nikons Z50II is an updated version of its APS-C (or DX) format Z50 mirrorless camera, which appeared back in 2019. It’s designed to appeal to first-time camera buyers who have previously been using a smartphone, but now want to take a step up in terms of image quality and interchangeable lenses. It sits roughly alongside the retro-styled Zfc in Nikon’s line-up, although with the latest tech on board, it’s somewhat more advanced (and expensive). But does it supplant the Z50 as the best Nikon camera for beginners?

　　Nikon Z50II at a glance: $907 / £849 body-only $1047 / £999 with 16-50mm kit zoom $1297 / £1199 with 16-50mm and 50-250mm lenses 20MP DX-format CMOS sensor ISO 100-51,200 (standard) Up to 11fps continuous shooting 4K 30p video recording; 4K 60p with 1.5x crop 2.36m-dot, 0.68x EVF with 1000-nit brightness 3.2in, 1.04m-dot fully articulated touchscreen In many respects, the Z50II shares the same photographic specifications as its predecessor. However, it gains an updated body design, brighter viewfinder, much-improved autofocus, and more advanced video features. In line with the latest trend, it also has a dedicated button for accessing in-camera colour profiles, which Nikon calls Picture Controls.

　　The Nikon Z50II costs $907 / £849 body-only; $1047 / £999 with the Nikkor Z  DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR zoom; and $1297 / £1199 in a twin-lens kit that adds the Nikkor Z DX 50-250mm f/4.5-6.3 VR telephoto zoom. At this price point, it sits within a competitive sector that includes the Canon EOS R10, Fujifilm X-T30 II, Sony Alpha A6400, and Panasonic Lumix G97. It’s the most expensive of these cameras, but it includes the most up-to-date technology. So does that make it the best camera available for beginners?

　　Features While the Z50II employs essentially the same long-running 20MP DX-format sensor as the older Nikon Z50, it’s now powered by the same Expeed 7 processor as the firm’s latest full-frame models. This allows the camera to offer all the same autofocus options as the flagship Z8 and Z9, including subject detection and 3D tracking. But most of the major specifications remain unchanged.

　　As before, you get a standard ISO sensitivity range of ISO 100-51,200, with extended settings up to ISO 204,800 also available. Shutter speeds run from 30sec up to 1/4000sec, but it’s also possible to enable timed speeds of up to 15 minutes in M mode. This can be valuable for photographers who use deep neutral density filters.

　　Continuous shooting maxes out at 11 frames per second using the mechanical shutter,  increasing to 15fps with the electronic shutter. If you’re happy with JPEGs only, it’s possible to shoot at 30fps. Like many recent cameras, there’s also a pre-burst mode, which buffers frames continuously and then records them to card when the shutter button is fully pressed. 

　　As with Nikon’s other DX cameras, there’s no in-body image stabilisation. Instead, the Z50II is reliant on in-lens optical stabilisation. This is included in all of Nikon’s matched zooms, but none of the DX-format primes that are available in Z-mount. Electronic stabilisation is employed during video recording.

　　There are significant updates to both the viewfinder and screen. While the EVF has the same size and resolution as before, it’s twice as bright, at 1000 nits. Nikon says this is the brightest in its class, making it easier to see what you’re doing on bright, sunny days. Meanwhile, the rear screen now employs a conventional side-hinged fully articulated design, rather than just tilting up and down. 

　　Video recording is available in 4K at 60fps, albeit with a hefty 1.5x crop. Alternatively, it’s possible to record at 4K 30p from the full sensor width, downsampled from 5.6K readout. Full HD recording is on offer at up to 120fps. The Z50II also supports Nikon’s 10-bit N-log output profile for easier colour grading. It includes 3.5mm sockets for both a microphone and headphones, with the latter also being compatible with a new MC-DC3 cable release (£35).

　　Nikon has added a red tally lamp on the front to indicate clearly when the camera is recording. A new (for Nikon) ‘product review mode’ will focus on a product held up to camera, rather than the presenter’s face. The Z50II also works as a plug-and-play webcam without requiring any additional software.

　　Naturally Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are built-in for smartphone connectivity via Nikon’s SnapBridge app. This gives a choice between a simple Bluetooth shutter release and full remote control over Wi-Fi. You can also pull your favourite photos across to your phone for sharing, and even set things up so every single photo you take is copied to your phone automatically.

　　Nikon Z50II: Key features Picture Controls: A new button on top gives direct access to Nikon’s colour profiles, or “Picture Controls”. You can customise it to show only those that you want, and hide the rest.   SD card: The single SD card slot is in the battery compartment and supports high-speed UHS-II media. Battery: The Z50II uses the small EN-EL25a battery, which offers 230-250 shots per charge. It’s recharged in-camera using a USB-C PD supply . Connectors: One the left side you’ll find microphone, headphone/remote release, USB-C and micro-HDMI ports. All interfere with the articulation of the rear screen. Flash: As is common at this price point, but not in more expensive cameras, the Z50II has a small pop-up flash, released by a switch on the side for the viewfinder housing. Z-mount: There’s still relatively few DX-format autofocus lenses in Nikon Z mount at the time of writing: four zooms and a prime from Nikon, three f/1.4 primes from Sigma, and eight primes from Viltrox. Build and Handling Physically, the body has had a makeover with more attractive styling, which gives a more than passing resemblance to the full-frame Z6III. It also gains some extra buttons over the Z50, that bring its control layout more in line with its siblings. One subtle change is that Nikon has shifted the viewfinder unit forwards on top, which makes the design slightly more svelte, but brings the eyepiece closer to the screen.

　　At 127 x 96.8 x 66.5mm and 520g, the Nikon Z50II is one of the larger bodies in its class. But it’s still far from huge and, with the retracting 16-50mm lens on board, will fit into a small bag. You get a nice, deep handgrip and there’s space for plenty of external controls. The camera sits very nicely in your hand and feels perfectly well-made for the price.

　　You get a conventional DSLR-like shooting experience, with an exposure mode dial on top, electronic control dials under your index finger and thumb, and an 8-way d-pad on the back for moving the focus point. The mode dial is a bit loose, though, and several times I found it in an unexpected position when taking the camera in out of my bag. The d-pad works OK for moving the focus area, but it’s not as quick or precise as a joystick.

　　Rear controls have been revised, to give a closer match with the Z6III. The playback button has moved to the right side for easier access, and there are now physical buttons for display mode and image magnification, replacing the Z50’s unusual touch buttons. A new button on the left shoulder is used for setting the drive mode, while a pair of buttons on the front give direct access to autofocus settings and white balance.

　　A new button on top gives direct access to Picture Controls, with the camera also providing a clear on-screen preview of how each one looks. You can change various processing settings on the fly, including sharpening, contrast and saturation, with a nice clear viewfinder interface. This button also ties in with Nikon Imaging Cloud compatibility, which allows users to download custom picture controls and recipes from their favourite creators.

　　Three buttons lined up behind the shutter release are used to initiate video recording, change ISO, and set exposure compensation. However they’re all quite small and closely spaced, and indistinguishable by touch alone with the camera to your eye. I’d recommend that the first thing you should do is turn on Easy Exposure Compensation, which lets you use the rear dial to change this setting directly.

　　Other functions can be accessed by pressing the ‘i’ button, which brings up an onscreen quick menu that can be easily operated by touch. The main menus are also fully touch compatible and reasonably logically laid out. As usual, though, if you find yourself changing particular settings frequently, it’s best to add them to the customisable My Menu.

　　About the only aspect of the camera’s operation that I found a little annoying is that for many functions, including AF area/mode, drive mode, and white balance, you can’t simply press the requisite button and then spin the front or rear dials to change the setting, like on most cameras. Instead, you have to keep the button held down and turn the dial. This has the virtue of preventing accidental changes, but it also makes the camera slightly clunkier to use. 

　　Overall, though, the Z50II gives a reasonably pleasant shooting experience, with the main controls where you want them and most the major functions readily accessible. In this respect, it’s very similar to the Canon EOS R10, and much nicer than the Sony A6400. But it doesn’t quite have the same “pick me up and use me” charm as the retro-styled Fujifilm X-T30 II, or indeed its own stablemate the Nikon Zfc.

　　Viewfinder and screen One area where the Nikon Z50II shines is with regards to its viewfinder. It isn’t quite the largest in its class – that honour goes to the Sony A6400 – and it’s not most detailed either, with its 2.36m-dot panel being the same as its main competitors. But it’s strikingly bright, and Nikon’s image processing makes the scene in front of you look colourful and appealing, which positively encourages you to take photos.

　　Alongside colour, Nikon previews exposure across a +/- 3-stop range, and depth-of-field at apertures down to f/5.6. If you want to extend this to smaller settings, for example for close-ups or landscapes, you’ll need to assign Preview onto a function button.

　　You can display gridlines, a small live histogram, and electronic levels and combine them as you please across up to three screen layouts, switching between them using the DISP button.

　　Beneath the viewfinder, the LCD screen is a little larger than those on competing cameras, at 3.2in. In a welcome improvement over the original Z50, it now employs a fully articulating design that can face forwards for self-recording, as well as up or down for shooting at high and low angles in both horizontal and vertical formats. Again, it does a good job of accurately previewing your final image. Overall, it’s probably the best screen on any camera at this price.

　　Nikon Z50II: Autofocus Nikon’s recent full-frame cameras have gained a well-earned reputation for having an excellent autofocus system, and on paper, the Z50II inherits all the same features. You get the same broad choice of focus area modes, even including three custom options that allow you specify the width and height of the focus frame manually. The firm’s 3D tracking mode is built-in for moving subjects, too. Nikon makes it particularly easy to select between focus areas and modes (manual, single, or continuous) via a button on the front.

　　Click on any sample image to see the full-size version

　　No camera would be complete these days without  built-in subject detection. With the Z50II, this works for people, animals, birds, cars, and airplanes. Most of the time, you can happily leave the system set to auto, and the camera will recognise subjects and switch between the various types depending on what’s in front of it. But alternatively, you can tell the camera to focus exclusively on a specific type of subject, if you know that’s what you’re going to be shooting. Or you can switch off subject detection altogether, and use the conventional AF system instead.

　　I only had Nikons 16-50mm kit zoom and 24mm f/1.7 to hand for my review, so wasn’t able to test the autofocus as fully as I’d have liked. Naturally, it worked flawlessly with static subjects, as pretty much all cameras do these days. I also got good results with predictably moving subjects, such as oncoming vehicles.

　　If you’re shooting unpredictable high-speed action, though, it would be naïve to expect the Z50II to match the performance of the professional Z8 and Z9 with their super-fast stacked sensors, or even the Z6III with its partially stacked sensor. This is, after all, a camera that costs a fraction of the price.

　　However, it’s still on a different level to models like the Panasonic G97, Sony A6400 or Fujifilm X-T30 II, none of which include the same level of subject recognition. And while the Canon EOS R10 does have subject recognition, it lacks an auto mode. So overall, you’re probably getting the most advanced AF system in its class here.

　　Performance When you take the Z50II out and start taking photographs, you’ll quickly discover that it’s efficient and responsive, and never gets in the way of you shooting. There’s no waiting around for it to start up, with the camera ready to shoot the instant you flick the power switch. Likewise, there’s no hint of any operational lag using either the physical controls or the touchscreen.

　　Its pretty unobtrusive too, thanks to a mechanical shutter that operates with a quiet, low-pitched clack. You can also get the camera to be completely silent by delving into the Setup menu and engaging Silent mode. However, the electronic shutter is prone to both rolling-shutter distortion and colour banding under artificial light. So you’ll want to use this only when absolutely necessary. 

　　Looking at battery life, the Z50II’s CIPA rating is nothing to write home about, at just 230 shots using the EVF, and 250 with the LCD. I found that to be a realistic representation of what you can expect to get when shooting single frames, although as usual you’ll get a lot more shots from a charge when shooting bursts, especially with the electronic shutter. You can also top-up the battery from a powerbank via the camera’s USB-C port when you’re out and about. But as always, I’d certainly make sure I acquired a spare and kept it to hand.

　　When it comes to continuous shooting, Nikon’s headline numbers are pretty eye-catching, at up to 30fps. But this requires shooting JPEG-only with the electronic shutter, which is prone to rolling-shutter distortion. You won’t get close to that if you want to shoot raw and use the mechanical shutter for highest image quality. Nikon says you’ll then get 11fps, but try as I might, I could only persuade the camera to operate at 10fps in my testing. But to be fair, that’s still as fast as I’d usually like to shoot.

　　Its also worth noting that at 10fps, you don’t get live view between frames, with the camera instead playing back recently shot frames in the viewfinder to give an impression of what’s going on. But this makes it difficult to keep track of fast-moving subjects. If you want proper live view, the camera slows down to a more pedestrian 5.6fps. The buffer is very impressive, though, with the camera capable of shooting 16-second bursts at 10fps in JPEG and raw before slowing down. 

　　I found metering to be extremely reliable, and I only rarely found myself applying any exposure compensation, except for creative effect. In high-contrast situations, engaging the Active D-lighting option can be useful for balancing highlight and shadow areas more naturally. Nikon’s auto white balance is excellent too, if perhaps a little on the cool side (which to be fair, does a great job of emphasising blue skies).

　　By default, the camera selects automatically between its conventional colour processing modes, depending on the kind of subject. For example, with sunlit blue-sky landscapes, it’ll usually select Vivid mode. I really like this effect – it makes your images look punchy and saturated, but without obviously being overblown. The Standard mode also gives quite nice results, without being outstanding. For those who like to shoot in black and white, Nikon’s Deep Tone Monochrome is pretty special, too.

　　When it comes to the more ‘creative’ options available on the Picture Control button, though, I’m afraid they leave me somewhat cold. They’re mostly stylised colour filters with names like Dream, Morning and Pop. I’m sure some people will make good use of them, but to my mind they don’t have anywhere near the same charm as Fujifilm’s hugely popular Film Simulation modes.

　　You might be concerned that Nikon’s 20MP sensor won’t be able to capture as much detail as its 24MP or 26MP rivals. But in reality, there’s very little in it, with just a 10% difference in linear resolution between them. All are plenty good enough to make highly detailed A3 / 16 x 12in prints. And this sensor does offer very good high-ISO performance by APS-C standards. I was perfectly happy with my real-world images shot at settings as high as ISO 10,000, and even ISO 20,000 with AI noise reduction in raw processing.  

　　Raw files are also impressively malleable, allowing you to pull out clean detail from deep within shadow regions. Using Adobe Camera Raw, I found I could adjust the exposure and shadows sliders pretty much as I pleased when shooting at low ISOs. This means that in high-contrast situations you can easily under-expose by two or three stops to retain highlight details and then re-balance the  tonality in raw processing.

　　One thing we simply can’t ignore when talking about Nikon’s DX-format cameras, though, is lenses. The firm offers a perfectly good set of affordable entry-level options, including a 16-50mm standard zoom, 12-28mm wideangle, 50-250mm telephoto, 18-180mm travel zoom, and 25mm f/1.7 prime. But 5 years after Nikon released its first APS-C Z-mount camera, that’s your lot. If you want to step up to something more premium from Nikon, you’ll have to acquire ill-matched full-frame optics.

　　Having said that, the 16-50mm that comes with the camera is probably my favourite among basic APS-C kit zooms, for its combination of useful zoom range, decent optical quality and portability. You can get some very nice third-party autofocus primes, too, including Sigma’s f/1.4 DC DN range and a nice selection of primes from Viltrox. This is great if you want to add something Nikon doesn’t offer, for example a bright 16mm wideangle, or a 56mm for portraits. But while these lenses help make the Z50II a more attractive option, you can get them in other mounts too.

　　ISO and Noise Nikon has been using variants of this 20MP DX sensor for years, and it performs much the same here as in the likes of the Z50 and Zfc. It delivers clean, detailed images at ISO 100, with barely any loss in image quality on boosting to ISO 1600. Noise starts to degrade the image at higher settings when you examine images closely, but both ISO 3200 and ISO 6400 deliver perfectly usable results.

　　Beyond this, detail and colour saturation suffer noticeably, but even ISO 25,600 is usable, especially with AI noise reduction. ISO 51,200 is pretty sketchy, though, and I’d leave the extended settings well alone. 

　　Below are 100% crops at various ISOs from our standard studio, shot in raw and processed using Adobe Camera Raw at default settings. Click on any thumbnail to see the full-size image.

　　Nikon Z50II: Our Verdict There’s no doubt that the Nikon Z50II is a very capable little camera that offers the most advanced feature set in its class. It handles well and delivers attractive images in both JPEG and raw. Don’t be put off by the 20MP resolution, as that’s more than enough for most purposes, and there’s minimal practical difference compared to 24MP or 26MP. 

　　So why, then, did it leave me feeling a little cold? To be honest, that black plastic SLR-like design just doesn’t have the same charm as the likes of the Zfc or the Fujifilm X-T30 II. Also, the fact that Nikon has dedicated a button to Picture Controls doesn’t really help when I don’t particularly like most of what’s on offer. In the end, I pretty much just used it as a means of swapping between colour and black white.

　　The lack of any premium Nikkor DX lenses is also an irritation. If you’re happy with the idea of Nikon pushing you down an upgrade path that will inevitably involve switching to a larger, heavier and more expensive full-frame setup, you might be fine with this. But the fact is that much better APS-C lens systems are available elsewhere, from Sony and in particular Fujifilm. This gives you so much more room to grow as a photographer, without having to change format.

　　Ultimately the Nikon Z50II is still a very good camera that delivers very nice results. But, dare I say it, I found it just a little bit boring. My head tells me it’s the best in its class, but my heart would urge me to buy something more charismatic instead.

　　Follow AP on Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

　　Nikon Z50II full specifications: