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Since first reviewing the Nikon Zf back in 2023, we’ve provided several updates to the review when firmware updates have come along. But after owning the camera for a few months, I’ve finally decided to use it with Profoto strobes. Strangely, I encountered problems. And when I did searches online, I found out that I’m not the only one. So with this said, our Nikon Zf review has received an update to reflect problems that are found online and that folks still don’t have solutions for in many cases.
Below is the updated text for our Nikon Zf review. For what it’s worth, I still think that the Nikon Zf is one the best cameras on the market today for it’s high ISO output, autofocus performance, build quality, ergonomics, and everything that it’s capable of doing.
Ease of Use Update April 2024
The other day, I tried using my Nikon Zf with my Profoto lights. Specifically, I own the Profoto B10 and the Profoto TTL-N transmitter. I was trying to do product photography for the site when I turned the shutter dial to high-speed sync mode. Immediately, something weird started to happen. The Nikon Zf wouldn’t trigger the Profoto TTL-N transmitter to fire consistently. Instead, it only intermittently happened. The camera has a sync speed of 1/200th — which isn’t even an option on the shutter speed dial. So, to get to 1/200th, you need to turn the dial to the 1/3 step setting and then use the camera’s standard front and back exposure dials accordingly.
This was odd, so I used all my knowledge of both Nikon and Profoto to see what was going on. I also did a quick Google search and found users on Reddit, DPReview forums, Youtube, and other places that have reported having this or similar issues. The most commonly reported issue is banding of some sort and not being able to set the view to not change when using a flash. That latter has been fixed and was an issue that has had some sort of fix since 2022 with the Nikon Z5. But in this case, the high speed sync (which Nikon calls Auto-FP) isn’t working.
The Nikon Zf also has an “X” mode on the dedicated shutter dial which locks the shutter speed to whatever you set it to in one of the flash menus.
I called the Phoblographer’s Nikon rep who took me through various settings to try to fix it:
- The camera was set to manual mode
- Auto FP was enabled
- The camera recognized that a flash was connected
- When the flash was triggered, we could see the effects of the flash on the scene. But the camera couldn’t set the flash off consistently.
- I changed the transmitter’s batteries because Profoto’s TTL transmitters have always had issues when the batteries run low
- My rep recommended that I use the electronic front curtain method. And that still didn’t solve the problem.
Granted, both of those Profoto units haven’t recieved firmware updates in years. But my lights and transmitters work with every other Nikon camera that has come into the Phoblographer’s offices for prolonged stays.
During the second day of trying to figure this out, I called Profoto. Our Profoto rep, who is well known and respected thoroughly throughout the industry, tried contacting two other people within the company. They didn’t have an answer either.
So after this, I went back to searching YouTube — and was treated with a video of a man absolutely wasting my time for 8 minutes.
There are many people who would say that I should be using a Nikon strobe; but frankly, I get the impression that Nikon cares about their flashes the way that health insurance companies in America care about their paying customers. This shouldn’t be happening. The camera is designed to be a type of photojournalism tool, and photojournalists, without a doubt, use high speed sync in various situations. To hammer that in even further, it shouldn’t be happening with Profoto lights — which are the industry standard across photo studios all around the world.
