Z6,7 firmware update (Feb 2020) Come on persuade me.

Pistnbroke

Agreed but you dont photograph a dog or cat at 100 yards ..well you might ! (if its a fox )

mhedges

Got a chance to try V3 firmware last night at a school play. I was very impressed. I shot the whole thing in silent mode, Auto area AF / Face detect (I was too far away for eye detect) and it did quite well.

Truth be told I didn't use that mode very much before but based on my limited use it sure seems like it does a much better job finding faces now, even when they only take up a small portion of the image (like say the size of a single AF point box). Before V3 I would have used dynamic area AF or maybe single point, but this was way better since I didn't have to manually select the focus spot all the time.

There's still some room for improvement. A few times it wouldn't find the face for no apparent reason. Or it would find one but not the one I was interested in. And I had one camera lock-up which I never had before. Maybe we will get a minor update to fix that, if it's more than a fluke thing. Also I wish I could use the joystick to tweak the focus location or give it a suggestion - I guess I could if I had turned the tracking option on, which I didn't do much.

Really looking forward to testing it at soccer tomorrow.







https://flic.kr/s/aHsmLEAd7W (You will have to excuse the shadows from peoples heads in the bottom of some shots)

Searcy

Very good. I'm headed out in a few house to shoot an event. The two times I have tried to use it I have found face and eye AF to be gimmicky. They kind of work but in a room full of faces I couldn't find a piratical way to use it.

This morning I spent some time setting up U1, U2 and U3 to better used the features I hope.

Searcy

Last Friday I was finally able to use the face detect system the way I had hoped I would back when I first heard of it. Very "sticky". I was able to shoot runway models and then I took pictures of the after party and was able to select the faces I wanted to focus on.

I would say was able to make 90% of the shots I tried for whereas I was only getting maybe 40 or 50% with the original face detect firmware.

Pistnbroke

With group area focus on a D850 I would have expected to get 100%, 1500 pics at a wedding inc paparazzi/speeches and disco never even thought of anything being out of focus even in P mode...are we fixing what ain't broke?

Searcy

Pistnbroke said:

With group area focus on a D850 I would have expected to get 100%, 1500 pics at a wedding inc paparazzi/speeches and disco never even thought of anything being out of focus even in P mode...are we fixing what ain't broke?

I do not think you should trade your d850 for a z6 or z7. I'm just reporting on the firmware update. What was useless gimmick , face and eye AF, on the z6 is now a very functional feature with the new 3D tracking.

mhedges

Pistnbroke said:

With group area focus on a D850 I would have expected to get 100%, 1500 pics at a wedding inc paparazzi/speeches and disco never even thought of anything being out of focus even in P mode...are we fixing what ain't broke?

The point is that the feature is much improved and works quite well now. I never used a D850 or any camera with the same AF module so I can't compare the two.

I can say that I couldn't have gotten those school play shots with a D850 or with any DSLR. Because I had to shoot in silent mode. The Nikon D780 is the only Nikon DSRL with decent silent mode AF performance but even then I couldn't have used it because the viewfinder isn't active in silent. I can't hold a camera with a 70-200 2.8 at arms length and frame it properly for an hour. Or even 5 minutes, probably. Even if I could I would hit the heads of the people in front of me, and make the people behind me quite upset due to the distraction of the relatively bright rear screen.

So it's not really a question of "if it ain't broke" to me. It's about adding additional abilities, and getting better lenses that aren't restricted by the F mount.

Symphotic

mhedges said:

Pistnbroke said:

....

So it's not really a question of "if it ain't broke" to me. It's about adding additional abilities, and getting better lenses that aren't restricted by the F mount.

Reason one and reason two for me listed above.

Pistnbroke

Silent mode oh yes ,,how I miss the wonderful D 810 quiet ...

spraynpray

The D850 has a fully electronic truly silent mode in live view?

mhedges

spraynpray said:

The D850 has a fully electronic truly silent mode in live view?

Not sure I thought it did? Maybe not?

tc88

mhedges said:

spraynpray said:

The D850 has a fully electronic truly silent mode in live view?

Not sure I thought it did? Maybe not?

Yes, it does. It can take burst too. Pretty handy for taking pictures inside church or museum. But for any moving targets, AF is probably not fast enough.

spraynpray

Sorry guys, that was a statement, not a question. I use it all the time. Nikon AF in live view is tragic in comparison to Canon unfortunately which renders live view useless for any moving targets.

Pistnbroke

And No flash

rmp

The new Z glass is reason enough to switch to the Zs.

tc88

Well Canon always makes excellent glasses and they have churned our more RF lens in a shorter period than Nikon has on Z lens. Sony has also been making excellent glasses lately and they have a pretty much complete lens line up now. Besides they have third parties making lens too. Even Nikon itself clearly knows the current Z lens line up is a disadvantage to it. The issue is that it has less resource, so it's unlikely it can even catch up to Canon or Sony.

Ton14

Just a test for firmware 3.0, only cropped and small adjustments.
Two photos from a series of 22 on Flickr, I don't post them all, the other one on PAD.
ISO 200 - 1/1500s - f/6.7 - 200mm
Nikon Z6 with FTZ - 70-200mm f/4 VR
Dynamic area AF, AF-C, H*

I post 2 example photo's on Flikr from a set of 22 shots in AF-C, H* RAW and JPG. In all the photos the bird was sharp. I never shoot like this.

Auto-Area AF tracking, AF-C for BIF didn't work in a lot of cases, I wouldn't use it for BIF.

Single-point AF, Dynamic-Area AF, Wide-area AF(S) with AF-C and H* mode work for me, more quickly and accurate then before.

For all slow-moving objects, after firmware 3.0, the Auto-Area AF works fine as we also see by @Searcy and I like it now.

rmp

Thanks Ton14. Good post.

Pistnbroke

Backcountry Gallery posted an extensive video on the 3.0 update .

https://backcountrygallery.com/nikon-z6-z7-firmware-3-0-field-test/

Nope.

mhedges

tc88 said:

Well Canon always makes excellent glasses and they have churned our more RF lens in a shorter period than Nikon has on Z lens. Sony has also been making excellent glasses lately and they have a pretty much complete lens line up now. Besides they have third parties making lens too. Even Nikon itself clearly knows the current Z lens line up is a disadvantage to it. The issue is that it has less resource, so it's unlikely it can even catch up to Canon or Sony.

Canon has 9 RF lenses out right now. 10 if you count the 85mm double dip. Nikon has 8 Z lenses out, with two more arriving very shortly. I don't see a big difference in those numbers.

If Nikon can stick to their roadmap they will have a fairly complete system by the end of this year. And for my use and budget the Nikon lens lineup is more attractive than the Canon.

WestEndFoto

If you want Otus grade optics at a reasonable price Nikon is really your only option and will remain so for at least a couple of years. Nikon’s lens lineup may be behind Sony and only on par with Canon, but by the end is this year, Nikon will be the superior value choice for 90% of users.

I do expect (and hope) that Canon will close this gap, but for now they are focussing on the high end. Sony? I think they are handicapped by their small mount. While technically possible to match Canon and Nikon (and since it is technically possible they will try), it will cost them more to compensate for the mount disadvantage which will impact profitability to the extent that they try. Does this mean Sony will fail? Certainly not! But if you are deciding which mirrorless system to buy, have a long view and consider lens IQ important or very important, your two choices are Nikon or Canon. If you are budget conscious and are impatient, Nikon is the best choice. A Z6/7 paired with the 1.8 primes is sweet. If you are impatient and want the best of the best, then I would lean Canon. If you want to bond with your fellow millennials, then I would lean Sony.

snakebunk

For me (bird photographer), Sony are currently a huge step ahead since they have long native prime lenses, great af, third party lenses with af and a real battery grip.

I think Canon is coming strong now but they have a lot to do. They have declared that their focus is not on DSLRs.

Nikon have improved af and are making good short lenses but are still spending too much effort on DSLRs in my view. I also think they need to open up for and attract third party lens makers.

Panasonic and the L mount alliance is super interesting but they need to improve af. Since I am a Sigma user this is a mount I am hoping for.

Ton14

@mhedges

If Nikon can stick to their roadmap they will have a fairly complete system by the end of this year. And for my use and budget the Nikon lens lineup is more attractive than the Canon.

Same here for my budget and till that time there is the FTZ adapter.

Ton14

@Pistnbroke thanks for the video link, this is exactly what I found.

Pistnbroke

Thanks ton14 for the comment I was getting the impression that >LR members had there heads in a bucket of sand but its a problem when you have spent a lot of money to admit its not 100%