Nikon Z AF

Oh no! Someone else's thread is winning that accolade, how will I sleep at night from now on ;-) . Au contraire, I will probably pick the Z8 up soon...
PS I know this might shock you but...you can just scroll past this thread if it bothers you so much. But you choose to spend time reading it, and replying in it.

Will someone just give this man the last word. It's not going to be over until that happens. Throw in a last reply for Leonard as well.

"Very stale" yet it is on your "to reply" speed dial.

Personal attacks are so Zeeite. Just wander in the Zee thread on DPReview and wander into the thread on a fellow having trouble with runway models. I see one fellow is looking for some wood to build a cross and hang him from it.

That's strange... I thought the Z7(ii) was the successor to the D850? 😆😆😆

"True" successor. Last time they lied I guess.

I shot the Z6 I and R6 in the same situation, side by side. The Nikon used the Z 85/1.8, and the Canon used the RF 85/1.2. Light was moderately low, but not too dark maybe 1/200, f/1.8, ISO 800 or thereabouts. I used BBAF on both cameras. Subjects were dancers on a covered outdoor stage in sunset light. The R6 was better in some ways but about the same in others in terms of AF.

When talking about AF performance, I separate it into two areas: acquisition of the subject or placing and keeping the AF point on the subject, and tracking once the subject has been acquired.

In terms of acquisition, there is no doubt the R6 was better: if you turn on their optional feature to start tracking AF on the AF point, you can place the point on a subject, and the camera will keep the focus point on the subject following it around the frame for as long as you keep the AF button pressed. It was pretty sticky, but could become unstuck too. This was great for picking a subject and following it around a busy scene. If it messed up and let go or jumped to something else, it was easy to fix by letting go of the AF button, placing the point, and pressing the AF button again. Until the Z9, Nikon had nothing like this in the Z line. With the Z9, 3D AF works like this, but perhaps better. I haven't used the R6 since that shootout to be able to compare it to the Z9.

In terms of tracking when you keep the AF box on the subject, both cameras were surprisingly the same. The 85/1.2 vs. 85/1.8 could be a confounding factor here, but what I found is that the Z6 actually had a slightly higher hit rate than the R6 when the subject was approaching me at moderate speed. This wasn't about small misses (eg. eyelash vs. pupil), but really obvious misses. This was surprising to me, but I'll take it. This also means I could make the Z6 work as well or better than the R6 if I worked harder at placing the AF box correctly.

In the end, it wasn't enough to make me switch, but the AF was only part of the reason. The Z lens system for what I like to use was built out at that point already and of really high quality, with the f/1.8 prime lens line there. Canon then barely had any primes in the same range, and what it had was either huge and expensive (f/1.2 primes) or mediocre (the two f/1.8 semi-macro prime lenses), so switching was expensive and would have been an overall downgrade for me. The bodies were also more expensive.

I use a Z9 now, and the AF is pretty much all I can ask for. When I first got it, I started using 3D AF since that's what we were all waiting for, but over time I found I liked the W and S area AF modes instead, especially with face- and eye-recognition. The camera recognizes human bodies, so even if I place the AF box on a person's torso, it will put the eye AF box on the person's eye which is outside the main AF box. Basically, I just have to identify a human body to the camera, and it will automatically find the eye, and this has made it much easier to acquire focus especially when things are changing and moving quickly, like photographing a fast dance scene.

One big thing the Z9 fixes is shooting in very dim situations you might have when shooting with flash in a studio, where the ambient light is very purposely underexposed. The Z6 I and II could not focus to save their lives in this situation, but the Z9 is effortless, especially if the subject is already in the frame. If the subject was off-frame and quickly came in (eg. a dancer getting a running start on a jump), then it might miss every so often perhaps due to additional AF acquisition time.

Yeah, was reading that thread last night. OP seems very reasonable and asking a genuine question. Personally, I expect Nikon still has plenty refinement left to do even with the Z9 AF system, getting all the algorithms, AI, subject recognition, etc., to play in a more refined, seamless and robust manner as is probably the case for all manufacturer’s, just that they are all a bit different with strengths and weaknesses in different areas? In the meantime we as photographers stand at the other end of the AI equation and find ways to adapt to it and get the most out of it we can within its limitations. Well, some do, whilst others shout and scream blue murder and others build wooden crosses to hang people on. What a world 😀

Great info thanks.

Appreciate the info. I am watching the z8 launch today and I am interested. It made me go back and check some YouTube videos re focus ability of the flagships because the z8 has more or less the same af ability as the z9 or so I am led to believe from the marketing. Many Ortiz, who I think is quite genuine says all three flagships have good af but the Canon is the class leader, then sony, then the z9. He states it is akin to supercars with different strengths but if he were building his perfect camera he'd use canon's af system.

I also looked at fro and a few others (fro I know controversial; but I like to make up my own mind and in fairness to him he showed proof of problems with the system but overall liked the z9). Interestingly he basically says the same and like i said he had proof. Sometimes the AF box was locked on the eye but the actual shot was a focus miss on the eye and it picked the background. He showed this several times and noted it was a theme of sorts. It wasn't as reliable in some situations. That in itself is a little unnerving perhaps when shooting. Another point to consider here, as I think many think that if the box finds the eye we have perfect 'pixel level focus' but not always the case, we know this from dslrs too. Perhaps it will improve but I wonder what the computing power of expeed 7 vs canon's digic X chip which is now well older. I assume the expeed is at least on par perhaps someone knows? This will tell us something about how further firmware updates csn take the z9 and z8 via deep learning etc.

Re the Z8 I think I will trial it out and report back. I assume that outwith of eye af modes the focus will trump any dslr eg single point the way I shoot now. Interesting times. I'm trying to see how much flexibility the new screen has...angles it can achieve etc as that is pretty important to me along with some other specs and abilities I'm looking for.

Good luck with your evaluation: getting both bodies with representative lenses and subjects is the best way to figure out which one works for you.

Don't discount the Z8/9's no-blackout 120Hz EVF either. We don't use AF systems in isolation from the rest of the camera, and the no-blackout finder is a really great help for keeping your AF point on-target, which is like 80-90% of the battle.

That's the consensus amongst those in the know.

Only amongst Nikon shills and their groupies because he deservedly gave Nikon the middle finger.

That's a hilarious situation that I watched play out over the past 13 years or so. He was a die hard Nikon shooter, Nikon treated him like trash, he left the brand, then blew up on youtube, and now they're begging to have him back. 😆

Z9 shooters on DPReview noted the same problem.

Patiently waiting for shill team 8 and 9 soldiers to say it's "user error".

For what its worth:

www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67029330

That op has, in the past, blamed his camera/lenses for perspective distortion and keystoning, so I have a very poor opinion of his understanding of anything photography related.

Thats just the thing. I'd trust manny and fro over all the dpreview defensive shill team any day of the week.

It's truly shocking how both of you only like people that agree with your exact opinions, and who refuse to believe they could be doing anything wrong. :)

Because they haven't just bought into or just tried one system...no smoke without fire. Too many reviewers' list canon sony then nikon in that order in flagship Af ability.

Ps I seen your post on dpreview recently were you stated the z7 was on of the best cameras ever made. I think your judgement is well shot up with that statement.

Well, you also have Steve Perry, Thom hogan, among many others who shoot multiple systems who focus on the process and have much less (or no) trouble with any system.

In ML terms I've owned and shot Z6, Z6II, Z7, Z7II. I still have my Z50

In Sony I now own A9II's . I've never owned or shot a Nikon Z9. And I've never shot Canon.

Lets park AF accuracy for a minute.

From my time with the Z6/7 series cameras, Nikon has a bunch of AF modes, such as single point, wide area large, wide area small, dynamic, tracking and so on.

Plus face/eye detect available in certain modes (but not others) and so on.

The more you the learn these modes and when to use them the better you are rewarded.

My experience with the Z6/7 cameras was mostly positive. I could mostly get the shots, if in the right mode,

I never shot a Z9, but my understanding from friends who own it, plus internet reading, is that the Z9 is leagues ahead on AF and plays at the top table with Sony and Canon.

But, there's still a caveat? In so much as you still have to pick the right AF mode and dial it in on the Z9 and that in itself is a learning curve with all kinds of nuances?

On the Sony I can use tracking size medium (object detect on) for everything. Wanna track a human? No problem, put the box on the torso and It'll find face and eyes then lock on and track them tenaciously.

In the studio? Same thing, no need to leave AFC or change settings.

Landscapes? No problem same tracking mode, no human detected, which part of the scene do I wanna pick?

Aircraft? Same mode.... and so on.

So what's my point?

With Nikon you have to learn your modes from the Z9 down.

With Sony you can literally use one mode for everything.

To me it's not whether one brand is better or more accurate than the other. It's ease of use.

I started with manual focus in the 1970's, these days I appreciate AF that gets out of the way and just nails it using one mode for everything. Set and forget.

I'd like Nikon AF modes to be more like this.

www.dpreview.com/forums/post/67029119

When you write things like this; I just cannot take you seriously.