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 p.13 #5 · Z8 extremely unreliable/inconsistent AF in mildly low light | |
CanadaMark wrote:
I did see your list, and a similar list of anecdotes can be complied for any camera or lens out there after a brief google search. I also see lots of OOF images in threads featuring $30,000 gear combinations from every brand out there. You've also been presented with similar lists with descriptions of the camera excelling in the areas you are having trouble with. I think the crucial point you are missing is that nobody has a magical camera - barring defective hardware, if someone has proven that a normally functioning camera does not have an issue in a certain scenario, then it doesn't. There isn't any significant sample variation with camera bodes....Show more →
This is not only unproven, but it is demonstrably false. For example, there was a significant problem with variation on the D800 which caused autofocus problems. I'm not saying that this has to be the same thing, but it's simply not true that there is never any kind of variation in this sort of thing. In fact, over on DPR there are people with significant experience in high tech industries talking about the fact that with any kind of technology of this sort comes not just the possibility but even the probability of variation.
If you or anyone is having confirmed issues in a scenario that the overwhelming majority is not, then you should be talking to Nikon.
Yes I have been in the generic shooting scenario described in your OP countless times with zero issues. I can tell you for sure that neither my Z9 or Z8 I have access to misses focus with similar lighting and distance to where you seem to be experiencing the issue, even at very wide apertures like F1.8. In fact the cameras perform very well in situations so unfavorable that I would forgive them for having very low hit rates, either with people or other subjects.
The issues you are describing seem to be AF failures (I believe you stated less than 30% hit rate) in bog-standard situations where a 10 year old DSLR would have no problem let alone a MILC with state of the art AF. Situations where most others don't seem to be experiencing any issues and that have not come up as widespread issues in nearly a year of the camera being on the market, or much longer than that if you consider the Z9 is using the identical AF system. Situations that the camera was specifically praised for by professional reviewers. Given how many folks are using the Z8/Z9 for people photography, and in challenging situations (events, weddings, etc.), any widespread issues would have long been discovered. Nikon is highly sensitive to even minor issues and seems willing to release a voluntary service advisory for just about anything these days.
In another thread you described lots of misses when the AF wasn't even really doing anything (slow perpendicular movement) - that is not normal and it's not exactly a stretch to assume something is wrong with your camera body if it is failing in those basic scenarios. Again, if you are confident this is not a settings or technique issue, would have sent my camera in a long time ago or at least rented/borrowed another one to see if I was still having the issue. Nothing you are going to read here at this point is going to all of a sudden increase your hit rate by a factor of 3.
I think another important point to make is that nobody here is nobody here is making up stories with the purpose of defending their brand as someone very oddly suggested earlier. We are trying to help, and at some point you need to consider that defective hardware is a possibility. People saying they do not experience the issue are not automatically lying in some grand conspiracy to feel better about themselves, that is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever read on here - I know you didn't make that comment but hopefully you aren't buying into that garbage. I genuinely hope you get this sorted out whether it ends up being something silly or whether you have to go through the warranty process. The longer this thread gets you seem to be having more and more problems and I can barely keep up - I would at least open a dialogue with Nikon....Show more →
I think the claim that the "overwhelming majority" is not having problems is at best unfounded. I've cited only a handful of the comments that people have posted about the Z8/9 and focus issues in low light. For every one of these, there are at least two people who have written about it but not talked about the autofocus and instead framed things as a complaint about Nikon's lack of a mirrorless capable AF assist light on flashes. Their experience has been the same, though: in situations where flash is required, the focus has been extremely unreliable. There is even a whole "cottage industry" of people trying to find ways to jury-rig improvised AF-assist lights for their Z bodies because they can't focus in low light otherwise. And over on DPR even now more and more people are jumping in on the discussion saying, essentially, that they have always had this problem but either chalked it up to the bad reputation Nikon got for AF during the Z6/7 era or that they tried mentioning it, were flamed, and so gave up.
So the view that these problems are so uncommon seems tenuous at best. In fact, snapsy's almost immediate ability to replicate the exact problem is a strong argument against this claim. If it really were an extremely uncommon problem or simply a matter of a defective camera body, it would be extraordinarily unlikely that the one person who decided to try to replicate the problem out of tens of thousands of owners of the camera just happened to also have a body with the same problem.
You have a few times also mentioned the comments I've made about my 180-600 and tracking birds in flight, but again it seems to me that statistics and probabilities make the view that my equipment is simply defective extremely unlikely. I had the same experience with my 200-500. I had that same experience not only on my Z8 but also on my D500, and even my old D5600. That's probably worth less because its AF is less advanced, but still. Meanwhile when I put the 500pf on the Z8 it CAN track BIF... so if it were my camera body, as you're now suggesting in this thread, it shouldn't be able to do it with the 500pf - but it can. And again, many, many people out there report the same experience. Statistically speaking, the much, much more likely probability is that the faster AF on the 500pf really is more capable of keeping up with BiF than the 200-500 or 180-600.
I think that what is happening here is much more likely that you and others have, for one reason or another, this a priori view that this problem CAN'T exist on the Z8/9 and so you're finding ways - not even maliciously but just as a way of trying to harmonize everything into a coherent view of the world - to try to dismiss whatever evidence one could possibly produce, whether it's quotes from many other owners or video demonstrations or anything else.
My view is that I don't question people who claim that they have not had these problems, other than perhaps to wonder whether they have shot in the same circumstances, at the same distances, etc. as we are finding these issues with. I don't think anyone is intentionally lying, but I do wish people would give those of us reporting these problems the same good faith.
You have suggested reaching out to Nikon and I do understand why, but again the reason I have not is that I don't currently have a backup and I need the camera right now. Unfortunately not all of us can afford to have these kinds of redundancies, though I think of course anyone doing photography in any serious way has that as a goal. Right now I am not in a financial spot to even rent a second body to test this out, but in a certain sense I'm not sure why I would feel the need to. Snapsy has demonstrated the same problem on his camera body, which is essentially the same as if I'd rented a second body myself. The financial issue also makes the idea of paying for Nikon to look at the camera something I would only want to do if I had confidence it was worth it, and seeing the many other reports of the same experiences from others does not give me much confidence at all that there really is anything they are going to find wrong or be able to repair.
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