Nikon Z System Option to Leave d8 Settings On with Strobes

I had been using a D800 + a Z6 for my assignments for a while now, but when the D800 decided to have an early retirement on its own earlier this year (read mirror box started to fail after 8 years of service), I have then since moved on to the Z-bodies completely.

A pair of Z6’s accompany me for most of my shoots, with a Z7 joining in the fray when high resolution images are required.

To be honest I am really pleased with my current set-up. The speed of the cameras (thanks to the XQD/CFexpress cards), live view exposure previews, and autofocus accuracy have all improved my shooting efficiency and workflow.

But there’s just one issue that bugs me a little while using it in the field - the custom setting d8 (Apply Settings to Live View) is automatically turned off when an active TTL-enabled flash is detected in the hotshoe. This is useful when using studio strobes since we’re stopping down the lens and shooting with settings such that ambient light does not affect the images, but when out on location shoots, this automatic turning off of the d8 option makes it very hard to use flashes in conjunction with ambient light.

An example would be a heavily backlit scene. I would usually dial in my exposure for ambient atmosphere, then add the flash as fill light. However the moment the flash is switched on, d8 will be automatically turned off, and I can no longer preview the ambient exposure that I set. Furthermore, at times the automatic brightness adjustments will cause my subject to be so dark that, even the autofocus system starts to get wonky.

If someone from Nikon is reading this, I just hope that you could do a quick firmware upgrade to have 3 options for d8 (On, Off, Auto), with Auto being the current situation whereby a detected TTL flash will turn d8 off, and On and Off options will be persistent settings regardless if a flash was attached or not. This would be really helpful for many of us!