p.1 #1what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
I have watched a couple of video on nikon camera setup.
Why do most people keep the joystick button to reset which is to recenter the AF point? To me it is much FASTER to set that as AF on so I can move the AF point and engage AF without even taking my thumb off the button. I map the reset function to one of the buttons on top beside the shutter.
To me, when I recenter the AF much less often and when I do that, I never want to release the shutter.
Only downside I see is the potential to move the AF point accidentally but this is very rare.
The main upside is for the Z8 camera, there are three buttons which you can technically engage AF, the joystick button, the afon button and the display button. The display button is too far for my thumb and makes it uncomfortable. The joystick button and af on buttons are far more comfortable. I set the AFon to engage wide area C1 to switch af area on the fly. Leaving the joystick button as reset seems to be such a huge waste.
p.1 #3what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
pr4photos wrote:
I use it to recenter, and the AF-ON is my AF button
do you have a secondary AF on button? To me a secondary AF on button is very useful as it allows you to have another set of AF settings which you can switch to on the fly.
May 03, 2026 at 08:23 AM
RoamingScott
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p.1 #4what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
Joystick press centers the point. AF-ON is single point AF, shutter is wide. I can’t fathom using the joystick as you describe.
p.1 #6what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
I've tried setting it to activate an alternate focusing pattern with my D850/D500 but have found that if I didn't press it exactly straight on, it would not activate. I like the idea and it may work better with the Z cameras but for me and my thumb on my old f mount cameras it doesn't work very well.
p.1 #8what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
Fn1 button = Cycle Af-area mode: 1.Single-point AF, 2.Wide-area AF, 3.Auto-area AF. Each time I press and RELEASE the Fn1 button, it cycles to the next 3 choices for video and stills
Fn2 button = Recall shooting functions: Mine toggles between a fast shutter speed and a slower one.
My OK button is set to recenter focus
For video: a6 must be on (Shutter/AF-ON), i.e. video only focuses with the shutter button
For stills I favor AF-ON only and I can still press/release the Fn1 button to cycle through my 3 AF-area modes.
Joystick: To experiment, today I set the joystick to Starlight View
p.1 #9what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
I wish we could reassign our “return to home” location. Maybe 80% of the time I’m shooting I’d rather have my OK button return to a spot of my choosing above center, which is where faces are.
p.1 #10what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
RoamingScott wrote:
Joystick press centers the point. AF-ON is single point AF, shutter is wide. I can’t fathom using the joystick as you describe.
your shutter release trigger AF? Then won't it override the AF-ON single point every time you release the shutter?
I have mine joystick mapped to AF-on so it will take any current AF area set which is usually 3D tracking. The AF on button is set to the C2 area mode which I set to a big square covering maybe 1/3 of the frame. This allows me to use tracking with a small af box, or switch quickly to a big square where I don't have time to aim the small tracking box.
You can replace the C2 by wide but the C2 is actually much more customisable as you can choose how big the box you want.
p.1 #11what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
AF-ON’s behavior overrides the shutter button’s behavior as long as AF-ON is held.
wind30 wrote: RoamingScott wroteJoystick press centers the point. AF-ON is single point AF, shutter is wide. I can’t fathom using the joystick as you describe.your shutter release trigger AF? Then won't it override the AF-ON single point every time you release the shutter?
p.1 #12what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
RoamingScott wrote:
AF-ON’s behavior overrides the shutter button’s behavior as long as AF-ON is held.
wind30 wroteRoamingScott wroteJoystick press centers the point. AF-ON is single point AF, shutter is wide. I can’t fathom using the joystick as you describe.your shutter release trigger AF? Then won't it override the AF-ON single point every time you release the shutter?
oh ok. I did not know that but that means I can't release shutter without triggering AF so cannot pre focus which sometimes I do but rarely.
p.1 #13what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
LostLensCap wrote:
I've tried setting it to activate an alternate focusing pattern with my D850/D500 but have found that if I didn't press it exactly straight on, it would not activate. I like the idea and it may work better with the Z cameras but for me and my thumb on my old f mount cameras it doesn't work very well.
I have been using this since I switched to Sony mirrorless many years ago from nikon DSLRs and it worked great on the Sonys. So when I bought the z8, that was the first thing I set. I did not try it on nikon DSLRs.
p.1 #14what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
wind30 wrote: RoamingScott wroteJoystick press centers the point. AF-ON is single point AF, shutter is wide. I can’t fathom using the joystick as you describe.your shutter release trigger AF? Then won't it override the AF-ON single point every time you release the shutter?
I have mine joystick mapped to AF-on so it will take any current AF area set which is usually 3D tracking. The AF on button is set to the C2 area mode which I set to a big square covering maybe 1/3 of the frame. This allows me to use tracking with a small af box, or switch quickly to a big square where I don't have time to aim the small tracking box.
You can replace the C2 by wide but the C2 is actually much more customisable as you can choose how big the box you want. ...Show more →
The good thing about nikon implementation is that the big C2 box follow your AF point selection of the 3d tracking point unlike my sony A7r5... So let say if I move the 3d tracking point to the right as my subject is in the right, I can quickly switch to C2 and the big C2 box will appear on the right allowing me to capture the right subject with ease.
Stupid sony has distinct AF point selection for different AF modes, so the C2 box will appear somewhere else... duh...
p.1 #15what do you set your nikon camera joystick button to?
I don't set to anything, so default. Nikon is getting pretty archaic with the controls and interface by now. They could use a couple more buttons for right thumb/first digit and a 3rd control dial.