Bonjour, merci pour ce travail enfin sérieux sur l'utilisation de l'AF du Z6II. Enfin quelqu'un qui a les pieds sur terre et qui ne se contente pas de colporter des rumeurs. Non, ce n'est pas seulement votre exemplaire qui est capable de tout cela car, pour celui que j'utilise, c'est exactement la même chose. Plus que satisfaisant !
I just bought the z6 and updated to firmware 3.4. It now even tracks the dolls eye on my neice's toy incredibly accurately when they were playing with them. The kids were in focus all night in video and stills. Thank you to all the people selling off their z lenses cheap second hand just when this update was launched haha. Chistmas came early for me. Extremely happy with value and performance of these camera's.
This is the exact kind of review and information that is needed. The camera actually working and the results instead of someone preaching at me with VERY limited examples of what they are talking about.
You are starting to persuade me to sell my Z9 and keep my Z6ii. I’m 73 and my arm strength isn’t what it used to be. The Z6ii is much lighter and easier to track subjects with the Z100-400mm lens. The one time I had to really test this combo was when we were shooting sandhill cranes in flight. Each image in the sequence was perfectly in focus. I still have much to learn about the autofocus system on the camera, but I think it’s worth the $4k difference in price!!!
I really appreciate your video of the Z6ii, I have been using my d780 and recently got a refurbished Z6ii that appears to be new, I have updated to the recent firmware and it is a learning curve. I primarily shoot wildlife and landscape.
Yes it is for sure. Just a tip. Mirrorless cameras respond slightly different from dslrs. Try acquiring focus a bit earlier then release the shutter. The Z series stop down to f5.6 to focus if you use wider apertures. This slightly delays focus acquisition but makes a more accurate focus calculation. It’s slight but people seem to unaware and then think something is wrong with the camera.
Also, given the price point, I think this Z6ii looks super. I’ve been reading and watching about mirrorless and camera brands to upgrade and expand my hobby. This Z6ii is what I will purchase. A friend has a Belgian Malinois; they are big dogs and very fast!!! Great experiment.
You clarified something for me. Funny how a person can get stuff wrong. I wasn’t making any distinction between focus tracking and eye detect focus. Just figured if I left an eye detect setting, didn’t need to engage focus tracking. So, now I know they are different, I now have to figure out what the difference is. If you can help, please do!
You have to initiate the focus tracking box while using Auto Area AF by placing the box on your subject and the camera will track it through the frame. Eye tracking is specific to humans or dogs and cats an uses Ai to identify the face or eyes and track that through the frame in the specific Eye detect AF Area modes.
Thank you for sharing this! I've been looking into getting the Z6ii and all I'm hearing is the auto focus sucks. But seeing this gives me hope, my dog is also fast I have a German Shorthaired Pointer, he's fast.
Shooting K9s for almost two decades I say the result is very impressive. I'd say an incoming Belgian is as hard as shooting midsized bif: bif is mostly shot lateral. Thank you for this video, Blaze - good boy! P. S. I do shoot big birds in flight with Z7 I with great result.
How do you find those results great? I have two Sony bodies both from 2014. Namely A6000 (APSC) and A7II . Both never were some top models but both can do this test perfectly in compare to this. However, with Z I suceded to ruin AF focus even in AF-S mode with static object. Ok it was me. After studing a problem a bit I get it working. I see that Nikon did something wrong with AF implementation.
@@WAPhoto unfortunately I don't have. I the mean time I sold A7II. I finally get my very own and lovely Z5. So I am really not saying against Nikon. Maybe I will do the test with A6000 before sell it too. What I wish to point is that even those old cameras was able to work with AF pretty much straight forward with very simple 3-4 options to choose from. Even at that time one camera had "eye detection" (quite early adoption of that technology), while A6000 had "registered faces" features. (In group of people can recognize and focus first. E.g. the bride as first, the groom at second place if previously registered in camera) Nikon AF is to complex and to many options to choose from. Need to decide to set right one for given situation, several additional settings which may affect AF speed and accuracy. That is why I found the whole implementation complex and probably less practical and less well implemented. But my general opinion is that Nikon going somewhere and that can be very clever at the end. Now we have confirmation of that with Z9. As I mentioned before, found very basic AF-S single point, giving different results at static object in series of shooting. I was confused at first. I guess that many errors in dynamic AF situation comes from same problem encountered in static case I mentioned above. With Sony I never had to think about. Just shoot. But Z is my camera of choice and I am working hard to overcome some difficulties. It is easy and possible to get fantastic results which is count. Some situation is maybe better avoid yet. By the way, congrat for hard work to make this video.
Marvelous. Thank you! You are quite right: there are too many echo chambers! Nikon’s DNA is “sports”, meaning do all anywhere, I know that form my F4 and it’s no different today. The Z9 will therefore be great for Pros and I’ll stick with my Z7ii….
You may want to check out Jasin Boland. He has an amazing video on capturing motocross with the z6ii. He shares his settings and I see the improvements in my keepers. Check him out when you have a chance.
very nice test. I used it in street photo and it is amazing. However several times the yellow box lost the face and jumped on something else. Also when you set yellow box on a face of people walking slowly, i don't understand why it can be on edge of face or on hair,... insteda of keeping face at the middle.
Thanks very much. VR was off. Some implied that was somehow cheating. Not sure how that would be the case?? Live view custom setting d9 in the viewfinder was on.
Thanks for doing this - it must have taken a while. It shows that the AF is at least reasonable in good light and broad daylight. I don't have too many problems in that lighting either. My big problems is when I'm shooting fast moving events (street parades, people moving and dancing), any kind of strong back lighting at all and the wretched thing just won't focus. I've tried every kind of different setting, with tracking, no tracking, wide box, small box, eye on, eye off. It will often just hunt around, and I've lost so many shots, it's very frustrating. I only bought the Z6ii three weeks ago and am already regretting it. The images are lovely from the camera, but that's about it. In every other way my Fuji X-T3's are much better. I never lose any images because of the autofocus system (when I do, it means I pointed it at the wrong thing). The handling on the Fuji's is much faster, big knobs on top, no fumbling in menus. Unless things change soon, this Nikon is going to get listed and sold off.
@@lilnape2604 It is only when shooting into strongly backlit situations. It's as fast as the Fuji in normal shooting positions. The other thing (only at the moment), is that I am not used to the camera and all the settings and buttons. It's not burned into my muscle memory like the Fuji's are. I've been solely Fuji for a decade, so I can shoot them with my eyes closed. The Nikon is not like that, because I've only shot one gig with it and I'm still learning. However, nothing changes the fact that if the lighting gets tricky (strong back lighting, darker areas), it can't cope like my Fuji's do so easily. I'm hanging onto the Nikon for a while to see if there may be a new Firmware fix (apparently Z7 got a good one today). If they can fix it, it will be a nice camera, because the files from it are lovely. It has about 3 stops better dynamic range and high ISO, than my Fuji's. If they can't fix it, I'll sell it off and happily use my Fuji's again. I hope that explains it a bit more.
@@philipsutton2316 don’t feel discouraged. The Z cameras af system have a much longer learning curve than any other system in my opinion and can be extremely frustrating. I’ve experienced some difficulties with back light in auto area. My fix was switching to subject tracking. I have Fn1 set to toggle on/off subject tracking, fn2 to switch af modes, record button for 100% zoom which is useful for checking critical focus and manual focus, the joystick button to lock exposure and back button af-on. Wish there was a button we could map to have access to two different focus modes at once.
The question is: with a DSLR lens and FTZ adapter it focuses on one plane and then focuses on another plane? Is there this limitation via software? I ask, because I got a Z6ii and I still have the F-mount lenses. It is difficult for anyone to answer these questions.
Have the z6 ii Have the a73 And yes I say the older a73 is much stickier Eye auto focus also detects eye further away Love my z6 ii But it needs improvements to Match the A73 The A7r3 the a74 And canon r6 Also focus color needs to be green not red Many out of focus Many times on nose No I’m not saying terrible but needs to be better. With r6 and a73/4 Just no match With eye af you should use it Or shoot F4 Dog has long nose so eyes with no eye af get blurry Bottom line Nikon needs to give us a firmware to improve As rest of camera is nice
Not sure if you saw the test with Eye AF people. This one was only with the tracking box and no Animal Eye AF. I will be showing an example of Animal Eye AF soon.
You may find this interesting. www.zsystemuser.com/nikon-z-system-news-and/want-to-master-nikon-z.html?fbclid=IwAR0OlEn-3TAK4BTNTrtV9H6H2wlllOPZd3btTH4PLLEhCxTD4NqHXEd_XIs
Sticky doesn’t mean anything. That’s just an interface element. Furthermore it needs to be sticky FOR YOU! Many of us want to master our tool and not just rely on “do it for me” modes.
Nice review. Lets accept it. As a nikon user i felt nikon is not on par with sony and canon. The AF didnt work as it should have been. Nikon mirrorless system of Eye AF or tracking AF cant trace moving animal or human, it's just terrible. Even R7 (2018) is far better than Z9 (2022). Nikon system works best with a slowly moving object or stand still human that facing camera. Felt disappointed. Thanks for the review, am considering to sell all nikon gears and buying R6 !
Terrible? No. Behind Canon and Sony? Absolutely at least up until the Z9. I have a Z6 and updated to the newest 3.4 firmware and it's clearly behind Sony and Canon when it comes to birds. The face and eye AF is a lot better now. True that animals small in the frame aren't going to be your keepers, but it's necessary to have sticky focus when the animal is small in the frame to ensure you get the shot you want when the moment happens. It just makes life easier. Using Wide Area Small is very challenging with erratic subjects. Even with Wide Are Large it can be a struggle. Cameras are tools and some tools are just easier to use for certain jobs. Right now Sony and Canon are easier for erratic subjects. Hopefully Nikon will roll out a 2.0 update for the Z6II to improve in that area. I'm a Nikon user and will remain so, but the criticisms around AF tracking are valid and remain so even with the Z9 coming out because Sony and Canon still have $2000-2500 bodies with superior tracking.
80% of these photos are out of focus. The focus IS on the dog, but always a few layers behind the head. I have the absolute same problem with my new z6ii. All my dog photos are unsharp on the face and focused on the back.
I wonder, why all AF tests are made during normal day light? All AF systems are ok in such conditions. Try to test at least central point in evening restaurant light on a banket and you will see all the truth about Nikon AF system, it simply helpless in compared to mirror brothers or CANON R6/5
Bonjour, merci pour ce travail enfin sérieux sur l'utilisation de l'AF du Z6II. Enfin quelqu'un qui a les pieds sur terre et qui ne se contente pas de colporter des rumeurs. Non, ce n'est pas seulement votre exemplaire qui est capable de tout cela car, pour celui que j'utilise, c'est exactement la même chose. Plus que satisfaisant !
Merci à vous
I just bought the z6 and updated to firmware 3.4. It now even tracks the dolls eye on my neice's toy incredibly accurately when they were playing with them. The kids were in focus all night in video and stills. Thank you to all the people selling off their z lenses cheap second hand just when this update was launched haha. Chistmas came early for me. Extremely happy with value and performance of these camera's.
This is the exact kind of review and information that is needed. The camera actually working and the results instead of someone preaching at me with VERY limited examples of what they are talking about.
You are starting to persuade me to sell my Z9 and keep my Z6ii. I’m 73 and my arm strength isn’t what it used to be. The Z6ii is much lighter and easier to track subjects with the Z100-400mm lens. The one time I had to really test this combo was when we were shooting sandhill cranes in flight. Each image in the sequence was perfectly in focus. I still have much to learn about the autofocus system on the camera, but I think it’s worth the $4k difference in price!!!
I really appreciate your video of the Z6ii, I have been using my d780 and recently got a refurbished Z6ii that appears to be new, I have updated to the recent firmware and it is a learning curve. I primarily shoot wildlife and landscape.
Yes it is for sure. Just a tip. Mirrorless cameras respond slightly different from dslrs. Try acquiring focus a bit earlier then release the shutter. The Z series stop down to f5.6 to focus if you use wider apertures. This slightly delays focus acquisition but makes a more accurate focus calculation. It’s slight but people seem to unaware and then think something is wrong with the camera.
Also, given the price point, I think this Z6ii looks super. I’ve been reading and watching about mirrorless and camera brands to upgrade and expand my hobby. This Z6ii is what I will purchase. A friend has a Belgian Malinois; they are big dogs and very fast!!! Great experiment.
You clarified something for me. Funny how a person can get stuff wrong. I wasn’t making any distinction between focus tracking and eye detect focus. Just figured if I left an eye detect setting, didn’t need to engage focus tracking. So, now I know they are different, I now have to figure out what the difference is. If you can help, please do!
You have to initiate the focus tracking box while using Auto Area AF by placing the box on your subject and the camera will track it through the frame. Eye tracking is specific to humans or dogs and cats an uses Ai to identify the face or eyes and track that through the frame in the specific Eye detect AF Area modes.
Thank you for sharing this! I've been looking into getting the Z6ii and all I'm hearing is the auto focus sucks. But seeing this gives me hope, my dog is also fast I have a German Shorthaired Pointer, he's fast.
Great video! Thanks for taking the time to do this 👍
Good test. The results were better than I thought actually.
Impressive. It was certainly a difficult test. I hope some of the z9 features trickle down to these 2 bodies as well
Agreed. It would great if a firmware fix improved things further.
Shooting K9s for almost two decades I say the result is very impressive. I'd say an incoming Belgian is as hard as shooting midsized bif: bif is mostly shot lateral. Thank you for this video, Blaze - good boy! P. S. I do shoot big birds in flight with Z7 I with great result.
Hi! Really great and useful review. Did you try wide area animal eye tracking on your dog maybe? How does it work?
I think the camera performance looks great.
Great test results, I am happy I got a Z6ii.
How do you find those results great? I have two Sony bodies both from 2014. Namely A6000 (APSC) and A7II . Both never were some top models but both can do this test perfectly in compare to this. However, with Z I suceded to ruin AF focus even in AF-S mode with static object. Ok it was me. After studing a problem a bit I get it working.
I see that Nikon did something wrong with AF implementation.
Do you have a demonstration to confirm that? I'm interested to see your results.
@@WAPhoto unfortunately I don't have. I the mean time I sold A7II. I finally get my very own and lovely Z5. So I am really not saying against Nikon. Maybe I will do the test with A6000 before sell it too. What I wish to point is that even those old cameras was able to work with AF pretty much straight forward with very simple 3-4 options to choose from. Even at that time one camera had "eye detection" (quite early adoption of that technology), while A6000 had "registered faces" features. (In group of people can recognize and focus first. E.g. the bride as first, the groom at second place if previously registered in camera)
Nikon AF is to complex and to many options to choose from. Need to decide to set right one for given situation, several additional settings which may affect AF speed and accuracy. That is why I found the whole implementation complex and probably less practical and less well implemented. But my general opinion is that Nikon going somewhere and that can be very clever at the end. Now we have confirmation of that with Z9.
As I mentioned before, found very basic AF-S single point, giving different results at static object in series of shooting. I was confused at first. I guess that many errors in dynamic AF situation comes from same problem encountered in static case I mentioned above.
With Sony I never had to think about. Just shoot. But Z is my camera of choice and I am working hard to overcome some difficulties. It is easy and possible to get fantastic results which is count. Some situation is maybe better avoid yet.
By the way, congrat for hard work to make this video.
This guy is a joke
Marvelous. Thank you!
You are quite right: there are too many echo chambers!
Nikon’s DNA is “sports”, meaning do all anywhere, I know that form my F4 and it’s no different today. The Z9 will therefore be great for Pros and I’ll stick with my Z7ii….
You may want to check out Jasin Boland. He has an amazing video on capturing motocross with the z6ii. He shares his settings and I see the improvements in my keepers. Check him out when you have a chance.
Thanks for your work here, looks to me like the Z6ii is doing a pretty decent job of tracking. Great Dog by the way.
Thanks. I’m planning on a few more examples with detect people and eye detect animals.
very nice test. I used it in street photo and it is amazing. However several times the yellow box lost the face and jumped on something else. Also when you set yellow box on a face of people walking slowly, i don't understand why it can be on edge of face or on hair,... insteda of keeping face at the middle.
Thank you. Great Video. Why did you switch off VR? Is there any difference with VR? Did. you switch off live view as well?
Thanks very much. VR was off. Some implied that was somehow cheating. Not sure how that would be the case?? Live view custom setting d9 in the viewfinder was on.
Thanks for doing this - it must have taken a while. It shows that the AF is at least reasonable in good light and broad daylight. I don't have too many problems in that lighting either. My big problems is when I'm shooting fast moving events (street parades, people moving and dancing), any kind of strong back lighting at all and the wretched thing just won't focus. I've tried every kind of different setting, with tracking, no tracking, wide box, small box, eye on, eye off. It will often just hunt around, and I've lost so many shots, it's very frustrating. I only bought the Z6ii three weeks ago and am already regretting it. The images are lovely from the camera, but that's about it. In every other way my Fuji X-T3's are much better. I never lose any images because of the autofocus system (when I do, it means I pointed it at the wrong thing). The handling on the Fuji's is much faster, big knobs on top, no fumbling in menus. Unless things change soon, this Nikon is going to get listed and sold off.
I’ll try to incorporate backlighting into some future tests and you can see my results.
Something is very wrong if your Z6ii af isn’t performing as well as an xt3
@@lilnape2604 It is only when shooting into strongly backlit situations. It's as fast as the Fuji in normal shooting positions. The other thing (only at the moment), is that I am not used to the camera and all the settings and buttons. It's not burned into my muscle memory like the Fuji's are. I've been solely Fuji for a decade, so I can shoot them with my eyes closed. The Nikon is not like that, because I've only shot one gig with it and I'm still learning. However, nothing changes the fact that if the lighting gets tricky (strong back lighting, darker areas), it can't cope like my Fuji's do so easily. I'm hanging onto the Nikon for a while to see if there may be a new Firmware fix (apparently Z7 got a good one today). If they can fix it, it will be a nice camera, because the files from it are lovely. It has about 3 stops better dynamic range and high ISO, than my Fuji's. If they can't fix it, I'll sell it off and happily use my Fuji's again. I hope that explains it a bit more.
@@philipsutton2316 don’t feel discouraged. The Z cameras af system have a much longer learning curve than any other system in my opinion and can be extremely frustrating. I’ve experienced some difficulties with back light in auto area. My fix was switching to subject tracking. I have Fn1 set to toggle on/off subject tracking, fn2 to switch af modes, record button for 100% zoom which is useful for checking critical focus and manual focus, the joystick button to lock exposure and back button af-on. Wish there was a button we could map to have access to two different focus modes at once.
Great video sir!
Glad you liked it!
Z lens or FTZ? I have had my Z6ii for a few days now and very impressed with auto focus and tracking.
Z series the 70-200 f2.8 S
The question is: with a DSLR lens and FTZ adapter it focuses on one plane and then focuses on another plane?
Is there this limitation via software?
I ask, because I got a Z6ii and I still have the F-mount lenses.
It is difficult for anyone to answer these questions.
I haven't found any limitations. Check out Thom Hogan and Brad Hill they have tested this thoroughly.
Have the z6 ii
Have the a73
And yes I say the older a73 is much stickier
Eye auto focus also detects eye further away
Love my z6 ii
But it needs improvements to Match the A73
The A7r3 the a74
And canon r6
Also focus color needs to be green not red
Many out of focus
Many times on nose
No I’m not saying terrible but needs to be better. With r6 and a73/4 Just no match
With eye af you should use it Or shoot F4
Dog has long nose so eyes with no eye af get blurry
Bottom line Nikon needs to give us a firmware to improve
As rest of camera is nice
Not sure if you saw the test with Eye AF people. This one was only with the tracking box and no Animal Eye AF. I will be showing an example of Animal Eye AF soon.
You may find this interesting. www.zsystemuser.com/nikon-z-system-news-and/want-to-master-nikon-z.html?fbclid=IwAR0OlEn-3TAK4BTNTrtV9H6H2wlllOPZd3btTH4PLLEhCxTD4NqHXEd_XIs
Sticky doesn’t mean anything. That’s just an interface element. Furthermore it needs to be sticky FOR YOU! Many of us want to master our tool and not just rely on “do it for me” modes.
Nice review. Lets accept it. As a nikon user i felt nikon is not on par with sony and canon. The AF didnt work as it should have been.
Nikon mirrorless system of Eye AF or tracking AF cant trace moving animal or human, it's just terrible. Even R7 (2018) is far better than Z9 (2022).
Nikon system works best with a slowly moving object or stand still human that facing camera. Felt disappointed.
Thanks for the review, am considering to sell all nikon gears and buying R6 !
Did you check out the other eye detect videos?
Terrible? No. Behind Canon and Sony? Absolutely at least up until the Z9. I have a Z6 and updated to the newest 3.4 firmware and it's clearly behind Sony and Canon when it comes to birds. The face and eye AF is a lot better now. True that animals small in the frame aren't going to be your keepers, but it's necessary to have sticky focus when the animal is small in the frame to ensure you get the shot you want when the moment happens. It just makes life easier. Using Wide Area Small is very challenging with erratic subjects. Even with Wide Are Large it can be a struggle. Cameras are tools and some tools are just easier to use for certain jobs. Right now Sony and Canon are easier for erratic subjects. Hopefully Nikon will roll out a 2.0 update for the Z6II to improve in that area. I'm a Nikon user and will remain so, but the criticisms around AF tracking are valid and remain so even with the Z9 coming out because Sony and Canon still have $2000-2500 bodies with superior tracking.
Have you tried the focus tracking box on birds in flight as opposed to just Auto Area-AF? Have you tried various Focus Tracking Lock On settings?
Check out this very realistic test of the Z9 autofocus system with Birds in Flight. ruclips.net/video/nMY8zZlBh8M/видео.html
80% of these photos are out of focus. The focus IS on the dog, but always a few layers behind the head. I have the absolute same problem with my new z6ii. All my dog photos are unsharp on the face and focused on the back.
I wonder, why all AF tests are made during normal day light? All AF systems are ok in such conditions. Try to test at least central point in evening restaurant light on a banket and you will see all the truth about Nikon AF system, it simply helpless in compared to mirror brothers or CANON R6/5
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a restaurant in my area that would let my dog run around inside so I could that test. 😀