Where to go on a trip as Belgium and Europe swim in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic? Government signals are constantly flashing between orange and red (and I’m colourblind!), the temperature checks entering the country and now we are forced to leave our contact details at restaurants. We must certainly flee, but where? This is the question I tried to answer for a week, during which I traveled in my own country into the realm of the absurd with an "Atlas Obscura" as my only compass and my dear Nikon Z7 as my only companion. I avoided the Belgian coast, the Grand-Place, the Château de Bouillon and other high places of national tourism to immerse myself in a world almost empty of tourists and masked vacationers in search of freedom and freshness.

Let me introduce my sweet road companion

I’m in love with my Nikon D850 which is so far the best camera ever made I think. So when Nikon Belgium generously put their new Z7 camera in my hands I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew that (in general) mirrorless camera have less battery autonomy, were more fragile and possibly more instable.

But the new Z7 was light and it looked god damn' cool with it’s dry fairing. It’s a kind of mix between
modernity and vintage.

I started by walking around in my neighbourhood in the countryside to feel the camera. After I set up my usual settings ( switching the knobs, navigation buttons here and there) I noticed straight on that the buttons on the back are strong and protected for dust or rain + you still have a decent space to maneuver your fingers around the screen. I know that I don’t have big hands but for a mirrorless camera the Z7 is really comfortable with hand grips on the side and on the front. Nikon keeps on using the same menus and shortcut buttons. Nikon users will not be disorientated at all.

The electronic viewfinder surprised me with its sharpness (even in low light) and reactivity, the focus was perfectly following up with the 35mm 1.8 from the NIKKOR S collection made for the Z cameras. What you will see trough that small glass will be what you will get which is pretty insane. I could finally watch the world moving live in black and white as I was aiming. It felt good shooting with it.

After one evening the battery was really fine and it’s autonomy lasted up to 600 / 800 photographs. It became red when I started to get back to the main screen to look at my photos on the camera and finally exported them by wifi on my phone. I really wanted to push it up to it’s first death to understand the limits of the autonomy and I wasn’t disappointed.

Result : the battery endurance is really good. You will last an afternoon of good work with one if you are only making photographs and checking them often. For a smaller camera than a big DSLR it still feels stronger than I thought. I wondered then if I could still I use my previous NIKKOR lens ?

Again, I had to go to the extremes of the camera. I mounted the FTZ Mount Adapter to use my classical Nikkor Lens (in this case a 105mm) and for the general weight balance I also mounted the battery grip MB-N10 that can hold two batteries that are the same than the D850 (yey!). Suddenly that small modern camera turned into a real tank and was heavier due to the weight of the lens. The battery grip in itself ins’t that heavy at all.

Result : the focus was slightly slower with the adapter and the Nikkor lens, but nothing dramatic at all. The camera delivered every shot I made with the the sharpness required in low night light.

Left : A house at night, 3200 ISO F/3.2 1/160S

Right: my hat above a puddle of water reflecting the light of a street lamp around 11.30 p.m.

3200 ISO / 105MM - F/1.4 1/80s

Knowing that I really didn't make any gift to the camera for a first round, I took it on assignment without the grip to do portraits with a pretty light at the end of the day and the 35mm NIKKOR S.

Left : ISO 400 / 35MM - f/1.8 1/1600s

Right: ISO 500 / 35MM - f/4 1/640s

The ease was exactly there when I needed it. The camera was light comfy and was constantly delivering the exact moment of emotion, the exact mesure of light. It was a pleasure to carry it along my body, and for once my shoulder was feeling really light :)

The big slap

I came back at my office and unloaded the XQD card. Christ! that went fast. Then I noticed the size of the raw photographs : Each photograph is a 45MB piece on 5500 L X 8250 H pixels, 300DPI / Full frame.

Ha ! Allo ! NIKON just created a new D850 in a small body. They made it, I don’t know how but they did.

The Z7 is a true visual BEAST in a small vintage looking cage.

I was shaken - I was ready - to go photograph my country on a road trip with the Z7.

A black and white road trip in an absurd Belgium

For my own comfort I set up my Z7 with the battery grip and the 24-70mm F/2.8. I usually let my camera on the passenger seat next to me, I like to take it straight when I’m parked and go walking.

Magic and mysteries

Nikon Z7 24-70mm, ISO 400, F/18 1/1250s

The dramatic weather forced me to take my car to go a few steps from the Dutch border, in the municipality of Bassenge where I visited the stone silex tower of Eben-Ezer dominated by his dear "Cherubs of the Apocalypse ". There, a sort of cross between the lion of Saint Mark and a mermaid woman overlooks a garden filled with strange statues and cromlech ... . Surely it is an hidden gem if you want to be surprised. The entire tower and sculptures were built by one man.

I did not need to think more to fail my promise (not to leave the country) and to go take a look on the other side of the border to find myself in the ENCI zone, a quarry from which limestone is extracted surrounded by a very well maintained nature reserve.

There, walking on a half suspended bridge, I met a young couple; madam was soon photographed posing in underwear (for her instagram) with the factory behind her. The factory itself overlooks the enormous quarry in which whole dinosaur bones and skeletons have been found.

Pushed it further to the Sahara

My GPS started to blink to indicate to me to return to my flat country, directing me more to the north, northeast more exactly. In this northeast, I will walk in the Sahara, a Belgian Sahara, located in Lommel. This fine sand and this lake are found on an abandoned industrial site in Campine where a quartz sand mine once lived. A zinc industry has caused all the trees in the area to die off…

After having been used for a time by a gunsmith to test his grenades, the area is now home to a nature reserve sadly strewn with waste and dotted with hiking trails at the turn of which you can admire both the birds and the sanitary napkins that are visible in the bushes, or even an observation tower which evokes the hull of a giant boat dominating a calm lake which made me travel for a moment towards the lost plains of Canada.

A Japanese walk

Left : NIKON Z7 / ISO 200 - F/2.8 - 1/1250s

Right: Nikon Z7 / ISO 200 - F/16 - 1/500s

I went to walk between Japanese maples, pines, and magnolias, on a zigzag bridge, called Yatsuhashi, and around the ceremonial house "Korokan", which means "haven of peace for travelers" . Here I am "zen" contemplating the enormous Koïs in contrasting colors that dominate the waters of the ponds of this garden, where the shadows are just as elegant as the architecture. I thought I was in Japan for a good hour, when in fact I was sitting in Hasselt in the biggest Japanese garden of Europe.

Left : NIKON Z7 /ISO 200 - 24-70mm - F/16 - 1/1320s

Right: Nikon Z7 / ISO 200 - 24-70mm - F/7,1 - 1/500s

“Fonske" told me about happiness in Leuven

Leuven, student city, place of knowledge. Knowledge is in question when we look at the "Totem" erected by Jan Fabre in homage to the 575 years of KUL University; a giant scarab impaled on an equally large needle, and further on the little "Fonske". It looks like a dwarf whose gaze resembles an abyss and who drinks from infinite knowledge while reading : “O happiness” under the eyes of all.

Ah! While you’re there have a walk in the city center it is truly beautiful in terms of architectures, cute resto’s and so on.

NIKKON Z7 ISO 400 - 35MM - F/6.3 - 1/1250s

Night time

At nightfall, I called the concierge of the Helécine Castle to open the imposing steel gate that protects this 18th century neoclassical monument for me to take a few pictures. Originally, the castle was a former abbey founded by the Premonstratensian order.

The park a 28 hectare lush green, shines through my Noct lens; and I remembered the ideas of the “Lumières” while I was making long exposures with my camera on a tripod. When I looked up while walking in the park of the castle it felt like raining stars.

Oh! Do you see the Bird ?

Hotel KOSMOS

I still have one town to see: Ypres. I'll cross this superb city to grab a bite to eat. Then I went to watch the sunset over the rooftop of the old disused "KOSMOS" resort of Heuveland / Westouter, a few kilometers away. This derelict 1970s looking building gave me the idea of ​​a few doomsday scenes - a Walking Dead feeling, reinforced by two horse riders walking through the late afternoon light. With your family dare to just follow the path to the right of the wasteland to discover a nature reserve, an open-air amphitheater in which kids can howl, and art brut type slides to make them laugh.

A Stairway to nowhere

I was completely west, so I turned back east, walking up the steps of a stainless steel staircase, impossible to tag, almost indestructible. This staircase, which nevertheless creaks quite a bit, bears the name of VLOOYBERGTOREN, in Tielt Winge, and of course, like our Belgian politics it does not lead anywhere ...

This is all for the moment! I hope you enjoyed the ride!
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Huge thanks to NIKON Belgium for their unconditional support

All the best,

Sébastien