Frode wrote:
Smart move this thread............................
With all respect, I have MUCH more trust in professionals at Nikon, rather on individuals trying to make money on a, the way I see it, a constructed "problem".
Hmmm, wonder how other great photographers using their D5/500 manage to get great pictures...faulty AF- system.....Come on! User error, bad technique.
People should listen to what Nikon suggest - pro PDF (AF). Been frustrated myself some time ago regarding AF problems. All Thanks to some individuals saying this/that.
Nothing wrong with D5/500 AF!
Again, no one has said in this thread that they are having problems with the D5/D500 AF. All we've come to understand by testing (and confirmed by numerous members who tried Steve's tests) is that the Dynamic modes are offering no benefit over the Single Point mode. The way they are set up to work in this new system is basically making them behave like single point where once the Delay time is over the focus jumps to whatever is under the main point and doesn't continue to use the 25 or 72 or 153 points to track the initial subject. Most of us haven't had an issue with this if we do our job fast enough to get our main point back on target before the delay ends or if we are shooting against a plain/no contrast background. Still the system is not doing much at all to help the user as it is described in the manual.
Still, again no one has really claimed they were having issues with it, we just know it isn't doing much for us after this testing.
And please give Steve a little more respect. To someone who has contributed a lot of free advice and great videos on his YT channel he deserves it.
Frode wrote:
Smart move this thread............................
With all respect, I have MUCH more trust in professionals at Nikon, rather on individuals trying to make money on a, the way I see it, a constructed "problem".
Hmmm, wonder how other great photographers using their D5/500 manage to get great pictures...faulty AF- system.....Come on! User error, bad technique.
People should listen to what Nikon suggest - pro PDF (AF). Been frustrated myself some time ago regarding AF problems. All Thanks to some individuals saying this/that.
Nothing wrong with D5/500 AF!
Who am I going to trust, the fan boys and girls, or my own lying eyes?
arbitrage wrote:
Again, no one has said in this thread that they are having problems with the D5/D500 AF. All we've come to understand by testing (and confirmed by numerous members who tried Steve's tests) is that the Dynamic modes are offering no benefit over the Single Point mode. The way they are set up to work in this new system is basically making them behave like single point where once the Delay time is over the focus jumps to whatever is under the main point and doesn't continue to use the 25 or 72 or 153 points to track the initial subject. Most of us haven't had an issue with this if we do our job fast enough to get our main point back on target before the delay ends or if we are shooting against a plain/no contrast background. Still the system is not doing much at all to help the user as it is described in the manual.
Still, again no one has really claimed they were having issues with it, we just know it isn't doing much for us after this testing.
And please give Steve a little more respect. To someone who has contributed a lot of free advice and great videos on his YT channel he deserves it....Show more →
Agree fully! I am one of us out in the wilderness who eagerly await ordering Steve's magnus opus on Nikon AF :-) :-)
There may well be some photographers who learn all they need from official manuals (including the online Tech Notes), yet these Discussion forums and carefully written 3rd party guidebooks to camera gear continue to provide many users with invaluable lifelines.
In too many countries, what passes for Nikon support is the subject of bared canines. Sadly, Nikon's failures drive veterans of a fine and venerable camera system elsewhere. There seem to be the favoured few who enjoy special support from the company but too many of us have to muddle along as best one can. And at continual expense and wasted time. Besides the fiasco of problems with the D800 and D600 cameras, there was (is?) the more recent debacle of misbehaving VR on some copies of the 300 f4E PF, about which posters to NikonGear shared their frustrations with being let down by official lines of Nikon Support in certain countries.
Frode wrote:
Smart move this thread............................
With all respect, I have MUCH more trust in professionals at Nikon, rather on individuals trying to make money on a, the way I see it, a constructed "problem".
Hmmm, wonder how other great photographers using their D5/500 manage to get great pictures...faulty AF- system.....Come on! User error, bad technique.
People should listen to what Nikon suggest - pro PDF (AF). Been frustrated myself some time ago regarding AF problems. All Thanks to some individuals saying this/that.
Nothing wrong with D5/500 AF!
First, all I wanted to do was verify what I was seeing. Note that in my original post, NOWHERE did I mention the book, only that I was working on a project when I discovered it. When people ask about the project, I answer, but that's it.
The fact is, this fiasco ended up putting me behind. I have literally spent 10 ~ 15 hours per week on this since posting this thread. I have been in contact with various (awesome) forum members behind the scenes (Snapsy and Keith to name a couple), as well as answering e-mails, PMs, and trying different tests with dozens of other people. The truth is, I almost regret bringing it up at all, it's cost me far too much in time and energy. However, I needed to know if what I was seeing was accurate so I could put the proper instructions for using it in the book. The truth is, had Dynamic worked as expected, right now the project would be done and I would be on my way to FL. Instead, I'm responding to your nonsense and trying to get my work done.
Finally, it's a little short sighted to think that a thread of 20+ pages is covering a manufactured topic that no one cares about. Although, I suppose these kind of attacks are common anytime something is uncovered...
p.21 #11 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
birdied wrote: professionals at Nikon, rather on individuals trying to make money on a, the way I see it, a constructed "problem".
Steve spends countless hours educating at no cost.
He has done nothing to warrant the above comment and assault on his character.
Birdie
This! Couldn't have said it better Birdie. I make it a point to read Steve's quotes because I know they will either contain useful information or great images. He is one of the relatively few that seems to be willing to selflessly help others here over and over again.
I truly appreciate the time and effort that Steve, Snapsy, Keith and others have spent on this issue. Regardless if this is a change to the AF or a glitch, it is incredibly helpful to understand our camera's performance fully.
Steve's posts and information are useful. As are his ebooks. I will continue to value both.
Except that the video is wrong and contradicts the manual (i.e. group mode is not 5pts, and dynamic modes do not only use the selected point to acquire focus)... and nowhere has Nikon officially addressed/acknowledged the fact that the dynamic mode's behavior has changed *significantly.*
Whether this change is "a problem" depends on what/how you shoot. But not being aware of it can lead to making a poor choice unknowingly, and IMO that is problem enough.
p.21 #13 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
elkhornsun wrote:
I find it amazing that so little usable information could be provided on a thread with 20 pages of posts. Since owning the D1x and D100 cameras, each subsequent model had a different autofocus system and I had to adjust to how it worked and learn its limitations. Going from the D2x to the D3 was the biggest adjustment as the new autofocus system performance was much worse in low light and had a strong tendency to backfocus if the background was brighter than the subject.
The AF system introduced in the D3 in 2007 has not been significantly updated until the D5/D500 and as always I have had to experiment, as Steve Perry has done, to determine what works best in any given situation. Group AF is useless on my D750 but fantastic on my D500. Dynamic AF performance is going to be quite different when there are up to 3x as many cross type AF sensors (when not using a telephoto lens) and a dedicated AF processor as with the D5 and D500. Nothing surprising about this and it means more experimentation to determine the best mode and setting for situations.
What is important is to understand how the different AF modes work and so understand the limitations of each mode. For instance, Group AF mode will track the nearest subject to the camera in a scene and so will succeed or fail depending on the situation.
Nikon tries to help by producing supplemental guides like their D500 Pro Technical Guide for Sports, but being oriented toward sports shooters the guides are of very limited value and only a starting point for non-sports shooters dealing with much worse lighting and much smaller and faster subjects.
The guide does provide tips for sports that may apply in other situations. With a high diver the Nikon D500 guide recommends for a low contrast background using 3-D tracking but with a high contrast background it instead recommends using 72-point Dynamic Area AF instead.
Granted, there is a lot of "fluff" in this thread: repetition, digressions, and even some people who contribute nothing useful other than to repeatedly post that there is no problem. That is the nature of discussion forums sometimes.
I however have found much useful here. A google search led me to this thread just as I was about to send my D500 in for repair because I thought I had a defective camera (because, despite identical wording in my D500 and D800 manuals, dynamic af behaved very differently and IMO much better in my D800).
I copied and pasted essential portions of this thread into a word document, added my own notes, and came up with a very useful description, for me, on how the D500 dynamic AF works.
Thanks to Steve for starting this thread and to the other participants who constructively contributed.
p.21 #14 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
Based upon extensive experience/testing I would say the Nikon AF system is actually quite simple and logical/progressive, even though it's not really well explained.
Irregardless of the iteration of the AF system the basics are the same.
You start with single point. Then you add additional points around it to aid in acquiring/maintaining AF (group mode if avail, 25pts in the D5/D500). Then you add even more additional points for tracking/maintaining focus w/ erratic subjects (dynamic modes).
Group mode functions in a nearest priority.
Dynamic modes use 9pts for initially acquiring/maintaining AF, and also function in something of a nearest priority for both acquiring and maintaining focus (the 9pt and group areas were the same size/area in previous models).
3D is the same as full dynamic mode (d153), but adds in color information and scene recognition from matrix metering. No blocked shot settings.
Auto evaluates all focus points for best focus, it also uses scene recognition w/ matrix metering, and it also functions in a nearest priority mode.
In all cases only one point is used for focus, although several points may report as having been w/in focus tolerance.
The main difference between the D5/D500 and earlier models is that the dynamic modes used to function in something of a nearest priority and would not refocus unless focus was lost. The D5/D500 dynamic modes do not function in a nearest priority and will refocus even if focus is not lost. This is a VERY significant difference... and no-one is sure if it is intentional or not as it's not been officially addressed/acknowledged.
p.21 #15 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
The main difference between the D5/D500 and earlier models is that the dynamic modes used to function in something of a nearest priority and would not refocus unless focus was lost. The D5/D500 dynamic modes do not function in a nearest priority and will refocus even if focus is not lost. This is a VERY significant difference... and no-one is sure if it is intentional or not as it's not been officially addressed/acknowledged.
The other big difference, if I understand it correctly, is how the focus lock-on parameters now work (blocked shot response and subject motion). With my D800 focus lock-on did not have an apparent effect (that I could detect) in dynamic af modes unless/until the subject strayed from dynamic af zone of focus points. With the D500, focus lock-on now seems to also work within the zone of af points and affects how long the camera waits before it attempts to refocus with the primary user-selected af point.
A remaining question that I have is, exactly what is occurring with the subject motion settings? Blocked shot response is simply a unit of time. Subject motion must be something different, but I have no idea what it does. My initial thoughts were that it somehow affected the responsiveness of the secondary AF points. If so, then it would have no affect at all when in single point(since there are no secondary af points). Any thoughts on this?
p.21 #16 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
The other big difference, if I understand it correctly, is how the focus lock-on parameters now work (blocked shot response and subject motion). With my D800 focus lock-on did not have an apparent effect (that I could detect) in dynamic af modes unless/until the subject strayed from dynamic af zone of focus points. With the D500, focus lock-on now seems to also work within the zone of af points and affects how long the camera waits before it attempts to refocus with the primary user-selected af point.
A remaining question that I have is, exactly what is occurring with the subject motion settings? Blocked shot response is simply a unit of time. Subject motion must be something different, but I have no idea what it does. My initial thoughts were that it somehow affected the responsiveness of the secondary AF points. If so, then it would have no affect at all when in single point(since there are no secondary af points). Any thoughts on this?...Show more →
"Blocked shot" has not changed as such. The reason it seems to have more affect is that the D5/D500 is not functioning in a nearest priority while tracking... it doesn't care if the shot was blocked or not (i.e. focus lost), only whether there is something else to focus on.
The subject motion setting seems to be a "logic offset"... i.e. if set to erratic expect to loose AF momentarily. It seems to only have a minor influence on the behavior.
Mar 28, 2017 at 11:49 AM
T-O Shooter Offline • • [X]
p.21 #17 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
Frode wrote:
Smart move this thread............................
With all respect, I have MUCH more trust in professionals at Nikon, rather on individuals trying to make money on a, the way I see it, a constructed "problem".
Hmmm, wonder how other great photographers using their D5/500 manage to get great pictures...faulty AF- system.....Come on! User error, bad technique.
People should listen to what Nikon suggest - pro PDF (AF). Been frustrated myself some time ago regarding AF problems. All Thanks to some individuals saying this/that.
Nothing wrong with D5/500 AF!
I don't know Steve and don't follow his work. Heard the name kicked around a few times. But Steve and the other fellows were a big help to some of us D5/D500 users by determining how the dynamic AF works different from previous Nikon systems
I don't think for a minute that he was trying to sell his book, but hopefully he'll sell a ton more now.
Just did some Googling. Actually you sold one to me. I'll pre-order just for the help he gave here.
p.21 #18 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
This thread has forced me to go out and check how the D500 based on what I already knew and what Steve Perry's thread brought to light.
That is now done and I no longer use any of the dynamic modes, and my shooting is already far better for it.
Apart from the defenders and the attackers, there is plenty here for you to go out and find what suits you best.
The D500 has a great AF system albeit not without hiccups, it just remains to go out and fine tune what has already been written here.
Test the system for yourself!
p.21 #19 · UPDATE - Nikon D5/D500 Dynamic AF Issue
Just a thought:
A few posts ago someone suggested that there could be problems on a D500 which I don't experience on a D5.
Could this be because the sensels in a D500 are smaller and are packed together more tightly on the D500? That was supposedly why Nikon have not offered D9 for the D500.
In that case; it might make sense to test the use of a larger AF Area mode than the one which you would choose under similar circumstances for an FX camera? If you are accustomed to using D25, perhaps you should trying using D72 instead?
I don't have a D500 so I cannot test this idea but some of the D500 users might want to take a look at it.
