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 p.9 #9 · Z8 extremely unreliable/inconsistent AF in mildly low light | |
CanadaMark wrote:
+1, I would be sending that camera into Nikon based on what I read here. I don't believe the OP is being disingenuous, but ~30% hit rates under perfectly normal/common shooting scenarios that would not stress the camera is absolutely not the norm. Assuming no major settings or technique issues (doesn't seem like it), this all very much points to a defective body if this occurs with every lens (if not, then look into the lenses).
In another thread the OP describes poor hit rates with perpendicular movement where the AF isn't even really doing anything.
I was recently in Costa Rica where I was regularly shooting under dark canopies and literally in the dark on night jungle tours, sometimes at ISO 12,800 and double digit shutter speeds - the AF worked just as well as it always does with an incredible hit rate. Another thing I was doing was tracking hummingbirds close to sunset in bushes we had on our property, again with extremely poor lighting and lots of obstructions (branches/leaves), the camera didn't miss a beat - it stays glued to the eye. I quit shooting before the camera quit tracking because I couldn't keep shutter speeds high enough without using stupid ISOs. This is with both a Z8 and Z9. I have also shot newborns for friends and subject detection had no issues whatsoever staying glued to the eye.
The performance the OP is getting out of that Z8 is clearly not the norm, and the camera has been out long enough that any widespread issues occurring under common/ordinary shooting scenarios would have long been discovered by now. It's also a very popular body for wedding/PJ shooters, who are dealing with people in unpredictable and poorly lit conditions all the time. Maybe set up some controlled testing to demonstrate your ~20-30% hit rates and send that to Nikon along with your camera for further evaluation. At this point I don't think there is going to be a eureka moment that all of a sudden improves the hit rate by a factor of ~3....Show more →
Mark, thanks for the good spirited post. The truth is that I'd frankly be a bit relieved if it turned out there was something wrong with my camera, but one reason I have a hard time going there (at least yet) is that there really are plenty of other people there reporting similar experiences. I'll quote a few here - not so much to argue with you as because my observation of this has been questioned and disparaged over and over by other users in this thread.
These comments cover the Z8 as well as the Z9.
From https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4649421
"I'm also seriously suffering with this right now. OG z6 and a brand new z9 hanging off of me, and in the dark with moving people, I seem to have better accuracy and focusing speed with the z6. Turning off Eye AF seems to help a tiny bit."
From https://www.reddit.com/r/Nikon/comments/16wrhnw/nikon_z8_low_light_autofocus/
"I get okay-ish results with single-point AF, but subject detection on my Z8 basically doesn't work at all in dim light, let alone what I would consider true low light. Starlight mode helps only slightly, and honestly it's kind of a hack."
"I’m having the same issue as you. I’ve had the Z8 for two months and I love it…but I’m surprisingly disappointed with low light AF/high ISO performance. I just shot homecoming with it and expected more."
"I’m late to this one I realize, but I’m wondering if you’ve had any luck remedying this? I’ve been shooting with the z8 for a few months and the low light focus is atrocious. No matter what settings or mode I use, I get tons of out of focus shots, while under the same conditions my d850 nails focus every time."
"I do a lot of events in really dark rooms and it really underperforms there. It’s great everywhere else though."
From https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4725694
"I shoot a lot of receptions/weddings. I'm finding that the Z8 is almost completely unusable in a somewhat dark room when trying to use a speedlight. I was recently photographing a party and every time that I'd approach a group to shoot a grip and grin, I ended up awkwardly standing there as I waited for the camera to search for focus.....which it never found at times. Totally embarrassing! If people are moving around on a dim dance floor, forget it. I'll miss almost every shot. I've been having to switch to my DSLR in these situations because the focus is instant. I've been shooting events for 15 years or so and never had this issue....even with old DSLR's."
From https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4635872
"the Z9 is perfect in everything except in these situations that you described indeed I must say that it goes blind in these situations when there is little light and I use it with the flash. I pointed out these problems to NPS and I was hoping they would solve it with firmware 2.0 but nothing is the same as before."
"I talked about EyeAF for Z9 with FW 2.0 in this thread. But in summary, EyeAF (without AF light assist) can get really dicey below 3 EV while the (original) Z6 with its latest firmware can go lower (i.e., it can still focus reliably with EyeAF down to 2 EV with the 50/1.2S @ f1.2)"
"Thanks for your personal feedback. I actually purchased the Z9 since posting and have shot one event so far and yes, I agree with you. I had a situation where it wasn't even incredibly dark, and the camera was noticeably slow to acquire focus and hesitated "
"It' pretty bad in these scenerios: night club, gala, wedding reception when shooting people with flash I went back to my Nikon D5 Immediately after missing shots. The focus was searching, the screen stuttering and I missed important shots.I consider Z9 good in low light. Not Low Low Light."
"I’m also finding that in most situations the focus is great, but in some situations like party type events it becomes unusable"
From https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4630975
"used for almost 3 weeks now, z2470 2.8 everything's all right expect one problem bugs me a lot the Z9 eye afc is unreliable at low light situation."
From: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4633799?page=2
"Well, I'll tell you that the first thing I did was do that test and this Nikon z9 camera in an event in low light with AFC and the success was 3 percent of 1000 photos, I had to use my Nikon D850,"
"these are not isolated samples...i have a lot of samples showing this issue. i changed the priority on focus rather than release (which i don't need to do with Z6) for AF-C and didn't do squat. I also played around with the EVF/Live View to not apply setting since that also affects AF...no improvement. AF-S and AF-C both bad on Z9..although AF-S is slightly better... Note that for some tests (like the ones above) i have the subject on a chair and i have my camera on a tripod...shouldn't really make a significant difference and yet here we are." (Note: this user posts photos demonstrating the same problem we are discussing here)
I can't find them right now, but there were also quite a few comments I've read over the past few days to the effect of, "I shoot weddings and have had to start using my D850/780 again" and, "I have talked to other wedding shooters in the area and many of them have also stopped taking their Z9/8 and are back to DSLRs until Nikon fixes this."
The point is that my experience is not an isolated case, but has been shared by quite a few people. While it's a nice thought that "if this was a common problem people would be clamoring on all the forums and returning their Z8s," the reality is that there were people clamoring on the forums: they just gave up and went back to using other cameras and we don't see them saying much anymore, especially since many of them came to these conclusions back when they got their Z9s, long before the Z8 was released.
Yet your own experience, Mark is also not uncommon. In most of the threads I've linked as well as in others I didn't, there are in addition to many people expressing frustration with the Z8/9 in low light others reporting amazing, almost miraculously good results with their own.
This is why I think the two most probable explanations are either 1) That there is something akin to sample variation with the Z8/9s or 2) that it has a great deal to do with the exact type of shooting you do, as dka1 and snapsy have suggested. I know I tend to prefer to shoot a lot tighter than it seems many others do, and that seems to be the situation where this happens the most.
More on this idea in an important update post coming below.
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