I took 5.3 out yesterday with the Tamron 150-500, 400/4.5 and 800/6.3. Shooting gannets and white fronted terns. Gannets are not the most challenging of subjects but not pushovers either. The terns on the other hand are very fast and erratic and lots of pursuits and aerial battles and generally very challenging to shoot.
I shot around 4k images and some video. I am very familiar with the location and the subjects I shot. Auto area with bird ID the whole time. In summary, I found 5.3 represents a useful uptick in performance. It seems quite a bit stickier when tracking and less inclined to drop focus accuracy of the odd frame during bursts. Certainly less inclined to grab the B/G. Acquisition does not seem to have changed. Overall a very nice release IMHO!
Did anyone try long necked birds like egrets, cranes and herons? I found sometimes Nikon focus on the body than the eye. It jumps back and forth. I have the back button (focus) assigned to 'Recall shooting functions' and override only focus area to Wide area custom from auto area. That way camera will focus only in the center and find eye easily. So it's not a huge deal. It'll be great if it's improved. I hope they have new trained model with the FW.
Jemini wrote:
Did anyone try long necked birds like egrets, cranes and herons? I found sometimes Nikon focus on the body than the eye. It jumps back and forth. I have the back button (focus) assigned to 'Recall shooting functions' and override only focus area to Wide area custom from auto area. That way camera will focus only in the center and find eye easily. So it's not a huge deal. It'll be great if it's improved. I hope they have new trained model with the FW.
This was posted on DPR a couple of days ago:
"Dbltfarmer said:
I updated this morning. Went out and shot some stills of a few sandhill cranes. The Cranes were in some shallow and dipping their heads down to feed on stuff in the water. The shallow water had weeds and grasses sticking up out of the water. The AF mainly in WideL worked well and would focus on the body when the birds head and eye were difficult to see because of the grass and weeds. Once the Crane raised his head above the weeds and such the focus point went straight for the eye. Focus seemed to work better than ever for long necked birds."
Alistair1 wrote:
This was posted on DPR a couple of days ago:
"Dbltfarmer said:
I updated this morning. Went out and shot some stills of a few sandhill cranes. The Cranes were in some shallow and dipping their heads down to feed on stuff in the water. The shallow water had weeds and grasses sticking up out of the water. The AF mainly in WideL worked well and would focus on the body when the birds head and eye were difficult to see because of the grass and weeds. Once the Crane raised his head above the weeds and such the focus point went straight for the eye. Focus seemed to work better than ever for long necked birds."...Show more →
Great! Now Nikon bring the raw pre-capture!
Z9 (and may be Z8) will be the only camera converted from Ver I to II with zero $ ever in history!
