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- Andrew
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Well I had my Z9 now for about a month, and it's the beast everyone says it was. The AF tracking is light years ahead of my Z6 II and Z7 II, but (and here's the controversial bit), If pushed, I have to say the subject tracking (birds, Dogs and animals in general), I've finding slightly better on my Olympus OM-1 - there I said it and am prepared to be flamed and shot down.
Now in the Z9's defence, I've only had it a month so perhaps more use will yield better results, and I have been using it with an adapted lens (the 500mm PF which is obviously an F5.6), whereas on the Olympus I've been using the 300mm F4 almost exclusively. What I'm finding is with birds in particular, they have to be relatively large in the frame (at least compared to the OM-1), before the Z9 recognises it as a bird, draws a box around it and tracks it, whereas the OM-1 pretty much nails a bird instantly and tracks it almost perfectly even at a distance.
I know the Z9 has many MANY other strengths over the OM-1 (resolution, High ISO, Video performance etc to name a few), but TBH I was expecting more, and expected it to best the OM-1 in pretty much every AF test. I've tried in both Wide area medium and large (with subject tracking on), as well as 3D. The Z9 isn't bad of course but when I check the images on the computer I can see that a fair percentage are just a smidge out of focus and the object (bird) is ever so slightly soft, whereas the OM-1 nails almost 95% of the images tack sharp. I don't think the lens need AF tuning as when shooting static birds on a stick, the 500 PF nails them every time.
So question for all you Z9 birders out there, is there a secret sauce, or do Z mount native lenses just work better (either the Z primes or the 100-400 for example) ?
Now in the Z9's defence, I've only had it a month so perhaps more use will yield better results, and I have been using it with an adapted lens (the 500mm PF which is obviously an F5.6), whereas on the Olympus I've been using the 300mm F4 almost exclusively. What I'm finding is with birds in particular, they have to be relatively large in the frame (at least compared to the OM-1), before the Z9 recognises it as a bird, draws a box around it and tracks it, whereas the OM-1 pretty much nails a bird instantly and tracks it almost perfectly even at a distance.
I know the Z9 has many MANY other strengths over the OM-1 (resolution, High ISO, Video performance etc to name a few), but TBH I was expecting more, and expected it to best the OM-1 in pretty much every AF test. I've tried in both Wide area medium and large (with subject tracking on), as well as 3D. The Z9 isn't bad of course but when I check the images on the computer I can see that a fair percentage are just a smidge out of focus and the object (bird) is ever so slightly soft, whereas the OM-1 nails almost 95% of the images tack sharp. I don't think the lens need AF tuning as when shooting static birds on a stick, the 500 PF nails them every time.
So question for all you Z9 birders out there, is there a secret sauce, or do Z mount native lenses just work better (either the Z primes or the 100-400 for example) ?