Qu. for Steve re Secrets To The Nikon AF System: Mirrorless & The Ultimate Nikon Z8/9 Setup Guide

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Front Yard & Washhouse

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Hi @Steve, question for you. I have recently got myself a Z9 and one or two Z lenses to augment my AF-S G/E-type F-mount glass & FTZii, and also bought your Ultimate Setup Guide for Z8/9 to go with it. (Btw it is brilliant plus humorous.) I see you have the Secrets book also for Nikon mirrorless AF.

Question: as the Ultimate Z8/9 setup guide has a detailed section on the AF modes will the Secrets book for Nikon mirrorless AF just be duplication? Or wd it be worth my while to buy as well? FYI I don't (yet) photograph wildlife but a certain amount of the AF advice in your Z8/9 guide is very useful for sport photography. Would I get some additional priceless info from your Secrets book? I have a Nikon Zf as well. Many thanks.
 
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Front Yard & Washhouse said:
Hi @Steve, question for you. I have recently got myself a Z9 and one or two Z lenses to augment my AF-S G/E-type F-mount glass & FTZii, and also bought your Ultimate Setup Guide for Z8/9 to go with it. (Btw it is brilliant plus humorous.) I see you have the Secrets book also for Nikon mirrorless AF.

Question: as the Ultimate Z8/9 setup guide has a detailed section on the AF modes will the Secrets book for Nikon mirrorless AF just be duplication? Or wd it be worth my while to buy as well? FYI I don't (yet) photograph wildlife but a certain amount of the AF advice in your Z8/9 guide is very useful for sport photography. Would I get some additional priceless info from your Secrets book? I have a Nikon Zf as well. Many thanks.
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i have the same setup and same question
 
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I have both so from where I sit… you want both. The Z8/Z9 give you an overview which covers some of the same territory as the dedicated mirrorless guide. However the full guide goes into more detail, covers other scenarios, and offers more examples. It also covers all the mirrorless Nikon cameras so if you have more than one camera you can benefit from it.
 
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Thanks for the kind words :)

The AF guide does go into much more detail and starts off a little more basic, then works up to more advanced than the z8/9 guide. The Z8/9 guide has maybe 50 ~75 pages on AF (I'm guessing, but I think that's close) where the AF guide is hundreds. There's a lot more room for examples and explanations and "how things work" in that book.
 
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Welcome to BCG
My 0.02c is these Mirrorless Autofocus systems, in Pro flagship cameras particularly, are more complicated than the flagship DSLRs, particularly for wildlife in clutter besides BIF (which seems so popular). There's now subject detection besides the new AF modes with the legacy DSLR AF modes, and the custom setup options.
It particularly helps to know Why a method/setup(s) works better in certain situations etc
So the more reliable detailed advice the better, particularly with informed explanations from experienced Pros with the gift for lucid explanations.
I have all Steve's books including his earlier DSLR titles
 
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Thanks for the welcome; I'm liking it here. I suppose like you and many I'm in the same boat over adjusting from older > newer versions of D > then Z. I started using a D5 when the first Covid quarantine ended and was blown away by the AF capabilities. Previously I hadn't been photographing any genres too active or skittish in the D2 & D3 days, so my early experience of outdoor action was with an F90 (N90 in the US?) and an F5 — and I thought they were already pretty smart. So I'm keen to get to grips with the Z9 and prime my muscle memory and focus method decision-making round the options in AF. At the other end of the scale, using MF glass (CV Ultrons) on Zf is a revelation because of the red focus box turning green, which tends to mean I can focus accurately even from the back screen to avoid eyeballing and stressing myself or my subject in street photography.

After seeing Steve's video from the camper I'm getting interested in updating my rain shooting and will post on that separately to keep subjects distinct.
 
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Hello, to avoid starting a new thread, just wanted to ask @Steve (if you could be so kind to answer) - do you maybe plan to make Setup & Shooting guide especially for Nikon Z50II, or we can use the one that was made for Nikon Z6III? I know that the performance of this 2 cameras are not he same but (if I am not mistaken) most of AF modes and custom settings are almost the same... Thks vm in advance
 
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zule11 said:
Hello, to avoid starting a new thread, just wanted to ask @Steve (if you could be so kind to answer) - do you maybe plan to make Setup & Shooting guide especially for Nikon Z50II, or we can use the one that was made for Nikon Z6III? I know that the performance of this 2 cameras are not he same but (if I am not mistaken) most of AF modes and custom settings are almost the same... Thks vm in advance
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Not yet - I wasn't going to write one, but if requests keep coming in I may have to change my position on that. At this point, I haven't even looked at a Z50ii yet, so I don't know for sure if there Z6iii book would apply or to what extent. I have a feeling it's close though :)
 
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