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 p.36 #12 · Let's talk about the Nikon Zf | |
RoamingScott wrote:
Well it took the Nikon social media team a week to answer me on IG, but here it is from the source:
"In auto mode, rotate the ISO sensitivity dial to C. At the default settings for auto mode, the camera will adjust ISO sensitivity automatically to assist exposure control while the ISO dial is rotated to C."
Assuming we're going to use your retro dial camera in auto mode. Lord almighty, help me. At least it's obvious who this camera is aimed at with this response.
Right, so in Auto mode, the ISO dial works in the following way (if Auto ISO is ON). Dial set to C: Auto ISO is used; the camera selects ISO to satisfy exposure considerations. Dial set to fixed ISO value: camera uses the selected ISO and adjusts exposure using shutter speed and aperture.
Auto seems to override most things but not the ISO dial. ;-) It also doesn't override the separation of autofocus and the shutter button, so if you hand over the camera to someone not used to AF-ON use, just selecting Auto on the PASMAuto lever doesn't make the autofocus happen on the shutter button; you also have to restore the autofocus to shutter button explicitly from the custom settings.
In PASM modes, if Auto ISO is ON, ISO dial only gives the starting point for ISO and if the camera can achieve correct exposure via the freedom of shutter speed and aperture selection allowed, it will first do that before adjusting the ISO from the user-selected choice on the dial. If the dial is set to C, the user selected ISO is entered via any of the four other methods.
If Auto ISO is OFF, the camera will follow the ISO dial selected ISO unless it is C, in which case the other methods are used to set ISO.
While these seem strange choices by the designers, there is enough freedom in customisation in the camera to make it workable. I'm not at all concerned about the way Auto ISO works in this camera; by setting Fn to My Menu and Auto ISO ON/OFF to the top My Menu choice, I can toggle Auto ISO via two button presses: Fn followed by OK. This is not any slower than when using the conventional method where I use ISO button press followed by turning the sub-command dial to activate/inactivate Auto ISO on other Nikon cameras. In fact I keep Fn2 set to My Many on most of my cameras so that I can access a priority list of menu settings quickly.
The autofocus and VR are excellent on the Zf, and battery life is very good using the EN-EL15c. While the user interface is full of curiosities, it has in fact encouraged me to experiment more with settings and for some things it's more convenient than the modern interface on most high-end Nikons. For example, if I'm alternating between photographing people and the location, I can set the shutter dial to 1/500s for the moving people shots, it's fast enough to freeze most walking and casual movement while keeping ISO requirements moderate. I access this via either M or S modes on the PASM lever. If it is low light I typically set the lens wide open and use M with auto ISO for this. When I want to get shots of the location, I can switch the lever to P, and it'll typically stop the lens down a bit (to f/3.5 or so, if wide open is f/1.8) and use a slower shutter speed suitable for hand-held shots of static subjects. So it's convenient for location images where freezing motion is not mandatory. On a Z8, to do this, I would need a two-handed operation (access MODE and turn dial to P) or if MODE is set to a custom function button, twisting fingers. The PASMAuto lever is quicker and easier for this. I could of course achieve a similar result by adjusting the aperture and shutter speed manually but this is even more time-consuming and going back to motion-freezing settings also takes a bit more time. Auto ISO Auto minimum shutter speed setting makes the use of P more viable as I can adjust the preference of the camera's own choice of minimum shutter speed up or down, depending on the requirements of the situation, though making a menu dive is required to adjust that. If the shutter speed and ISO dials had A settings, the camera would not remember the shutter speed previously selected by the user (when in another mode). So I find that while the user interface used by Nikon is arguably more complex, it facilitates mode-hopping while preserving information about what was previously used in those modes.
For tripod-based shooting of locations, involving more drastic changes to optimize image quality, one still needs to do a settings overhaul i.e. go to aperture priority, set aperture to f/11, and ISO to base ISO (100), turn on the ML-L7 remote, and take shots. This is a bit more complicated than ideal, so having a separate landscape camera where the settings are already set to appropriate for those applications may be an easier approach, finances permitting.
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