Nikon Z9, Z8 LCD Monitor Lag Measurements

Nikon claims that there is virtually zero lag between live action and what is seen through the viewfinder or the rear monitor of the Z9 and Z8 cameras. Since I’ve seen too many disconnects between claims and reality, I decided to verify the assertion that the monitor is actually real-time.

I used a variety of stopwatches, including an app on my cell phone to act as the time reference. Each timer has a resolution of 0.01 seconds, which is good enough for what I wanted. The wristwatch stopwatches are more difficult to use, because their displays are a bit harder to read and the digits are smaller. I ended up resorting to use of my "tilt" lens to get a focus plane that could manage focus on the stopwatch and camera monitor at the same time.

I thought I’d also measure an older camera, the Nikon D7100, and my best DSLR, the Nikon D850. These cameras are known to have a time lag with their monitors.

In each test, I activated the stopwatch and then took several photos with both the stopwatch and the camera rear LCD monitor in the shot. The time lag of the camera viewfinder is rumored to be better than the monitor, but I couldn’t devise a good way to capture the viewfinder image. Since it’s a lot easier to photograph the camera monitor than its viewfinder, I stuck with the monitor. I have my viewfinder configured with “High fps viewfinder display” ON to get 120Hz viewfinder refresh, but there isn’t any such setting for the LCD rear monitor. The default viewfinder refresh rate on the Z9 and Z8 is 60Hz, which uses slightly less battery power.

Lots of test shots were thrown out, because the phone screen refresh would place a black rectangle where the stopwatch digits were located. My phone has a screen refresh rate of 120Hz. The wristwatch stopwatches were often unreadable, because the display was in-between activating all of the segments making up each digit.

Nikon Z8 viewing a stopwatch: no lag about half of the time

Nikon Z9 looking at a phone stopwatch: no lag

Z9 monitor lagging behind the stopwatch by 0.07 seconds

After taking many photos of the stopwatch and the Nikon Z9 monitor, I took the data and plotted it in Excel.

Nikon Z9 LCD monitor time lag measurements

About half of the time, the camera monitor shows zero time lag. It’s interesting to note that the non-zero time lag data was consistently either 0.06 or 0.07 seconds. Even the 0.07 second time lag would be imperceptible to the photographer.

Nikon Z8 using a different wristwatch with stopwatch

I used a few different timing mechanisms with the Nikon Z8 for comparison. Just like the Z9, about half of the Z8 tests showed no measureable lag on the monitor, within 1/100 second. The wristwatches have an accuracy of 1/100 second.

When I tried the same experiment with both the D7100 and D850 cameras, their monitor time lags were always either 0.06, 0.07, or 0.13 seconds. Neither DSLR seemed better or worse in their monitor response times. These cameras can’t keep up with the Nikon Z9 (or Z8); they never displayed a zero-lag result.

Summary

Although I have shown that there is often a time lag between live action and the Nikon Z9/Z8 monitor image, it’s truly minimal. The viewfinder update specifications are at least as good as the rear LCD monitor for both the Nikon Z8 and Z9.

Nikon’s claims are accurate: you won’t notice any lag between real-life and the electronic display. All bets are off when you get into slow shutter speeds, however.