Last year, I swore off APS-C cameras simply because with the way camera manufacturers do things, it’s easy to see how they really don’t care about the products. I mean, look at Sony for example. And that’s sometimes even the case with Fujifilm and Canon both. All the big, important updates typically come to the larger sensor cameras first. And so I switched from a Fujifilm X Pro 3 to a Nikon Zf to satisfy my love of retro ergonomics. Sure, I lost the optical viewfinder. But I’ve actually just bought a Nikon D850 in 2025 to remedy that. Still, there’s something about the Nikon system that’s starting to bug me.
On my Nikon Zf, I’ve used NikonPC to add a ton of new picture controls. After conducting an interview with the site’s creator, we found it to be a blessing in many ways. You can add many different picture controls to your camera. I eventually ended up adding in stuff like an Ektachrome look, the look of the 5D Mk II, Astia, and so much more. But therein lies the problem.
You can add all these profiles, but then you run out of space unless there’s in an NP3 file format. What’s more, you can’t reorder the picture control profiles at all.
I asked our rep at Nikon, who told us, “…you can edit the picture control and prioritize it as a custom.” That’s not quite the answer I was looking for since I can pretty easily re-order things on Canon, Sony, and LUMIX. It seems like such a small and easy fix that Nikon could add in instead of the flash control issue that we’ve spoken about for over a year now. When we recently wrote about that one, we found that there were a lot of you who also saw the same problem beyond what our YouTube, DPReview, and Reddit research showed us. There were probably two of you who said, “No Chris, you’re wrong.” And one of you was kind enough to go back, read the article again, and realize that I’m most likely right.
I’ve been an accredited journalist for nearly 20 years. And more importantly, I’m not a YouTuber or influencer working to please an algorithm. We had less sensational headlines for many years, and folks didn’t click. YouTubers and influencers made us need to adapt. But unlike many of them, if you click into our articles, you get exactly what you came for and exactly what we said we’re talking about.
And in this case, I’d be angry if I were a Fuji users switching to Nikon and I were using the profiles from Fuji X Weekly but couldn’t re-order them.
Nikon, you can fix this and not be greedy like Sony and Canon, who force you to buy a brand new camera to get the upgrades. The Nikon Zf is a wonderful camera for the cost. But this is surely one of its most annoying flaws.