Z6 af

Martinfont · Mar 5, 2022

Hi, I'm new in this forum. I recently bought the z6 and my experience with it was atrocious. I was in a pub with low light and the af tried to focus for like 10 seconds with every picture I took. Many times I just got tired and didn't take the photo of the people that asked me couse It was taking too long or taking the picture with no focus at all. I tried several af configurations, face detection, one point, all the boxes sizes, continuous, single, with no luck. In day light is a lot better, but is still horse **** compared with the worst DSLR you can imagine.

NS: Nikon Shooter · Mar 5, 2022

Martinfont said:
I was in a pub with low light and the af tried to focus for like 10 seconds with every picture I took. In day light is a lot better, but is still horse **** compared with the worst DSLR you can imagine.

I am not a mirrorless fan but AF is AF and it works best
when targeting an area offering some contrast.

Some years back, it was supported with red light beam.

Rickbb · Mar 5, 2022

You can always turn AF off and go old school manual focus. Just saying.

Strodav · Mar 5, 2022

The Z6 is a fine camera and it's hard to tell what went wrong at that place and time from your description. The camera has a range of -6 to 19 Ev with low light AF, which is a pretty good range. The maximum aperture of your lens has a lot to do with how well the camera will focus in low light. I usually take an f/1.8 or f/1.4 prime for those situations. That allows the maximum amount of light to get to the sensor. When all else fails, there's manual focus. What ISO were you set at? Did you get any good photos at all? Can you post 1 or 2?

Martinfont · Mar 5, 2022

Strodav said:
The Z6 is a fine camera and it's hard to tell what went wrong at that place and time from your description. The camera has a range of -6 to 19 Ev with low light AF, which is a pretty good range. The maximum aperture of your lens has a lot to do with how well the camera will focus in low light. I usually take an f/1.8 or f/1.4 prime for those situations. That allows the maximum amount of light to get to the sensor. When all else fails, there's manual focus. What ISO were you set at? Did you get any good photos at all? Can you post 1 or 2?

I have the 24-70 2,8f z, I try to shoot iso 2500 max. In situations where without flash I have to set the camera to 1/100 iso4000 2,8 it struggles a lot. Yeah, I took 400 photos that day and 250 were on focus, but those 250 took a lot more time than they should. And this isn't a one time thing, it happens every time I use it. Today I was in plain day light and the face recognition jumped slot, the one point af didn't do as well neither.

adamhiram · Mar 5, 2022

For starters, definitely make sure you have the latest firmware; Nikon released an update for the first gen Z6 that I've heard was a game changer.

I've had both the Z6 and Z6II, and for me it came down to understanding how each focus mode worked and what the limitations of each were. The AI modes, like face and eye detect and subject tracking, really seem to struggle in low light. If I don't have modeling lights on in a studio setting, it can't find faces and will lock onto the corner of a softbox. A solid understanding of to use these modes and when they won't work well is critical. I have found that in low light situations, sticking with traditional AF modes that are found on a DSLR is pretty reliable.

Also, try bumping up your ISO a bit more for these situations. I prefer to keep my ISO lower, but the Z6/II can create pretty clean images at 3200, and even quite usable at 6400. I've even shot at 12800 a few times and could live with those results, although I wouldn't recommend it.

Peeb · Mar 5, 2022

What AF mode were you using?

Dave Maciak · Apr 21, 2022

Peeb said:
What AF mode were you using?

Martinfont said:
Hi, I'm new in this forum. I recently bought the z6 and my experience with it was atrocious. I was in a pub with low light and the af tried to focus for like 10 seconds with every picture I took. Many times I just got tired and didn't take the photo of the people that asked me couse It was taking too long or taking the picture with no focus at all. I tried several af configurations, face detection, one point, all the boxes sizes, continuous, single, with no luck. In day light is a lot better, but is still horse **** compared with the worst DSLR you can imagine.

Remove the battery, reinstall battery, go to factory settings (reset) . Probably the lens not the camera but it's worth a try. Then, and I should have said first-- remove the lens, operate the focusing ring--if it's a zoom operate the zoom mechanism--both slowly so you can feel any resistance or irregularities. Worse, you hear something!