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 p.14 #19 · Official Z 600mm F4 TC VR S Image Thread | |
OwlsEyes wrote:
I just saw this post... congratulations on the excellent pine martin images. I know this location well, but never got the variety of poses you managed to catch... A few of these are really nice!
I also saw that you are shifting (or already shifted) back to Sony... I am curious about what caused this decision... You did well at the bog with tough flight shots in challenging conditions. The Nikon and your 600TC appeared to track the flight just fine.
How could a move to another brand have led to any meaningful improvements... just curious.
If I read wrong, then please disregard the latter statement.
bruce (who is still rocking the 400TC  )...Show more →
Hey Bruce - certainly! Happy to reply, and if this gets too off topic (anyone feel free to chime in), take it to DM's if needed.
Shooting with the Z9 + 600TC at the Bog was kind of the last straw for me. I was shooting shoulder to shoulder with friends and strangers with Canon and Sony gear, and missing a ton of shots that others were getting.
I find Nikon's autofocus to be incredibly frustrating. It does not feel intuitive. It requires so much more work than the other brands to "get right". The fact that I could have frame filling GGO's in flight and the focus would not grab, was infuriating at times.
I'd spent hundreds of hours with the Z8/Z9 and tried all sorts of autofocus setups. From Steve Perry's guidebook, to setups posted by others in these forums, to trying to specially cater to my own sort of setup.
When using the R5 II, A1 II, or R1 - the autofocus just works. I swapped setups with a couple of those users at the bog and could nail shots with their equipment, and all they had to do was say "shutter button autofocuses" or "here's an additional back button focus if needed". When I gave them my gear, I had to say "it's currently on mode wide, it'll likely miss, you can hold this button to trigger a handoff to single point, hold this one to swap to custom 1", etc. I should've recorded the looks on their faces during that exchange!
I purchased the A1 II as soon as I got home, and within 10 minutes out of the box I was much more confident in the AF, having never even owned a Sony body before.
I was also intrigued to gain some of the specs that Canon/Sony have, that Nikon hasn't caught up to yet. Namely 30+ FPS and precapture raw. I will admit, I did over-weight the value of precapture when swapping. I haven't found it nearly as useful in practice as in theory.
The biggest improvement was by far the Sony AF, followed by 30FPS, with precapture in third place.
Overall, I also just like the Sony ecosystem more. Most of my glass was already Sony or Sigma, adapted to Nikon. Now I have all native glass, and don't have to worry about extra points of failure, loss of sharpness, corner issues, etc. as a result of adapting.
I have small hands and prefer small bodies, but I could never jive with the Z8. I owned it several times, and it always felt cheap and flimsy, yet still big and bulky, compared to the Z9, R5, A1 II, etc.
All of my cameras are now small, and can be used with the same batteries (A9 III, A1 II, ZV-E1) as opposed to lugging around big Z9 batteries or mix and matching Z8/Z6 with Z9 batteries. All my gear charges with USB-C PD (power delivery) with no need for additional miscellaneous wall chargers.
And just quality of life stuff in general. Sony allows me to assign a button to swap between 5FPS and 30FPS (or 120FPS with A9 III). Nikon requires various button presses, menu interfaces, etc. to do the same thing.
And finally - one of the biggest first world problems ever. Nikon has too many lenses to pick from! I have owned all of their telephoto mirrorless lenses, many multiple times over. I could not find a kit that worked well for me.
The TLDR; (too long, didn't read) - it was a combination of things. probably some user error on my part with Nikon AF, a little bit of GAS, an opportunity to put some money back in my pocket, simplify my kit, try something new, and grab some quality of life improvements.
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