Nikon Wedding Photography Summit 2024: Falling in love with Nikon cameras in Lanzarote

Nikon Wedding Photography Summit 2024

I am still completely baffled as to how I was lucky enough to be invited by Nikon to their Wedding Photography Summit in Lanzarote. I shoot with Canon cameras, but I’m not one of those photographers who are blindly brand loyal – ‘a Canon man, I see?’ some wedding guest might mention in passing to me. Nah, I don’t consider myself to be of a particular allegiance.

I teach photography with amateurs and enthusiasts with the Royal Photographic Society, Croydon Adult Learning & Training & Bromley Adult Education among others, and I know my way around Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fuji and other camera brands. I’ve always admired Nikon cameras, and particularly their lenses, as both Canon and Nikon make amazing cameras with everything that professional photographers may need at the touch of a button.

Throughout my professional wedding photography career, my camera kit has evolved with my style, and I’ve hunted down the next lens or lighting kit I wanted to push my photography further. Now, with almost all the kit I’ve ever wanted safely tucked into my camera back, I’m almost at a crossroads on where to go next, what will make my images better?

Nikon Wedding Photography – using the new Nikon Z8

The new Nikon Z8 was my camera of choice at the Nikon Wedding Photography Summit, the Z9 being way too bulky for me and more built with sport photography in mind. The lack of a mirror system, means that mirrorless cameras are lighter, giving us hard working wedding photographers a bit of light relief! The Nikon Z8 is hailed as on of the best mirrorless cameras, and it certainly felt amazing to work with once I got to grips with all the buttons and features. Shooting with them in the glorious Lanzarote weather was wonderful.

I was particularly impressed with the autofocus system, paired with eye detection mode, and I loved how customisable everything was in the autofocus, I was able to switch between modes of focus very quickly and easily thanks to Nikon’s customisable FN buttons. I was also blown away by the cameras dynamic range, and how much I could push the tones in post production, paying careful attention to getting the right histogram during image capture.

I even had a lot of fun shooting on the DX format with a 70-200mm lens, testing it out on a local parakeet, and even cropping further on the powerful 45.7 megapixel stacked CMOS sensor, the quality of the shot was incredible. I also experimented with the ISO performance at higher ISO settings, such as 6400 and it stood up against what I’ve seen from the fierce competition in ISO game from Canon and Sony.

Nikon Z 135mm f1.8 S Plena Lens

The Z8 along with a range of professional Z lenses, offered a fantastic opportunity to experiment at the Nikon Wedding Photography Summit. While I used various lenses, the 50mm Z f1.2 and 85mm Z f1.2, with their extraordinary bokeh and sharpness were magnificent to work with. I also absolutely fell in love with the new Nikon Z 135mm f1.8 S Plena Lens it was incredibly sharp, even shooting wide open at F1.8.

This was my favourite lens, and one I do not own the Canon equivalent of. Most of these are shot at F1.8 and the sharpness achieved even at this wide aperture is stunning.

Nikon Wedding Summit – La Isla Y El Mar, Lanzarote

Massive thanks to Nikon Europe’s invitation to the Nikon Wedding Photography Summit 2024. It was a privilege to meet so many talented photographers working at the top of their game and try out Nikon’s professional Z cameras and lenses.