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CanadaMark wrote:
I get what you're trying to say, but in my mind what it doesn't address is how so many people are not having issues, which based on all the fantastic images posted here and elsewhere, seems to be the majority of users. The other thing it doesn't address is why some people are seemingly having the exact same issues with the highest tiers of equipment featuring the fastest available AF motors. If one person is having issues and the other is not, the burden of proof would be on the person who is having the issue because the person not having the issue has already demonstrated the product is capable of performing in a certain way. I respect your opinion that people can be too fast to blame the user, but my counterpoint would be that I think the human factor is often underestimated, especially in a realm were the tiniest things can make big difference, and people in general are naturally resistant to considering themselves as part of the problem - even more so if they have spent a lot of money. In my experience, the user is most often the problem, and that includes my own problems  The fact of the matter is that defective gear is extremely rare and BIF is one of the most challenging types of photography. Good long lens technique and a deep understanding of the complicated mirrorless AF systems is not something anyone learns overnight.
The other thing that makes me skeptical that it's the lens (assuming it's working properly) is the situations you described you were having issues in. The words you used to describe the situations were things like "gliding across", "coasting down" and "soaring through the air". All of those scenarios sound like larger, slow moving birds with movement that is typically perpendicular to the camera - in those situations the AF motor is barely even working because the distance changes are quite minor. Please feel free to correct me as I am making an assumption there. There aren't many camera/lens combinations that can't handle that kind of movement and those types of scenarios would not be a challenge whatsoever for a Z8 + 200-500. The other comment you made that gave me pause was "I don't know how we can say someone tracked poorly when tracking consists of doing nothing while the camera's AF follows the subject.". If it were that easy, nothing would ever be OOF and we'd all be submitting our images to NatGeo. AI subject detection is not a substitute for skill, and it doesn't mean you can be lazy tracking your subjects or with your technique. It requires even more technical knowledge of the camera's AF for best results. I also think that if someone is expecting the camera to more/less do everything for them, they are more likely to be disappointed and are going to be far less likely to consider themselves as part of the problem.
And don't get me wrong, I am not saying the 200-500 is a very fast focusing lens nor am I saying it would be my first choice for shooting fast action, but a great deal of proof exists that it is capable of keeping up to some of the most demanding action subjects, and I think most would agree it can very easily keep up to perpendicular BIF or slower moving birds. Once there is proof of concept, if someone else can't achieve the same thing, I think it's reasonable to have a default assumption that the user is the issue (generally speaking, I don't mean you personally). It would then be up to the person having the issue to show that something else is wrong, and I have yet to see any evidence that suggests there is meaningful sample variation in the AF performance of the 200-500. If it turns out that the lens is defective, then of course we know the issue is likely not with the user/settings/technique.
Whenever a performance metric is being evaluated that also includes a massive human variable, the best results are the ones we generally accept. To use yet another car analogy, if a particular vehicle can go around a track in, say, one minute with a professional driver, if a customer buys the same vehicle and can't achieve the same time, nobody is going to think the vehicle is defective. Now, put that same customer in a car that does everything better, and they might be able to get a similar lap time to the professional driver in the lesser vehicle for any number of reasons - maybe not so different to some people needing a 500PF to get similar results that others get from a 200-500, especially if one is expecting the gear to do all the work. Maybe switching to a 500PF does improve keepers for some people, but how do you determine that it's due to the AF motor when so many other variables are also changing at the same time? Maybe the increased keeper rate is because the lens is so much easier to hold/maneuver and has much better ergonomics than the 200-500.
Speaking of the 500PF, I've been around quite a while and I've never noticed a theme of people switching from the 200-500 to a 500PF due to AF issues. The 200-500 is big, heavy, poorly balanced, and the zoom ring has way too much travel - the people I know who made the switch to the 500PF were either for those reasons or for better performance with teleconverters. I don't doubt that some people have switched specifically due to perceived AF issues, but what is the scale of this theme? 5 people? 10? 20? How many individual accounts have you read about? Out of tens of thousands of lenses sold, that number would have to be pretty big to suggest any kind of widespread issue. Nikon is also hypersensitive of any issues and regularly releases voluntary service advisories for things the internet isn't even aware of until Nikon reveals it. The 200-500 has been in use since 2015 and I think if there was any kind of well known or widespread issue with the AF performance it would have been addressed by now. Do you zoom while shooting? If so, there is a firmware update for the 200-500 that addressed an issue where the AF would occasionally fail to operate while using the zoom ring at the same time. As far as I know this only affected early units (~2015) but it's something to be aware of.
At the end of the day, you need to use what works for you, regardless of the reason. If that isn't the 200-500, then get something else  Lucky for you the 180-600 is a worthy successor, and this thread has plenty of evidence that it is performing at or above expectations, so if you like that style of lens you are unlikely to be disappointed by it....Show more →
Well, I don't think it has to be too complicated a question why some people may see different performance. Sample variation does exist, and I think there are ways we can conceive of that it could affect things like AF performance as well as optical quality. I tend to trust people's reports, especially when we can see from their work that they do have some sense of what they're doing. If some people say their 200-500 can't track well, I believe them - in particular when the experience echos my own.
Remember that I've had much more consistent results from the Sigma Sports, a lens that doesn't do everything better. It does mkst things worse, in fact: handling and stabilization for sure, IQ in the view of many. Yet it definitely does AF better and the way I was able to photograph BIF with it vs. my Nikon spoke for itself.
You mention two of my comments. First, you asked about the sorts of birds I was talking about. I've had the most experience with heron and seagulls - not much else typically easy to find in my area. I agree with you that these should be easy for an AF if they're gliding across the frame- and that's part of why it's been so frustrating. I can pan with the bird well. I can keep it in the center of the frame. With my DSLR I could keep the group area on it. With my Z8 the subject tracking stays solid green on the bird as I follow it across the water, but then the focus is poor, almost lagging. With the Sigma it was much harder to pan, but I did and the way the green box stayed on the bird was just more smooth, almost as if the EVF refresh rate were higher, though it wasn't. The shots were in focus. I can put an old inexpensive DX AF-P tele on there and like the Sigma it just feels smoother and I get more in focus.
You also mentioned my comments about skill regarding things like eye tracking. I just disagree that there's any question of skill involved with putting a camera on a tripod and holding the AF on button while someone walks around in the frame. In that case the camera/lens AF is either staying on subject or it's not.
Here's a brief story in relation to both those points. In the past month I got a 70-180, my first native Z lens. It's AF seems to be described by most as okay but not great. I was immediately impressed with how much stickier it felt than the 200-500. I started taking it on walks with the family in the evenings. When my kids wanted me to run around, my wife would hold it. She's never really used my camera's but does understand photography basics. One night she tried to photograph the kids and got a bunch of almost entirely out of focus shots. She asked why and I had to teach her back button focus. The next evening she took it again in very dark conditions - I had auto ISOs of 16000 - and got almost entirely perfectly focused shots, right on the eye, of me and the kids running around very quickly past sunset. She held the camera out in front of her and looked at the LCD like a cell phone with both hands on the body, the lens waving around. She also commented that that lens, praised for its weight, was very heavy This is not a VR lens and her shutter speed was high enough in the near dark that there's not many examples of motion blur.
I've not gotten even half that hit rate in the mid-day sun photographing the kids at 200mm on the 200-500. It just won't stay on their eyes firmly enough, and when it does there are a lot of out of focus shots. Here's someone with almost no knowledge of the system, very poor technique, who isn't comfortable with/used to even a lightweight setup photographing difficult, erratic subjects in awful light on a lens with no VR and the lens just works and nails almost every shot.
Don't misunderstand: my wife has a greater artistic aptitude than I and would easily become a master if she tried, but clearly she isn't right now. I just don't think there's a huge question of experience or technique when it comes to basic things like getting in focus shots of eyes on a camera that automatically focuses on eyes. Likewise, when the camera is automatically focusing on a slow flying bird, to a large degree the photographer has to trust the camera to get the focus. There are things you can do to give it a better chance or to mess it up, or to take matters into your own hands when it's having a hard time, but ultimately when a bunch of lenses give you good results and one doesn't, it is what it is.
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