I've had this on off relationship with the Nikon Df. This is the 3rd. one I've bought. I sold the first two and always regretted it. It is a 16MP full frame camera and for me has the sharpest images of any Nikon camera I've used. It never got a good press when it was released, which I really didn't understand because of that wonderful image quality. 16MP really doesn't matter as when run through Photoshops Super Resolution function the image quality is still outstanding.
It is of course a DSLR, a soon to be extinct kind of camera,which is sad to see. I see no reason to make every camera mirrorless personally as I like using DSLR's, but I fear I am in the minority. The whole DSLR / F mount lens range seems to be phased out as far as Nikon is concerned is not a move to better cameras as far as I'm concerned And while the Z9 is a fabulous camera, there are those of us who still love that DSLR 'clunk'.
Regarding the Df it seems however that it is still valued by many photographers. You have to pay £1000+ to get one of these S/H, which is what I paid for the above camera. However it had a very low shutter count and looks mint, ao I'm hoping it will keep going for a while. I love the non electronic viewfinder and the phenomenal battery life. However there are a couple of issues.
The grip is awful. However as you can see I have a couple of grips for the camera, which I managed to hunt down on the internet. So now it handles fine. Another problem is that the info. bar in the viewfinder doesn't work great in bright sunshine, as it's very difficult to see. Yesterday I was working with the voigtlander 90mm f/2.8 sl ii-s apo-skopar nikon f mount lens and using the Nikon green dot manual focusing method had some problems. I did get great results, but it wasn't easy.
It is every camera manufacturers interest to keep us buying new cameras and not keep using the old stuff. However too often we miss the quality that some older cameras give is and newer is not always better. Nikon have never released a Df2 and I don't think they ever will. Their retro offering is now the Nikon Z fc. Now I have one of those as well (post coming soon) and it's a fabulous camera with a number of third party retro lenses which are great fun to use.
The Df is, as far as Nikon are concerned redundant, partly based on the undeserved negative reviews it got. Once bitten twice shy. However the camera obviously has it's fans because of it's high S/H price. And I am definitely one of those. It's (mostly) fun to use and I'm always blown away by the superb images it produces. (It's great in low light as well) So I'm planning to keep this one.
