SCoombs
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
 p.16 #11 · Z8 extremely unreliable/inconsistent AF in mildly low light | |
CanadaMark wrote:
I am not claiming your issues are unique in that zero other people are or have ever experienced them. I am saying that your Z8's performance (and regardless of what percentage of total owners might be experiencing the same issue) is outside what is very obviously the norm for that camera, and since most others are not experiencing the issues you are having, clearly the people with no issues are experiencing the expected baseline/intended level of performance from the camera that every owner is entitled to. The camera has been out for about a year now, no AF issues have popped up or been documented in any significant numbers, professional reviewers praise the camera for its performance under the specific issues your Z8 seems to be struggling with, etc. The Z8 is used here professionally by many in various challenging environments similar to or more demanding than the ones you are having issues with and most do not have any problems. There have been tens of thousands of Z8's sold in the last year or so. I understand you have found a handful other anecdotal reports of similar issues, but they are just that - anecdotes with a million unknown variables. That doesn't make them wrong, but it also doesn't mean they can blindly be grouped together as people having the exact same issue as you (not saying you are doing that necessarily). It also doesn't mean that people who are not having these issues are being insincere (again not saying you think this). It's all very simple - if some people are having issues and others are not, you deserve to be in the "issue free" camp.
Nikon is hypersensitive to any issues with their cameras as evidenced by their willingness to release voluntary service advisories for just about everything, and firmware updates are coming at rates never seen before which include both routine bug fixes as well as new features/improvements. I fully acknowledge that sometimes those updates fix issues that only affect a small number of people, that is not at all unusual and actually a testament of Nikon's willingness to address minor issues that other manufacturers would gladly let the warranty process take care of instead. It's a good thing, however frustrating it might be for the unlucky ones experiencing any given issue that others may not be.
As for the issues you have with certain lenses, they don't make any sense and no they can't easily be reconciled, which is precisely why I think it's highly likely something is up with your specific Z8. Further, as I explained in another thread, there are lots of other reasons why your keeper rate is probably higher with a 500PF than it is with one of the more cumbersome superzooms, so that particular issue might be more complicated or a combination of factors. With *any* lens, if your camera is failing to AF in extremely basic scenarios, assuming the lens is not somehow defective and assuming no issues with your setting or technique, the only variable remaining is the camera body itself. When most others are not having those same issues, and going by the above assumptions we're making, that points directly to an issue with the camera body. It's not impossible that the camera body has an issue or bug where it plays nicely with some lenses and not others. The way you described the situations the AF was failing in would have been no problem for even a 15 year old DSLR and a kit lens, let alone one of the best AF systems currently available and a selection of decent telephoto zoom lenses - to me that would be a huge red flag. If you haven't yet ruled out the lenses as being the source of the problem, the way to do that would be to try them on other bodies and see if the same issues exist.
Again to be clear I think you have done way more troubleshooting than you should have had to and all evidence points towards something being defective with your specific Z8. You are putting in all this extra effort while the majority of Z8 users are carrying on enjoying their cameras and obviously that should not have to happen. You mentioned some reasons why you don't want to send the camera into Nikon and that is your prerogative, but it is abundantly clear at this point that there is not going to be some eureka moment that all of a sudden resolves your issues, at least to the extent that we can help you via this forum. If you want an actual resolution you are probably going to have to involve Nikon - yes that sucks, yes that is inconvenient, but every product out there has a certain number of defective units and some unlucky folks will end up with them, that is why warranties exist. If you really don't want to involve Nikon, then your other option is going to be renting or borrowing another Z8 or even a Z9 to see if you can replicate the issues you're having with certain lenses or scenarios.
Looking at this another way, lets say everyone in your neighborhood went out and bought the same vehicle on the same day. Now lets say that while everyone else is enjoying their new vehicle, yours is having all kinds of problems, not starting or breaking down every other day or whatever. Maybe, in some other neighborhood, there is someone else who also is having bad luck just like you, but most are not. After some basic troubleshooting to hopefully rule out anything silly, do you spend weeks discussing it on the internet or do you take it back to the dealer? I think you are well past the basic troubleshooting stage at this point - nobody should have to work this hard to get their camera to perform as expected in bog standard shooting scenarios. If you're confident it's not related to anything you're doing at this point, I would just get that Z8 repaired or replaced and move on....Show more →
I'm not at all convinced that others aren't experiencing this at a widespread rate. You're calling the example I found of others experiencing it annecdotal,, but they're not dissimilar in number to the number of people saying their's works great. To me, rhkse are no less anecdotal. You say we'd see more widespread complaints if this were the norm, but would we? Most people don't thinknthis much into things and moreover it's becoming clear this occurs in very specific shooting conditions which I suspect a lot of people aren't shooting in.
For instance, you've Saif you have shot in these conditions, but so did jlafferty (even moreso in his comments on DPR where hebalso said he's shot in certain studio conditions a user in Dpr reports similar issues under. Yet when he went to look at his catalog, the closest he could find was seven stops brighter..
Seven stops!
So I'm just not convinced. I strongly, strongly suspect most people insisting their Z8 has never done this haven't actually done a lot of shooting at these light levels and these distances and are just sort of "eyeballing" it in their heads and saying, "sure, yeah, I've shot in lower light" and trusting some general "sense" of what they've done rather than actually being truly certain.
Between everything I'm seeing and reading from other users here, on DPR, on reddit, on BCG (where one esteemed photographer treats it as obvious that SR doesn’t work when light levels necessitate the EVF be even just a little underexposed)etc., I'm more and more convinced this is just normal behavior that some people simply haven't noticed because they don't encounter it often enough.
|
?