So, I've got a loan of a Z9 to shoot a music festival, but I'll only have a couple of days with it before I have to get to work. I'm hoping for some tips: DSLR moving to mirrorless.
I've been shooting Nikons for 20 years, and feel that I should be able to pick up the Z9 and get to work with it pretty quickly. My most recent Nikons are a D3S (old, I know, but I want to make it clear I'm used to working with a full-size pro-body) and a D750 (also old, but still a good workhorse). I also shoot Sonys, and so am quite experienced with mirrorless cameras (vs. DSLRs). I'll have an A7IV on my left shoulder during the music festival, and the Z9 on the right (it's usually my D750 on the right).
Any tips the Z owners here can offer?
Many thanks in advance,
Chas
ps. so is dpreview shutting down, or not? Those forums aren't as busy as they used to be, but there are still new posts (including a copy of this one :-)
I bought Thom's book for my D3s (or was it my D2x?), he's always the guy to go to. Might be overkill in this instance though, as I'll only have the Z9 for a week and a bit, and spending a week reading Thom's book (ha ha) before I even have the Z9 in hand will be a bit much. But the tips I've gotten from Z9 users have been very helpful, many thanks.
What lenses will you be using, how far will you be from the subjects and what lighting are you expecting (daylight, stage lights, combination of LEDs and other flickering sources, etc...?
You should ensure the camera and lenses are using the most recent Firmware (3.10 for the Z9) before use. -- As with all pro-cameras like the Z9 - setting them up to work with you, rather than against, is the first trick -- see below and look at my blog and the settings spreadsheet you can access from there.
The Z9 is different to ANY DSLR and sufficiently different to your Sony bodies that you "have to" build as much muscle memory with the camera as you can before your shoot so that you can make the best use of the camera/system on the day and are not hunting for HOW to use it in the dark.
Use continuous AF -- AF-C. FIRST and most importantly DO NOT use Auto-Area AF-mode or anything other than Manual exposure with auto ISO enabled.
We "shooters" choose what our camera focuses and control the exposure of our subjects on and do not leave it to the camera -- I do not care how much the camera costs I do not expect the camera to choose what I am shooting or to compose my shots -- this is not what a pro or enthusiast does.
Choose to shoot Lossless RAW to a fast CF-Express Type B card -- like the Delkin Black or Pro-grade Cobalt -- sure you can use a slower card - but you may (will) face issues if you are shooting action or high-res vids. [I do not use either of the High Efficiency RAW formats OR to shoot JPG].
You will need cards large enough to accomodate 50-60MB file sizes. I use 512/650 GB sized cards and have never had an issue and I shoot thousands of images in a shoot. Personally I trust my cards and so do not write a backup copy in the 2nd slot -- but others do. If you choose to then make sure you are using 2 identical cards - the camera will slow to the speed of the slowest card -- I rarely find an limits in heat or buffer when I shoot or vid.
When I do not know what lighting I will face (and this includes stage lighting) I shoot with a Flat Picture Management AND set my WB to Cloudy -- this fixes the WB Kelvin and leave me to choose what I want the end result to look like. If you want to shoot with Auto WB then I suggest Auto A1 (keep overall atmosphere). I would take shots of a 20% grey card when you can or some reference colour shots through the shoot to monitor what "correct" was under various lighting setups. BUT in live performances lighting changes very quickly and is hard to do anything other than fix the WB and work it out in post.
Use Matrix Metering or Highlight Weighted Metering if your subject is very bright (normally wearing white under spotlights) relative to the background. Highlight Weighted was introduced after your D3S (but it was available in your D750) and is designed to work well with lighting found on-stage performances -- basically it stops the exposure to blow out the whites by reducing the exposure to prevent general clipping (not it does not stop specular highlights) -- this has proven very useful -- but remember the histogram in the camera is based on a JPG not RAW data and if you use a FLAT profile the histogram is the most accurate for seeing the luminescence profile of the RAW data -- but we know that the lossless RAW files from the Z9 have more data in what are shown to be blown out highlights than you "see" in camera (even when using flat).
Use Exposure Compensation to address the relative luminosity balance between subject and background. It is really easy for me to press the button next to the shutter and turn the rear control dial -- other like to use a lens control ring to do this -- I do not (see below).
Set your camera's VR to Sport (only use Normal if you are going to shoot with a very slow shutter speed). Select your shutter speed to achieve the motion freezing you want to achieve -- we can easily shoot at 1/30th handheld with a standard or wide lens when VR/IS is set to normal.
Most of us start with a Small or Wide Area AF-mode with Human Subject Detection Enabled. BUT be aware that stage lighting and makeup can "confuse" the Subject Detection AI and as a result you will want to be able to switch AF-MODE (or hand off) to a different mode that works more like those on a DSLR (I advocate a Dynamic Area). AND many of us "hand off" from our initial mode to 3D tracking -- you will most definitely want to access 3D tracking AF-mode, which sticks on the subject you select when you initiate AF with the central point of your selected AF area on your subject and then you can move the frame or the subject can move and the focus will normally stick on them (their eye, head, body etc..) -- this is one of the big advantages of the Z9 over previous DSLRs.
Many of the Z9's buttons can be assigned roles -- I use all 3 Fn buttons, the movie record button, the Af-ON button and buttons on the lens for fast access to change settings instantly. I use a half-depressed shutter button to turn on the AutoFocus AND I use the AF-ON button to swap to 3D-tracking with AF-ON -- this is different to how we used to do it with DSLRs and with 3D tracking in the Z9 we simply do not need to focus and recompose the way we used to. {provided that the camera can lock on to the subject you want to shoot}. Other folk are deeply wedded to pure back-button auto-focus -- so they disable AF-ON from the shutter and simply use the AF-ON button to activate whichever AF-mode they have chosen to use -- first. With the Z9 I have assigned 3 other AF-modes (together with AF-ON) to each of Fn1, Fn2 and Fn3 buttons (although in some settings I use Fn3 to switch between full-frame Fx and cropped shooting (Dx or APS-C)).
S-line Nikon Z lenses often have one or more control or function rings in addition to a focus ring - they can be allocated a number of role including aperture settings and exposure compensation adjustments. These rings are VERY dangerous if you are not very used to shooting with them in these roles. Quite often folk are confused when they see their exposure changing seemingly at random to discover later they were inadvertently holding the lens by one of these rings. I strongly advise you change the role to NONE in Menu for Custom Control settings (F2 Custom controls (stills shooting)).
Auto-ISO range settings -- OK so here we get onto a hot issue -- but since I don't know what lighting you will face I STRONGLY advise you do not artificially limit below a maximum ISO setting of 25,600 - ISO 25,600 still provide useable images when the shutter speed freezes motion. The graininess of images shot with high ISO "adds" to the feel of a live performance. The Z9's stacked BSI sensor has proven to be one of the cleanest sensors Nikon has ever used -- and very ISO invariant (so you can recover significantly underexposed shots in LRC/Capture One or similar).
I have assigned my Movie Record Button to perform the Shooting Recall Hold I have chosen to use for a shoot -- when faced with subjects the Camera's SD system may struggle with I assign this button to enable and disable SD - simply pressing this button once turns SD off and then pressing it again turns it on again. In other settings -- like when there could be action instantly and I want to shift from shooting Continuous Low (say 5-10 fps) to shooting 20FPS and f/5.6 I change to this Shooting Recall Hold set-up. Most often this is useful for wildlife and sport, when action can happen very fast.
As to the rest -- the best Nikkor S-line lenses work very well wide open -- sure close down to provide DOF and to bring environmental background more into play. I suggest you use the best lenses you can get hold of. This means wide apertures and only got to f/4 or darket lenses if you need the reach.
Turn on Photo Flicker Reduction (shooting menu) AND consider using High-Frequency Flicker Reduction if you are bothered by banding or flickering. Changing the EVF refresh rate tends to fix flickering in the viewfinder.
Make sure the Stills Movie selector lever is on Stills when you want to shoot stills AND make sure the shutter button on the V-grip is set to L == LOCK unless you want to use it -- otherwise you will find you brush it and take shots when you don't mean to.
Well holy crap Andy, that's an answer and a half (times 5!). And you obviously read my original post carefully too. Many kudos from me, sincerely.
The quoting system here is a bit weird. Normally I'd intersperse my comments among yours, but I haven't yet sussed out how to do that, so I’ll reply up here.
Suffice to say, I've read your unbelievably comprehensive answer thoroughly, and will do so more than twice more. The tips are particularly appreciated, as they come from experience, and often manuals don't cover this sort of thing. Happily, I've been shooting professionally for a little over 20 years now, and have worked with most camera systems out there (from Phase One, down to the original iPhone ;-) so, with a little help from kind people like you (and a few days with the camera), I'm confident I can use the Z9 and not embarrass myself (too much).
Lighting: I'll be shooting in all the conditions you mention, and then some (it's the nature of this particular festival, and I’m guessing you can guess which one it is). I'm hoping that the banding issue the Z9 had with LEDs has been addressed, as most of the lighting these days is LED (I've always had to put my Sony's on mechanical shutter to deal with it).
The Z9 will be my daily closeup and wide angle camera (Z-mount 24-70 and F-mount 14-24), while my A7IV will be my long lens camera (g-master 70-200 f/2.8) on the other shoulder. I'm also bringing a few extra f-mount lenses: 500mm, a fisheye, a few primes (for astro and timelapse work, if I get the opportunity), and backups.
I'll definitely be ensuring that it has firmware 3.10, thanks for that (several others have mentioned the same). And the pointer to your blog and settings spreadsheet is greatly appreciated (great blog, I’ve read a couple of posts already). btw I see from your website that we live in the same city, not too far from each other :-)
re: muscle memory: I'm hoping that it's close enough to my D3s and D750 that it won't be completely foreign. If I've got a focus button on the back, and the shutter button is where it usually is, I can build on that :-) And I will often be shooting in the dark, so I take your advice to heart (I've given the same myself, on more than one occasion).
Always AF-C, and I don't use auto-ISO, my conditions are far too varied, it's fully manual at all times (which is a lot easier on mirrorless than it was on DSLRs, of course). Likely the same with focus points/boxes, though I will have eye-AF turned on (I'm often shooting run-and-gun shots of punters and also portraits, I love eye-AF).
I shoot only raw, and tend to shoot non-compressed raw, but I was considering shooting a compressed NEF format this time, and I was going to check what caveats there were with this format. I assume a loss of dynamic range, but you are quite clear on the need to shoot uncompressed. Any particular reason? And I’ll be borrowing memory cards, so I’ll have to work with whatever they loan me (beggars can’t, after all). I do have a friend who is going to loan me a 512GB card, but I’m hoping to have at least 3 more (me, I don’t trust cards to always be 100%, so I always have a backup in the second slot). I’ll have to take what I can get with card speeds though. If even a slower card gives me more fps than I can get on my D750 (not difficult), I’ll consider myself sorted.
WB always in manual (it’s the sunny preset for me), and I carry a grey card for when I have time to use it, especially if established colours are involved (or if I’m shooting portraits, skin tones can be challenging in the varied lighting). But I do tend to successfully eyeball my white balances in post, no worries there.
Thanks for the metering suggestions (and exposure compensation). Since I shoot in manual, I only ever consult the meter when I’m establishing an original exposure in a setting, but I doubt I’ll even need to do that with the Z9 (I rarely have to with my A7IV, what with those very handy electronic viewfinders). If I’m going to use an exposure aid, it’s usually zebras. Depending on the overhead in the whites in the raws, I tend to either set zebras to 109 (for landscapes or stages), or to 70/75 when shooting people. If I’m shooting video, I’ll use my external monitor and false colour to establish exposure.
Good tip on VR settings, this is out of my experience (well, on a mirrorless Nikon, at least). I would’ve set it to normal (yes, I do often shoot at very slow shutter speeds), but probably would have left it on normal when shooting the fast moving stuff too (I don’t tend to have to move the camera around much, unlike at a sporting event, as everything is happening right in front of me…most of the time).
Thanks for the suggestions on AF tracking modes. What you’ve described sound very much like what’s available with the A7IV, though I’ll have to read up on the nuances of how the Z9 behaves, so I don’t make unfounded assumptions.
Interesting suggestion to maintain the shutter button’s focus activation, I definitely would not have thought of that. Back button focus (only) will be a hard habit to break! This particular paragraph of yours is going to require repeated readings, phew (hopefully, with camera in hand).
Your lens function ring tip is definitely appreciated. I’ll likely turn them off, as you suggest.
Auto-ISO: unlikely I’ll use it, my conditions are just far too varied for me to trust the computer when making exposure decisions.
Re: your paragraph on how you assign the Movie Record Button to perform Shooting Recall Hold; I don’t yet know what that (or “SD”) is. If it was on the D3s or D750, I never used them (is this like the memory modes?). But knowing a term means that I can look it up. Being able to swap between one type of shooting to another (which happens constantly) will be useful. I was going to skip learning about this memory modes on the Z9, but maybe I’ll have a read.
As for lenses, I’m good. All fast and faster lenses, and a few exotics for the niche shooting I often do. I’m just happy that the FTZ adaptor is so good (I bought an electronic adaptor to put my Nikon f-mount lenses on my Sony cameras, a worse purchase I’ve never made!).
I’ll be swapping back and forth between shooting movies and stills, so I’ll becoming very familiar with that lever :-) And good advice on the portrait shutter button, I won’t have a nice, loud, shutter sound this time to alert me when my thigh is taking photos (no, I won’t be turning on the shutter sound, ha ha).
Ok, this would’ve worked better if I could have interspersed my comments with yours. If you do take the time to read it, you have my admiration :-)
SD == Subject Detection - it is part of the AF options you can choose -- this is the route to EYE-AF -- Choose Human SD or Auto (which looks to find humans first).
SD ONLY works with AREA-AF (Auto-Area, Wide or Small or C1 or C2) modes and 3D-tracking (so NOT Dynamic Area or Single Point) --- As noted some make-up, prosthetics, and lighting etc.... can confuse SD. Hence why you will "want to" have the ability to switch to another AF-Mode with AF-ON by pressing an Fn button -- I suggest Dynamic Area Small AF -- or to disable SD should you have issues. At which point Area Modes find the closest high contrast object in the area; whereas (as before) Dynamic Area and Single Point set focus based on what is under the single or central auto focus point in the area (which of course you can move) with the joystick.
Shooting Recall Hold is a ROLE that can be assigned to a button in the Z9 - you can select which settings it changes - this can be a whole set of setting Or in my case, just to turn SD on or off.
Flickering and banding occurs with some LEDs, projector, panels and "older lighting" - The Z9 has two approaches -- ONE the first is a general Flicker reduction option. The other is the ability to change the shutter speed in fractions of a second - you can adjust the shutter speed to avoid 50hz and 60hz and multiples of them - this can eliminate banding -- but has to be tried in the venue to find the right settings.
Lossless Compressed RAW is the new Normal RAW. The alternatives are High Efficiency and High Efficiency* -- just use Lossless Compressed. We no longer get to pick between 14-bit and 12-bit -- RAW is always 14-bit -- and UNcompressed RAW is no longer available.
Great lenses -- I hope you have fun -- do post some output. (if you are allowed to).
More very helpful info Andy, thanks very much! I think I owe you a beer or two.
Sounds like the AF modes on the Z9 are very similar to the A7IV, so I'll be comfortable (again, with the nuances considered). I'm already starting to read up on them, and watch how-to videos.
I see potential in Shooting Recall Hold, though I think it'll low priority to master, unless I can rapidly become comfortable with the Z9's more basic functions. I rarely use memory modes like this on any of my cameras, though I have started playing with video presets on my A7IV (since I'm less familiar with video, it made sense).
LEDs showed up one year at the Festival, and I didn't realise it. I had been shooting with electronic shutter on my Sonys so, much to my dismay, I put about 1000 frames through at one LED-lit venue. Every shot was heavily banded, before I realised what was happening (I don't tend to chimp with mirrorless). Happily, I was also shooting with my D750, so it wasn't a total loss. I expect all levels of quality and technologies of LED this year, and I'll be moving around a lot, so adjusting shutter speeds in fractions on the Z9 probably won't be practical (I'll definitely turn on flicker reduction, though I've not noticed a lot of effectiveness with the same setting on my A7IV).
Ok, got the new RAW terms, thanks. Interesting that uncompressed isn't available any more, "Lossless" must really be lossless, nice. And I'm always happier with a greater bit-depth, so 14-bit is good to hear (I'm happy to take the hit on space and processing speed).
As for examples, if you search on "Gervais" in any of the days at this link, you'll see the shots I put up in past years (I've been shooting the Festival since 2010, so you can go back as far as you want to see my work :-) As soon as the Festival starts this year, I'll be putting up 20 or so shots daily. This is why I work brutal hours: my area of the Festival gets going around 10am, and finishes at 4-5am, and then I have to make my selects, edit, and then upload them to the main website and social media (and sometimes I am shooting until past dawn, if anything interesting is happening...and there almost always is something going on).
Thanks again for the insights and tips, I really appreciate it.
