sid_19911991
Well-known member
I got the Z9 delivered to me the previous day late evening; shoutout to @lordofthelight for connecting me with the right dealer.
A) AF impressions & settings:
I played with the Z9 & 500 pf with FTZ 1 for about 30 minutes in dull cloudy weather shooting pigeons from my terrace & it did great. Having used the R6/100-400 combo for a few days, I felt the Z9's AF is perhaps 20% better & probably 1-2x better than my current D500/500 pf combo. I did not feel any lag in the AF box overlay. The overall shooting experience without the EVF blackout is magical. BTW, FTZ 1 will not affect the vertical shooting grip if you have skinny fingers like me!
The following picture gives an idea of the setting/shooting area. The closest apartment blocks are located 100 feet away, while the trees in the background are about 200 feet away. Pigeons hurtle across from one block to another & often zip perpendicularly past me at full pelt.
Initial Settings:
Lock-on tracking at 3,
Subject detection ON (animal only),
Shutter button focus
Focus limit distance to Full in the 500 pf.
Full Area AF focus (mode)
Initial target acquisition was quick, while the tracking stickiness was excellent for pigeons moving horizontally in the frame. However, it wasn't quick enough to nail the pigeons hurtling towards me, especially when close at about 40 feet away.
So I turned the lock-on sensitivity setting to 1; it did the trick & I stuck to it. Tracking stickiness continued to be good & I was able to focus on pigeons flying towards me & past me.
B) Accuracy of detecting birds when still & in flight:
Z9 either pics it up magically well in full area Af mode, or gets confused & shows the overlay on a close-by object. During those moments, I instantly let go of the half-pressed shutter button & re-focus. On doing that, the Z9 would invariably pick the right subject in the 2nd or 3rd attempt irrespective of the bird being stagnant or flying with a busy background. The whole process is more practical & efficient than I thought it would be.
After a while, I tried large area-AF with identical settings. It did exceptionally well too. With this mode, I didn't feel the need to re-focus. I think the large-area AF box is great to acquire a bird zipping past you out of a busy background. Eg. parrots, pigeons, etc. However, the large area AF box is more like medium size & is virtually impossible to keep a moving bird within the box.
It would be great if Nikon can give a bigger size large-area AF box.
Similar to Zone AF box on Sony cameras, but a little smaller.
C) Sharpness:
The Z9 with the 500 pf yields sharp results even when I have to crop a lot for subjects shot at more than 80 feet away.
(It wasn't the case with the D500.
Reasons could be the following:
Perhaps low resolution;
AF tuning issue (I did try Steve's method to no avail);
Inconsistent VR on the 500 pf.)
Here is an example of the bird shikra (small raptor) shot on Z9/500 pf about 100-120 feet away; cropped by nearly 80%. Even at a 100% zoom, the bird is sharp.
Shot at 1/125 handheld. IBIS works well. Did basic edits on NX Studio.
Cropped.
Not cropped.
I haven't tried stills 3d AF tracking yet.
Also it seems, 4k 120 FPS slowmo footage does not play in slowmotion in the camera unlike Z6/Z7. That's a bummer if I am not wrong.
----
What exactly did you think of the Z9 AF folks?
A) AF impressions & settings:
I played with the Z9 & 500 pf with FTZ 1 for about 30 minutes in dull cloudy weather shooting pigeons from my terrace & it did great. Having used the R6/100-400 combo for a few days, I felt the Z9's AF is perhaps 20% better & probably 1-2x better than my current D500/500 pf combo. I did not feel any lag in the AF box overlay. The overall shooting experience without the EVF blackout is magical. BTW, FTZ 1 will not affect the vertical shooting grip if you have skinny fingers like me!
The following picture gives an idea of the setting/shooting area. The closest apartment blocks are located 100 feet away, while the trees in the background are about 200 feet away. Pigeons hurtle across from one block to another & often zip perpendicularly past me at full pelt.
Initial Settings:
Lock-on tracking at 3,
Subject detection ON (animal only),
Shutter button focus
Focus limit distance to Full in the 500 pf.
Full Area AF focus (mode)
Initial target acquisition was quick, while the tracking stickiness was excellent for pigeons moving horizontally in the frame. However, it wasn't quick enough to nail the pigeons hurtling towards me, especially when close at about 40 feet away.
So I turned the lock-on sensitivity setting to 1; it did the trick & I stuck to it. Tracking stickiness continued to be good & I was able to focus on pigeons flying towards me & past me.
B) Accuracy of detecting birds when still & in flight:
Z9 either pics it up magically well in full area Af mode, or gets confused & shows the overlay on a close-by object. During those moments, I instantly let go of the half-pressed shutter button & re-focus. On doing that, the Z9 would invariably pick the right subject in the 2nd or 3rd attempt irrespective of the bird being stagnant or flying with a busy background. The whole process is more practical & efficient than I thought it would be.
After a while, I tried large area-AF with identical settings. It did exceptionally well too. With this mode, I didn't feel the need to re-focus. I think the large-area AF box is great to acquire a bird zipping past you out of a busy background. Eg. parrots, pigeons, etc. However, the large area AF box is more like medium size & is virtually impossible to keep a moving bird within the box.
It would be great if Nikon can give a bigger size large-area AF box.
Similar to Zone AF box on Sony cameras, but a little smaller.
C) Sharpness:
The Z9 with the 500 pf yields sharp results even when I have to crop a lot for subjects shot at more than 80 feet away.
(It wasn't the case with the D500.
Reasons could be the following:
Perhaps low resolution;
AF tuning issue (I did try Steve's method to no avail);
Inconsistent VR on the 500 pf.)
Here is an example of the bird shikra (small raptor) shot on Z9/500 pf about 100-120 feet away; cropped by nearly 80%. Even at a 100% zoom, the bird is sharp.
Shot at 1/125 handheld. IBIS works well. Did basic edits on NX Studio.
Cropped.
Not cropped.
I haven't tried stills 3d AF tracking yet.
Also it seems, 4k 120 FPS slowmo footage does not play in slowmotion in the camera unlike Z6/Z7. That's a bummer if I am not wrong.
----
What exactly did you think of the Z9 AF folks?
