Nikon Z9 - Firmware 5.0

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An interesting feature buried in the Zf Autofocus setup is the option for many different Custom Area modes. I stand to be corrected, but this feature is still missing in the Z8 and Z9.
Perhaps there are constraints in the Z9 sensor design that complicates programming the links to the On-Sensor AF system.

The Curious Case of Nikon Updates | Thom Hogan

Why do some Nikon cameras get some features but not others?
www.zsystemuser.com
 
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All these complains about no Pixel Shift, PreCapture RAW or 30fps in RAW.

But no one have mentioned or raged about that they yet again have missed to include the most requested and wanted feature. The knowledge that the camera has this capability was probably one of the reasons why many of us bought the Z9. ;)

So where is the 🐱 shutter sound? I'll be furious if the Z8 gets this before us Z9:ers. 😁
 
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Halfblindphoto said:
All these complains about no Pixel Shift, PreCapture RAW or 30fps in RAW.

But no one have mentioned or raged about that they yet again have missed to include the most requested and wanted feature. The knowledge that the camera has this capability was probably one of the reasons why many of us bought the Z9. ;)

So where is the 🐱 shutter sound? I'll be furious if the Z8 gets this before us Z9:ers. 😁
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That puts it all indeed in perspective 😄 I do not understand this moaning and bitching on missing features from those individuals. They have purchased this camera with less features, Nikon gave us lots of goodies and yet it is never enough, never ever.
But that cat sound, yeah, that should have been in there, I can only wonder what sound that will give us at 20fps 🤣
 
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Asafser said:
There are two ways to engage the self timer, maybe by mistake it’s been engaged:
1. With the Release Mode Dial Lock & the Release Mode Dial - set to self timer
2. With the Quick release button & the main command dial , when the release mode is set to Quick Release Mode Selection

See the attached link

Release Mode

onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com

and a orc :
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My thanks beyond measure! Your advice fixed the issue. I would have never looked at that as the issue as I never moved that dial from CH that I am aware of. Thanks again for your amazing help. JIM
 
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thelordofthelight said:
Lot of us were expecting major performance improvements like 30FPS in HE mode, Pre-capture in Raw etc. but looking at this update, i am of the opinion that Nikon will reserve all the further performance improvements for the upcoming models like Z9H or Z9II/S….Will be surprised if we see any more major updates to Z9/8.
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I also think these are probably features coming in the next Z9.
 
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You’re all ignoring the biggest improvement: manual focus zoom is canceled with shutter half-press! 🤪

I’m joking, but I’m kinda not. Being stuck in MF zoom is highly annoying. This should have been the default from day one. I only hope this comes to other models soon, because I shoot my manual lenses with my Zf a lot more than with my Z9.

I also enjoy the Rich Tone Portrait on then, so that’s welcome to see on the Z9. If you like to use picture styles as a visualization aid or to reduce time in LR, give it a shot. It has some nice shadow tones SOOC, and it’s useful for more than just human portraits.
 
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abc123brian said:
There are many things to consider about charging for book updates. It is unusual to see this many major updates for a camera and we don’t know if major updates will continue like this. Would you be willing to pay a fee for an update that only covered a small update? If you bought the book last week, would you be willing to pay for an update next week when the updated book is released to cover firmware released this week? How would you setup the online store to manage all of it? Steve has to update the book for potential new buyers already because if I bought a Z9 today I wouldn’t buy a book telling me how to setup the Z9 using firmware version 1.0. So how much money is there really to be made by charging for book updates versus giving them away? If you had to pay for updates, would you be willing to buy the book originally knowing it would likely be outdated by the next firmware update? I don’t think it’s not a straight forward, easy decision.

I’m not a big buyer of camera books as it is so i wouldn’t be willing to pay for the updates. I’d have to check, but I'm not sure I even updated my copy of the book the last couple updates. So for me, I wouldn’t be willing to pay for it though I really appreciate Steve providing them. Nikon’s not charging me for all the great firmware updates. My thoughts are the firmware updates will slow and become less major as these cameras have matured, but I could be wrong.

You can always help Steve out by supporting his site: https://backcountrygallery.com/contribute/
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This is something we've talked about quite a bit. There's a ton of logistics to make upgrades fair and it's tricky. There's both how long the purchaser has had the book and the magnitude of the update. When trying to balance things, it can become surprisingly complex.

However, the aspect that's tougher to quantify is, as you say, how many people are buying in part because of the updates? I feel like that's likely a major selling point and have even considered a survey to ask buyers about it. However, surveys like that are notoriously unreliable. So, for now, it's easier to keep the updates free. I have a feeling they will slow down after these last two. I think updates 2,3, and even 4 were more to catch up to the competition and make the Z9 what it should have been at launch.
 
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Steve said:
This is something we've talked about quite a bit. There's a ton of logistics to make upgrades fair and it's tricky. There's both how long the purchaser has had the book and the magnitude of the update. When trying to balance things, it can become surprisingly complex.

However, the aspect that's tougher to quantify is, as you say, how many people are buying in part because of the updates? I feel like that's likely a major selling point and have even considered a survey to ask buyers about it. However, surveys like that are notoriously unreliable. So, for now, it's easier to keep the updates free. I have a feeling they will slow down after these last two. I think updates 2,3, and even 4 were more to catch up to the competition and make the Z9 what it should have been at launch.
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I would imagine you won't put to much in the update on the video/retouch addition.
 
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jerrylwatson said:
I would imagine you won't put to much in the update on the video/retouch addition.
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Nope :) At the moment, the book is directed at stills, so I don't cover any video. I just don't know much about it - certainly not enough to pass out advice.

Thankfully, this update is largely a series of adjustments to the book - many of the pertinent items are already there for the Z8, I just need to remove the "Z8 only" parts from those sections. The actual new stuff isn't too bad.
 
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Is it just me or is the camera pulsating the autofocus more to get focus on out of focus objects after FW5? I was shooting with my 600 TC and when I noticed the camera appeared to gain focus on close subject after focusing on a more distant subject much easier than before. It could of course be a placebo effect but i hope not. LOL
 
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Steve said:
This is something we've talked about quite a bit. There's a ton of logistics to make upgrades fair and it's tricky. There's both how long the purchaser has had the book and the magnitude of the update. When trying to balance things, it can become surprisingly complex.

However, the aspect that's tougher to quantify is, as you say, how many people are buying in part because of the updates? I feel like that's likely a major selling point and have even considered a survey to ask buyers about it. However, surveys like that are notoriously unreliable. So, for now, it's easier to keep the updates free. I have a feeling they will slow down after these last two. I think updates 2,3, and even 4 were more to catch up to the competition and make the Z9 what it should have been at launch.
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Yeah, that is what I was trying to convey. There are a lot of logistical things you would need to determine, possibly even pay someone to code, and again to later update if you determined you wanted to go a different direction. Then you have to determine how many are actually going to pay for the updates versus by once for initial setup which is a bigger deal. You have to go through updating the book either way to sell to new buyers but did all the upfront considerations and potential cost to charge for updates ever break even. I really like that Nikon has provided all these great updates, but I cannot imagine they can keep constantly rolling them out like this. If they do, I feel sorry for people like you publishing books They are going to run out of improvements eventually or hit hardware walls. It’s easy to say we would be willing to pay for your hard work and constant updating but how many of the people who stated that are actually going to update if they had to pay. I feel most are going to say I can figure these changes out by watching YouTube or asking in the forums. i also feel the free updates is a big selling point. Nikon has received a lot of praise for the way it has handled the Z8 and Z9 updates… but I also still have a Z7ii on version 1.4 :unsure: It certainly isn’t as easy of decision as some have suggested.

Maybe a possible solution is to include the ‘support this site’ link in more places, even as a link in the book. I‘m glad I don’t have to make the decision
 
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While it's mentioned that formatting has changed, I think there are actually TWO changes.

1) The user interface has changed. Basically that made it so full format is more tucked out of the way, making the quick format a bit more streamlined. OK, cool.

2) But the more interesting thing... Previously, full format was actually very fast (this was different with the Z9 vs older cameras like the D500*). My hypothesis is they utilized an NVME feature called "secure erase" where basically you send a command to the flash controller and it zeros the state, like turning off the power switch. I think they then performed a quick erase on top of that. The end result is a fast and secure format.

However, the new full format is slow again. It seems like they went back to the old style full format where it goes through and zeros out the disk manually.

If I had to guess why they might do this, my best guess is some of the CFE-b card controllers were not properly supporting secure erase and thus the feature wasn't working correctly.

Doesn't really matter much, but it's kinda interesting.


* Which makes sense since "secure format" is an NVME SSD controller feature, thus only available on CFE cards (I suspect XQD didn't have this feature).
 
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thelordofthelight said:
Will be surprised if we see any more major updates to Z9/8.
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while i think we may be getting near the end of major changes (and i'm ok with that, the camera is great and has been for several firmware releases), in addition to pixel shift, i have one more reason i think we may have at least one more new set of features coming.... i think we'll see features in support of the Content Authenticity Initiative come to the z9, possibly in time for the Paris Olympics
 
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John Navitsky said:
while i think we may be getting near the end of major changes (and i'm ok with that, the camera is great and has been for several firmware releases), in addition to pixel shift, i have one more reason i think we may have at least one more new set of features coming.... i think we'll see features in support of the Content Authenticity Initiative come to the z9, possibly in time for the Paris Olympics
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I think you're right, this will likely be made available before the Olympics. I'm not sure how Nikon plans to implement its Content Authenticity capability. It might be a firmware update users can do on their own or it might mean sending the camera to Nikon. If it's the latter, I'm certain there will be a cost associated with it.
 
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Warren D said:
If you are implying I don't know where to look, you are wrong.
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I was not implying that at all! If anything, I myself needed a mental reminder as I never adjust it from M ;-) Peace! The viewfinder is so busy that I sometimes feel really pressured to capture all that matters--and M vs anything else is the least of my worries given how non-creative I am about that choice :)
 
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I very much like the fact, although limited to manual focus, that you can now focus with lens wide open and the aperture will close down only when pressing the shutter. So it works almost like a typical DSLR.
Sadly this feature isn't yet allowed when using AF which would be even better. For example, in studio while shooting with strobes, and focusing is done under dim modelling lights (eg. flash much more powerfull than ambient light).
Afaik Sony A1 allows this, atleast with some lenses.
I hope they could allow changing the fixed stepdown limit of f5.6 to larger aperture. Using f2.8 for AF would allow 4 times more light to sensor - can't see why it wouldn't be beneficial for focusing.
 
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