MAJOR UPDATE MAKES NIKON Z9 A TRUE VIDEO POWERHOUSE

Nikon takes the fight to Canon and Sony with new file format and lots more

The Nikon Z9 was already one of the best cameras for stills photography - and now a major firmware update has made it, on paper at least, the most powerful flagship around for video, too.

The firmware v.2.0 update, which is available now as a free download, adds an impressively lengthy list of new features, including video boosts that (on paper) nudge it ahead of the Sony A1, Canon EOS R5 and Canon EOS R3.

The update includes a new raw video format, called N-Raw, that enables the Zg to shoot 12-bit raw at up to 8K/60p internally, without hobbling your workflow with storage demands.

This is because, according to Nikon, N-Raw files squeeze all that image information into a file that's about half the size of an equivalent ProRes Raw HQ file. If you prefer to edit in the likes of Final Cut Pro, then there's also the option of shooting in the ProRes Raw HQ format, although only up to 4K/60p.

Perhaps more useful for everyday video shooting is the new ability to shoot oversampled 4K/60p video. Oversampling uses a sensor's native resolution (in this case 45.7MP) and uses that extra data to produce a 4K image with more detail (and less noise) than a cropped 4K frame.