Z9 Firmware 4.0 Available

[ElenaH]

Unsettled law, but there is a doubt whether photos generated "automatically" can be copyrighted in the US.

Oh, I am not from US but I see the point.
However, there are a lot of Award-winning images taken by a trap-cam setup.
Do you remember a Siberian Tiger in "Wildlife Photographer of the Year" ? I don't remember which year it was but the picture won an award and was taken with Z6 or Z7 in such setup. I remember it because I asked myself how the power-supply was solved for letting camera for a month (or three months?) in wilderness...
Then there was an image of owl in BPOTY with such setup. Then there was an image of melanistic leopard (black panther) of Burrard Lukas. There are a lot of his images which are known and I think, they don't rise some questions about copyright?
Even I was asked for permission to use an image in Catalogue of Kgalagadi Leopards taking by trap-cam setup. Actually, they didn't ask me how it was taken ;-)
I even tend to think that it is somehow a future of photography and movie-making - artists will place cameras in a vicinity of an animal's life (nests, holes, carcases, waterholes, paths, point of interest, etc...) and won't disturb them for a long time. There are already a lot of streaming channels of african waterholes. The equipment will get better and such streaming will be of better quality. But, Ok, It was only my opinion. The formal copyright legacy part must catch up with technological progress IMO.

 

[Alistair]

Lets by realistic, unless your name is Burtynsky, Salgado whatever... there is no copyright value, nobody cares.

 

[Garfield]

@GrandNagus50 Have you updated the firmware on it. Reports are that is what is needed.

Thanks! I was using V2.10. Interestingly, Megadap sent me V3.06 (beta?) to try but it didn't work correctly, so I just uploaded the current published version V2.13 and it seems to work just fine! I'm a happy camper again!

 

[Feiertag]

Problem solved

 

[DRwyoming]

For the life of me, I can not open the download to extract the BIN file to put on my card. I have done this with prior firmware, without issue.
I'm wondering if my Windows 11 operating system is the problem.
Any tips or suggestions would be very appreciated.

FWIW, on a Windows machine I first download the file from Nikon's website to Windows Download folder and then copy it and paste it into a newly created folder. From there I double click the file which auto extracts the .bin and then copy and paste that onto a formatted memory card.

Not sure if that's the specific steps you've followed but when I tried to launch the auto extract right from Windows Download folder the extraction didn't seem to work or at least I didn't see where the extracted .bin file was stored.

Depending on how your Windows PC is configured you might have to Right Click the downloaded file and chose Run as Administrator as sometimes that solves problems with auto execute files that don't launch as expected. That's not something I have to do with the configuration of my photo processing machine but just a thought.

 

[ButlerKid]

For the life of me, I can not open the download to extract the BIN file to put on my card. I have done this with prior firmware, without issue.
I'm wondering if my Windows 11 operating system is the problem.
Any tips or suggestions would be very appreciated.

I use Windows 11 and had no problems. I simply double clicked on the downloaded file, which extracted the contents creating a new folder. Then I clicked on the new folder and copied the .bin file to the card using a card reader hooked up to the PC.

 

[Ricky Simpson]

For the life of me, I can not open the download to extract the BIN file to put on my card. I have done this with prior firmware, without issue.
I'm wondering if my Windows 11 operating system is the problem.
Any tips or suggestions would be very appreciated.

I was not able to get the bin file from my "downloads". I had to copy the folder from my download files folder, then copy and paste onto my desktop. Then I was able to double click the folder to extract the bin file. Hope this helps. I am using windows.

 

[Chris K]

Absolutely. Re #3, there is an entire category of video cameras, mostly for broadcast, called PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom). So taking this just a tiny bit further, imagine a Nikon base or gimbal that also tilts and pans, automatically... Or a DJI one if they figure the communication.

Interesting idea... the camera is already doing the heavy lifting of tracking a face or animal. It knows its focal length and focus distance. It could easily send direction-and-degrees information to an external device, which could then translate to keep the subject centered in a closed feedback loop.

Future stuff, but the exciting part about the proliferation of software-driven cameras is that our current cameras can do all of these things, if only firmware authors write the software!

That said, I suspect Nikon will want to dedicate more time to core photography features. And please make my camera quack like a duck!

 

[thelordofthelight]

 

[agrumpyoldsod]

How many Associated Press, Gannett, and others shooters are going to abandon their foot switches and "rely" on having programmed their remotes correctly. The bulk will still remotely trigger with a fixed link - ethernet or cable.

 

[Patrick M]

How many Associated Press, Gannett, and others shooters are going to abandon their foot switches and "rely" on having programmed their remotes correctly. The bulk will still remotely trigger with a fixed link - ethernet or cable.

you may be right, but as the video says, it'll enable one to set the camera to take the usual shots allowing the opportunity to perhaps take other, perhaps more creative shots. perhaps?

 

[agrumpyoldsod]

Oh, I am not from US but I see the point.
However, there are a lot of Award-winning images taken by a trap-cam setup.
Do you remember a Siberian Tiger in "Wildlife Photographer of the Year" ? I don't remember which year it was but the picture won an award and was taken with Z6 or Z7 in such setup. I remember it because I asked myself how the power-supply was solved for letting camera for a month (or three months?) in wilderness...
Then there was an image of owl in BPOTY with such setup. Then there was an image of melanistic leopard (black panther) of Burrard Lukas. There are a lot of his images which are known and I think, they don't rise some questions about copyright?
Even I was asked for permission to use an image in Catalogue of Kgalagadi Leopards taking by trap-cam setup. Actually, they didn't ask me how it was taken ;-)
I even tend to think that it is somehow a future of photography and movie-making - artists will place cameras in a vicinity of an animal's life (nests, holes, carcases, waterholes, paths, point of interest, etc...) and won't disturb them for a long time. There are already a lot of streaming channels of african waterholes. The equipment will get better and such streaming will be of better quality. But, Ok, It was only my opinion. The formal copyright legacy part must catch up with technological progress IMO.

It was Sergei with an image taken in 2019 that won in 2020 -- -- he used a Cognisys camera-trap system to trigger the Nikon Z7 with 50mm f1.8 lens (1/200 sec at f6.3 ISO 250) he had left hidden at a spot tracks had been seen "Land of the Leopard National Park, Primorsky Krai, Russia" -- was he after Tigers or Snow Leopards?? obviously trail triggers do not need natural light -- most use IR or lasers and trigger camera and flash/strobe. Morton's vid is good

 

[Feiertag]

FWIW, on a Windows machine I first download the file from Nikon's website to Windows Download folder and then copy it and paste it into a newly created folder. From there I double click the file which auto extracts the .bin and then copy and paste that onto a formatted memory card.

Not sure if that's the specific steps you've followed but when I tried to launch the auto extract right from Windows Download folder the extraction didn't seem to work or at least I didn't see where the extracted .bin file was stored.

Depending on how your Windows PC is configured you might have to Right Click the downloaded file and chose Run as Administrator as sometimes that solves problems with auto execute files that don't launch as expected. That's not something I have to do with the configuration of my photo processing machine but just a thought.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my issue. I switched to another laptop and the extraction of the BIN file was obtained. Cheers!

 

[MikeS]

How many Associated Press, Gannett, and others shooters are going to abandon their foot switches and "rely" on having programmed their remotes correctly. The bulk will still remotely trigger with a fixed link - ethernet or cable.

I guess it depends on how many of them have multiple Z9s and can afford to dedicate one of them as a remote. In my case with one Z9, my remote shooting is done with backup DSLRs and Pocket Wizards.

 

[Feiertag]

I use Windows 11 and had no problems. I simply double clicked on the downloaded file, which extracted the contents creating a new folder. Then I clicked on the new folder and copied the .bin file to the card using a card reader hooked up to the PC.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my issue. I switched to another laptop and the extraction of the BIN file was obtained. Cheers!

 

[Feiertag]

I was not able to get the bin file from my "downloads". I had to copy the folder from my download files folder, then copy and paste onto my desktop. Then I was able to double click the folder to extract the bin file. Hope this helps. I am using windows.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my issue. I switched to another laptop and the extraction of the BIN file was obtained. Cheers!

 

[agrumpyoldsod]

you may be right, but as the video says, it'll enable one to set the camera to take the usual shots allowing the opportunity to perhaps take other, perhaps more creative shots. perhaps?

There are great docu's on how AP and others set up at the "gamesa" generally they have a few shooters in pits with their own gear and a series of remotes that often have had to be set up a while before -- certainly the remotes used in the indoor areas (like over the beam and bars) have to be. The shooter or someone in the team triggers the remotes -- same as premier league shooters -- lots of cables run either directly or via ethernet -- and the camera ftps the image to a photo desk on site for shorting and grading before squirting them to customers. London 2012 - 56 seconds was the time folk took from pressing a button to delivering images to customers worldwide. AND this time is just getting shorter and shorter.

 

[thelordofthelight]

For my use cases, I don’t intend using my camera as a trap camera set up on a tripod. What interests me the most is the ability to use some of the auto capture parameters for my usual hand held shooting. One of the first things I’m planning to test this weekend is to set up the distance limiters to force the camera to only focus between a defined range and see how it goes. This functionality should help avoid the camera focusing on backgrounds. Another aspect I loved is, even when using auto area AF, you can pretty much create a mask on the full screen where you want the AF to lock. In theory these two parameters should work really well but will have to see how it does in practice.

How many Associated Press, Gannett, and others shooters are going to abandon their foot switches and "rely" on having programmed their remotes correctly. The bulk will still remotely trigger with a fixed link - ethernet or cable.

 

[agrumpyoldsod]

For my use cases, I don’t intend using my camera as a trap camera set up on a tripod. What interests me the most is the ability to use some of the auto capture parameters for my usual hand held shooting. One of the first things I’m planning to test this weekend is to set up the distance limiters to force the camera to only focus between a defined range and see how it goes. This functionality should help avoid the camera focusing on backgrounds. Another aspect I loved is, even when using auto area AF, you can pretty much create a mask on the full screen where you want the AF to lock. In theory these two parameters should work really well but will have to see how it does in practice.

Good luck -- but I am fairly sure this is not how auto-capture works -- do let us know how you get on though.

 

[abc123brian]

There are great docu's on how AP and others set up at the "gamesa" generally they have a few shooters in pits with their own gear and a series of remotes that often have had to be set up a while before -- certainly the remotes used in the indoor areas (like over the beam and bars) have to be. The shooter or someone in the team triggers the remotes -- same as premier league shooters -- lots of cables run either directly or via ethernet -- and the camera ftps the image to a photo desk on site for shorting and grading before squirting them to customers. London 2012 - 56 seconds was the time folk took from pressing a button to delivering images to customers worldwide. AND this time is just getting shorter and shorter.

You may very well be correct about that, but remember there are a lot of users not photographing Olympic Games, major sporting events, running much smaller operations that are probably going to love these features. These auto capture options are very interesting to me and I’m going to be seeing if I can get them to work for me.

 

[GrandNagus50]

Word of caution to Megadap ETZ owners: The 4.0 firmware update is incompatible with the Megadap ETZ21 adapter. Hopefully Megadap will respond quickly with an update.

Just to put this issue to rest: I updated my Megadap adapter ETZ21 firmware to v 2.13 and then I updated my Z9 to v. 4.0 and the Sony 200-600mm zoom works perfectly, including all focusing modes (all the ones I use, anyway). When I went out to test I realized (once again) just how fantastic the IQ from the Sony zoom is, so I am now considering again getting the matching 1.4x teleconverter.

 

[Garfield]

Just to put this issue to rest: I updated my Megadap adapter ETZ21 firmware to v 2.13 and then I updated my Z9 to v. 4.0 and the Sony 200-600mm zoom works perfectly, including all focusing modes (all the ones I use, anyway). When I went out to test I realized (once again) just how fantastic the IQ from the Sony zoom is, so I am now considering again getting the matching 1.4x teleconverter.

My experience as well in all regards. I can recommend the 1.4x TC on the Sony 200-600 -- but best to skip the 2x.

You may be interested in this post I made on the video forum...
https://bcgforums.com/index.php?threads/zooming-with-the-z9.25246/#post-283789

 

[GrandNagus50]

My experience as well in all regards. I can recommend the 1.4x TC on the Sony 200-600 -- but best to skip the 2x.

You may be interested in this post I made on the video forum...
https://bcgforums.com/index.php?threads/zooming-with-the-z9.25246/#post-283789

Nice job! I will add that my hesitancy to get the 1.4x was largely based on having to move the Megadap adapter around more, but really, this is a minor issue. Oh, also, I kept thinking that Nikon will release its own 200-600 and I already have the Z 1.4x adapter. But (sigh) the Nikon lens continues to be mythical.

 

[arbitrage]

For my use cases, I don’t intend using my camera as a trap camera set up on a tripod. What interests me the most is the ability to use some of the auto capture parameters for my usual hand held shooting. One of the first things I’m planning to test this weekend is to set up the distance limiters to force the camera to only focus between a defined range and see how it goes. This functionality should help avoid the camera focusing on backgrounds. Another aspect I loved is, even when using auto area AF, you can pretty much create a mask on the full screen where you want the AF to lock. In theory these two parameters should work really well but will have to see how it does in practice.

I will be interested to hear how that works. I think the one issue I foresee after watching Morten's video is that you are going to end up with the camera going off constantly once the bird enters your defined area and distance. It will be like someone who walks around spray and praying at 20FPS and comes home with 10,000 shots to cull after a morning session.

 

[thelordofthelight]

I will be interested to hear how that works. I think the one issue I foresee after watching Morten's video is that you are going to end up with the camera going off constantly once the bird enters your defined area and distance. It will be like someone who walks around spray and praying at 20FPS and comes home with 10,000 shots to cull after a morning session.

Ya I was thinking of this too and wish there was some kind of an over ride to not let the camera going off continuously when I don’t want it to. The only way would be to bring the camera down or move it side ways where there are no birds lol…will have to figure this out. This is why I feel having these parameters as a stand alone feature outside of auto capture would be great.