p.23 #1 · Z8 extremely unreliable/inconsistent AF in mildly low light
AlphaPhotography wrote:
The drama and toxicity is very strange and not like anything I've seen on FM to this extent on one topic. Usually there is just a fanboy for a particular brand here or there derailing a thread. With this thread and the other active more recent one about Nikon AF it seems like a large group of Nikon shooters completely dismisses any AF issues users ask about and talk down to anyone that asks about them. It's bizarre and a bit disconcerting as a new Nikon shooter.
In any article, the title is the most important part, and it should convey the reader of the title the essence of the text in a concise and accurate way. If you look at the title of this thread, you may able to see why many users reject it because it doesn't reflect our experiences. If you want people to be nice, please do the common courtesy of making an accurate and balanced title. If the OP genuinely believes the title is accurate and generally true, then it's most likely a result of doing something differently than many other people when in similar circumstances. It could be simply using an lens that is not well-suited for the task (f/4 maximum aperture) for a low-light situation in which case the lens should be given as much credit for the misbehavior as the camera, if it is not suitable then another lens can be chosen. I have no trouble reproducing such issues with f/4 or f/5.6 lenses and will shoot a faster lens in low light and consider the issue solved. A faster lens also provides higher image quality at equal apertures (often also at wider apertures) and allows in more ambient light which today is often preferred by many instead of flash.
As for the separate issue reported of camera stopping autofocusing during video, this is a different scenario. There are different aspects to it, but the examples suggest the lack of a clearly identifiable subject may simply make automatic modes unable to focus since they don't know what the user wants to focus on. There could also be a bug related to the camera stopping to focus, but I believe it's just that the algorithm needs a clear subject to work in a sensible way, otherwise it can just give up. The alternative is manual focusing which seems to be the default way of working for cinema anyway. I'm not saying the camera shouldn't focus on something even if it doesn't recognize a clear subject, and this is a matter of programming and what kind of teaching material and examples are used to develop the camera's algorithms, and what is considered the desired result. Reporting such issues to Nikon has some probability of bringing them to the attention of the people who develop the cameras (through many people consolidating the information, so writing really clearly is important, and even so, prioritization will happen).
It's well-known that other cameras handle auto-area AF better in some circumstances than Nikon mirrorless cameras and it's all over this forum in numerous threads. However, exaggerating such issues in the title by using words like "extremely unreliable/inconsistent AF in mildly low light" can easily provoke a negative response in people who simply cannot agree with the claims in the title. This doesn't mean there isn't an issue in the reported cases, it's just that such wild generalizations and broad claims are simply not truthful. I've shot about 150000 images with the Z cameras (including the Z8), and most of those are in some level of low light, including indoor photography of events and people and overall fewer than 1% of my images have been out of focus, which to me is an astonishingly good result from a camera. In some scenarios the results have been as good as only 0.3% of images out of focus such as in a wedding.
I realize that online "journalism" is like tabloids where titles often are wildly misleading and people unfortunately learn from such practices, but in my opinion if there is a negative response to an inaccurate title, the authors deserve some of the setback. In proper journalism, the purpose of writing the titles is such that if the readers have no time to read the actual story, they still get an accurate summary by reading the title. In forum discussions, this should be the goal as well. What would be a good title for this story? "Subject identification and AF erratic in low light with Z8 using (mention f/4 lens used)" would be a better start and would be considered reasonable by me. It would also help find the thread based on the title by people experiencing similar problems.
