Nikon Z6iii

[RussellT]

Hi,
I went to the zoo today to put some of what I had learnt to the test
I have two questions
1. The battery lasted about 4 hours, I did not take any video. I shot about 166 images in RAW and JPG (Total 166+166=332)
Is that the battery life I should expect or do I have something set incorrectly that is consuming the battery.
I do try turn off when not shooting
2. Please see the attached image (I had to resize the jpg to upload)
I obviously messed up and did not acquire the face of the cheetah
How would you have set the camera to get it to acquire focus on the face when there is foliage in front of , around and behind the animal

I'm on about page 160 of Rick's book so I'm sure he will provide some guidance when I get to it

Thanks in advance
Russell

 

[John Navitsky]

the en-el15c lasts about two hours power-on time in the z8. that is to say it doesn’t matter a huge amount if you take zero or 20,000 images during that time

i suspect the z6iii will be similar

 

[John Navitsky]

with regard to the focus issue, did you have subject detection enabled and did it have a box indicating it has acquired a subject? that is to say, a little box around the face - NOT a pattern of little squares

 

[RussellT]

with regard to the focus issue, did you have subject detection enabled and did it have a box indicating it has acquired a subject? that is to say, a little box around the face - NOT a pattern of little squares

Yes to both, animal and a rectangle. Maybe I need to play around with the size of the rectangle/square?

 

[John Navitsky]

no, this can happen with obstructions due to some of the details of how the subject detection/af system works. the box tells us it figured out the subject, but it appears the branch got in the way of the actual af.

shooting through foliage can be hit or miss
generally speaking if you have portions of the subject’s face visible, this is a good situation to switch to single point focus. a lot of us have single point assigned to a button for these kinds of situations

 

[JAJohnson]

1) Settings which impact battery drain
- Brightness of rear screen and EVF: set the brightness to the minimum needed to allow you to see clearly
- Network settings: Turn on Airplane mode unless you’re wirelessly transferring images
- Power off Delay: Set the four options to the minimum time durations which work for you

If it’s a hot day, the camera might get warm. A warm battery will drain faster than a cool battery. Having said that, four hours isn’t unreasonable even though you shot less than 200 photos.

2) With foliage obscuring the Cheetah’s face, autofocus and subject detection won’t work well, if at all. In that case you’ll need to manually focus. Set subject detection to Animal. Set MF subject detection area (photo shooting menu) Auto area, Wide-L, or Wide-S. You may need to experiment to see what works best. Use the focus ring to manually focus until the face is sharp. If the Cheetah is moving around, this will be a challenge! Perhaps it’s better to find a composition in which the face is unobstructed.

 

[RussellT]

no, this can happen with obstructions due to some of the details of how the subject detection/af system works. the box tells us it figured out the subject, but it appears the branch got in the way of the actual af.

shooting through foliage can be hit or miss
generally speaking if you have portions of the subject’s face visible, this is a good situation to switch to single point focus. a lot of us have single point assigned to a button for these kinds of situations

Thanks, I think I'm going to assign Fn2, then I just need to remember to use it

 

[MrFotoFool]

I use a Z8, but I am in the habit of turning off the camera when not in use. If you were doing this I would have thought the battery would last longer, but four hours is not unreasonable. Just get an extra battery if you don't have one.

Even though both of our cameras have animal face/eye detect, I have found it often gets fooled if there is foliage in front (as you had here). I am not an autofocus expert, but what works best FOR ME is just to put it in single point focus and use the wheel to manually place the focus point on the animal's head or eye.

 

[hef19898]

As others pointed out, turn off things like wifi and so on. Also make sure to have any displays off, I use view finder only unless I want to use the rear screen for whatever reason.

An EN-EL15c in my Z6 lives for a couple of hundred shots, up to a thousand, which means a couple of days during travel.

What drains battery as well is looking at the images at the rear screen, something that also happens with phones, the screen uses battery the most.

I agree with single point AF for the cheetah face.