Auto Focus in the new Z9 Auto Capture

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kontrolla

kontrolla

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For a week now I have been trying out the new Auto Capture mode on my Nikon Z9. I have been trying to get shots of a Woodpecker landing and taking off from my peanut feeder.

10's of thousands of shots later (mostly of squirrels!!) I finally got some of the shots I was hoping for this morning and a selection is included below.

The main issue I have found is that the AF does not seem to do anything during the Auto Capture bursts. I have set it up so each burst is 2 seconds at 30 fps, that is 1 second of pre capture and 1 second of normal capture. If the focus happens to be in a good place when the 2 second burst starts then great. If it is not then no AF adjustment appears to take place during the burst and all the shots are out of focus. I have got a number of Woodpecker flight shots that would have looked amazing if they had been in focus.

Has anyone else experienced this lack of AF during the Auto Capture bursts? Has anyone figured how to get AF to work during the bursts by using different AF modes for instance?

Taken at 30 frames per second in 1 second bursts with pre-capture enabled.
Nikon Z9 with Z 70-200 f2.8
1/3200s f/3.2 ISO 2000

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Here are my settings

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i don’t know as i’ve only played with auto capture a little bit, but it seems like this would be easy to test. set up pointing at a blank wall for motion only and maybe subject detection turned off and then you can put your hand in the frame and steadily move it forward towards the camera and see if focus follows the hand or not
 
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Thanks for sharing. I haven't so much as found where that feature is in the menu. Want to give it a try at a bmx bike course; got to get a cooperative rider first :)
 
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John Navitsky said:
i don’t know as i’ve only played with auto capture a little bit, but it seems like this would be easy to test. set up pointing at a blank wall for motion only and maybe subject detection turned off and then you can put your hand in the frame and steadily move it forward towards the camera and see if focus follows the hand or not
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Thanks for the suggestion John. I will give that a go. I am also going to try using different AF modes. I have switched to 3D mode to see if that's any better.
 
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Duh - you all have been terribly polite. I was thinking pre-release capture instead of auto capture (poor old gent - probably doesn't know about auto capture).
 
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I tried auto capture, and had no luck at all. Didn't even get an out of focus image. In my case the camera didn't even respond to the subject moving across the field of view. I was attempting to capture some blue birds flying to a birdhouse. The bird house itself was not in the field of view, focus was a few feet in front of the house along a known flight path. They passed through the field of view so fast the camera didn't respond in any way. Looking at a the live view all that would show was a dark streak shooting across..So what I was initially planning on using it for simply is not going to work, back to my Sabre unit....
 
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txstone said:
Now that I'm the right topic - here's a video with some setup experience showing.


There's some AF experience showing in the examples presented.
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Thanks David, interesting video and it does look like the focusing is working here. A difference is that he does not have the pre capture enabled so maybe that is why the focusing is not working for me. I will do some tests at 20 fps which will disable the pre capture.
 
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John Navitsky said:
did you try subject detection off, motion only?
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It's been a week or so I'm sure I did. The problem is they just fly through the field of view so fast. A blue bird averages 25 ft/sec. Using 560 mm lens to get an image that doesn't require much cropping, flying a straight line across the field of view happens so fast the camera just isn't able to respond fast enough. While it obviously works under the correct circumstances. Many people will find a way to use it with great results, like the guy in the video I'm struggling a bit to find a way I can benefit from it...
 
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mdirvin said:
It's been a week or so I'm sure I did. The problem is they just fly through the field of view so fast. A blue bird averages 25 ft/sec. Using 560 mm lens to get an image that doesn't require much cropping, flying a straight line across the field of view happens so fast the camera just isn't able to respond fast enough. While it obviously works under the correct circumstances. Many people will find a way to use it with great results, like the guy in the video I'm struggling a bit to find a way I can benefit from it...
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yah, i can certainly see how if it happens fast enough the camera doesn't have a lot of chance. my main thought is subject detection just adds to that burden/lag
 
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kontrolla said:
Thanks David, interesting video and it does look like the focusing is working here. A difference is that he does not have the pre capture enabled so maybe that is why the focusing is not working for me. I will do some tests at 20 fps which will disable the pre capture.
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Speaking of precapture, or pre release capture, your experience with auto capture generally follows my experience with pre release capture for quick moving critters. Unless the subject enters or stays in the pre release focal plane during pre release capture, I expect the subject to be out of focus.
 
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mdirvin said:
I tried auto capture, and had no luck at all. Didn't even get an out of focus image. In my case the camera didn't even respond to the subject moving across the field of view. I was attempting to capture some blue birds flying to a birdhouse. The bird house itself was not in the field of view, focus was a few feet in front of the house along a known flight path. They passed through the field of view so fast the camera didn't respond in any way. Looking at a the live view all that would show was a dark streak shooting across..So what I was initially planning on using it for simply is not going to work, back to my Sabre unit....
Click to expand...
Have also used auto capture to get blue bird flying to house. Pretty sure you are just missing the bird. I used a Z70-200 set at 200 15 feet away from the birdhouse with the house at the left of the frame. This yielded a 29 in horizontal FoV. I had it set up for horizontal and diagonal motion with speed 5, size 1 and let it work most of 11 hours on June 20 as that was fledge day of the over 1400 pic with NONE capturing the bird in the right side of the frame. The bird is fast but I do think it takes a good while , greater than 200 ms by my estimate, for the camera to detect motion & direction.
 
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