What’s the single most important innovation in the new Nikon ZR?

The Nikon ZR is interesting for all sorts of reasons. For a start, it’s the first time Nikon and RED tech has been combined in a camera after Nikon acquired the RED cinema camera brand in 2024. That’s significant in many ways, not least because the ZR now incorporates RED’s own colour science and raw codecs. But that’s not it.

Also interesting is the fact that this is a serious filmmaking tool that costs about the same as the Nikon Z6 III it’s based on. Normally, pro video/cinema gear comes with a hefty price premium, but not this time. Canon and Sony (Fujifilm too) already offer powerful, video-first cameras for filmmakers at prices regular consumers can afford, and now Nikon has a strong (a very strong) contender in this growing market too. But I don’t think that’s the ZR’s key innovation either.

And while the on-board 32-bit float audio is a first and should make audio level setting unnecessary, I don’t think it’s this either, since you can often get 32-bit float audio in the kind of external audio that pro videographers frequently use anyway.

For me, it’s the 4-inch 3.07m dot screen on the back. Now it’s not as big as the 5-inch screen on Blackmagic’s Pocket Cinema cameras, but it’s a huge leap forward from the pitiful 3-inch screens on the ZR’s rivals. These are a real hangover from stills photography, where a 3-inch screen is fine because the camera is usually right in front of your face anyway.

But video is different. If you’re filming yourself, the camera will be some distance away and a 3-inch screen will look so tiny that you’ll be able to check the framing but not your expression, the focus or any other kind of detail. Or if you’re filming but also operating a boom arm, or holding up cue cards or directing the action, you’ll often be some distance from the camera here too. On regular hybrid cinema cameras, you’re almost certainly going to need an external recorder, not just for better codecs or raw capture, but to have a screen you can actually see properly.

The Nikon ZR’s 4-inch screen isn’t big enough to fix that completely, but it does show that Nikon has actually put in some thought and design effort and not just bolted on a generic 3-inch screen straight from the parts bin.

It’s not just the specifications that make a camera good or bad, but the physical design too, and how well adapted it is to the needs of those who will use it. (So maybe we’d better not mention the ZR’s annoyingly amateur micro-HDMI port – ahem.)