Diving with Nikon Z9?

[phxazcraig 114]

I've got a Nauticam housing on order for my Z9.  I'm wondering which AF settings work, and which ones don't, for free-swimming fish.  Do any of the subject detection modes reliably work for fish?  Or is it just stick with 3d-tracking?

[nomadadv 5]

it stick with 3 tracking for macros i would also use single point af i guess it all comes down to what lens you are using and what kind of shot you are going for! I am very interested in the how perfoms the z9 especially for video so please keep posting !

 

[phxazcraig 114]

As it happened I didn't get into video more than superficially.  I had a lot to learn with the Z9 underwater, and on top of new camera I was also trying a new wetsuit and new fins.  (My old fins were from 2006.  Big change.)   Along with some struggles and a lot of poor sunshine, I ended up not starting to learn video before the last 3 days or so.   My comparison is to the D850.  I'm not even a beginner yet with video.

The Z9 allowed me to actually use autofocus during video, so there was a huge advantage.  I can say that functionally that seemed the biggest difference, aside of course from massively better video specs.  I didn't try to do more than 4k 60p.  The white balance issues from the D850 seemed to continue with preset WB failing at about 50 feet with photos.  But I accidentally discovered that you could WB a bit lower in video - not much, but some.   And someone else did a bit of investigation and said that WB between stills and video modes is different.  Video allows hue adjustments, but not stills.   But this was also with firmware 2.1.

For stills, I did a lot of shooting with both 14-30s and 105s.   I ended up doing mostly 3D tracking, with a couple of attempts at subject detection in wide area to see if it would pick up on fish or eels.  (It didn't).  Shots are here: https://www.cjcphoto.net/roatan2022/index.html

I did a write up here of my thoughts right after the diving.

[phxazcraig 114]

I've now added 16 dives in Truk to the Z9's list.   I shot all wide angle with the 14-30, S&S IRC, and 230mm dome port.   Mostly at F8 and ISO 500. I used 3d tracking exclusively, and it was never an issue to get it to work.  It's like the D850, except it doesn't feel like a D850 if that makes sense.  Anyway, AF was quite reliable when I did my job.  A few times it missed focus, and I must have tripped the shutter before AF finished.  Mostly it stayed right where I wanted, even with focus-and-recompose.   There were times when I got close to a large anemone and could drop the ISO to 64 - the results were gorgeous.  Zooming in one one at 100% immediately showed a circle of 6 Pedersen Cleaning Shrimp in the anemone.  The 14-30 at times was beautiful from edge to edge, and at other times seemed smeared in the corners.  I think, at the wider focal lengths, the out-of-focus plane in front (of the focus plane, nearest to camera) seems particularly bad, which means I probably need to change my focus point closer.  It's a better lens if you don't have anything in the first 3 feet of you when focusing on a wall 10 feet away. 

One thing I made much more use of was changing ISO.   Particularly going inside the wrecks I needed to boost ISO (to 1000), and back outside I was blowing highlights at 500.  With the 3.01 firmware I was able to remap the ISO button to Fn4 so it was right under my left thumb.   Made it far easier to change than reaching over the camera with my left to spin a dial while my right was holding the ISO key down at the same time.

In post-processing the images, I'm seeing essentially D850 images.  They are stunning at ISO 64, but it's easy to blow white highlights at ISO 500.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ChrisRoss 150]

24 minutes ago, phxazcraig said:

 I think, at the wider focal lengths, the out-of-focus plane in front (of the focus plane, nearest to camera) seems particularly bad, which means I probably need to change my focus point closer.  It's a better lens if you don't have anything in the first 3 feet of you when focusing on a wall 10 feet away. 

 

This is fairly typical for all lenses apart from in macro shooting but potentially more noticeable for UW wide angle shots, it's basically because of the total depth of field you have available 1/3 is in front of the the focus point and 2/3 is behind the focus point, so you need to somewhere on the nearer objects to get them included in the depth of field.  This is also true for wide angle shots on land for example the classic technique of getting in very close to a foreground subject with the scene behind it it - you need to focus somewhere in the foreground to get everything in focus. 

You don't want to focus on the nearest element as DOF is wasted in open water in front of the that element, but somewhere close to the nearest point.Shooting at f8 of course makes getting this right more critical.