Learn How and When to Use Pixel Shift Shooting

Pixel Shift Shooting is a feature of the Nikon Z8 that was introduced in Firmware 2.0 (and it shipped with the Nikon Zf). Depending on how you configure it, Pixel Shift Shooting can generate 180-megapixel raw files with better colour reproduction and reduced noise. Sounds like a no-brainer for every shot, doesn’t it?

Well, things are rarely that easy in the world of landscape photography. With Pixel Shift Shooting there’s the risk of too much subject movement during capture (yes, the landscape does move!), there’s the additional storage space required for all the individual raw files, and there’s the additional post-processing required to create a single merged file. Even after all that, does it really make deliver you a better file to process for your landscape photograph?

I was curious to find out if this was just a headline grabbing feature or something of genuine use to the landscape photographer. So, in this rather long video I head out on location to show you how to capture a Pixel Shift sequence, then how to merge the sequence in post-processing to create a .NEFX file, and then I’ll look at the results to see if I can really notice any difference.

I hope you enjoyed this video, and you found the information useful. As I said in the video, I wouldn’t use Pixel Shift Shooting for all my landscape photographs (it has limitations), but the important thing is to know how it works and more importantly when to use it. It’s another tool at my disposal and one that I’m sure to use again in the future.