The Nikon ZR gets surprisingly close to a real RED camera (for a lot less money)

If you shoot video professionally, there’s a good chance you’ve noticed a red camera at some point. The RED has long been one of the top choices for big-budget productions, offering a combination of image quality and flexibility unmatched by most consumer cameras. They are also extremely expensive, costing around $45,000 on the high end, which puts them well out of reach for most everyday projects. But now, Nikon is promising to take the most unique part of RED – the file format that powers its incredible imagery – and offer it at a fraction of the price.

The $2,200 Nikon ZR is packed with features tailored for video shooters. It has a large and bright touchscreen, the ability to record audio with unmatched dynamic range, and enough sensor-level image stabilization to ditch a gimbal for a lot of tasks. But its most notable feature is the ability to shoot a version of RED’s R3D file format. This is a cut-down version called R3D NE designed specifically for use on Nikon cameras. It is not as powerful, compresses some data that a dedicated RED does not. But for those willing to deal with the limitations, RED’s color pipeline and access to distinctive highlight rolloff are extremely attractive.

This is the first camera that Nikon has made with RED since acquiring the company in 2024, and if both brands were hoping for some change, I’d say they delivered. Now the question is: how close does it get to true red?

A little less R3D, a lot less money

R3D is a video format called compressed RAW, which stores almost everything collected by the sensor as metadata while maintaining a manageable file size. This means that settings like white balance, ISO, gamma and color space can be changed in post without effectively losing any quality. This is useful for making strong creative decisions after you’ve shot, or for saving your footage when conditions aren’t ideal. I have strong memories of filming video by hand on a smartphone in terrible lighting conditions many years ago, just to see mine (now Waveform Podcast Co-host Marques Brownlee published a near-perfect version of the same scene after shooting it on red camera. Simply put, R3D is a cheat code.

The R3D NE format that the Nikon ZR supports is unfortunately not the same R3D that dedicated RED cameras use, but rather a modified 12-bit version (down from the more detailed 16-bit version on RED’s higher-end cameras) built around Nikon’s sensor and processor architecture. That’s because the ZR uses the same 24.5-megapixel partially stacked sensor as the Nikon Z6III, rather than RED’s own sensor and special chip for compression acceleration. In practice, this means that R3D NE is very similar to Nikon’s N-RAW file format from a compression standpoint, and it certainly puts more of a burden on my computer than RED’s traditional R3D files. At 6k 24p, the ZR’s R3D NE files could thrill my fans while editing, while the R3D files I shot on the RED V-Raptor at 8k 24p cut like butter.

That said, the Nikon ZR’s R3D NE files look very similar to the RED V-Raptor’s R3D files. The R3D NE still uses the iconic color pipeline, IPP2, that RED has had on its cameras since 2017, delivering extremely smooth highlight rolloff, brilliant colors and almost film-like tonal response. Compared to the standard R3D files, ZR’s R3D NE files look almost identical, except for the lighter green color, possibly caused by the different color response from Nikon’s Expedi sensor.

One big difference between the two cameras is how they handle ISO and noise. On RED, ISO is merely metadata that tells the program how many stops brighter or darker to display the image, but is not actually baked into analog amplification at the time of capture. This means that as long as you protect the highlights while shooting, you can change the ISO in post with minimal change in noise or dynamic range.

On the ZR, changing the ISO directly changes noise and clipping, because R3D NE has baked in sensor gain before compression. This means that changing the ISO in post on the ZR will immediately see more and more noise. Nikon tries to get around this by forcing you to shoot at one of its two native ISOs – 800 or 6400 – when recording the R3D NE. This results in a clean image, but it becomes noisy if you need to make serious exposure adjustments in post. If you control your exposure with the ND filter or your aperture the image looks great, but you definitely have less exposure control than with the dedicated RED.

Despite the limitations, it’s fantastic how much of the power of RED has been brought into this extremely affordable camera by Nikon. If you’ve always wanted access to RED’s color science and image characteristics, the ZR will give you access there. The limitations really depend on your ability to correctly expose your scene when shooting. You’ll still have the ability to radically adjust things like white balance and color space after the fact. Still, if you mess up the exposure, you’ll have more trouble saving your image easily than with a dedicated RED.

Unlike RED hardware

Another big reason people want RED cameras is their modularity. RED’s cameras start with just the “brain,” a big box with an image sensor, processor, and lots of inputs you can plug things into. The cameras are so stripped back, and designed around modularity, that they require many additional accessories like monitors and handles to be usable.

On this metric, Nikon has gone in exactly the opposite direction. The ZR is practically the opposite of a RED camera – something that has so many features built-in that you can shoot high-quality footage with almost zero add-ons.

A prime example of this is the ZR’s 1,000-nit, 4-inch fully articulating touchscreen, which practically removes the need for an additional monitor. The touchscreen articulates 180-degrees and looks great from the outside, although you’ll have trouble articulating it around if you have something plugged into the mic jack. Unfortunately, the ZR doesn’t offer RED’s famous “traffic light” and “goal post” onscreen exposure tools, which are helpful in ensuring you don’t clip your image – something even more important on the ZR than on a traditional RED – but it is super sharp at 3.07 million dots and supports DCI-P3 color for a more accurate representation of what you’re capturing.

One of the ZR’s impressive integrated features is support for recording 32-bit FLOAT audio from the internal microphone, digital hotshoe or mic jack. The ZR is the first camera to do this, and honestly it’s a pretty big deal. 32-bit audio is very difficult to clip, allowing you to capture a wider variety of sounds without ruining your audio. Traditional shooting setups require a separate audio recorder to record 32-bit float, and the ability to record it internally can reduce the size of your kit even further.

All of this exists inside a body that is very compact and lightweight, at just 1.4 pounds. Nikon achieved such a thin and light profile by using a fanless design, which is unusual for such a capable video-focused camera. It also manages to include 7.5 stops of in-body image stabilization, which is something you won’t find in any of RED’s cameras.

Of course, the ZR is not without its flaws. The tripod thread is very close to the battery/media storage door, making it difficult to swap out the battery or storage on the tripod. The camera uses micro HDMI rather than full size, and a CF Express Type-B slot and micro SD slot make backup recording almost impossible if you’re shooting at high quality. I also found the joystick a bit small and flimsy, and there’s a disappointing 125-minute limit on recording that limits use of the camera in longer interviews.

Still, at the end of the day, the Nikon ZR is exactly what Nikon promised: a $2,200 ticket to shooting RED-like files. This is an incredible value for consumer video shooters. Nikon has been left behind in the video field for almost a decade. The ZR is a camera that the company made when it was looking for a comeback.

Photography by David Imel