My Z9 is setup and ready to go :)

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Is it down to ~80 shots now that it is doing 20FPS?
YES lol.....It is so humbling when the solution to a problem was so simple. Thought I had a lemon for a minute. Did not think 1/50-1/80 would affect it. The buffer started to chug to around 10fps after 80 but kept going, if you pull of the shutter for just a sec it goes back for another full 80. It's a total non-issue, especially if HE* turns out to be equvillant.
 
@Steve.. You always taught to keep an eye on the ISO & crop less& i have been following it.
How ever i find that even high ISOs seem to give a pretty good picture with very loss noise(after a bit of denoising) even after cropping as this attached image would show (1/200 ,12800 ISO )
Hence can you share your expereince with high ISOs & what in your opinion should be the acceptable ISO with these flagship cameras.Is this also a game changer ?View attachment 29589

Overall, that's not been my experience with the a1 (although I am insanely and sometimes unreasonably picky about such things - I seldom shot my D5/6 over ISO 6400). While I sometimes find I can get away with higher ISOs, I really like to keep the a1 at 3200 or less - especially if I'm cropping. I find that I often lose the really fine fur or feather detail I would otherwise have at a lower ISO. BTW - this is also true for the D850 and looks like it will hold true for the Z9.
 
About the battery problem, look like that after the third full charge I'm starting to have it right. Today 2140 shots and 64%
Battery life in these cameras is far more dependent on how much you use the EVF and back LCD than how many photos you take. I've found it's really tough to judge battery performance based on the number of shots. There have been times with my a1 where I knocked out close to 4000 shots on a single small battery - and the rtimes where I needed to change after just a few hundred. The difference was always how much time I spent looking in the viewfinder :) The time I only had a few hundred was mostly spent looking and waiting for something to happen.
 
Overall, that's not been my experience with the a1 (although I am insanely and sometimes unreasonably picky about such things - I seldom shot my D5/6 over ISO 6400). While I sometimes find I can get away with higher ISOs, I really like to keep the a1 at 3200 or less - especially if I'm cropping. I find that I often lose the really fine fur or feather detail I would otherwise have at a lower ISO. BTW - this is also true for the D850 and looks like it will hold true for the Z9.

I'd agree that all 40+ MP cameras I've owned are best kept at 3200-4000 or lower. This includes the D850, D500, R5, A7RIV and A1. I'm sure the Z9 will be the same.
The R5 is the best of the bunch IMHO.
I have found that DXO Pure RAW works much better for 3200 and up compared to Topaz DeNoise. However Topaz is much better at lower ISOs.
 
@Steve, glad to hear that. What do you think about the size and weight difference between Z9 and A1? That's the bigger concern I have on Z9. There is currently a sale going on on A1 and Z9 is not available yet. wondering which way to go. Thanks.
I use a grip on the a1, so they seem pretty close to me. The Z9 is a bit bigger of course, but not by too much - a little wider, about the same depth and height. The nice thing with the a1 is that you can go without a grip and that does give you a noticeably smaller, lighter package. However, make sure you hold an a1 with a lens mounted - I have a friend with large hands that finds the gap between the grip and lens too tight.

Overall, I don't think the Z9 really has any significant advantages over the a1 when it comes to performance and AF - but the Z9 does it for $1000 less. I suppose it could also be argued that you can get an a1 right now too :)
 
I use a grip on the a1, so they seem pretty close to me. The Z9 is a bit bigger of course, but not by too much - a little wider, about the same depth and height. The nice thing with the a1 is that you can go without a grip and that does give you a noticeably smaller, lighter package. However, make sure you hold an a1 with a lens mounted - I have a friend with large hands that finds the gap between the grip and lens too tight.

Overall, I don't think the Z9 really has any significant advantages over the a1 when it comes to performance and AF - but the Z9 does it for $1000 less. I suppose it could also be argued that you can get an a1 right now too :)
And you can get an A1 with a very lightweight 600/4 (or 400.2.8) lens which to me is a huge benefit for now. I'm patiently awaiting to see the weight of the 400S as that would be a killer lens if the weight is down to CanSon levels (even with the 1.4 built in). 800PF is a "maybe" for me as being stuck at 800 and stuck at 6.3 is not usually what I'm after. I wish Nikon had gone for 600 f/4.5 which would have been almost like my dream lens in the 2015 Canon 600/DO prototype. Then the 1.4TC would still get us out to 840/6.3.
 
I'm sitting here going through the menu on my fully bright lcd on the A1 watching battery drop to 42% already. 😬
The A1 battery is the worst I've ever experienced in a camera....only the R5 competes with how bad it is. I do however, run my Power Save at 5mins and that ususally keeps the camera out of sleep mode most of my shoots so that must contribute even though my EVF and LCD are off when not shooting.
 
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I'm sitting here going through the menu on my fully bright lcd on the A1 watching battery drop to 42% already. 😬

The grip can help since it hold a pair of batteries :)

But yeah, the more you use the LCD / EVF the faster it drains. I watched it one time while waiting for an eagle to fly. I dropped a percentage point per minute with the EVF on. Still, that's an hour and 40 minutes just looking through the viewfinder. I didn't think that was too bad.

I also have my camera set to manually toggle between the LCD and EVF. Most of the time, I'm on viewfinder only. That way, when I pull back from the camera, it stays "on" bu the EVF goes dark AND the back LCD doesn't turn on. I think that may be why I'm getting better battery life than most in the field with this camera. I can count on one hand the number of times I started digging into the second battery on a given shoot and I've never had to swap out batteries during a shoot (again, using the grip with 2 in it).

And I use the Z9 the same way :)
 
The grip can help since it hold a pair of batteries :)

But yeah, the more you use the LCD / EVF the faster it drains. I watched it one time while waiting for an eagle to fly. I dropped a percentage point per minute with the EVF on. Still, that's an hour and 40 minutes just looking through the viewfinder. I didn't think that was too bad.

I also have my camera set to manually toggle between the LCD and EVF. Most of the time, I'm on viewfinder only. That way, when I pull back from the camera, it stays "on" bu the EVF goes dark AND the back LCD doesn't turn on. I think that may be why I'm getting better battery life than most in the field with this camera. I can count on one hand the number of times I started digging into the second battery on a given shoot and I've never had to swap out batteries during a shoot (again, using the grip with 2 in it).

And I use the Z9 the same way :)

I'm doing that also. LCD set to "Monitor Off" which allows it to be Off all the time unless I hit the Display button (to do low down tilt-screen shooting) or hit Menu or Playback. EVF goes off within a second or two when not up to the eye. I'm still very disappointed with A1 battery life compared to every other camera I've used before (although R5 really bad also).

I'm into my 2nd battery every day I go out. I usually go out from sunrise for about 3-4 hours depending on the season. If I shoot a full day I'm onto my 3rd. Recently at below zero temps the battery was draining like crazy without even using the camera but I know that is to be expected. The A1 is just more extreme. I was out with two other A1 shooters (-14 to -6C) and all were into 3rd or even 4th batteries that day although that was a full day sunrise to sunset.
 
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I'm doing that also. LCD set to "Monitor Off" which allows it to be Off all the time unless I hit the Display button (to do low down tilt-screen shooting) or hit Menu or Playback. EVF goes off within a second or two when not up to the eye. I'm still very disappointed with A1 battery life compared to every other camera I've used before (although R5 really bad also).

I'm into my 2nd battery every day I go out. I usually go out from sunrise for about 3-4 hours depending on the season. If I shoot a full day I'm onto my 3rd. Recently at below zero temps the battery was draining like crazy without even using the camera but I know that is to be expected. The A1 is just more extreme. I was out with two other A1 shooters (-14 to -6C) and all were into 3rd or even 4th batteries that day although that was a full day sunrise to sunset.
Part of it for me is that I'm often out in the morning and then again in the evening and have time to freshen up the batteries. And I have not shot the a1 in really cold weather either - although I think that's hard on any battery. Looking back, the Z9 really did do well considering it was wet and sort of frozen and still nearly touched the battery!
 
I was testing all new settings and I had the shutter set to close for dust control when powered off. I switch my camera off and on a lot during the day. That thing seems to "clunk" more in the cold. Probably burning through some mAh as well. I'll be leaving that function off from now on. paranoid maybe...lol
If your not changing lenses it makes sense to leave off. The z9 is also loud, and it seems to close even when accessing the menu.
 
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So you are saying the reset settings did the trick after a less-than-ideal Af tracking experience shooting cormorants with the Z9?
Yes.
I don't know why, but camera out of the box, after setting everything like I was using my past dslrs (d5-850) , with the auto AF areas , eye detection on (letting the camera decide wich subject, like yesterday with the dogs), I hadn't a great experience to make me scream to the outstanding AF.
The camera was missing the subject detection in a way that I was worried.
Yesterday morning, after the factory reset (correct in English?) from the menu, setting my buttons again, two things are changed.
The camera is detecting like I said, and the battery life is like the others are experiencing.
I'm not sure if the two things are connected. Battery needed few charges before to be full working, probably. No idea.
I was really concerned before yesterday
 
Yes.
I don't know why, but camera out of the box, after setting everything like I was using my past dslrs (d5-850) , with the auto AF areas , eye detection on (letting the camera decide wich subject, like yesterday with the dogs), I hadn't a great experience to make me scream to the outstanding AF.
The camera was missing the subject detection in a way that I was worried.
Yesterday morning, after the factory reset (correct in English?) from the menu, setting my buttons again, two things are changed.
The camera is detecting like I said, and the battery life is like the others are experiencing.
I'm not sure if the two things are connected. Battery needed few charges before to be full working, probably. No idea.
I was really concerned before yesterday

Hmmm...glad to hear it is working great.
 


As per the review by this Youtuber, Z9's shadow recovery is slightly better than A1 & on par with R3.

Highlight recovery on Z9 not as good as R3 & A1.

Z9 in stills identifies the eye in the frame even when it is smaller & further awsy relative to A1 or R3.

Jordan from DP Review said the same thing for video eye af...that it detects the eye even when it is small in the frame...
 
Ever looked at Ry Hennessy’s work? I think he would disagree with your absolute statement.
I did not want to open an argument, but I'm with you in this, because that's my way to work the most. And when I don't have an interesting envinroment sometimes I don't even bother to work on the photo. But anyone is free to approach to his own works at the way they please them
 
I'm really looking forward to hearing how much better the Z9 is in real world shooting vs the lowly R5...a camera that seems to have been brushed aside with all the new fancy stacked sensor toys out there now...but I'm still shooting with it and an r6. Since I can't get a Z9 for who knows how long it makes little difference, but I'd love to know what I'm missing... :)
 
Yeah, I'm finding Nikon's customization options lacking on the Z9. I think the a1 spoiled me - things like this are easily assignable to a button (and this is far from the only customization gripe I have with the camera). I'm actually kind of shocked at how limited the Z9 customization options are - it explains why everyone is doing all sorts of workarounds.

At any rate, I think you're right - I've noticed Nikons only like to have one custom thing going on at a time. I too can't get it to change AF areas with one button and disable subject detection with the other.

One hackey workaround would be to use a custom shooting bank. You could set bank A up however you like, copy it to bank B, and while in bank B, turn subject detection off. Then, customize fn2 for Shooting Banks (sadly, the lens function buttons don't allow a toggle or press and turn option - another needless limitation). Then, as you hold fn2 you can jump from one bank to the other. Less than ideal, but it would work.


No need to use shooting banks !!!
You can assign fn buttons a huge variety of settings - see manual page 651 and assign "recall shooting functions" under "f2". I think this is exactly what you guys look after.
I've configured fn3 to my "BIF Button" - means the Z9 engages Auto Area AF + Animal detection, high shutter speed of 1/2000, 20 fps burst rate and a few more setting just by pressing fn3.
You can either store current camera setting as a "shoting function" or manually go through the different options and amend or check/uncheck as required.
Works absoluely great!

BR
Markus
 
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Any of you guys are finding the raw files always a bit underexposed?

Today was testing the behave of the F mount 70-200 f2.8 vrii at the dogs beach. Cannot see any difficult for the lens to lock instantaneously the eyes and keep it.
My lens is backfocusing so if I have to rate this test, well is 100% sharp on all the collars in all the photos lol.
Need tuning and do it again

The wide large area is the one so far that is giving me best results. Would be interesting to can decide how big you want that area. (or we can do it and I miss it? lol)
 
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