Nikon Z7 Animal Eye/Face Detection
I finally made the switch last week to one of Nikon’s mirrorless camera offerings. After a lifetime shooting Nikon SLRs, both film and digital, and experimenting with Sony, I have jumped full steam ahead into the Z series.
Last week my Z7, 50/1.8s and 24/1.8s hear arrived. What I love most about this camera right out of the box is that it feels and acts like a Nikon. Yes, some of the buttons are slightly moved or missing, but still if you are at all familiar with the latest Nikon offerings this camera will feel right at home in your hands. Kudos to Nikon for doing this.
After finally getting my Sonnet CF Express reader I was able to update to the latest firmware which contains some minor but significant updates. Most important to me was the ability to map the Subject Tracking to a button of choice (FN2 for me) along side the pet Face/Eye detection.
I shoot a lot of pets and having this update was an added bonus to making my Nikon switch. Given the current state of our lives, I am getting to spend some time with our dogs testing things out.
We have a 1 year old and 4 year old border collies that are almost the ultimate test subjects. Having black and white faces with dark eyes they are a focus and tracking algorithm nightmare for any camera, let alone a mirrorless one.
However, I am happy to say that my first initial tests are looking quite good. At this time, since I am just starting to use the camera I am not ready to be very critical of the AF. With any camera, the person behind the lens has to understand its strength and weaknesses in any given shooting situation and be able to adapt accordingly. I need to spend more time shooting the dogs before I pass judgement.
So to end this post, I am simply going to share some keepers over the last couple of days. The final set of images, shot with the 24/1.8s into a setting sun on a black and white border collie in motion turned out quite nicely. Are they perfect, well no. However, I am not after perfection all the time but instead emotion. With that in mind I think these worked out quite nicely.
More to come over the next week or two as I push the camera through its paces. Hopefully Nikon will be able to get the 70-200/2.8s lens shipping in the not too distant future since it is my favorite tool for shooting the dogs.
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