Nikon Z9 120FPS CONFIRMED - LEAKED VIDEO - YOUTUBE

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If I understand this you're saying that the DOF is so flat that they eyelash is in focus but the eye itself is not. It stands to reason then that no other part of the face was in focus. So if in fact the eye had been in focus then nothing else on the face would be in focus. I'm not a portrait photographer but I have looked at quite a few portraits through the years and I don't recall ever seeing the eyes in focus and the rest of the face being OOF. What am I missing here?

On the other hand I may have had it wrong all these years with wildlife. I thought the rule of thumb was that "if the eye is OOF nothing else matters". Now I'm wondering if I've missed the boat all these years and misunderstood what should be "if the eye is in focus then nothing else matters"?

I'm beginning to miss the film days when ignorance was truly bliss.

Caveats: I just got this lens a few days ago, have never had such a wide aperture before; nor such a sharp lens. Also, I don't do formal portraits. Therefore, I think my intuition about this lens will need recalibration as I gain experience with it.

Lens is the Nikkor Z 50mm f1.2 S. Yes. At f1.2, it is reported that you can see focus changes over about 1/4" with this lens when focused at about 26". This is by measurement, since calculation requires assuming a CoC (Circle of Confusion) which is not known a priori (at least that I can find). It has a close relative, the manual focus Nikkor Z 58mm f0.95 Noct, which has such a shallow depth of field that it is almost impossible to use wide open with a live (living, breathing, moving ever so slightly) model/subject.

My application for this lens will be environmental portraits (musicians, artists, craftsmen, academicians, mechanics...) in low light but I have only fired a few tests shots with it so far. You are right that there is a school of thought that says that as long as the eyes are in focus, it all good. I know from painful experience that some "advanced middle aged" people do not appreciate the acuity of modern Z lenses when they see the results :oops: . Who knew? So one of the reasons for acquiring this lens is, indeed, to blur facial features slightly. I've also noticed that "perceived" DoF increases with low light photography, probably because the noise masks the falling off in focus. I don't know this will actually work out for me with this lens, again because this is my first experience.

Also, despite my complaints about the Z7ii' eye detect, my belief is that its focusing accuracy will be up to the task with respect to this lens. Ya just gotta tell it where to focus. Time will tell.

* Before I give you a YouTube link that talks about this lens, let me first caution that this vlogger has gone to the "glamor side" of the spectrum (not this video, though) and some ads, or if you poke around his site, may be NSFW. *

Here is a video by Matt Granger that goes into considerable technical detail about how this lens behaves in portraiture applications. The most relevant part for this discussion starts at 5:19, where he begins shooting a sequence at f1.2 and observes the effects of increasing f-number on DoF over the face/head of a model, focused on her eye..

 
Eric,
Thank you for sharing your use case with me which is indeed just the circumstance I often find myself in. I have not had much real-world experience with the Z 50mm f1.2 since it only came last week.

I impressed that you even attempted eye detect at a professional shoot. I just don't have the guts to do it because of my success rate with it. Most of the time it will go walkabout in the Great Australian Outback...And that's a long way from California.

My success with SP on the eye is very high and , as you, often there is no second or third chance for an absolute must-get shot. Generally I am very pleased with the Z7ii--including its ability to focus accurately--and also the quality of the Z glass.

I will experiment more with the Wide Area's when I have the opportunity.

" I have a high resolution camera, a very sharp lens, and a usable wide aperture producing a shallow DOF, so I can resolve more detail and can see the difference between close and perfect focus." Yes. This is a failure of systems engineering on Nikon's part. Sure hope they have the A Team on the Z9.

Here is an example of what my "miss" looked like. One of the criticisms of Nikon's Eye AF is that the box shown to indicate focus is not precise but the camera actually is focusing accurately. To some extent I've found that is the case. I have tested and experimented with Eye AF for more than a year, so I know it has a relatively high success rate even if it's not perfect. It's also very easy to move from Wide Large Eye AF to another AF mode using the Fn button (Fn 2 on my cameras which is the default).

The "miss" clearly shows the AF box on the cheek, but between DOF and the lens sharpness, this is good enough for the intended use even with a deep crop. These are SOOC - unedited. Image settings were f/3.2, 1/1600 sec, ISO 320, and 160mm with the 70-200 S. This used a Neutral Picture Control. These images did use flash. Light was generally backlit with mixed cloud cover producing anything from full sun backlight to full clouds. This series lasted 5 seconds and included 2 of my three misses - the camera picked up the trophy which is useful for a creative stack.
Screenshot 2021-10-27 072647.jpg
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Here is a 200% view. Overall this is okay even though technically the AF box shows a small miss.
Screenshot 2021-10-27 072513 - Wide Eye AF miss.jpg
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So my current conclusion is Eye AF is good enough to get the shot, but still needs some work. But I have good alternatives to Eye AF and still get the shots. But the lenses are spectacular. Even with a Z7ii image cropped to 200%, I've got very good detail, and this is at least half way to the frame corner so it's not the sharpest part of the image. Noise at ISO 1600 is insignificant at 200%.
 
Eric.
Thank you very much for the concrete illustrations. It really helps.

Here is a typical result using Single Point, AF-C with a Z6ii (not the Z7ii, I just noticed) at ISO 6400, 1/80s, f2.8, 130mm with Z 70-200mm f2.8 lens, hand held. This imaged has been (obviously) cropped processed with Auto toning in LR and also pushed about 1.5 stops. I don't have the OOC JPEGS for it.

_Z623306.jpg
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And here is the 200% crop:
_Z623306-2.jpg
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I consider this an acceptable result.
 
To revisit the possibilities of the Z9 cpu, which can be expected to be EXMOOR7, if it's not something altogether new.

...... Nikon relies on its custom EXPEED processors using Milbeaut SoC made by Socionext who have just adopted TSMC’s 5-nanometer Technology (N5P) to make Custom SoCs. This means the high performance CPU(s) in Nikon's Z9 could be based in N5P, which will ramp up performance at much lower overheads, including less heat. Such cameras will perform more efficiently at focusing as well as high rate/high volume imaging etc.

Optimizing the software is challenging, so Nikon will likely continue to refine and expend the Firmware. And we also see this in how much Firmware upgrades can improve features of an existing hardware device, including killing off its older performance bugs.

In an interview (29 Aug 2021) in the Sunday Times UK, the infamous English engineer James Dyson noted: "Technology is much harder to develop now, much more complex. When I started we were a group of mechanical engineers, but now more than 50 per cent of our engineers are software or electronics specialists, plus fluid dynamics and battery experts and other scientists."

Key Links about SoC, 5NP, EXPEED : https://bcgforums.com/index.php?threads/z9-rumored-specs-are-out.9744/post-98840
Not sure why James Dyson is infamous? Otherwise I agree!
 
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