Not sure if this has been mentioned here but there is a distilled version of the manual for the Z9 that is specific to the "Sports AF" settings which I suspect applies to a lot of the discussion here:
Thom has some very good information and he got one of the pilot versions of the camera. He also has experience with the Sony mirrorless cameras and can provide some perspective.
Seems legit...his dog isn't a swallow, but the AF kept up well enough and since I don't shoot nothing but birds I'm sure the Z9 will do what I want it to do. 1bwana1 wrote:
As I referenced in an earlier post, here is a video on Z9 AF from Steve Mattheis up in the Teton area.
1bwana1 wrote:
Lots of dogs to test on in Bangkok, just go to the park.
At least in the city center, pretty much all dogs are leashed on the street.
We don't really have dog parks here unfortunately. Lots more dogs in the suburbs
but I don't get out there much
I don't think Nigel bought one since this was during the initial roll out to the ambassadors videos when they were promoting this...unless he actually legit bought one after this. Can't exactly check since I'm currently just editing a set of street photography images. 1bwana1 wrote:
Another sale for the Nikon Z9!
Two dogs and in the hands of a landscape photographer no less.
With full respect to Nigel, he is a landscape photographer to learn from,
but I would rather see that Z9 in arbitrage's hands than his, Z9 is an action camera.
1bwana1 wrote:
I don't know about Nigel, but now Lukemeup has to buy one according to his post. That is what I was referring to.
Haha. I saw that one before so it doesn't count. I'll hold off till the summer. Maybe Nikon will surprise us with something similar without a built-in grip.
I had a lot of fun with Z9 and 50/1.2s today. Gannis' basic set up work really well but I switched things around a bit. AF is set to auto area with human eye af. Fn1 with wide area L AF with eye AF and L-Fn with recall shooting set to wide area without subject recognition. This works very well generally but I will need to get more practice to use Fn1 and use my thumb to move focus point around. However it is very easy to hold the lens and press L-Fn button with left hand and use my right thumb to move focus point around when I don't want to focus on human.
This whole subject recognition on Z9 really change the way I shoot everything. I hope Z7 ii will get update firmware that will give options similar to what Z9 has. I don't always need Z9 AF capability for everyday use but it would be nice to be able to set the camera up the same way then it would be very easy to pick either camera and shoot right away.
PS now that I think about it, Gannis has auto area AF with subject recognition on AF-on button and wide area L with subject recognition as default. I guess that make a lot of sense as when I need to press AF-on, I wont need my thumb to move focus point around either. slowly I am getting there
As i keep shooting more, there are smaller learnings that i incorporate. I realized Dynamic AF area mode is almost useless with the Z9 so i have replaced it with wide area S (Fn1).
I use the video button to another custom setting "Access top item in MY MENU". This brings up my customized list of features that are ranked based on my priorities, as follows:
1. AF tracking with lock-on
2. Raw recording - To move between compressed vs HE formats
3. Power off delay - To quickly adjust the standby times of EVF
4. Focus points used - To toggle between full AF points vs every alternative points
5. AF Subject detection options - for various subject detection options
6. Image area - FX to DX - I use this rarely as i prefer to crop in the post
7. Continuous high speed - to change from 20 FPS to 15 FPS and so on
Some of the above functions are simply redundancies which i still prefer as i always come up with unexpected wildlife scenarios where my brain freezes and I'd want more than one way to get to my frequently used settings ;-). I also find this easier to access and use than the 'i' button.
gannis wrote:
Thanks for starting this thread. There's going to be a lot of discussion on the Z9 AF for sure. I have used the camera for about 5 days now and here is what I feel about the AF modes:
My most preferred AF mode so far has been the Wide Area L mode. This has resulted in the most reliable focus acquisition in challenging situations. I also like it because the AF box size seems to be just about right and the AF sensitivity settings (tracking with lock-on) can be set to delayed (4 or 5) to remain sticky.
3D AF area is very good for perched subjects, slow moving subjects or even for most of the action scenes but struggles when there are foreground/background distractions or reflections and also erratic subjects like swallows, pigeons, diving terns etc.
I never even bothered to test the auto area AF initially as I just assumed it wouldn't be as good as the 3D but after trying it for a couple of sessions trying to track swallows and diving terns, it is an amazing mode for unpredictable action. the AF is more responsive than 3D. Page 600 of Nikon's manual says that the AF tracking with lock-on setting on the Z9 will be set to a default of 3 in case of 3D tracking vs 1-3 for Auto area tracking. This could explain why Auto area is more responsive vs 3D.
EDIT: My mistake here. pg 600 of Nikon manual says 3D defaults to sticky setting of 3 whereas Auto area can be 3, 4 or 5. Its just that when 1 or 2 is selected, it defaults to 3. My apologies!
As to the wide area L mode - I noticed that it worked much better than any other AF area modes when there are distractions/ bright light sources. With 3D tracking or Auto area, the moment the camera picks the background, it is very difficult to reacquire focus and the box goes all over the place.
After reviewing many images, particularly frame filling birds i notice that the focus is sharp starting from the bird's eyes to all the way back to the tail but there were some frames where the beak is a bit soft and in situations like that i'd prefer an AF mode with close subject priority (Group area AF on Nikon DSLRS) So I found a workaround that seems to do the trick so far which is to use Recall Shooting Functions (RSF) to set subject detection to off (while the default setting for subject detection is set to Animal eye AF). I have assigned the RSF override to the lens fn button to turn off subject detection. When a bird approaches, i track the bird using wide area-L with subject detection on and the moment the bird fills the frame, i press the lens-fn button to temporarily disable subject detection. When i do this, the wide area L seems to work based on close subject priority (just like the group AF).
The other challenge i had was on how to have an override for lock on settings (1 to 5) in case i want to instantly override my default. RSF can be used to have a different lock-on values but Z9 only allows one RSF override at one point in time so my priority was to use it for subject detection off. Now, here's the interesting workaround for this lock-on setting problem.
I use Wide area AF on the shutter button. Remember this is the AF mode where i want to be able to keep the subject detection to on or off depending on my needs and hence the assignment to shutter button (Unfortunately, subject detection off on RSF override does not work on any other AF area modes assigned via custom control options). My default lock-on setting is 5 (sticky) so when i use shutter button with wide area L, i have a sticky AF setting.
I use AF-On button for Auto area mode - Now, regardless of what AF sensitivity setting i use as default (5 in my case) the camera always uses 1-3, so that's a responsive setting
Joy stick button is assigned with the 3D AF mode - Again, this uses an AF sensitivity of 3
Front fn1 button is set to Dynamic AF area - Subject detect doesn't apply for this AF area mode plus the default AF sensitivity setting of 5 would take effect here.
Front fn2 button set to single point AF - Again, no subject detect and sensitivity of 5
This way, i feel i pretty much have all possible permutations covered between fully automatic, semi-automatic and a total manual override :-)
Just a quick update as one of my earlier posts had an incorrect information, my apologies! (and i have edited the previous posts to reflect the accurate information). One of the members from BCG forum pointed out that pg 600 of the manual is being misunderstood on the way the Auto-Area AF behaves in conjunction with lock-on settings.
3D tracking defaults to sticky setting of 3 regardless of what option is selected, so no problem here whereas Auto area AF can be 3, 4 or 5. Its just that when 1 or 2 is selected, it defaults to 3.
Based off of my n=1 day of shooting I can say that the recommendations so far from gannis and others are spot on.
Wide-Area AF (L) (or even S in some cases) is the most effective AF mode to not jump to backgrounds or lose the bird. Combining that with another AF-Area mode custom button to switch into Auto-Area AF after starting BIF with the Wide-Area was very effective as long as the camera was recognizing the subject as a subject.
I also did some shooting in just Auto Area and it was pretty good as long as you controlled your backgrounds. I found 3D not very good if subject was too small in the frame. I was trying to use it to just keep AF on a perched KF that was fairly small in the frame but where the background was 500m away. 3D would sometimes keep on the KF for a little bit but then would jump all the way to the grossly OOF background. I'll play more with 3D today.
The BEAF on its own merit is every bit as good as R5 and A1. In fact I think it comes on more often for BIF than the A1. Probably similar to the R5. Don't assume that means the Z9 is more effective for AF for BIF than the A1...that remains to be seen once I have more light to work with. The A1 has uncanny tracking ability just in non-tracking Wide AF mode without any BEAF or Real-time Tracking involved. But the Z9 was showing up more with a head/eye indicator than I think the A1 does for BIF.
It seems that if you control your shooting surroundings and keep subject reasonable in the frame, that the Z9 is an AF powerhouse on par or maybe better than the R5. Certainly easier to shoot than the R5 because of the stacked sensor and no slideshow in the EVF. Where I think (given it is early days and poor light) the A1 and A9 will still best the Z9 is sticking to subjects despite complicated and contrasty surroundings and initial pickup of smaller and faster subjects during really quick reactions. This is where the R5 fell well behind the A1 and A9 in my testing.
That all sounds very promising, since the Z9 has a lot of computational overhead room to grow in terms of auto focus firmware updates where the other Z brethren do not. Sounds like the Z9 is starting at a pretty good point, although still more fiddly to shoot BIF than the A1, if I’m understanding you correctly.
Personally I find the Nikon wide area boxes rather tough to keep a fast moving subject in and miss Sony’s wide mode tremendously, but I’m also dealing with blackout which makes it harder.
arbitrage wrote:
Based off of my n=1 day of shooting I can say that the recommendations so far from gannis and others are spot on.
Wide-Area AF (L) (or even S in some cases) is the most effective AF mode to not jump to backgrounds or lose the bird. Combining that with another AF-Area mode custom button to switch into Auto-Area AF after starting BIF with the Wide-Area was very effective as long as the camera was recognizing the subject as a subject.
I also did some shooting in just Auto Area and it was pretty good as long as you controlled your backgrounds. I found 3D not very good if subject was too small in the frame. I was trying to use it to just keep AF on a perched KF that was fairly small in the frame but where the background was 500m away. 3D would sometimes keep on the KF for a little bit but then would jump all the way to the grossly OOF background. I'll play more with 3D today.
The BEAF on its own merit is every bit as good as R5 and A1. In fact I think it comes on more often for BIF than the A1. Probably similar to the R5. Don't assume that means the Z9 is more effective for AF for BIF than the A1...that remains to be seen once I have more light to work with. The A1 has uncanny tracking ability just in non-tracking Wide AF mode without any BEAF or Real-time Tracking involved. But the Z9 was showing up more with a head/eye indicator than I think the A1 does for BIF.
It seems that if you control your shooting surroundings and keep subject reasonable in the frame, that the Z9 is an AF powerhouse on par or maybe better than the R5. Certainly easier to shoot than the R5 because of the stacked sensor and no slideshow in the EVF. Where I think (given it is early days and poor light) the A1 and A9 will still best the Z9 is sticking to subjects despite complicated and contrasty surroundings and initial pickup of smaller and faster subjects during really quick reactions. This is where the R5 fell well behind the A1 and A9 in my testing. ...Show more →
