Nikon Z50 II Launched

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Zeeshan said:
Hi,

I need your help to resolve the issue of slight misfocusing on all af modes except pin point and single point mode. Is this an issue with few z50iis or could I have done any wrong setting in camera(i did rest the camera setting but the issue persits). Thanks
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Hello Zeeshan,
I have noticed the same yesterday wrt the Z50ii and recently arrived 28-400mm lens - I setup and tested the camera for my wife yesterday, and I thought it might be the lens missing focus in 3d and Auto-area AF. I was shooting some duck and Cormorants in bright sunny skies, as well as a few Pelicans. Eye-detect shot straight to the eyes, but quite a few focused in front, behind, or on the neck of the bird. Will further test tomorrow, but it might be the AF jumping around and missing focus. Tested the lens on my Z8 today, and it was fine.

I will get back to you if I find anything but might be some FW tweaks are needed to optimize the Expeed7/ AF for that ASP-C sensor. Perhaps others will chime in too.
 
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beano said:
Hello Zeeshan,
I have noticed the same yesterday wrt the Z50ii and recently arrived 28-400mm lens - I setup and tested the camera for my wife yesterday, and I thought it might be the lens missing focus in 3d and Auto-area AF. Will further test tomorrow, but it might be the AF jumping around and missing focus. Tested the lens on my Z8 today, and it was fine.

I will get back to you if I find anything but might be some FW tweaks are needed to optimize the Expeed7/ AF for that ASP-C sensor. Perhaps others will chime in
Click to expand...
 
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Zeeshan said:
As per my testing, with manual focus using focus peaking the images are 100% sharp. It's has to be some issue with my camera unit. Looking forward to your tests.
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When I select single-point AF, it is sharp each time. But using advanced AF it’s a bit if a hit/miss. I will also grab another lens tomorrow, maybe the 400 4.5 or the 100-400 and do more testing. I get back to you after.
 
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beano said:
When I select single-point AF, it is sharp each time. But using advanced AF it’s a bit if a hit/miss. I will also grab another lens tomorrow, maybe the 400 4.5 or the 100-400 and do more testing. I get back to you after.
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How is the subject defect on the Z50ii overall? I’ve heard it’s pretty good with BIF but don’t know much else. I’m considering buying the Z50ii or getting a better DSLR than the one I have right now so I’m wondering if it’s work it.
 
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liamwallace said:
How is the subject defect on the Z50ii overall? I’ve heard it’s pretty good with BIF but don’t know much else. I’m considering buying the Z50ii or getting a better DSLR than the one I have right now so I’m wondering if it’s work it.
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I am pleasantly surprised how well it picks up birds, haven’t tested on anything else, as I am busy packing for our move to the EU.

But the AF is fast and responsive, on-par with my Z8, imho, other than the minor mis-focus issue mentioned above. Even with the slower lens. I will find some time to test with the 400 4.5, and feedback later.
 
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I had a quick test with the 180-600, the faster lens helps with AF. I guess some work is required on the AF, as I noticed 3d Tracking will jump between the eye and the body of stationary birds - I haven't tested with BIF, to hot here and birds are lazy today. If it catches the eye, I will say 3/4 or 3/5 is sharp, but the odd few are focusing on the body, or somewhere else.

I guess I could also play with AF stickiness, will do that over the weekend at some point, as I suspect this is what is causing the issue. If I do single-point AF, it is always sharp.

Both the following with 3d tracking: The Cormorant at 600mm, 1/320th, F6.3 and ISO 720. The Miner bird at 290mm, 1/1,000th, F6.3 and ISO 640. Minor edits and large crop to get it accepted by the forum-engine. I can provide the RAW's if anyone wants to have a look at them.
 

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beano said:
I had a quick test with the 180-600, the faster lens helps with AF. I guess some work is required on the AF, as I noticed 3d Tracking will jump between the eye and the body of stationary birds - I haven't tested with BIF, to hot here and birds are lazy today. If it catches the eye, I will say 3/4 or 3/5 is sharp, but the odd few are focusing on the body, or somewhere else.

I guess I could also play with AF stickiness, will do that over the weekend at some point, as I suspect this is what is causing the issue. If I do single-point AF, it is always sharp.

Both the following with 3d tracking: The Cormorant at 600mm, 1/320th, F6.3 and ISO 720. The Miner bird at 290mm, 1/1,000th, F6.3 and ISO 640. Minor edits and large crop to get it accepted by the forum-engine. I can provide the RAW's if anyone wants to have a look at them.
Click to expand...
Can you share the unedited files
 
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beano said:
Hello Zeeshan,
I have noticed the same yesterday wrt the Z50ii and recently arrived 28-400mm lens - I setup and tested the camera for my wife yesterday, and I thought it might be the lens missing focus in 3d and Auto-area AF. I was shooting some duck and Cormorants in bright sunny skies, as well as a few Pelicans. Eye-detect shot straight to the eyes, but quite a few focused in front, behind, or on the neck of the bird. Will further test tomorrow, but it might be the AF jumping around and missing focus. Tested the lens on my Z8 today, and it was fine.

I will get back to you if I find anything but might be some FW tweaks are needed to optimize the Expeed7/ AF for that ASP-C sensor. Perhaps others will chime in too.
Click to expand...
It's important to know that the EVF confirmation of focus is independent of the actual focus action of the lens and camera. The EVF confirmation is a display only and has nothing directly connected to focus. Still - it is a valid indicator and better than nothing. I've found with all cameras you can get false positives of focus confirmation - especially when the subject is distant or patterned.
 
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EricBowles said:
It's important to know that the EVF confirmation of focus is independent of the actual focus action of the lens and camera. The EVF confirmation is a display only and has nothing directly connected to focus. Still - it is a valid indicator and better than nothing. I've found with all cameras you can get false positives of focus confirmation - especially when the subject is distant or patterned.
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Hi Eric,
Understood, but there‘s something amiss with the AF on my Z50II, IMHO. It is quick to acquire AF, show confirmation, but then the small box popping up over the eye would be ‘skittish’, slightly moving around the vicinity of the eye, sometimes popping off and returning.

Tested now with the 100-400, 400 4.5, 180-600, all in good light, and quite often when subjects are at least filling the frame 1/2-way. Under the same conditions, using my Z8 and Z9, I get close to 100% sharp shots, but with the Z50ii, at a guess, 50% is in sharp focus - on the eye, I mean, not confirming on the eye, but sharp on the wing, chest, or body…

Hopefully my explanation doesn’t sound like a drunk person, haha.
 
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beano said:
Hi Eric,
Understood, but there‘s something amiss with the AF on my Z50II, IMHO. It is quick to acquire AF, show confirmation, but then the small box popping up over the eye would be ‘skittish’, slightly moving around the vicinity of the eye, sometimes popping off and returning.

Tested now with the 100-400, 400 4.5, 180-600, all in good light, and quite often when subjects are at least filling the frame 1/2-way. Under the same conditions, using my Z8 and Z9, I get close to 100% sharp shots, but with the Z50ii, at a guess, 50% is in sharp focus - on the eye, I mean, not confirming on the eye, but sharp on the wing, chest, or body…

Hopefully my explanation doesn’t sound like a drunk person, haha.
Click to expand...
The behavior you are describing suggests it simply does not recognize the subject or color and size of the eye. I see the same thing with some wading birds where the camera is distracted by plumage. That kind of thing is species and situation specific and has a lot of contributing factors.

Have you found a place with subject matter that is useful for controlled testing? I get false positives or struggles for focus with all of these cameras in some situations. I've even seen subject matter that successfully hits 100% of the time with one color of their plumage, but with another color failed completely 100% of the time. The only difference is coloring.
 
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EricBowles said:
The behavior you are describing suggests it simply does not recognize the subject or color and size of the eye. I see the same thing with some wading birds where the camera is distracted by plumage. That kind of thing is species and situation specific and has a lot of contributing factors.

Have you found a place with subject matter that is useful for controlled testing? I get false positives or struggles for focus with all of these cameras in some situations. I've even seen subject matter that successfully hits 100% of the time with one color of their plumage, but with another color failed completely 100% of the time. The only difference is coloring.
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I get the same behaviour indoors when using my Plena or 85 1.2, for example, with my cat as subject. Using single-point focus, it is pin-sharp each time, as soon as I use any of the advanced AF modes, eye-detect will be very quick, but the actual focus-point can be elsewhere, more often than not.

As said, under similar conditions, my other bodies are doing much better, even the Zf outperforms it in terms of hit-rate.

Edit: I do appreciate your feedback though, thank you. I will keep at it, and see how to improve the hit rate - if it gets it right, the results are stunning, as long as you keep ISO at or below 3,200 level, otherwise noise starts to impact the image, and whilst denoise helps with cleanup, it does impact the final result a bit, if iso creeps to high.

Edit2: I have also considered variables like contrast, eye-color, etc, but even testing on some ducks here with red eyes vs jade-green feathers, will sometimes give brilliantly sharp shots, a second later, focus will be somewhere else, typically above its head, or in front, over murky grey low-contrast water. Hopefully upcoming FW releases will improve the AF. If indeed it is to blame :)
 
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beano said:
Hi Eric,
Understood, but there‘s something amiss with the AF on my Z50II, IMHO. It is quick to acquire AF, show confirmation, but then the small box popping up over the eye would be ‘skittish’, slightly moving around the vicinity of the eye, sometimes popping off and returning.

Tested now with the 100-400, 400 4.5, 180-600, all in good light, and quite often when subjects are at least filling the frame 1/2-way. Under the same conditions, using my Z8 and Z9, I get close to 100% sharp shots, but with the Z50ii, at a guess, 50% is in sharp focus - on the eye, I mean, not confirming on the eye, but sharp on the wing, chest, or body…

Hopefully my explanation doesn’t sound like a drunk person, haha.
Click to expand...
I would say with z50ii the sharp shots with focus point confirmation is not more than 15%
 
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beano said:
I get the same behaviour indoors when using my Plena or 85 1.2, for example, with my cat as subject. Using single-point focus, it is pin-sharp each time, as soon as I use any of the advanced AF modes, eye-detect will be very quick, but the actual focus-point can be elsewhere, more often than not.

As said, under similar conditions, my other bodies are doing much better, even the Zf outperforms it in terms of hit-rate.

Edit: I do appreciate your feedback though, thank you. I will keep at it, and see how to improve the hit rate - if it gets it right, the results are stunning, as long as you keep ISO at or below 3,200 level, otherwise noise starts to impact the image, and whilst denoise helps with cleanup, it does impact the final result a bit, if iso creeps to high.

Edit2: I have also considered variables like contrast, eye-color, etc, but even testing on some ducks here with red eyes vs jade-green feathers, will sometimes give brilliantly sharp shots, a second later, focus will be somewhere else, typically above its head, or in front, over murky grey low-contrast water. Hopefully upcoming FW releases will improve the AF. If indeed it is to blame :)
Click to expand...
I've seen similar unexplained variation with the Z6iii - and I have a lot more images with this behavior. Many are under highly controlled conditions. My approach right now is to turn off some of the advanced features for AF and turn off VR. I'm still testing. I have on occasion resorted to pinpoint for what should be an easy focus of a bird on a perch. The common thread for most of these subjects is they are birds - so I suspect part of the issue is with Bird AF. With other subjects, focus has been pretty good or at least a much higher hit rate. I am also seeing significant variation by subject or species. Wading birds miss often and pick up the wing or long breeding plumes on the breast. Cardinals and bluebirds almost never miss. Sparrows are much tougher - but that's the nature of the bird. Migrating warblers vary by species with some being more difficult than others. My equestrian work has a success rate of 95% or better. Professional golf almost never misses - probably 98% success. All these estimates are for the Z6iii - the Z50ii is a lot newer. I did find the Z50ii was very good with sandhill cranes - and that was using the 800mm PF for an effective focal length of 1200mm and a subject 50-200 yards away.
 
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EricBowles said:
I've seen similar unexplained variation with the Z6iii - and I have a lot more images with this behavior. Many are under highly controlled conditions. My approach right now is to turn off some of the advanced features for AF and turn off VR. I'm still testing. I have on occasion resorted to pinpoint for what should be an easy focus of a bird on a perch. The common thread for most of these subjects is they are birds - so I suspect part of the issue is with Bird AF. With other subjects, focus has been pretty good or at least a much higher hit rate. I am also seeing significant variation by subject or species. Wading birds miss often and pick up the wing or long breeding plumes on the breast. Cardinals and bluebirds almost never miss. Sparrows are much tougher - but that's the nature of the bird. Migrating warblers vary by species with some being more difficult than others. My equestrian work has a success rate of 95% or better. Professional golf almost never misses - probably 98% success. All these estimates are for the Z6iii - the Z50ii is a lot newer. I did find the Z50ii was very good with sandhill cranes - and that was using the 800mm PF for an effective focal length of 1200mm and a subject 50-200 yards away.
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Excellent comments, cheers Eric. I will have a further play as well, and as you have found, I have also noticed pin-point works very well and reliably. Might be something in bird-mode then, I will also test on other subjects.

Take care that side and wishing you a good weekend!
 
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EricBowles said:
I've seen similar unexplained variation with the Z6iii - and I have a lot more images with this behavior. Many are under highly controlled conditions. My approach right now is to turn off some of the advanced features for AF and turn off VR. I'm still testing. I have on occasion resorted to pinpoint for what should be an easy focus of a bird on a perch. The common thread for most of these subjects is they are birds - so I suspect part of the issue is with Bird AF. With other subjects, focus has been pretty good or at least a much higher hit rate. I am also seeing significant variation by subject or species. Wading birds miss often and pick up the wing or long breeding plumes on the breast. Cardinals and bluebirds almost never miss. Sparrows are much tougher - but that's the nature of the bird. Migrating warblers vary by species with some being more difficult than others. My equestrian work has a success rate of 95% or better. Professional golf almost never misses - probably 98% success. All these estimates are for the Z6iii - the Z50ii is a lot newer. I did find the Z50ii was very good with sandhill cranes - and that was using the 800mm PF for an effective focal length of 1200mm and a subject 50-200 yards away.
Click to expand...
Just one more comment, I have been out yesterday, and when I experienced this skittish AF on the z50ii, or when the camera might be doing focus-hunting, I simply quickly give the lens focus ring a slight twirl to front-focus, and then it will snap on to the subject pretty well.

I recall using the same methodology on my d850, it worked equally well back then. Let me experiment a bit more to see if it is the initial focus that gets confused, going by gut-feel, I certainly had many more sharp photos doing this yesterday.

I will also limit focus on the lens and see if that improves things, feedback later.
 
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