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 p.6 #2 · Z8 vs R5? I'm just curious... | |
AZHeaven wrote:
I just watched the Fros video on the Z8. Stacked sensor or not. The Z8 still lags in AF vs the Canon R5, Sony A1, Sony A7R5, and others.
The Z8 looks like a great camera. But for less, one can get the Canon R5 for less that has better AF.
But I'm sure Nikon will address this in a firmware update.
JadedWriter wrote:
Nikon is literally Kryptonite for Fro. I follow enough talented wildlife Nikon ambassadors to the point where Fro's opinion means squat. I don't care if people do think they're shills, they're talented photographers.
Jman13 wrote:
I don't think anyone, even Fro, is saying that the Z8 can't be used for outstanding action photography. I'm sure it can. What those Nikon ambassadors don't have, though, is experience with the other systems. And it's just a reality that Sony and Canon are a step up at the moment. No one is saying that Nikon can't be used to get the shot, or in professional settings...just that all things being equal, you're going to get a few more keepers with the Sony and Canon bodies.
CanadaMark wrote:
All the current flagships are capable of ~90-95%+ keeper rates, and the Z8 has the Z9 AF according to Nikon. After actually using the best every brand has to offer, I think what you will find is that each camera behaves a little differently (not necessarily worse), and you may prefer the nuances of one AF system over another for your particular shooting style or subject matter. Maybe one acquires a little faster but is more easily confused, or maybe one takes longer to acquire but tracks a little better. Maybe you're a portrait shooter and one deals with glasses or long eyelashes better than the other. When I rented a R3 and A1 to compare to the Z9, it was clear that all 3 represented the best of the best. The more time I spent, the more I got used to them and I started to learn what one system might do slightly better (or different) than another. Since I shot mostly BIF these days, I preferred the Z9 primarily for it's ability to track a target flying behind partial obstruction (like tall grass) and also for it's ability to stay on the bird's eye and not get confused by the wingtips when shooting perpendicular to to the flight path. I made the best decision I could with the time I had based on a long list of requirements. Another person may have preferred the A1 or R3 for different reasons or for how they behaved with an entirely different subject matter or shooting environment. To categorically state that one AF system was better than the other, you would need an incredible amount of time, more subject matter than the average person has access to, and some way of controlling the biggest variable of all - the person behind the camera.
The fact of the matter is that AF is incredibly difficult to evaluate objectively, and if you can't very easily get a keeper rate so high that brand is the last thing on your mind, the problem is behind the camera, not with the camera. I think investing in a high-end MILC system today has more to do with things like lens selection, resolution preferences and ergonomics rather than the relatively small differences between AF systems. The other issue with making a purchase decision too heavily focused (no pun intended) on the AF systems in cameras as capable as these is that something as little as a FW update could completely change things.
As already mentioned, the Fro's AF tests are notoriously bad, highly uncontrolled, and he is sometimes using the wrong or suboptimal settings - whether this is intentional or not I have no idea but some of the things he says makes you wonder who is paying him. In one of his earlier Z9 videos you could clearly see he neglected to set the camera to people detection and was complaining about performance photographing....people. Just look at how much his Z8 video is being discussed already on these forums alone - what he's doing is working, and he is directly profiting off it. It's YouTube marketing 101 - controversy gets clicks. If you talk to other professionals in the industry or look to sources that don't include a 'sniff test' as part of the review, I think you will find that they talk more about preferences and subtle differences rather than camera A is better than camera B. That's why it gives me pause when I see comments like "you're going to get a few more keepers with Sony and Canon bodies" or "It's just a reality that Sony and Canon are a step up at the moment." Typically those types of comments are made by people who have not even shot with the bodies they are comparing and are revealing their confirmation bias.
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Bravo, this is the most useful comment I’ve seen on this forum in quite some time. It’s also, in my opinion, the most under-discussed topic in all of photography. For a long time now, photography gear has hit the point of diminishing returns well before people are willing to admit it. Instead of acknowledging this and taking a realistic assessment of their skill and needs, people endlessly debate the 1% difference in functionality among the systems—as if the difference in AF has had any meaningful effect on output in 10 years. If your proposition is that a certain system’s AF is subpar, you’ve really got to show your work at this point. From what I can tell, nearly all such comments are overwrought, meaningless blather that betrays an odd level of tribal fanboyism for a consumer electronic and cliche groupthink. I mean, seriously, how many comments must we read about how the AF motors in Sony’s telephoto lenses have rendered all other telephotos obsolete—even though all evidence is to the contrary?
Indeed, nearly every other aspect of image capture has a bigger impact on ultimate output than AF systems. For example, in wildlife photography, all of the following are more important than the differences in current AF systems: lens selection, physical strength and conditioning, hand-eye coordination, subject knowledge, photographic knowledge, post processing skill, field technique, time spent in the field, understanding of light and background, artistic vision, and location. The same is true for landscape photography, except for hand-eye coordination. And yet we’ll go on endlessly debating which system better picks up a bird’s eye that takes up 4% of the frame and is obscured by a branch.
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There are times when I have to get images off my camera onto a phone via snapbridge and send stuff over after the event for a press release. It has to at least be "acceptable."
and only 170g less than the Z8, which is nothing.