Nikon Mirrorless: Tips For Performance And Action (Z6, Z7, Z50)

[Music] hey everyone C for backcountry gallery here I've had a lot of people asking me lately about how I set my Z cameras for wildlife action so in this video I'm going to show you my top tips also please note that this video is based on firmware 3.0 for the Z 6 and 7 and 1.11 for little Z 50 now the first and maybe most significant trick to getting a higher keeper rate with your Z camera is making sure you use the tools at your disposal in the right way at the right time for the Z cameras especially during more action oriented opportunities making the appropriate decision from a settings standpoint can have a tremendous impact on your final keeper rate much more so than with a modern DSLR speaking of which you also need to keep realistic expectations here although the tips and techniques in this video will help you secure more keepers with your Z camera in an action scenario they're not going to bring it to the level of a modern Nikon DSLR the Z cameras just aren't quite there yet as of this recording also I know there are probably hundreds of general tips for action photography but for this video I'm keeping it limited to the things that are specific to the Z series cameras and the things that have worked best for me let's go ahead and jump in autofocus first let's talk autofocus the first tip is pretty easy and that is to say your AF mode to AF see if you're doing action you need the camera to continuously focus if you want to keep that action in focus that's pretty simple next let's talk about using the best AF area mode for the job this is one of those places we're making the right choice can have an incredibly positive effect on your keeper rate with DSLRs we had a lot of overlap for example I can almost use smaller dynamic modes and group AF interchangeably for most scenarios for the Z cameras it's far more critical that you pick the right mode for the job for static or very slow moving targets I use regular old single point AF if things start moving a bit faster or if I'm on an unstable platform like a pontoon boat or a kayak then I'll go ahead and switch to dynamic a good way to tell when it's time to switch to dynamic from single point is when you start having a tough time keeping the single F point consistently on target in fact a good way to think of dynamic AF is like assisted single point AF with dynamic you use the AF sensor in the middle of the AF area as your primary point just like maybe if you were shooting single point AF however there are helper points all around it in the square form by the little dots shows you the edges of that area the way it works is you start with a primary point and focus on your target if you happen to fall off the target and that target is still within the AF area one of the helper points will take over until you get back on target again however if that helper point loses the lock your primary F point will focus on whatever is under it sometimes the wrong part of the subject sometimes the background or the foreground so dynamic works best when you can mostly keep that single primary F point on the subject but you just need a little help from time to time now when the action starts to heat up a bit more I like to switch to one of the wide AF areas especially that wide small area I love that one in fact I use the wide small area for most of my action work with the Z cameras the wide areas work a little like group AF did in our DSLRs the square is made up of multiple AF points and the system tries to prioritize whatever is closest to the camera now it doesn't work quite as well as group AF for close focus priority but honestly it does get the job done the trick with these wide area modes is that they don't offer the precision of single point or dynamic AF while they do tend to focus on whatever is closest to the camera if that doesn't qualify as a good AF target they may focus on something else under the AF box this usually isn't a big deal if the box covers enough of the subject but for smaller subjects it can become kind of a problem in my experience if the subject is actually smaller than the AF area you do run the risk of the camera jumping to the background especially with a moving subject against like a nice contrasting background in those cases dynamic often works better since the smaller primary AF point isn't larger than the subject itself still both of the wide modes work fairly well and are definitely my first choice for tracking subjects moving it fast like burden flight type speeds there's also the Auto Afra mode and I'll sometimes turn to that mode for fast moving subjects on a clean and/or distant background if the background is too contrasting or too close Auto AF era can sometimes latch on to that instead still for some fast-moving subjects it can work incredibly well the auto a ferry also includes tracking mode but honestly I haven't been overly impressed with tracking mode for my own wildlife work so I seldom use it instead I tend to move my AF area to where I need it in the frame using little joystick however I think tracking mode would work well for other types of action in fact if I was doing sports I'd probably be using it a lot the key takeaway for AF areas is that you'll need to switch them a little more than you probably did in your DSLR if one area doesn't seem to be working for what you're shooting don't hesitate to try another one it can have a huge impact by the way I'm gonna put out a video down the road that goes over the AF system in much greater detail for this video I'm just giving you the basics for action work in addition I'm also working on a new Z series autofocus book that will cover topics like this in far greater detail right now it's like around 400 pages and I'm adding new info every day it should be really helpful for any Z series user so make sure you sign up for my free email newsletter so you're the first to know when it's released oh and speaking of releases should be out sometime June of this year 2020 focus tracking with lock-on let's head to the custom setting menu and check out that focus tracking with lock-on option this option is a way for you to tell the camera what to do if you're tracking a subject and the AF area detects a drastic change in distance note that this setting doesn't affect tracking performance if the camera has an active lock it only kicks in if that lock is disrupted due to a significant change in distance so for example maybe you're tracking a bird and a tree comes between the two of you how long should the camera wait before giving up on the bird and focusing on the tree that's what this setting allows you to tell the camera a setting of 1 tells the camera to not really wait at all a setting of 5 tell to wait as long as possible it also works the other way if you're tracking a subject and you accidentally allow the AAF area to slip off that subject this setting will determine how long the camera waits until it tries to switch to and start focusing on another subject so what's the best setting well it depends this really isn't a set it and forget it option plus it depends on the shooter and the situation there's really not a right or wrong answer here so I'm gonna go over the benefits for both faster and slower settings first the faster settings like one or two this tells the camera that if it detects a significant change in distance under the AF area to weight a minimal amount of time before trying to lock on to whatever is currently under the AF area the setting is really handy if you're switching from one target to another nearby target since you can do so without releasing the AF button put the AF area on the new subject and the camera will jump to it a split second later it's also handy if you attempt to lock onto a subject and the AF area grabs the background instead just stay on the intended subject with autofocus engaged and in a split second or so it should should being the operative word latch onto the correct target on the other hand there are advantages to the longer setting if you set to four or five this is telling the camera to hesitate a bit longer before jumping to a new subject so if you are panning along with a subject and a tree or some brush comes between you the camera won't instantly jump to that foreground it also means if you're tracking a subject and you accidentally allow the AF point to fall off that subject the camera won't immediately try to lock on to something else as a little hint if you're brand new to tracking this can prove very handy personally I've been using sort of a hybrid approach to this lately I set it to five but at the same time I make it my personal responsibility to engage and disengage AF as needed if I try to focus and a camera hits the background I let off of the autofocus I don't wait for it to grab on I just let off and then I reengage myself if I need to switch subjects again I let off the autofocus i position the AF area over the new subject and then i reengage in this way I sort of have the best of both worlds if an obstacle comes between the camera and the target the camera will wait as long as possible before jumping to something else if I need to quickly change subjects or make a second attempt at a subject I simply let go of the AF button for a quick second and then I reengage the biggest trick here is learning to let go of that hip button when you need to it's easy like in all of the excitement to just sort of press and press and press and not let go however if you can really manage your autofocus button this approach can actually work really well at least it has for me so far I can't say I'm going to use it like this all the time but lately it's been working out well again though what works for me may be a bad match for you depending on your skill level your shooting style and of course what you shoot so remember to experiment also if you're still not sure what to do the default setting of three is kind of a nice compromise turn off apply settings to Live View now another way I found to improve AF performance is to shut off the apply settings to Live View custom setting now I admit I was a little bit skeptical about this at first and I was hesitant to give up my real-time what you see is what you get exposure feed but after flipping back and forth in the field between the on and off setting I have to tell you I'm a believer where I really noticed the improvement seems to be with initial lock-on it seems to help tracking a little too but in my field test it seemed like initial lock-on was really where I saw the most improvement by shutting this off of course when you turn it off you'll have to be careful of your exposure again because what you see in the viewfinder is just to kind of paraphrase an icon here a level of brightness intended for comfortable viewing that's what they say and not the actual exposure still it's worth turning off if you find your AF system isn't quite keeping up me personally I don't have it off all the time or on all the time I kind of use it as needed I do like having that exposure preview so sometimes I'll leave it on and if I see the autofocus seems to be struggling or I know I'm in a situation where I think it's going to struggle then I'll go ahead and turn it off keep firmware up-to-date the next tip is easy keep your firmware up-to-date the cameras keep getting better with each firmware update so it's one of the easiest ways I know to get more from you z camera if you don't know how to update Nikon firmware check out the video on the card I'll take you through the process step-by-step super easy framerate tips next let's talk framerate and for action that really comes down to one of two choices continuous high or continuous high extended for action where you're moving the camera side to side as you track the subject maybe the subjects moving horizontally in front of you or maybe even diagonally I recommend sticking with the standard continuous high rate it's slower but it's far easier to track the subject is more or less where it appears to be in your viewfinder fraction coming right at the camera on ground level like maybe someone running towards you or action taking place while the subject stands still like maybe a bird shaking off after it cranes the extended continuous high mode works really well for that the reason I don't recommend the extended continuous high mode for what you might think of as a typical action scenario is because you get a slideshow view of the images as you shoot them rather than a live feed this means that you're looking at what you just shot as opposed to what's actually happening in the viewfinder in real time to demonstrate this difference I shot a video of a metronome in both modes first check out standard continuous high as you can see there is a blackout between the frames but the position of the target agrees with what you see on the back of the camera now let's try the same thing in continuous high extended mode this time it's all over the place and what you see on the back LCD panel seldom agrees with what is happening in real life of course I realize you're not shooting metronomes but I'm sure most people watching this video can kind of see how this applies when you're in extended continuous high mode what you see in the viewfinder isn't what you get and it's easy to lose track of the subject or focus on the wrong part of the subject this really causes a problem when tracking a subject say from left to right however it still can work fine if the subject is more or less in the same place in the viewfinder but doing something active like again a bird shaking off for instance also I know some people say you can get accustomed to the slideshow effect and it can be used effectively for some action scenarios however I just haven't had that much luck with it for I shoot it could be partially because many of the action subjects that I shoot are both moving fast and at close frame felling range I have found that the slower the subject is moving the easier it is to use that continuous extended high mode but again for me it just doesn't work out that well also another footnote or two on frame rate here maximum frame rate is determined by a number of factors as shown here on the screen image type bit depth and using or not using silent photography mode can all affect your maximum frame rate there's a lot of info here so feel free to pause if you need to adaptive versus native lenses another trick albeit an expensive one is to use natives e-mount lenses whenever possible when I've compared AF speeds between using an F mount lens on a modern Nikon DSLR something like a D 850 for example to using that same lens adapted to a Z series camera with an f TZ adapter I found that the adapted lens on the z series camera focuses at about half the speed it does on the DSLR when starting from minimum focus distance very generally and in most cases that applies interestingly though for adapted zoom lenses they focus at about half DSLR speed at their longest focal length but when they are at their shortest focal length they are nearly as fast as when they're on a DSLR I tried this with three different high-end zooms and they all acted the same so go figure in fact here are some of the numbers for a few different lenses as you can see you lose speed when you adapt an F mount lens to the Z cameras I tried this with both the apply settings to Live View custom setting turned on and off didn't make any difference in AF speed I also tried multiple cameras and three different copies of the FTZ adapter and the results were all very consistent however when I compared the native 2472 8 Z mount lens to the adapted 2472 AF mount lens on the Z 6 & 7 the native Z Series lens was actually faster interestingly though it wasn't as fast as the 2472 8 F mount lens on the D 850 but again it was faster than adapting that F mount lens to the Z camera with the FTZ adapter hope that made sense so using the natives e-mount lenses can help with speed plus the auto focus on the native z lens seems more confident and sure than the adaptive glass of course I do realize that at the time of this video we don't yet have a full selection of lenses especially the lenses a lot of us use as wildlife photographers however when those lenses are released based on what I found so far it's probably not a bad idea to consider them in the meantime there are a couple of tricks you can use for adaptive lenses to sort of work around the slower AF speeds the first is to take advantage of the focus limits which if your lens has one and if the subject is of course at the proper distance range this will take out about half the focus ring travel and you can really help you get back on target in the event the lens decides to go in like a focus hunting trip plus I've discovered that although the adapted lenses are slower for minimum focus distance to infinity it turns out the ones I tested are generally within like point 1 to 0.2 seconds of DSLR speed if you're starting in the middle of the focus range and then going to infinity in short if you start from the middle it's really not possible to tell the difference with the naked eye between the DSLR and the mirrorless cameras so that could be a huge advantage the second trick is to do your best to get the focus distance at about the same range as the subject that way the lens doesn't have to move the focusing ring as much than it would if you're maybe again starting from minimum focus distance the closer you are to the right focus distance the better your chances buffer performance next let's get a little more performance out of the buffer if you shoot action with the Z cameras you may have run into the buffer occasionally especially if you were using continuous high extended however there are a few ways to get a few more shots in that buffer first consider shooting 12 bit for action the difference between 12 bit and 14 bit is nearly imperceptible in most cases for a properly exposed image where you may see a difference between 12 and 14 bit is if you really have to pull the really deep shadows and I mean you'd have to pull those deep shadows quite a bit on the other hand 12 bit files are smaller than their 14 bit counterparts so they take up less room in the buffer giving you a few more shots shots that you know might be the best of the bunch the other trick is to employ one of the cameras crop modes if you're in a situation where you're going to need to crop anyway this will produce a smaller file and give you more time before your buffer dries up plus the Z cameras don't just like outline the crop area in the viewfinder like our DSLRs did they zoom the viewfinder into the crop area so it looks just like it does when you're shooting with the full sensor so those are my main tips for getting better performance from your Z camera again these tips won't turn your Z series into like a d5 or D 850 type or form or anything but they should help you get more keepers by the way if you happen to have a tip for getting more performance out of the Z cameras for action work that maybe I haven't mentioned here feel free to share it in the comments I'd love to hear from you I was also thinking of sharing how I have all my Z Series buttons and controls configured but I think this video is probably long enough as it is if you would like a video that talks about how have the buttons configured though again let me know in the comments and I'll make that happen if enough people are interested also if you enjoyed these tips make sure you check out all the books and video workshop series I have on my site the tips tricks and techniques you find in my youtube videos are just the very tip of the iceberg the books and video workshops have all the best stuff oh and make sure you sign up for my free email newsletter so you never miss a video and article one of those video workshops I was talking about a regular workshop or maybe most importantly that book announcement for the Z series autofocus system that's coming up soon finally remember to Like subscribe and click the notify Bell so you never miss a video thanks so much for watching have a great day you

Channel: Steve Perry

Views: 67,829

Keywords: photography tips, photography help, Backcountry Gallery, Steve Perry, nature photography, Nikon Z6 tips, Nikon Z7 tips, Nikon Z50 tips, Nikon Z6 action tips, Nikon z7 action tips, Nikon z50 action tips, Nikon mirrorless performance, Nikon z camera tips, Nikon z camera action, action with Nikon mirrorless, wildlife action Nikon z, wildlife action Nikon mirrorless, Nikon mirrorless wildlife, wildlife photography Nikon mirrorless, action, wildlife, Nikon z6, Nikon z7, Nikon z50

Id: GUK0nNAfmyA

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 26 2020