Haven’t used a grip or needed one at a wedding since Jesus was a wee lad.
Everyone is different but definitely not a must have for me.
This is not to say that it is a must have, but a nice to have to useful to have. I have all non-gripped cameras, and vast majority of my work is horizontal format as a result. I can flip it and I do sometimes obviously as when absolutely required (such as a wedding) but find it very annoying to be shooting predominantly like this for a prolonged period of time.
As I already said, grips and tripods don't mix that well together in vertical orientation, unless shooting a PROper big lens with tripod collar. I like these but options are quite limited to long teles and 70-200mm's.
A grip with RC4 tripod plate (which is an absolute must) is also a bit of an issue.... You would just take it off for a wedding day and back on immediately. There really isn't a nice and elegant solution other than fabricating a massive cage allowing a hand through... which is quite a horrible idea anyway.
No doubt there are some old school people around who prefer the ergonomics of the old school bodies and there is probably a market for that. Not sure if there is enough people who would want it to justify making one though.
Z9's are flying off the shelves. Good enough reason to make one? Grip or no grip at least your whole hand needs to fit over it without 1-2, or 3 fingers overhanging. That is just terrible and ALL recent cameras but Z8 and Z9 are guilty of this. You need to buy crappy overpriced chinese metal from likes of smallrig to make it sort of proper height,
Me neither. I see that Matt Granger has ruffled feathers by stating that Sony don't make a Pro body. I don't understand why only the big breeze block cameras are considered pro bodes as though having something that weighs 1.5kg is the holy grail
1. He quite clearly explained what pro body definition entails and it certainly wasn't that. He actually classed All FF Sonys as pro. So I guess you didn't watch. Flagship is where he wants full size. I agree with that.
What I don't get is you have the option of a battery grip if you want it. I'd much rather have the option of having it smaller and lighter and then adding the grip if you want rather than having to carry around a breeze block at all times.
Option is what it is about. An option to buy a gripped body or not to buy it.
Addon grips are absolutely terrible overpriced pieces of junk. They are inelegant, unnecessarily big and they wobble. Yes they wobble on tripod. Forget doing composite work. Crap. Utter crap, will never buy another one for any camera.
Tbh I can’t really see the need for a grip for anything. Batteries last me a whole wedding day although to be on the safe side I usually swap them out at dinner.
I guess it’s slightly easier to shoot portrait mode with a grip but the small advantage is far out weighed by the weight saving.
Batteries is MOSTLY not an issue. You just swap, unless you can't due to terrible atmospheric conditions (war zones, rainforest, arctic), you are doing long format video or maybe you are in a middle of some important action and can't afford battery to run out any time soon. That is the definition of PRO requirements. Probably doesn't affect most of us though, certainly not me.
The convenience of vertical shooting for wedding, portrait and sports photographers is where it is at for most. Also for balancing bigger lenses.