Just a reminder: all images shown are from a pre-production Z9. Today's photos are all with the Z9 and the 500mm f/5.6 PF.
So, one of the key settings it's taken me a bit of time to find and try to figure out is Custom Setting #A7, Focus point persistence. This badly named function is actually a slightly better but more complicated variation of what we do with AF-ON+AF Area mode.
The way it works is this: Your normal AF-area mode works until you press and hold a button that has been assigned another AF-area mode (which was assigned with Custom Setting #F2). This gets us into three-finger control (back button focus is two-finger control), but if you get your camera holding settled so that one of the Fn1 to Fn3 buttons is handy, it's a little improvement. The thing I couldn't figure out at first is what Auto and Off meant for Focus point persistence. Auto means that the camera continues to use the focus point that was selected previously by your default AF-area mode. Off means that the camera switches to the default point for the alternate AF-area mode, which is typically the center position.
This is the way you want to use 3D tracking with birds, I think. Let Auto-area AF find the bird, flip to 3D tracking. This is going to take far more testing to see what situations and what two focus modes I want to be moving between. Now all that's missing is one additional capability: I want a focus mode toggle button. But I want it with Focus point persistence. Note my use of the word "toggle". Nikon is still thinking that we want temporary override, and that's how AF-ON+AF Area mode and assigning AF-area mode to a button are currently configured. But sometimes I just want to switch and not have to keep a finger on a button.
In other words, there are times when I want to completely flip the focus behavior with a single button press, other times when I want to temporarily switch with a button press. Having the latter (with two options) is not quite doing it for me, but I can live with it.
So why is it important to be able to switch fast? Birds in Flight (BIF, e.g. above) is a good example. I don't think you want to start with the camera in 3D tracking with BIF. Why not? Because you have to get the focus sensor on the bird to start the tracking. Birds were coming at me from all angles and at fast speeds. Getting the box positioned on the bird to start tracking is slow, because it involves my reaction and control speed. Much better to let the camera find and acquire the bird in Auto-area AF, which the Z9 does reliably and fast, then switch to 3D tracking (with Focus point persistence at Auto so that 3D tracking inherits the focus point!).
Okay, enough birds (I'm not a birder, so you're going to get as many mammals from me as birds ;~).
After a short torrential storm we just hunkered down for, we found the lions at a zebra kill.
So it was time to photograph wet lions!
Now normally after lions have made a kill and stuffed themselves, the plan is: (1) get some water, (2) nap. That's the lion's plan, not mine, just to be clear.
Not these lions. The rain had cooled things down enough that the lions decided it was play time. Can the Z9 keep the focus with multiple lions running helter skelter?
The answer would be yes.
New Animals: tortoise, more bird species
Tortoise: Much like the hippo, the Z9 detects the half round shape as something that’s probably the subject, but no, it wasn’t recognizing the face.
