Z8 & Z9 My BEST Bird-In-Flight AF Settings

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Activert said:
For me I used them to set up my both cameras( of course after reading and really understanding the function of my camera and the way Steve set up these functions and why). Then I organized my Banks, one for action, mostly based on Steve setup, because I found it, it fit my need). The second bank ( I use it for macro), where I set it up as Steve´s set up with some differentiations . The last two banks, one for landscape and the other one for Astro, I set them up myself.
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Oh, great ! Somebody else with the idea of using these banks. May I be curious about it ?

At the moment I see two banks for me. One for action/wildlife with the need of controlling every thing with the right hand while the left supports holds the long an heavy glass and one for stills where I have the time, can use both hands on the body and mostly work with a tripod.

To me I have thus two banks for the photo shooting menu (Extended manu banks ON) and for the individual functions part and I switch them always both in parallel, i.e. both on A or both on B with the settings in the area of hgte menus corresponding, but not mixed.

Have you found any reason for or a benefit in a concept for selecting a different bank for photo shooting and individual functions ?
 
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Woodpecker said:
Oh, great ! Somebody else with the idea of using these banks. May I be curious about it ?

At the moment I see two banks for me. One for action/wildlife with the need of controlling every thing with the right hand while the left supports holds the long an heavy glass and one for stills where I have the time, can use both hands on the body and mostly work with a tripod.

To me I have thus two banks for the photo shooting menu (Extended manu banks ON) and for the individual functions part and I switch them always both in parallel, i.e. both on A or both on B with the settings in the area of hgte menus corresponding, but not mixed.

Have you found any reason for or a benefit in a concept for selecting a different bank for photo shooting and individual functions ?
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Sorry my English is not very good, and I don’t know if I understood well what you meant. Control function bottom, are set up and not related to the bank. But in my imenu, I have the custom menu and shooting menu banks. let say when
I select Custom menu A for action, I will be on AF -C mode or what ever I chose for that bank (in my case, Auto AF, subject detection, etc…. ).
I hope I answered your question.
you can customize them in any way you want, and to be honest, I change them all the time.
 
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Activert said:
Sorry my English is not very good, and I don’t know if I understood well what you meant. Control function bottom, are set up and not related to the bank. But in my imenu, I have the custom menu and shooting menu banks. let say when
I select Custom menu A for action, I will be on AF -C mode or what ever I chose for that bank (in my case, Auto AF, subject detection, etc…. ).
I hope I answered your question.
you can customize them in any way you want, and to be honest, I change them all the time.
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No reason to apologize, it's not my mother tongue either :) .

What I meant refers to the user modes we had on the D750, where you had a user mode 1 and 2 that was selectable by turning a knob on the camera body and these user modes contained all the settings, no matter in which of the menu sections the parameter is set.

Compared with that, you can select A, B, C or D for the photo shooting menu and for the individual functions menu independent from each other.

Let's say you want a bank set for action - as you have it - and you only want to make sure that AF-C and some other things of the photo shooting menu are set correctly you just have to select Bank "Action" once for the photo shooting menu and everything is o.k.

But there are also settings that you might want to have stored for action shooting, that are not in photo shoorting menu, but in the individual functions menu.
One example are the assignable buttons. Then you would need to selecrt bank A twice to have the right combination of settings, once for the photo shooting menu, once for the individual functions menu.

My question was whether you have this situation and how you solved it for you.

Taking into consideration that we would lock out most of the others from the conversation, if we switched language, all I can offer is an exchange via private message here in the forum. My "normal" language is German ;)
 
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Woodpecker said:
No reason to apologize, it's not my mother tongue either :) .

What I meant refers to the user modes we had on the D750, where you had a user mode 1 and 2 that was selectable by turning a knob on the camera body and these user modes contained all the settings, no matter in which of the menu sections the parameter is set.

Compared with that, you can select A, B, C or D for the photo shooting menu and for the individual functions menu independent from each other.

Let's say you want a bank set for action - as you have it - and you only want to make sure that AF-C and some other things of the photo shooting menu are set correctly you just have to select Bank "Action" once for the photo shooting menu and everything is o.k.

But there are also settings that you might want to have stored for action shooting, that are not in photo shoorting menu, but in the individual functions menu.
One example are the assignable buttons. Then you would need to selecrt bank A twice to have the right combination of settings, once for the photo shooting menu, once for the individual functions menu.

My question was whether you have this situation and how you solved it for you.

Taking into consideration that we would lock out most of the others from the conversation, if we switched language, all I can offer is an exchange via private message here in the forum. My "normal" language is German ;)
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My first language is French. And your English is perfect and much better than mine .
Most of the time I shoot in Action mode And I shoot full manual. I personalized my i menu to access quickly things that i want to change if i don’t have them on assigned bottom.
when i am shooting landscape, since i shoot full Manuel, in my Banque C , I am am always in Af-S mode and single point af, everything else like shutter speed, iso and aperture are selected according to the situation.
I hope i answered the question and sorry if not.

i hope i answered your question
 
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Woodpecker said:
No reason to apologize, it's not my mother tongue either :) .

What I meant refers to the user modes we had on the D750, where you had a user mode 1 and 2 that was selectable by turning a knob on the camera body and these user modes contained all the settings, no matter in which of the menu sections the parameter is set.

Compared with that, you can select A, B, C or D for the photo shooting menu and for the individual functions menu independent from each other.

Let's say you want a bank set for action - as you have it - and you only want to make sure that AF-C and some other things of the photo shooting menu are set correctly you just have to select Bank "Action" once for the photo shooting menu and everything is o.k.

But there are also settings that you might want to have stored for action shooting, that are not in photo shoorting menu, but in the individual functions menu.
One example are the assignable buttons. Then you would need to selecrt bank A twice to have the right combination of settings, once for the photo shooting menu, once for the individual functions menu.

My question was whether you have this situation and how you solved it for you.

Taking into consideration that we would lock out most of the others from the conversation, if we switched language, all I can offer is an exchange via private message here in the forum. My "normal" language is German ;)
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I think now i understand your question. So yes when i select the shooting menu Bank let say A, then i also select the custom setting Bank A. Both the shooting menu bank and the custom menu bank are in my i menu, i st then at the end right tom and bottom. So one is over the other and it is easy to access and change quickly.
i also set in each bank the video setting i want either for landscape or for action
 
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Activert said:
I hope i answered the question and sorry if not.
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O.k, this wouldn't work then. If my French came anywhere near the level of your English I would be really, really happy ! (y)

But yes, you have answered my question. It seems that for your use case you simply don't need to switch settings that are NOT in the photo shooting menu. Hence for you it is totally o.k. if you just switch the bank for this part of the menus to A, B, C or whatever and leave everything else as it is.
 
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Activert said:
I think now i understand your question. So yes when i select the shooting menu Bank let say A, then i also select the custom setting Bank A. Both the shooting menu bank and the custom menu bank are in my i menu, i st then at the end right tom and bottom. So one is over the other and it is easy to access and change quickly.
i also set in each bank the video setting i want either for landscape or for action
Click to expand...

Perfect, got it ! So I am on the right path :)
 
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Butlerkid said:
Have you tried pressing the ISO button and turning the sub command dial (or the command dial depending on how you have your dials set up)? That is a quick way to turn Auto ISO on and off.
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Wow. I did not know that, and you are right, it is incredibly useful. I went for a photo walk on the river last week, the first nice afternoon in a LOOOOOONG time. I got only a few non keeper shots, and the first dozen were nearly black as the auto ISO was on, and obviously, not working well...

I am going through Steve's Wildlife setup book, a page at a time. By the time the day is over, I will have reset my menus and will once again be at a good starting place.

I am going first to Italy, and then meeting with some photographers in Lisboa this summer. I need to do a much better job in Europe with my Z9 than I did last summer. I did get some incredible shots of ducks this last fall, so I know I can learn to do it again... (One of the fun things about growing old, in addition to being able to travel much more, is getting to learn new things, again and again.)
 
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Wink Jones said:
Wow. I did not know that, and you are right, it is incredibly useful. I went for a photo walk on the river last week, the first nice afternoon in a LOOOOOONG time. I got only a few non keeper shots, and the first dozen were nearly black as the auto ISO was on, and obviously, not working well...

I am going through Steve's Wildlife setup book, a page at a time. By the time the day is over, I will have reset my menus and will once again be at a good starting place.

I am going first to Italy, and then meeting with some photographers in Lisboa this summer. I need to do a much better job in Europe with my Z9 than I did last summer. I did get some incredible shots of ducks this last fall, so I know I can learn to do it again... (One of the fun things about growing old, in addition to being able to travel much more, is getting to learn new things, again and again.)
Click to expand...
You are wise to get comfortable with the camera (again) before your trip! Hope you have a grand time!
 
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Butlerkid said:
You are wise to get comfortable with the camera (again) before your trip! Hope you have a grand time!
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Thank you. Have I told you how much I love the 180-600 you helped me acquire? It has been a great joy to use.

I have just received a 24-200 to use for a few weeks. If it passes muster I will keep it and take it to Europe with me. My 70 to 200 is very nice, but a little too long for street photography.
 
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Activert said:
@Steve!
I don’t know if this can help with what you are asking.
In Steve’s ebook of setting the Z8 and the Z9, at the end there is a resume of all his set up. You can save theses pages as PDF, keep them close or print them.
For me I used them to set up my both cameras( of course after reading and really understanding the function of my camera and the way Steve set up these functions and why). Then I organized my Banks, one for action, mostly based on Steve setup, because I found it, it fit my need). The second bank ( I use it for macro), where I set it up as Steve´s set up with some differentiations . The last two banks, one for landscape and the other one for Astro, I set them up myself.
Then, I saved my setting of both camera, on two old SQD memory cards ( one for the Z8 and one for the Z9). Both are backed up on my computer and on an external drive.
The saved PDF copy of Steve’s settings , is also with my saved settings on the XQD cards in case I mess up my setting in the camera, while shooting. II Aldo made two prints of this PDF , that i kept them in my photography bags.
Learning is about experimenting with knowledge and understanding the way things work. Steve’s ebook are for me a tool and a ressource to learn and understand how the settings work and inspire me to personalize them to my own need.
Lina
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My reply was for @Doug and not meant for you @Anjin San . Sorry i mixed up the reply. My apology
Lina
 
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Anjin San said:
I think Steve is right…too many people would just load them and then his copyright would be all over their shots unless he left that part out. And then he will get blamed when not understanding the why results in bad shots. Much better to read the book as well because the why’s and when to change it thoughts are important to understand.
Nice to hear from ya
Butlerkid said:
Nice to hear from ya'!
Geoff_G said:
And I would respectfully suggest that one cannot learn their camera by importing someone else's settings...it's kinda like cheating, you may get the answers but not understand why.
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Respectfully, these are your assumptions, "cannot" is an opinion, "importing" is learning from example-not cheating example, "not understanding why" is condisending. Learning skills is all about how to use the tool to achieve a desired result. Many people, me being one, learn differntly then yourself. What differnce does it make if a person finds it best starting from a prebuilt foundation, to start leaning the afor mentioned "Understanding".
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Butlerkid said:
Have you tried pressing the ISO button and turning the sub command dial (or the command dial depending on how you have your dials set up)? That is a quick way to turn Auto ISO on and off.
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Geoff_G said:
Yes, that's how I do it. But since I need to use the ISO button for that I also use it to change ISO and do not have it on my control ring.
And yes, Auto ISO is on my Sub Command dial....
thx...
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wrt #87, some newer owners of Nikon ILCs may not know how useful it is to set Custom: f6 menu item ON to change/scroll ISO / Auto ISO with one's thumb or forefinger only, and also AF modes using Red Video button.

Press once without holding....
 
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fcotterill said:
wrt #87, some newer owners of Nikon ILCs may not know how useful it is to set Custom: f6 menu item ON to change/scroll ISO / Auto ISO with one's thumb or forefinger only, and also AF modes using Red Video button.

Press once without holding....
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Thanks for this one. Didn't know that as well. However, I am so used to using the dials while keeping the ISO or EC button down, that it felt kind of weird to me, whem I tried it out :). Something I would have found great is if this option opened a quicker access to the Max ISO value for using M + Auto ISO, but even today the best I could find is a step-by-step access through the menu, at least with a shortcut via My Menu :unsure:.
 
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Woodpecker said:
Thanks for this one. Didn't know that as well. However, I am so used to using the dials while keeping the ISO or EC button down, that it felt kind of weird to me, whem I tried it out :). Something I would have found great is if this option opened a quicker access to the Max ISO value for using M + Auto ISO, but even today the best I could find is a step-by-step access through the menu, at least with a shortcut via My Menu :unsure:.
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It might work to turn on Manual ISO then set max value,then back into Auto ISO.

When you switch back to full Manual, it might default to the previous high ISO
 
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fcotterill said:
It might work to turn on Manual ISO then set max value,then back into Auto ISO.

When you switch back to full Manual, it might default to the previous high ISO
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Tried it, but in both modes Auto on/off) the ISO value you can adjust is only the current ISO, i.e. the static current value you use in Manual mode, which becomes the MIN value when going to AUTO. Sad but true, but it is logic, because with Manual ISO a MAX value simply isn't needed.
But using the My Menu option is. o.k., although with Steve's settings proposal position 1 there is occuppied by the subject detection ;)
 
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theglenlivet12 said:
Ok, just to make sure I'm hearing you right as this is been somewhat of a sticking point for me coming from the video world to photography where the autofocus is engaged all of the time and is constantly looking for something to lock onto. If I am in AF-C, tracking mode set to Auto and am not pressing anything, it will not look for, focus on or track anything. Is this correct? It will wait until I have pressed AF-ON or have engaged another tracking mode assigned to a button that I am pressing before it looks for, focuses on or tracks anything in the viewfinder and does not work like it would in video mode where it is looking for a subject to focus on and focuses on that subject without any input from my fingers.

My apologies for being rather lengthy on this topic.
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You have to put the focus where you want it first, then let the other things happen, this applies in single point, dynamic, wide, and 3D. It can be confusing but reading and re-reading the Nikon instructions helps a bit to get it straight. The AF-Area Mode information from Nikon...https://onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com/z8/en/focus_31.html.
 
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Butlerkid said:
You are wise to get comfortable with the camera (again) before your trip! Hope you have a grand time!
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I learned so much last night, working well into the night on entering and understanding the settings. I read the switch ISO trick in Steve's book, and I swear I do not remember ever reading it before, but I did, since I have read the book at least three times since I bought it. While reading about the FX/DX stuff I remembered wondering some time ago why I was getting so many more photos on my card than I than I thought I remembered. Sigh, it seems I have been shooting 20k files for some months now. I have switched that and now I wont have to worry about that for a while.

The good news is, during those months I have shot some incredible birds in flight images and while "only" 20k seems a huge loss, it is so much more than I had with my early digital Nikons. I do not remember the size of the old D300 I used for many years, but I am pretty sure it is less than 20k. ( I just went to Amazon and checked, it was a 12.3 DX sensor.) Back then, I did not even know what a DX sensor was, I used it to shoot jewelry with the 105 prime lens I still have with a closeup screw on filter. Great pictures for many years, until the Nikon software for camera control quit working with my D300 and I replaced it with newer camera which still works just fine and I haven't touched it in more than two years. I used that camera for jewelry and my D500 for personal things. I loved it and have some incredible shots, including two stunning milky way shots.

So, while I hate it to learn I have been leaving those megapixels unused in the camera, the results are still better than I used to get. I will just get bigger and better results now.

Steve, you are absolutely right not to sell downloadable into my camera. If you did, I would not have to keep rereading your book and learning exponentially more each time I read it as my base knowledge increases, brain cell by brain cell. Thank you!
 
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Steve said:
Nikon describes is like when a long jumper suddenly stops, so probably not for pelicans. Honestly, I'm not sure if it really makes a significant difference. I keep mine on Steady most of the time.
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Over this past weekend I spent a few hours photographing pelicans diving for fish about 20 to 30 yards off a beach south of Sarasota. I didn’t notice any difference between steady and erratic.

Also, with my 180-600 lens I found auto area not helpful at all. I struggled to get focus lock on pelicans in flight. Wide-L and my Custom C-1 were much more reliable. It was a dark, overcast day so a faster lens would likely have performed better using auto area.
 
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JAJohnson said:
Over this past weekend I spent a few hours photographing pelicans diving for fish about 20 to 30 yards off a beach south of Sarasota. I didn’t notice any difference between steady and erratic.

Also, with my 180-600 lens I found auto area not helpful at all. I struggled to get focus lock on pelicans in flight. Wide-L and my Custom C-1 were much more reliable. It was a dark, overcast day so a faster lens would likely have performed better using auto area.
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Yup, that's why I'm always so adamant about switching to Wide from Auto when it's not working - and even turning off subject detection if it's not working. One-size does not fit every scenario :)
 
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Cameron T said:
It's really annoying for everyone when the answer is "It depends", but it's usually the case. Try something, if it's not working, try various other things.
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For sure. People often want a single "do everything" answer but there isn't one. The case @JAJohnson mentioned is a prefect example and he did exactly what I would have done in that situation. Ya gotta adapt :)
 
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