Yes, that's how I do it now, but it'd be nice to not have to dedicate RSF to just that.
Nikon Z8 Firmware 2.0 Released
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Cameron T
Well-known member
You probably don't have it selected in the list of options (I think someone mentioned A8 elsewhere). I can't tell you which it is since I have a z9 that hasn't been updated yet to have it.
Pundamilia
New member
Thanks for posting the link. I wasn't even sure whether or not Nikon would issue a manual or whether we would have to rely on Steve's usual detailed video explanations.
I gave it a pretty good test this morning on songbirds at my feeders and on nearby bushes. The Eye AF was remarkably good - even well outside the AF sensor area I had chosen. I was mainly using Wide Small as my starting point, but also used Area and 3D. My lens was the 800mm PF and I was at a distance of 18-25 feet.
I continued to run into the issue of the camera missing the subject and locking onto the background occasionally. None of the Cycle AF options proved to be very good at finding the subject once missed. I'll be setting a button for the AF distance at close range - probably near the minimum focus distance of the lens or the minimum distance to photograph the subject. For songbirds I'll use the minimum focus distance of the lens at 17 feet, but for larger subjects like bears or elk, I would probably want something around 40-50 feet or more.
One thing I noticed at close range is I was getting AF confirmation even when the image is out of focus but inside the minimum focus distance. So the camera might recognize the subject and the eye and give me a focus confirmation, but if the subject was too close, the image was still out of focus.
I continued to run into the issue of the camera missing the subject and locking onto the background occasionally. None of the Cycle AF options proved to be very good at finding the subject once missed. I'll be setting a button for the AF distance at close range - probably near the minimum focus distance of the lens or the minimum distance to photograph the subject. For songbirds I'll use the minimum focus distance of the lens at 17 feet, but for larger subjects like bears or elk, I would probably want something around 40-50 feet or more.
One thing I noticed at close range is I was getting AF confirmation even when the image is out of focus but inside the minimum focus distance. So the camera might recognize the subject and the eye and give me a focus confirmation, but if the subject was too close, the image was still out of focus.
ajrmd
Well-known member
My early results with FW 2.0 shooting passerines in trees and on the ground, foraging have been largely favorable. In AA mode, it recognizes the subject immediately and locks on quickly. Prior to the update, was unusable in this application and one had to use an alternative AF mode. Interestingly, the AF algorithm seems to prioritize round shapes. For instance, when using it around the bird feeder with round holes, AA wants to jump to the hole. When a helicopter was flying overhead with a round, enclosed rear rotor, it jumped onto the rear rotor. Overall, the firmware update is pretty cool and I am looking forward to having the opportunity to apply it further. It almost feels like a new camera body for birds, thank you Nikon!
I should add, nearly every photo that I reviewed in NX studio had the AF point over the eye. Will this translate to larger, long necked, birds, BIF, etc remains to be determined.
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I should add, nearly every photo that I reviewed in NX studio had the AF point over the eye. Will this translate to larger, long necked, birds, BIF, etc remains to be determined.
You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.
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macwalter
Well-known member
Oh I like that! My camera is due from the shop Monday. Hoping they might have done the firmware update in the shop.
I haven't had a chance to test this on wildlife yet and in fact I haven't been shooting much wildlife lately, largely due to the seasonality (I'm looking forward to at least slightly warmer weather) but something very... confusing that I've noticed with my shooting of people:
I got my Z8 early this past spring and thought it worked pretty well. In mid summer I got the 70-180 Z lens - my first native Z lens - and thought that with the Z8 the AF was amazingly accurate and the lens to be the sharpest I'd ever used. By November, I was feeling a bit less happy with the AF and was finding it very inconsistent (on both the 70-180 and another lens of mine), especially in lower light. I also noticed a weird AF behavior in that using the wide area AF modes with subject detection tended to give me low accuracy for AF on people's eyes - it would say they were in focus but they'd be extremely soft or often just plain out of focus - but if I used the full area AF the eyes would be in focus much more consistently. It was still far too low, but it was better. With wide area modes I'd get <50% in focus when the eye box was solid green. With the full area I'd get 70% or so in focus with the eye box solid green. Meanwhile, doing it with the single point AF and no subject detection was >90% in focus.
Then, as the winter wore on I started to find photos from my Z8 to be weirdly lacking in sharpness and also increasingly noisy/grainy in a way that even LR's denoise wouldn't clean up. This really confused me because I was taking photos at lower ISOs in better lighting with less noise (or grain; it was hard for me to classify which) than I'd seen in lots of past photos but the past photos would clean up to near perfection in LR's denoise while anything I was taking now come out of denoise looking hardly any better than they went in. I was seriously starting to consider switching brands, even as a bit of a Nikon loyalist, because it all started to make some of the stereotypical anti-Nikon complaints seem pretty real to me.
When the 2.0 firmware was released earlier this week, I first backed up my settings and then updated the firmware. I then restored my settings and verified that they did go back the way I had them - so nothing has changed in terms of how the camera is configured.
However, almost immediately I started to notice the AF being more accurate and the photos having that nice "high-fidelity" look I would have expected and had been used to when I first got this camera/lens combo. I didn't say anything at first because I wanted to test it more. I still wouldn't say I've tested enough to be certain anything's really changed, but in what playing around I have done it really does feel like a different camera, like suddenly the AF is nailing things the way it did when I first got it and like the photos have an appropriate amount of noise and that noise can be cleaned up in processing again. I can now go into whatever mode I want and photograph my kids, for instance, and their eyes are sharp and shiny almost every time. I can see the texture in their skin instead of a kind of very vaguely "oil painting" sort of lower texture.
This has me pretty confused because I am positive nothing has changed settings-wise and because I know that while this firmware is an improvement it isn't as if the previous firmware was so bad as that there should be this difference. I saw earlier today how Thom Hogan had pointed out that apparently the previous firmware wasn't always accounting for AF-fine tuning properly so I went and checked to see if maybe I'd had that turned on before and so now it was just being applied correctly, but no, it wasn't - and it certainly wasn't on when I first was getting great results last summer, either.
Just something to think about. It really makes me wonder what the heck changed, what the update fixed and how it fixed it, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again!
I got my Z8 early this past spring and thought it worked pretty well. In mid summer I got the 70-180 Z lens - my first native Z lens - and thought that with the Z8 the AF was amazingly accurate and the lens to be the sharpest I'd ever used. By November, I was feeling a bit less happy with the AF and was finding it very inconsistent (on both the 70-180 and another lens of mine), especially in lower light. I also noticed a weird AF behavior in that using the wide area AF modes with subject detection tended to give me low accuracy for AF on people's eyes - it would say they were in focus but they'd be extremely soft or often just plain out of focus - but if I used the full area AF the eyes would be in focus much more consistently. It was still far too low, but it was better. With wide area modes I'd get <50% in focus when the eye box was solid green. With the full area I'd get 70% or so in focus with the eye box solid green. Meanwhile, doing it with the single point AF and no subject detection was >90% in focus.
Then, as the winter wore on I started to find photos from my Z8 to be weirdly lacking in sharpness and also increasingly noisy/grainy in a way that even LR's denoise wouldn't clean up. This really confused me because I was taking photos at lower ISOs in better lighting with less noise (or grain; it was hard for me to classify which) than I'd seen in lots of past photos but the past photos would clean up to near perfection in LR's denoise while anything I was taking now come out of denoise looking hardly any better than they went in. I was seriously starting to consider switching brands, even as a bit of a Nikon loyalist, because it all started to make some of the stereotypical anti-Nikon complaints seem pretty real to me.
When the 2.0 firmware was released earlier this week, I first backed up my settings and then updated the firmware. I then restored my settings and verified that they did go back the way I had them - so nothing has changed in terms of how the camera is configured.
However, almost immediately I started to notice the AF being more accurate and the photos having that nice "high-fidelity" look I would have expected and had been used to when I first got this camera/lens combo. I didn't say anything at first because I wanted to test it more. I still wouldn't say I've tested enough to be certain anything's really changed, but in what playing around I have done it really does feel like a different camera, like suddenly the AF is nailing things the way it did when I first got it and like the photos have an appropriate amount of noise and that noise can be cleaned up in processing again. I can now go into whatever mode I want and photograph my kids, for instance, and their eyes are sharp and shiny almost every time. I can see the texture in their skin instead of a kind of very vaguely "oil painting" sort of lower texture.
This has me pretty confused because I am positive nothing has changed settings-wise and because I know that while this firmware is an improvement it isn't as if the previous firmware was so bad as that there should be this difference. I saw earlier today how Thom Hogan had pointed out that apparently the previous firmware wasn't always accounting for AF-fine tuning properly so I went and checked to see if maybe I'd had that turned on before and so now it was just being applied correctly, but no, it wasn't - and it certainly wasn't on when I first was getting great results last summer, either.
Just something to think about. It really makes me wonder what the heck changed, what the update fixed and how it fixed it, and how to make sure it doesn't happen again!
ajrmd
Well-known member
This is good to hear. Likewise, I noticed that on people (not animals), the eye AF frequently failed in comparison to my Canon and Sony gear. It had a tendency to slightly front focus on the lid or lashes but not the eye itself. Hurrah to Nikon if they improved this as well. Care to post a few examples?
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apakett
Member
They made more buttons customizable. It means having to relearn how you want the camera customized.Sounds useful, although I am running out of buttons. Looks like I will need to have a rethink of my button assignment so looking forward to @Steve 's eBook update for some guidance.
This update is also useful: White balance and exposure compensation can now be adjusted while recalling the shooting function settings. I think this may replace my recall shooting settings.
Oh and exposure delay mode is back, thank you Nikon.
apakett
Member
There may differences between the Z8 and Z9 implementation. I would think that Nikon learned a few things since the Z9 release.FYI:
1. To be clear, I didn't have early access to the firmware this time (you win some, you lose some), so I have to sort through it a bit.
2. The book will see an update soon
macwalter
Well-known member
Yes that would be nice
I'm confused. I use the movie record button to turn subject detection on or off.
Probably because you set Recall Shooting Function to turn off Subject Detect, which you have assigned to the movie record button… just like me
It works this way, sure, but doing it this way is a waste of RSF, which could be used for something more useful.
apakett
Member
Nikon claims that the Z8 and Z9 have separate development teams. There is no effort to coordinate their firmware release. It was also mentioned that both cameras will get the same firmware, within hardware limitations.
bwblom
New member
Very nice feature. Maybe someday they'll let us assign a button to toggle between subject detection modes...
JanH
Active member
I think people like Steve and Thom bring great support to the Nikon ecosystem without it costing the company anything. Just from a business perspective NikonUSA should have given them an early look at the new firmware so they could begin updating their guides. Nikon Australia seems to have given Jan Wegener an early look, and I think he shoots mainly Canon.I think Thom's just sore because he has to update his ebook. He does not share Steve's valuable skill of showing good grace through gritted teeth.
JanH
Active member
Thank you Steve! It is interesting that you hand off to the Auto area AF. In FW1 many seemed to hand off to 3D. Has Auto Area AF improved because it feels that way to me - but I am relative new to the Z8.FWIW, I'm using it as a replacement for adjusting the AF mode with a push and turn, so all my favorite AF areas are on it - Single, 3D, Auto, Wide S ,Wide Large, and Wide C1 (1x1). Once you get used to it, even with that many AF points, going from one to the other is almost instant. In time, you'll learn how many pushes to get from one AF area to the next depending on which you're using. I have my AF cycle on the Video Record button since if I'm switching AF areas, I'm not shoot and it gives my index finger something else to do (it gets bored with just pressing the shutter rerelease). FN1 is now Auto AF for handoffs.
I did replace 3D with Auto Area AF on the Fn1 button and have noticed that in the wide AF modes on the BBAF (now via Cycle AF on the video record button) the camera will often pick up birds before I even push the AF-On button (if the camera is focused in that area). In that case I can go straight to Fn1 button and pick the bird up in Auto Area AF. That is sweet.
One issue remaining for me is having the focus initially behind the bird. The camera does not rack back usually so I put single point on Fn2 button to force it to focus closer.
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JanH
Active member
It did not seem to be the most substantive post I have read from him
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JanH
Active member
How do you set up RSF to toggle between birds and animals? I would like to include that in my wildlife bank settings. Thanks.
Mecky
New member
I took 16 pictures in Pixel Shift mode yesterday. After I merged the images in NX, it resulted in a huge file of 950MB. I then enlarged one of the images using super resolution in Lightroom. The image was even larger than the Pixel Shift image and was only 160 MB and the quality was at least as good as the Pixel Shift image. The Pixel Shift function doesn't really make sense to me after that.
Soukous
New member
Set 1 detection mode (birds) as your default. Then in RSF tick the other one (animals). when you toggle between the 2 ( as in press to Recall Shooting functions) it will alternate subjects between birds & animals
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abc123brian
Well-known member
Keep in mind that pixel shift for Nikon, other names for other manufacturers, is moving the sensor taking extra shots, that you combine into a single image that actually contains extra resolution while LR is filling in extra pixels using data it thinks should be there by looking at surrounding content. So one is actually extra pixels and one is faked extra pixels. the biggest problem I have with pixel shift is there can be no movement in the scene between shots which really limits its usability so will probably never use it.
fcotterill
Well-known member
Here's a detailed explanation of Pixel Shift by dpr member Horshack
www.dpreview.com
Deep dive into Nikon's Pixel Shift: Nikon Z Mirrorless Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
Expert news, reviews and videos of the latest digital cameras, lenses, accessories, and phones. Get answers to your questions in our photography forums.
www.dpreview.com
JanH
Active member
Thank you. I will give it a try.