Photo notebook

I’ve been avoiding capturing birds in flight and my lack of practice cost me a chance to capture a Kārearea today.

While leaving Zealandia I heard the Kārearea overheard, and sure enough there it was. My attempts to capture it were thwarted by several mistakes in my technique:

1. Shutter speed was not fast enough, I was using 1/320.
2. Focus was initially set to single point instead of wide area or auto-area AF.
3. Exposure mode was centre weighted instead of matrix.
4. I should have taken a few moments and attempted to manual focus
5. I also should have zoomed out a little to make tracking easier

I switched to Auto-Area AF and continued to get mixed results, but certainly better. Some were out of focus, a lot would have benefited from a higher shutter speed had I thought to do that.

Today while shooting at Zealandia there were several brief instances where I could not acquire focus when it seemed the conditions, while challenging, should have allowed it.

The first occurrence was when the battery was low. After that I suspected it could have been due to the buffer being full. The other odd thing that occurred was the programmable control on the end of the Nikkor 180-600mm didn’t appear to work a couple of times. I have it set to zoom to help with acquiring or checking focus, so I assume there was a link between the non-responsive autofocus and the zoom not working. These could have been buffer related but I had never encountered that before.

While this was happening I did start to think more about how much I am pushing the Z 6. Under these extreme circumstances how many shots do I miss completely? How much would my keeper rate increase if I had a Zf,  Z 6ii, Z 8, or the upcoming Z 6iii. These are not the sort of thoughts I want to be having as a) gear is expensive and I don’t have the cash; and b) my kaupapa at the moment is 100% focused getting the most of my gear.

The main issues for missing focus are related to the following points, which I suspect might even challenge an autofocus beast like the Z 8 or rumoured specs on the Z 6iii:

1. under the canopy in NZ it is quite dark, even in summer, let alone as we approach the shortest day.
2. usually the birds are behind layers of branches, twigs, and leaves. The Z 6 cannot use a pinpoint focus in AF-C which means it struggles without a pinpoint. Coupled with the low light, that is a big ask.
3. most of the birds are very small.
4. most of the birds move fast and don’t sit still.

There are options I have not explored yet, such as enabling eye detection or animal detection, which I need to add to a shortcut (in fact I may have already).

But, out of curiosity I started to record my overall keeper rate, and those that I rate above bare minimum, and if I can remember I will do it after each wildlife shoot.

Such a beautiful beastie, with lovely brassing and a very interesting backstory as it was used extensively by a well known archaeologist. I am stoked to have it. The Micro-Nikkor-P 55mm f/3.5 Auto is a lovely lens, and the rather rushed test roll turned out well.

The Photomic FTn prism is pretty mean looking, the meter is working intermittently, I am hopeful this is just a battery issue. The last couple of days it has worked everytime I’ve tried it, I may have to invest in some adapters to limit the voltage of LR44s.

Some of the controls that were initially quite stiff, such as the rear prism release button, are loosening with use.

The seals will need attention at some stage, but otherwise it is in usable condition.

Great fun to use so far, even when just using sunny 16 for metering.

The test roll was a very expired roll of Kodak Ultramax 400.

I first encountered U1 and U2 user settings back when I owned a Nikon D7000. It was such an incredible shortcut, and I have loved it on the D600 and now the Z 6. I miss it on the D810 and will one day take 10 minutes to understand how custom banks work.

My current set up allows easy switching between wildlife mode (full manual, auto ISO, continuous high burst shutter, and currently centre weighted metering); generic monochrome in manual mode; and high contrast monochrome (aperture priority, highlight weighted metering).

In the past I have struggled to remember what was what, resulting in a piece of tape stuck to the camera to remind me.

Disclaimer: my wildlife photography skills were basically zero in February, and I have only come a short way in that time, but given the starting point it feels significant to me. There is still a massive hill to climb, and I am aware I am still at the base of that hill.

Finding critters to photograph

I walk far more slowly than I used to, and when I hear something I stop, and I wait, sometimes for many minutes until I am sure there is nothing nearby before moving on. At Zealandia the bird life tends to stick together, often one bird or type of bird is not far from others. I am also learning to look at things a little differently.

Technique

• patience, lots of it. I am getting a little better at waiting and giving things time. I think when I started I would get bored and leave situations that were rich with subjects to rush off to the next thing. However, too many shaky bad photos and missed opportunities has been a great teacher.
• settings, lots of refinement and increased awareness of what my settings are. Initially I was doing really goofy stuff like trying to shoot with really low iso, or -2EV, or shutter speeds like 1/80 or worse. Checking shutter speed and aperture is slowly becoming second nature and my keeper rate is slowly increasing – although just a little.
• movement, and thinking about how I should move around the subject to maximise the opportunity instead of staying completely immobile.
• autofocus, lots of learning. While the Z 6 is not the first choice for wildlife photography, it really is so much better than YouTube reviews would have you believe. Sure, a Zf, Z 8 or a Z 9 is clearly going to be a much better choice in terms of autofocus, but learning to live within the limitations has enabled results I would not have imagined were possible.

Gear

The Nikon Z 6 can achieve outstanding results with its first generation mirrorless autofocus. I am now attempting to manually adjust the focus more, especially when shooting through a web of twigs and leaves.

Customising the camera controls has been well worth it. The record button is now the AF adjust, a custom function button is playback, allowing eyes on the viewfinder while previewing and continuing to hold the long lens. I notice the Z 8 has moved all buttons to the right so that less customisation is needed to get the set up I have.

The Z 6 is a solid all rounder, and wildlife photography in NZ bush with small and fast moving subjects is so far outside its intended usage parameters, but is still performs very well.

A lot of that is about perseverance, but that’s the same regardless of gear. Initially my technique was so poor a Z 8 or Z 9 would have made very little difference. While I could be at the point of diminishing returns, there are still tweaks to be made to get further improvements from the equipment.

It has proved to me that you can always get more out of your gear than you’d expect.

After happening on Alan Schaller’s work and his extremely watchable YouTube channel, I was dying to try to replicate the bold contrast, a look I have always loved.

Highlight weighted metering does the heavy lifting to recreate the high contrast look on the Z 6. The Z 6 is does not have a dedicated monochrome sensor like the M10 Monochrom, and I have no intention to attempt to match his quality, subject matter, composition, or overall vibe.

The weather and light created by the low sun at this time of year does lend itself to some dramatic atmosphere, and it will be fun to get into town and try it out.

A summary of the settings for the high contrast black and white look on the Nikon Z 6:

• monochrome
• aperture priority
• auto iso from 100 to 10,000
• -0.7 or -1.0 exposure composition
• metering mode: highlight weighted
• Autofocus is on, but I will pre-focus if I am shooting with the classic F mount lenses.

After an OK 90 minutes or so at Zealandia, it occurred to me I should try getting the pin point autofocus point for shooting at wildlife through small gaps in the branches. On the Z 6 that can only be found in autofocus single. I figure this might not be the end of the world and am keen to try it next time.

I also found an article on Photography Life that resonated with my current experiences, “So, Your Autofocus Isn’t Good Enough for Wildlife Photography?” by Spencer Cox. I am using the Z 6 which has the same autofocus system as the Z 7 which is referenced in the post. I know it’s not the ideal camera for bird photography, but I also recognise it is not terrible either, and a lot of what I am trying to learn to do is improve technique.

Improved technique for me is as much about stuff not pertaining to the camera such as recognising when there is something nearby to photograph, learning patience to wait for a bird to move into view or better places to capture it (like a patch with better light), positioning, anticipation, etc.

In terms of what improved technique on the camera means for me is getting better at switching metering mode, autofocus mode, building the habit of watching shutter speed/aperture/ISO far more closely, and even how I hold the lens.

All of those things are slowly improving for me and that will give me more opportunities to get keepers. Even if I had funds, buying a Z 8 right now would potentially improve my keeper rate, but it would only highlight the underlying issues with technique.

After an unexpectedly long session where I came within maybe 20 metres of a Kārearea (NZ Falcon), I realised my exposure compensation was set to -2EV. I couldn’t believe it.

The images were salvageable, but not to the quality I wanted.

The reason I was at -2EV was from a few nights before — seeing what I could get of the moon handheld at 600mm (the answer: nothing that was usable), but what a silly thing NOT TO CHECK the setting a few days later.

Ha, a tough couple of days learning the hard way about new stuff.

Lens collar

During the first day of shooting at Zealandia I would hold the camera body and the lens collar foot. This meant my left hand was too close to the camera body and that the lens was not well balanced. I believe this contributed to a higher number of shots that were soft due to camera movement (despite IBIS working in the body and the lens).

Today for Zealandia’s shooting I moved the collar so the foot is offset to the right, allowing my left hand to comfortably hold the lens further down the lens barrel for greater stability — it appeared to work better.

M and auto-ISO

With a max ISO of 10,000 images are noisy but usable. I made the cardinal error of not watching my shutter speed, and had for some shot ramped it up to 1/1600, and forgot about it. This was forcing an ISO of 10,000 even in bright shots. Moron! I did get some good captures but the high ISO has blown out highlights, and given in some dark shots that could have been lower ISO there is a very over smoothed high-ISO look to them.

I need to remember I am not in Aperture Priority and to look more closely at shutter speed. The fact is when shooting birds with the 180-600mm I am in f8 to allow a slightly greater depth of field, and will be changing aperture a lot less than shutter speed.

To be fair a lot of the shots are birds under canopy, so it is dark, even in the middle of the day in summer.