Very informative, love that you point out strengths in the different systems, so many influencers seem to just trash something rather than learn how it works.
Right on Steve. If camera manufacturers would listen to those "influencers" then all camera brands would make the very same camera. Instead of bashing systems, people should read the manual and try to understand the way a particular tool works. This is what I love about Omar, he embraces a tool, no matter what brand, and tries to find how it works for him. And I love his humor too :-)
I think your issue is one of the issues that most people (and critics) have had with Nikon's system. Instead of learning what works best for the camera. They instead want it to work like this other brand or that other brand. Subject tracking has been on the Nikon's from day one because it was supposed to replace the 3-D focus tracking that existed on the DSLRs. But in the early days, it didn't work nearly as good as it does now. The firmware updates and new tech have made it much more reliable than it used to be. And you don't even have to focus and recompose. You can use the joystick to move the focus point around like all of the other cameras. I just wish the focus box was a little bit smaller. And I wish you could change the size of the Wide are Area AF box like you can on Fuji and Panasonic. Great job Omar!
I agree. I think most naysayers just do not try to get to know the camera. I like the Idea of a smaller box and an adjustable wide-area AF. Both would be nice.
@@youknowwho9247 I’m convinced you still shoot with a Canon Rebel T3i. Cause there is no way you have used any of modern mirrorless cameras and can say confidence that “neither of those things is necessary if you are a Canon or Sony shooter”. I just shot with a Sony A7RIV a few weeks ago and had to use the single focus point while shooting a model to make sure it grabbed focus on the face and not the body. The words I speak come from my own personal experience, not repeating what I see on these 10 min YT videos from YT’ers who don’t know who to read the instruction manual..
Great video. Many RU-vidrs are influencers who talk about camera specs. This is an actual photographer talking about how to get the best out of his camera.
Totally agree, I feel Nikon is that brand that you can't see what's so great until you actually use the camera, because it doesn't dominate with specs, although Nikon did really step up their game the last few years. So this guy actually didn't just look at the specs and went, ehh, nahhhh Sony shoots 500fps and Canon something something, and actually tested it and looked at the files and then realized it's a great tool for him to get his desired results. I feel Nikon is on top when it comes to image quality and overall file output like he said the files are super nice to work with, also ergonomics, durability (that's why most wildlife and hard core nature photographers shoot Nikon) and then ironically practicality. This one I'm not sure about but I've heard many people say that Nikons are just really easy to set up and then use generally. I don't really know how to explain it but yes. As I said I don't have personal experience to back this one up. Oh and Nikon glass is the reason many people chose Nikon, very very good glass and glass with slight character to it unlike some of the other lenses that is just so "perfect".
Exactly! I just had this argument with someone him claiming the AF tracking on the Z5 is worthless, mainly from what he heard on YT from Sony shooting Nikon bashers. Obviously this person never used a Z camera because my Z5 works wonderfully like Omar demonstrated. Not only are Popular YT Nikon haters hurting possible Nikon sales but so are those that believe them, the mis-information is out of control.
@@artsilva Mine too. Z5 is highly regarded camera. People are often superficial (hope this is good word), the rest is mean or biased to other brand. I have to get used to my cell phone whenever get new one, or same when change my car. It is the same with camera.
@@youknowwho9247 You're lying, What NPS photographer would risk their membership by going online and bashing the gear he is privileged to access as well as bragging of preferring Sony and Canon? Your whole argument is very suspect sounding so you know.
Hey Omar - This is exactly what I have been doing from day one with Z6ii. Couple of points. When you have the center subject tracking box (white), you can actually move this all over the screen by using that little joystick. Also, when it is in tracking mode (Yellow), you can get back to center subject tracking (white) box by just pressing the Ok button. This is how I am handling the autofocus with my Z6ii.
Been really great seeing your transition to shooting more of the Nikon over time. The multitude of videos over a longer period of time paints a much more detailed picture of your decision process as opposed to a simple “I left X for Y” video can/would.
I literally have my Z6 set up the exact same way. When I found out about it, I had a hard time switching back to any other focus modes. Glad you mad a video about this to Nikon shooters who don’t know about it.
In 2019, when I had the Z6, it was not like that. This came with a firmware update. One of the reasons why mirrorless Nikon AF have bad reputation. Because reviewers tried the old version and all they had was the slow operation of switching between all AF points to a single one every time.
I shoot sports and this is exactly how I have the z6ii set up. I configure the FN2 button for Subject tracking while I'm in wide area eye detect and I can toggle back and forth. It works great. It took me a while to get used to it though. Especially because I still use a D5 with a 400 2.8 on single focus while the z6ii with a 70-200 is on Subject tracking AF. So I'm mixing both worlds. 😀
Subject tracking has been spectacular for me. That is what I thought about the rest of the youtube videos. Why didn't they change to subject tracking? They kept saying they lost focus. Didn't they move their thumb to get focus? Anyways, always love your videos.
Re: focus confirmation: there is negative confirmation in AF-C where the box will blink when the camera cannot find something to lock on. But yeah I still think it's better to show positive confirmation, and as a bonus point also show which AF point is active in dynamic/wide modes.
Thanks. Really, really excellent video. I’m thinking about jumping back to Nikon from Sony for colour quality and was concerned about all the bad press on the autofocus. I expect it’ll be fine once I could quickly take control back if I didn’t like what the “intelligent” autofocus was doing (which is required no matter how smart the autofocus is). I now have confidence that it would work.
I’m using custom modes for this issue. Both M1 and M2 have the exact same settings but with M1 I have eye detection on with wide area focus, on M2 I have eye detection off and center point AF. So I just have to switch between these modes, for me it’s much simpler but it takes a little bit of practice to do it fast.
A couple things here, maybe I missed it. You can exit the tracking mode by just pressing the function button you have set to activate it on the front again, and it'll put you in your previous AF mode. Also, if you go into Custom Settings Menu -> Auto Focus -> a7 Limit AF-area mode selection, you can remove what AF modes you can scroll through with your custom record button. I only use single point or AF with tracking for humans or animals, so instead of like 7 or 8 different modes, there is only 3 but in your i menu you still have access to all of them.
@@ogonzilla Well yes you can turn off animal if you want, but what I'm saying is you can set the dial to only have 2 or 3 options so it's not scrolling through so many. And pressing the fnc1 button again will go cancel the box and go back to whatever your AF was.
@@RiposteThis incorrect. Pressing the function button will bring you back to WIDE only (with face). But I get what you are saying. I covered limiting AF in another video. Thanks!!
I've done this. I have it limited to three: single point and wide small and wide large, so it's basically like Fuji with different sized boxes. But I'm not using eye or tracking. I need to experiment more with those.
We I accidentally found it - The tracking mode was such a pleasant surprise. Strange how all those youtube Nikon AF bashers never seem to mention it...
I recently bought a Nikon Z6ii and updated the firmware. Some You Tubers suggested programming the Function 1 button to activate the subject tracking mode. Trying to change this, as demonstrated, in the control menu f2, the subject tracking mode isn't a choice. What am I overlooking, or did that option change with the firmware update?
Thank you for making this video and telling to people that they have to find out the perfect way when working with different systems, not just doing nothing but complain about it!
With lenses like the 24-70 and 70-2002.8z you can set the Lens L-Fn buttons to do this very thing. Have camera in auto area then press the button on the lens barrel and instantly have the subject tracking box. Use this method on my z50. Set it up through the assign button menu in camera.
Thank you. Really good to see how different photographers adapt and use features to make things easier to remember. You've got me rethinking how I use the various focus modes. I plan to put your idea into practice and also remap my FN1, FN2 buttons as well.
Personally 95% of the time I just shoot in wide-L with either human/animal eye AF activated on my Z6II. This gives me pretty good control over which face it will pick on and also works decently on objects. For the other 5% where the camera isn't picking up the eye or I need to focus on something smaller I switch over to dynamic or single point. This has served me quite well so far. I just hope Nikon in the future firmware will decouple AF area size from eye AF and subject tracking. For me the best system would be allowing me to select any sizes like the Fujifilm (or at least give me a wide-XL which is like double or triple the size of wide-L which is very useful for tracking erratic moving subjects). Then I should be able to choose if I want human/animal eye AF inside that or engage subject tracking from any mode independently from the size of the area.
"Genius" is definitely not the word that comes to mind. With Sony you just keep it in eye AF continuous tracking all the time--no buttons to push or wheels to turn. Switching between people and objects is never a problem with every camera they released since the A7Riv--just do a half press and it tracks whatever you point the camera at. And Sony makes Nikon's sensors.
Great job of explaining the differences in af systems. Nikon Z af system is a bit quirky but is extremely capable once you get familiarity. I use the Fn1 for subject tracking like you. Record button to zoom 100% when I want to check focus and Fn2 to change af modes.
On Z6/Z7 II you can use eye AF in large box mode and move the box off of a face to select another subject. See this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SzCOv1q-wio.html . Moreover you can hide unused AF mode in settings (A7) so it is faster to switch between AF modes. Finally for AF-C confirmation, set the AF-C Priority selection to Focus (A1), and just trust the camera. The reason (I think) Nikon does not display confirmation is because half-press is not when it locks focus (subject can move between half-press and full-press). So just trust the camera. It is very reliable.
@@youknowwho9247 AF-S wont help there either, in fact it will guarantee missed focus. With AF-C there is at least a chance (actually very high probability) of camera finding the eye.
To each their own, but I prefer to have my back button set to lock and my "ok" button set to switch between eye and single point. This way I can quickly hit "ok" to engage the single point and then move the box with my thumb using the direction pad. Otherwise if your box doesn't hit where you want you're constantly doing the focus/recompose. Especially frustrating with couples coming down the aisle at a wedding and wanting to quickly move the focus while simultaneously shooting.
I am happy that I was one of the very first subscribers to your channel and see it grow over time. Keep up what you do!! You are doing a great job talking about photography and not just about specs. Specs are important, but the photographer is more important.
A very cool setup tip. I do have tracking setup to my F2 button but hadn’t used much as I have a habit of the center point and recompose. A habit from previous systems. One thing I have been loving about my Z6 II is the configurability is so very flexible.
I think it's interesting that all the major manufacturers have made a way to bounce between eye/face AF and conventional. But they all make it difficult to find or set up rather than an integrated behavior. FWIW, on Canon R5/6, the best solution I've found is one button set to BBF and one to EYE-AF. Pick the one you want when you want.
Hi Omar, it is very similar to the 3D tracking on the Nikon DSLR. I use it a lot in portraits. I stay in AF-C with 3D tracking. I lock the eye and recompose and the camera will continue to focus on the eye.
You know, you can disable focus modes so they don't appear in the menu and set that to CUSTOM mode. You can have those two modes you use and that's it.
Love all your stuff! My favorite is that you show your work! Lots of people are gear heads and not artists, so they are good for making reviews and even good photographers, but I'm about images and yours are dope!
I love the wide L box. It’s small enough to pick the person I want (especially at the alter where my Sony ALWAYS focuses on the the officiant). But big enough to where I’m not moving around a single point as much and still get the eye af. My only beef with subject tracking is that box is too big most of the time at any further distance. Wish you can change the size of it like a s,m,l, option or like Fuji AF points. If they firmware that then will be golden.
You need one more button on that camera. Canon's R5 and R6 have a "*" button next to the AF-on button. What a lot of users do, including myself, is set the camera for eye AF. Then, program one of those buttons for eye AF and the other for single point AF. That way, if shooting an object or if eye AF is problematic for some reason, I can use the other button for single-point AF with no faff at all. Faff. That means fuss or bother. I'm watching way too many British photographers' channels. Anyway... Canon's higher-end DSLRs also have an * button so, even with eye AF not available I can assign one button for single point AF and another for grid or multi-point AF, or whatever.
Hi As usual good and precise video. Got 3 Questions. Q1) Does the Autofocus works in 120 frames Slow motion? Q2) Does the Eye Autofocus works in 120 Frames Slow motion? Q3) Does Audio Recording works in 120 frames Slow motion? Thanks Regards NM
thank you for the video...but....single point as always and recompose....so many butons to press....and the single has so many non focus problems....its not the same like old dslrs ..pity nikon ..
Okay… let‘s start this. You don’t need to set your record button to switch focus modes. Try this… if u r holding the camera u will feel 2 buttons. F1 and F2. right next to your Ring and middle Finger. Just hold one of them down and then turn the shutter wheel (with your thumb). Hold the same button down und turn the “f stop wheel” (with your pointer/forefinger) afterwards. With that u can switch between all focus modes and and focus area sizes. If you hold the other button down (F2) you can switch between all white balance Settings. In short: F1 - thumb / pointer = Focus F2 - thumb/pointer = white balance That’s by default. 4 fingers on your right hand is all you need to control Z-series Cameras.
You are so refreshing , you make videos by including what is perceived by other "influencers" as a knock on a produck such as Nikon Z cameras without finding solutions before condemning it , Thank you for your great insights and knowledge
unwanted focus modes can be switched off with custom menu a7 (a8 on Z6), that way you can have just single point or auto with eye detect with a single turn of the dial.
Hello. Thanks for your video. I bought my Nikon z6ii a few days ago and I'm trying to figure out the settings. Could you please record a video with step-by-step instructions for this setup.
Thanks for the info. Still got my z6 but I had to disable those function buttons on front as my sausage fingers seem to always activate them even though I wasn’t actually pressing on them.
Interesting. I'm waiting for delivery of my Z6II, but as a long time Nikon shooter I was surprised to learn there was no confirmation of focus. In my D850/D500/D750/D700, the focus square doesn't change colors, but there is a dot in the lower left corner of the viewfinder that comes on when focus is acquired. Granted, the box going green -- like it does in liveview mode --- is better.
By the way you can get your button back that you customized. all you have to do for the "secret mode" is press the ok button then it will put the box on the screen and you can move it to where you want it and press ok again. tadaaaaaaa
Great review, thank you so much. I am on the way to get a second body to my D800E and with that I will use video of course. Thanks to your and other Informations on the net, I think the better way is to go to the Z6II version directly. The Z6II is generally better for video as its bigger sister, because of no line skipping. The Image quality in 24 MP, ist extraordinary and proves, that for a lot of purposes you do not need 45 MP. Greetings from DUS, Dusseldorf, Germany
Finally Omar, thnx a lot, I was having some troublefiguring Nikon's autofocus as I´m coming from Fuji which I by the way still have but now this is just genius, thnx a lot.
IDK bro that's a lot of work to focus on something other than an eye 👀. I used to love using my Nikon DSLRs on single focus point. Sony eye autofocus blew my mind. I waited for the Z6. (I really did) I tried it and said F that! Got an A73 and sold 90% of my Nikon gear. Kept D700 with 85mm1.8 and 50mm1.4. I take that badboy out for family when I wanna challenge myself lol
Great video, Omar! I couldn’t agree more with your strategy and the results that follow! While I’ve been using these settings for about 2 years now, this teaching presents it better than anyone I’ve heard, and certainly better than I ever could. With compassion, humor and sense of discovery. That’s why I’ve linked to this video 13 times so far on FB! Only on Z6ii message forums where the original poster is struggling/frustrated. I’ll probably link to it twice as many times in 2022 since the issue appears to be the top concern of Z camera users (pre-Z9). Hopefully, people will come here become regular subscribers to your quality channel.
This AF mode is from Nikon Compact Digital camera, 20 years back or F5 and F100 film camera. Nikon film camera autofocus system was slow compared to other makers, just because the lenses are too many. But Nikon has been a military optical maker. There is no Canon or Sony rangefinder or something like that. Nikon does not have to come up with an eye detection mechanism but lock the target. If you recall the Nikon binocular measuring the distance to the object in 0.1 seconds, it is relatively easy.
Oohhhm thank you man! That was the most frustrating thing about my Nikon Z5 camera I've had and I was intending of selling it soon because of that.... I will try this new way now :D
For me as a Z6 user it's dumb. This mode is good for from-portrait-to-stills but what about different direction, from-stills-to-portrait? No quick Fn button option. You have to multi-click it to switch it. For example Z6 could start with square available on start-up, then Fn will deactivate it. What to do?
Long time event shooter here... Nikon does not separate face & eye detection from the basic AF modes. Rather, face & eye is linked to only two AF modes, and when the camera can't find a face or eyes it defaults to one of these two choices: Wide-area AF (a large-ish rectangle) which is too large to be precise, or Auto-area AF which means the camera just chooses what it wants to focus on (which is usually the wrong thing). Yes, you have the option of Tracking AF in Auto-area AF, but my vote is for "convoluted" and "terrible". Olympus does the opposite and separates face & eye detection from whatever AF mode you choose. You can activate or turn off face & eye regardless of what AF point pattern you would otherwise use. This makes a LOT more sense to me, and seems to be similar to Fuji and Sony. All Nikon has to do is separate fece & eye detection from the AF modes like literally every other camera maker. Again, I have to wonder if Nikon engineers actually use the products they make.
As I do a lot of people photography I am going to set my Z6II up the same way, I have had it for just a day and was wondering what would work best, seen a load of videos but this looks really good. Can't wait to get this camera set up and all my AF-S lenses dialed in.
I keep hearing rave reviews about Nikon Z6II imagery. I have an a7iii. Do you prefer the a7iii or the Nikon Z6 II imagery for photos and video ? If it's the Z6 II, is the convoluted focusing worth the better imagery?
Hi omar I am considering buying the z6 to replace my x-pro3. I have read the manual and have some questions: - in order to change to mode dial on the z6 you have to press the lock and then turn it. Is this the same on the z6 ii or is a lock / unlock mechanism like the x-t2 (click once to unlcok, click another time to lock)? - I noticed you can choose to not show some AF options, I am thinking of making a custom mode in which only single AF point and Wide area are shown, this should make switching between these alot faster. Have you tried this? - As follow up on my second point: i also read in the manual you can choose to only press the fn1 once and then turn the dial to change it, instead of keeping the button pressed (this should also work for iso, WB etc) Have you tried this? It seems more easyt to me? Thank you in advance!
Interesting. Love the way you explain it and make comparison between the different camera systems. Whatever the focus system, same thing. Love the color renditon of Nikon. And thats the reason for sticking to it for decades.
Sir, I try assign this subject tracking on fn2 button. But when i press it, nothing showed up. Same thing in fn1 . When i assign any other feature. These button works just fine. Please help sir.
Every time the youtube algorithm offers me one of your videos, I tell myself hey, we're going to have a good laugh, and in the end we laugh well but we also learn a lot of things
Oye Omar, can I request a deeper comparison for how the Nikon and Fujifilm files look the same? You mentioned it in passing the other day, and I thought it was really cool, since we get a little caught up in colour science and brand sometimes. I really like your Nikon files and I'd like to be able to get my Fujifilm cameras there too. ✌️
5 месяцев назад
And another funcion button can be set to zoom🔍, that helps to check the focus on the tracking area.👁
Nice and informative...just a shame we have to listen to the same criticisms against the Z system, over and over again. I, along with thousands of other Nikon Z shooters, get very pleasing results and no doubt, many of these people sell plenty of their images....so the system clearly does work, just not exactly the same as all the other systems....but that would be boring surely?! 😴
Pull out your d700 and turn on 3d tracking. Nikon had this tracking business figured out a decade ago, they just got it mixed up trying to follow sony when they went to mirrorless. and between the 2 levers you could chose any focus mode without confusion. My d4s will subject track, and if the box is happen to be on a face, it will focus on the face. Nikon should just leave it like that and put the eye tracking inside the subject tracking box. If the box is happen to be on a face eye tracking takes over.
Gday Omar, I know on the d850 and d5 you can set a focus mode for the joystick as well as the AF button. maybe set the AF button to face detect and when you press the joystick to single point which will overide face detect. hope this helps.
While this is a workaround it's actually cumbersome in a fast action scenario. Nikon needs to find a way to help its shooters press less button while autofocusing. First, the square space is so big that it can't nail precisely in some case, also the lag in current lineup of Nikon cameras also is a huge problem in this setting. I shoot events and portraits for mostly people of colors and having extensively tried all af settings, the only one I can trust in my situation is afs single.
The Z6 II is such an odd camera for me the images it gets are great but the focusing and custom menus are atrocious. I tried the subject tracking method you said when I first got it but the box is so big that if I shoot something like a gig it will focus on the thing closest like the mic so the singers face is out of focus (the tacking is terrible for losing things so easily too but thats another thing entirely). So I tried Eye AF but it cant see faces because of the mic or the lights mess with it so again no good. So I'm out of ideas and back to single point focus like when I used on a DSLR. Its far too slow to switch between any of the modes. On my A7 I can set any button to anything I'd like but Nikon doesn't. It will only let you set certain buttons to select choice of things but I dont get why. A couple other things I was amazed at, at a wedding when I tried to shoot eye AF it struggled to finds the eye on the stationary bride looking at the camera. It was slow and kept finding eyes in her dress and other things on subjects so again back to single point. Also I would love for someone to explain this one, if you turn on the grid instead of being in thirds (rule of thirds and all that) like all my other cameras, its in quarters with no option to change it. Why quarters even my phone is in thirds?
Can't you use thee U1, U2 and U3 selections to config it the way you want in those several situations ? and for the confirmation, can't you use Focus Peaking ?
Youre a fantastic photographer, you are able to capture what most others cannot: spirit. Your photos have an energy about them that feels timeless and elegant. You are definitely a photographer artist!
its so dumb that in continuous mode it doesn't confirm when it hits focus. i love this semi automatic for video, cause i can focus when i want to, to wherever in my frame (by moving the focus box), and i can use all the detail setting how fast it should focus blabla which is super important in video - but i just never know if it really has the focus. why not just make it change the color nikon and have all our lives be so much easier...
Sounds pretty stupid to be honest. Hidden "features" that should be pretty explicit or simple to use seems like bad design. The images do look gorgeous but they are no better than Canon or Sony. I use Canon myself and the autofocus is great. Much easier to use than all this nonsense. Nikon is way behind the times in this regard. Ease of use is king in time sensitive environments.
Maybe it’s because I’m a Nikon fanboy but since I’m used to the Nikon system, all the other systems seem strange to me. Kind of like driving on the other side of the road.
Surely you can map the face detection to the back button, and the toggle to single point? On my d500 I have af on set to single point and the toggle set to group focus so I can switch between the 2
Hi , thank you so much Question that I have for taking family portrait with kids in afternoon around 5 0r 6 is it better use speed light or doesn’t need?
Eye only works in box? Not accurate. I use AFS Auto AF (eye - this puts eye AF all the time). I have programmed Fn2 to be my subject tracking. So, a click away I go to center subject tracking. But you can also use the "ok" button to activate and the neg button to get out of there. But I like the Fn2 for this. On my vertical grip the Fn button is used for this same feature.
@@ogonzilla I am not confused at all. You said, "Now in the Nikon Z6ii eye auto focused only works in a wide zone (redbox)" 04:24 to 4:37, this is simply not 100%. Eye auto focus also works in Auto AF mode which does not require the wide zone box. In 7:44 you go on to explain further. If I were a new shopper looking at Nikon, Sony and Canon and only watched the first 5 minutes, I would think that Nikon's AF is very limiting, and it's not. It is however, different than everyone else. This is a good video, but may have already lost ppl to other systems. I have been shooting Nikon for 26 years, and since the D3, D700, D300, I agree that the files are very film like and the best in the industry.
@@reneefariasphoto40 I will try that...I shoot with nikon since d300 ...always directly in jpg..because of the image quality. for my work , I don't need raw at all.
