Need help

[riman]

Hi

I had a bad experience with my z6 11 last night shooting people at a nighttime festival.

The lighting was bad in the sense that it was dark and the main lights were in back of the people..???!! there were a few lights in front. Nevertheless, when I pushed the shutter there was an annoying delay of from one two two seconds sometimes more

Also I would try to photograph people at a food truck and the same thing happened!

This never happened with my D500.

Plus the flash Nikon sb 700 underexposed on some and over exposed on others

On the way home I stopped at a store and while my wife went inside I tried to take a photo of the store's lighted sign. Worked perfectly! No delay at all!

I cant figure it out so I am turning to the experts here. Is this just something I have to live with? Did turning it off and restarting have something to do with it? Maybe my memory of the D500 is faulty.. Maybe the light was too low and maybeI am expecting too much and my memory of the D 500 is faulty


Thanks for any help

Charlie

 

[NikonokiN]

Not an expert but I experienced the same with my Z6ii because I set custom settings a1 and a2 in focus mode. If you don’t mind getting out-of-focus shots here and there, you can change them to release mode, which enables the camera to take a shot whether the subject is in focus or not.

 

[ericbowles]

Hi

I had a bad experience with my z6 11 last night shooting people at a nighttime festival.

The lighting was bad in the sense that it was dark and the main lights were in back of the people..???!! there were a few lights in front. Nevertheless, when I pushed the shutter there was an annoying delay of from one two two seconds sometimes more

Also I would try to photograph people at a food truck and the same thing happened!

This never happened with my D500.

Plus the flash Nikon sb 700 underexposed on some and over exposed on others

On the way home I stopped at a store and while my wife went inside I tried to take a photo of the store's lighted sign. Worked perfectly! No delay at all!

I cant figure it out so I am turning to the experts here. Is this just something I have to live with? Did turning it off and restarting have something to do with it? Maybe my memory of the D500 is faulty.. Maybe the light was too low and maybeI am expecting too much and my memory of the D 500 is faulty

Thanks for any help

Charlie

It sounds like you were using AF-S in a low light environment. AF-S by default uses AF priority - meaning it won't fire if the image is out of focus. Because of the low light, you were struggling to achieve focus. This can be compounded with backlit subjects (because there is minimal contrast) or extremely out of focus targets as a starting point. It also is worse if you use a large focus area like Area AF or Wide Large.

The first time this happens it can be a surprise, but the trick is to quickly seek an alternate AF target near the same distance that has good contrast or enough light. If that does not work, you might manually focus. When you manually adjust focus the focus peaking outlines are automatically invoked and they help to accurately focus. Often once focus is acquired, the camera can use AF and maintain focus. You can use Low Light AF in such situations.

 

[PLShooter]

If you trust your Z6II to capture the image with proper exposure, set "Apply Settings to Live View" to OFF in Custom Setting Menu.

 

[riman]

I dont understand what this will do..?

 

[PLShooter]

I dont understand what this will do..?

Supposedly, AF will work faster in low light conditions due to not having to wait for camera to determine exposure. Try it.

 

[Bennvdm]

Red external Flash af assist lamp does not work with mirrorless, so makes a big difference between dslr & mirrorless in very dark settings where use flash.

Try upping your iso to get better exposure on subject. Mirrorless af is on sensor, so struggles more if subject is underexposed.

At what aperture were you shooting? Mirrorless only opens aperture to f5.6 when set above f5.6. Dslr af with lens wide open and closes down aperture with shutter release only.

Best option is properly to use a fast f1.8 or faster prime wide open or around f2.

 

[jthomas39]

Next time, you'll get more helpful comments if your title is specific. Instead of "Need Help", try something like "Z6 slow AF in low light".

~~~

Your 24-120 f/4 is good at night. My 24-200 has a much smaller aperture when zoomed at all, and it's slow at night. My 50mm f/1.8 is very fast in marginal lighting conditions where the 24-70 f/4 has to to AF.

Are you using AF-S or Af-C? Sorry, I don't have much experience with AF-C at night.

AF-S low light conditions

In AF-S, once the box turns green, it keeps that focus depth, instead of the AF-C method of updating as the subject moves. So in AF-S, a half press, focus on a brighter, high contrast point at the same distance as the subject, then recompose with the shutter half press still held on. (Or: I like using AF-On only, so that the shutter half press doesn't change the AF.)

I leave setting a11-Low light AF = ON all the time. In extremely dark conditions, it flashes up a "Low Light AF" message at the top of the display while accumulating more light to brighten the scene enough for focusing. This can take anywhere from a brief fraction of a second to a couple of seconds when it's so dark that I can't see details with my eyes. The photo exposure isn't affected, of course. This Low light AF doesn't cause any problems or slow downs when the lighting is reasonable, so I can leave the setting turned on.

I don't need to use the helpful "apply settings to live view=Off" since my night scenes are usually static, and I can wait for the Low light AF to work. I'm not tracking moving people very often.

 

[PLShooter]

Red external Flash af assist lamp does not work with mirrorless, so makes a big difference between dslr & mirrorless in very dark settings where use flash.

Try upping your iso to get better exposure on subject. Mirrorless af is on sensor, so struggles more if subject is underexposed.

At what aperture were you shooting? Mirrorless only opens aperture to f5.6 when set above f5.6. Dslr af with lens wide open and closes down aperture with shutter release only.

Best option is properly to use a fast f1.8 or faster prime wide open or around f2.

You responded to the wrong person. I am not the O.P.

 

[riman]

Well once again the great people here at DP Photo came through! Thanks to everyone for their help. The answer seem to be "Turn off apply settings to live view" I tried that and was able to say it solved the problem! Who would have thought? I was really bummed out about what happened last night and was wondering if I made the right decision..
Thanks again..to everyone..and especially to Andy who told me the solution..

 

[PLShooter]

--
"True craftsmen never blame their tools, but strive to use them properly"

 

[riman]

Damn I told my wife never to show my picture!!

 

[Bennvdm]

Apply settings to liveview should be disabled automatically when you turn on your flash or flash trigger.
With it on, view finder can be completely dark when using studio settings as liveview only shows ambient exposure. It cannot preview what the flash will add to the scene. I switch by turning trigger or flash off and on again.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4413146

Maybe check whether your flash is on the latest firmware.