Pre-focus problems with Z8

[Ian Brown]

Help Please with Z8 focusing
I am a new member to the forum and although been a photographer over 30 years I am still getting to grips with my Z8 which I have had about 8 weeks.
I have been trying to take photographs of a diving kingfisher, having thousands on branches I thought I would challenge myself !!!
Definitely a lot more difficult than I thought.
After doing some research I decided to take peoples advise and go and manually pre-focus.
I took over 4000 shots, settings as follows
Manual Exposure
Shutter speed between 1/4000 & 1/6400 F5.6-F11 Auto ISO 20-30FPS Manually prefocused.
The distance to subject was about 15-20 feet and the Kingfisher was diving from a branch about 4 feet from the water.
I manually pre-focus with focus peaking on the area of water the kingfisher was diving into.
However after 4000+ shots I didn't get a single tack sharp image.
So I very much need some advise.
Quaestions
Am I on the right lines in thinking, that the problem was probably having not enough DOF?
The DOF will never be deep enough with a 200-500 lens shooting from about 15 feet away?
Auto Focus/subject tracking is not fast enough the track a Kingfisher that goes from branch to water and back to branch in about a second?
In the Exif data it says Manual Focus and Single Point AF ??? So does this mean the camera will only be in focus where the red box is, ie only at the prefocus point " on the water"?

 

[Ralph]

Help Please with Z8 focusing
I am a new member to the forum and although been a photographer over 30 years I am still getting to grips with my Z8 which I have had about 8 weeks.
I have been trying to take photographs of a diving kingfisher, having thousands on branches I thought I would challenge myself !!!
Definitely a lot more difficult than I thought.
After doing some research I decided to take peoples advise and go and manually pre-focus.
I took over 4000 shots, settings as follows
Manual Exposure
Shutter speed between 1/4000 & 1/6400 F5.6-F11 Auto ISO 20-30FPS Manually prefocused.
The distance to subject was about 15-20 feet and the Kingfisher was diving from a branch about 4 feet from the water.
I manually pre-focus with focus peaking on the area of water the kingfisher was diving into.
However after 4000+ shots I didn't get a single tack sharp image.
So I very much need some advise.
Quaestions
Am I on the right lines in thinking, that the problem was probably having not enough DOF?
The DOF will never be deep enough with a 200-500 lens shooting from about 15 feet away?
Auto Focus/subject tracking is not fast enough the track a Kingfisher that goes from branch to water and back to branch in about a second?
In the Exif data it says Manual Focus and Single Point AF ??? So does this mean the camera will only be in focus where the red box is, ie only at the prefocus point " on the water"?

I have no experience with the Z8 but I do with kingfishers which I shoot with a D500 and a 500 PF. I would not use single point. I would go with auto or 3d or a group equivalent. Also, only being 20 feet away makes it more difficult as well. I would also experiment with
pre-capture.

 

[EricKlees]

I would say that the DOF is way to narrow/shallow at 15-20 feet even maybe at F11. You'd have to be extremely lucky to have the kingfisher fall into such a narrow depth of field to nail focus.

I'm personally not a fan of pre-focusing. I practice my panning all the time with anything, Terns, Gulls diving, just whatever that attend when I'm waiting for more interesting things to shoot. I think that would be much beneficial to getting the **** then rolling the dice on pre-focusing at that distance.

 

[FastGlassGuy]

I shoot all kinds of fast moving birds. I never use manual focus. Not saying you can't do it, but you are giving up one of the big advantages of the Z8 which is good AF and subject detection. If you are using the 200-500, I would shoot wide open at 5.6 probably between 2500 and 3200 sec shutter speed (I don't use auto ISO - probably 500 ISO depending on lighting) with AF-C and subject detect set to bird. I would use small wide focus box or create a custom 1x1 box in custom settings. I only shoot RAW, but I would shoot at 20fps. Make sure you have a good memory card like a Delkin Black 325Gb or a Prograde Cobalt.

If the Kingfisher lands on the branch, start you focus while the bird is perched, and then pan with the bird as it makes its dive. This can be the tricky part, in that you have to keep the focus area on the bird, but the subject detect should help with this. Practice, practice, practice. Good luck

 

[DRwyoming]

Yeah, I wouldn’t rely on manual pre focus for something like that. The Z8 AF system is very good but I’d use a wider area, probably Auto AF Area unless the AF system was getting confused and latching onto the background or something else.

It’s hard to acquire and hold focus for a fast diving bird and panning skills for situations like that can take time to develop. But I’d definitely use AF and the largest AF Area mode that doesn’t lose the bird and grab something like the background. I’d also acquire AF while the bird is still perched and try to track it to the water.

 

[Woodyg3]

EXIF says manual focus? So you weren’t using AF? If that’s the case, then that’s The problem. Prefocus to get close to the correct distance, then use AF. By prefocusing AF can focus much quicker.
sorry if I am not understanding your situation clearly.