Nikon Z9 Firmware 5.3 Surpasses Nikon Z8 for Birds and Wildlife Photography

tony
December 21, 2025
Bird Photography / birds / news / opinion / tips / Wildlife
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Little Black Shag photographed with the focus limiter to speed AF acquisition

My last post on Nikon firmware updates was for the Nikon Z8 update to version 3.0 which introduced focus limits and pushed the Z8 ahead of the Z9. In that post (Nikon Z8 Better than Z9 for Bird Photography (Again)) I had hoped that the Z9 would receive the same capability but was concerned that it may be held back for the Nikon Z9ii.

Snap shooting a Weweia/New Zealand dabchick that splashed down in front of me

Limiting the range that the camera seeks to focus can speed subject acquisition by avoiding a search out to distant backgrounds and then too close in. I have found it a very helpful upgrade in certain situations.

Little shag carrying in a leafy willow twig for nest building. Focus limiter removes foreground and background from the focus search range.

Out of the blue this week the Nikon Z9 firmware 5.3 dropped as an early Christmas gift for Z9 owners. This incorporates a number of AF upgrades but importantly includes the focus limit ability. I have set my Z9 up in the same way with the Exposure Compensation button toggling the AF limiter. See the above post for details.

More than that though is the option to rapidly cycle AF subject detection modes. For me this is a big step forward as previously changing modes required a visit to the Quick Menu and a number of presses and scrolls. I would have loved to have had this quick single button access when in the Arctic and recently in Botswana and South Africa where birds and animals were being encountered all the time.

I have set up my Fn4 button to access this and toggle between Bird/Animal/Human.

Fn4 button programmed to cycle subject detection options

In a safari situation I would limit it to Bird/Animal to immediately switch depending on which subject was presenting.

Select the subject options you want access to

When the. NikonZ9 launched there was only an Animal subject option for wildlife photographers and to be fair it wasn’t half bad for birds. The addition of a specific Bird option was a great step forward and the Z9 is now a completely different camera than was launched due to firmware upgrades. I wrote about this in 2023 in my post I have Shot with a Nikon Z9 for Almost Two Years and Loved it – Now I have a New Camera. That post got a lot of attention and was syndicated to another photography news site but really highlights the excellent job Nikon does supporting its users with firmware upgrades. This latest Z9 upgrade continues that trend. The only thing I really wish they would do is enable RAW pre-capture even if only in a compressed RAW format. This is the one area that Nikon really lags behind Canon, Sony and OM System.