The Z 30 – Simple, Small, Delightful!

The Z 30 has been part of my kit for some time now, bought it when it first arrived at Bedfords. I’ve not put it down since as it solved one of the biggest problems since I started shooting forty years ago. The one thing I lack in my files are literally photographs of me taking photographs! You see, I really hate being in front of a camera for many reasons, one being, seeing what the person is doing with the camera and knowing it isn’t going to turn out good. The other, I just don’t have the patience to have my picture taken. Another is I just don’t like the verticals the iPhone takes. Well, the Z 30 was made for me! I’m being 100% serious here, the “selfie mode” of the Z 30 is brilliant, simply brilliant! The portrait of me you see like on Twitter or AnyQuestion, I took those with the Z 30 with the selfie mode.

The Z 9 is still my primary camera which is why I have two of them but the Z 30 goes everywhere they go! With the Z16-50 attached, it slips right into my briefcase. When conditions work for that portrait, ya simply flip out the LCD monitor to the front so the lens and monitor are both facing you. That puts the Z 30 into selfie mode. Be it still or video, you depress the button, it counts down and click! It is literally that simple! For video, I have the Rode VideoMic NTG Camera-mount Shotgun Microphone which is perfect. It’s small, light, runs from the Z 30 and the perfect small mic for the selfie mode. The Z 30 does not have a EVF, you only have the monitor to frame your photo. With my reading glasses, I use the Z 30 at times as a landscape camera and it does the same great job as the Z 9 in this mode. The Z 30 is perfectly designed for its role in our photography. And now, forty years later, I have no excuse for BTS of me in the field!