Z9 with 180-600mm lens mounted slow to find focus

[jimfromno]

I recently attended the air show in town and wanted to shoot it with my Z9 and 180-600mm lens. I found it near hopeless trying to find focus on the fast moving jets. I have shot them in past years with a 500PF and picked them up fine. I used the same setup, the Z9 and the 180-600mm, to shoot the eclipse earlier this year and I was worried that I may have damaged one or both pieces. I inadvertently had the camera/lens pointing at the full sun for up to a minute before noticing. I did some quick test like shooting against a white building and looking for spots and everything seemed normal. But I think something it off. What's your advise, more home testing or send it to Nikon?

 

[Cameron T]

If you're not sure of it, best to send it to be safe. It shouldn't be that slow to focus on anything though, mine is pretty snappy.

 

[wotan1]

You can try renting/borrowing a second body and lens and copy your settings to compare. Will help you narrow down the prossible causes.

 

[JAJohnson]

Steve has a video in which he does autofocus speed testing for the 180-600. He’s using static subjects but if you can replicate his testing setup his results might give you a baseline to test your lens against. I hope this is helpful.

 

[joe43]

One tip Steve has made to increase the speed of achieving focus is to pre focus the lens to an approximate distance of your actual subject. This will reduce the time spend for the lens and camera to get accurate auto focus. I use Back Button focusing (AF ON) to do this. You can also set the range limiter on the lens too. I have found that the pre focus suggestion has had a big effect on reducing the time it takes for my 100-400mm S lens to achieve accurate focus. Another might be the AF Area mode you are using and where your focus point is.

Another thing to check is to make sure that there are no inconsistent camera and lens settings on your Z9 and your 180-600mm lens. I had to change the setting for the lens control ring on my 100-400mm to resolve some issue. I do not think it dealt with AF, but I am not sure. Others may have better info and suggestions on lens and camera settings.