{"id":15468,"date":"2022-04-24T05:10:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-23T17:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/?p=15468"},"modified":"2022-04-24T05:10:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-23T17:10:28","slug":"photographing-swallows-in-flight-with-the-nikon-z9-episode-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/15468","title":{"rendered":"Photographing Swallows in Flight with the Nikon Z9 – episode 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
Welcome Swallow in flight – Nikon Z9 with Nikkor Z 100-400mm f4.5-4.6 S<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Following on from last week’s post<\/a>, I have had a brief opportunity to do a little more testing with the Nikon Z9 photographing swallows in flight. Conditions were not perfect with the wind being about 90 degrees off but there were some opportunities to do the testing and achieve some reasonable images. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Welcome Swallow in flight – Nikon Z9 with Nikkor Z 100-400mm f4.5-4.6 S<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I began using the Nikkor Z 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 S as the birds were not flying as close as I would have liked due to the wind direction. My initial impression on this occasion was that the Z9 was locking focus on the birds more easily than before. Previous attempts have been in quite flat lighting so the contrast between bird and background was less marked. As long as the swallows were relatively large in frame the focus would lock rapidly and hold tenaciously. This next image shows the size of the bird in frame to achieve easy focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Nikon Z9 focus locks easily if the subject is this size in frame<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This has highlighted to me that part of the issue I have had is having to work in a different way than I used to with my Nikon DSLRs. My past approach was to locate the bird while quite small, achieve focus (if needed by pumping AF-On repeatedly until achieved). I would then track the bird until close enough to begin firing the shutter. This was partially due to the time required to achieve focus. With the Z9 I find the camera has trouble locking on birds small in the frame but when larger in frame locks much more quickly. Trying to lock on distant birds is an exercise in frustration but is unnecessary as focus lock is quick once they are closer. By waiting until they are closer before attempting to focus the whole process works at least as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Welcome Swallow in flight – Nikon Z9 with Nikkor Z 100-400mm f4.5-4.6 S<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

An advantage of the Nikon Z9 AF system is the visual confirmation of focus. Once locked a green focus box lights up around the subject and tracks it across the frame. With a DSLR I had to rely on the image looking visually sharp in the viewfinder. Reviewing images as I shot I could see that I was achieving very good rates of sharp images. The 20 fps frame rate also enabled capture of some nice feeding sequences as the swallows were dipping for emerging midges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Young Welcome Swallow approaching an emerging midge<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Young Welcome Swallow about to pluck an emerging midge from the lake surface<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Young Welcome Swallow taking an emerging midge from the lake surface<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After using the 100-400 for a while with good results I changed to the Nikkor 300mm f4PF on the FTZii adaptor. This seemed to be less successful at acquiring and locking focus on the flying swallows. This initially surprised me but what I realised was that as I was photographing the birds at the same place, they were smaller in the frame at 300mm as opposed to 400mm. Once I changed and waited to photograph the closer but less frequent birds focus was again achieved quite effectively. This just reinforces the impression that the subject needs to be a certain size in frame to reliably achieve focus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Young Welcome Swallow in flight<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In my last post I expressed the opinion that for swallows in flight I would have most confidence in using a Nikon D500 with the 300mm f4PF. After my recent test my confidence in using the Nikon Z9 with 100-400mm is much higher to the point that I would probably favour the mirrorless combination, even though larger and heavier. The DSLR still wins in terms of size and weight and remains an extremely capable setup especially when needing compact gear for travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These next three images were taken with the Nikon Z9, Nikkor AF-S 300mm f4PF and FTZii showing that F mount lenses work beautifully without issue on the Z cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Welcome Swallow photographed with Nikon Z9 and Nikkor AF-S 300mm f4PF on FTZii adaptor<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This final pair of images show a swallow hawking an insect in flight despite the challenge of a moulted tail limiting mobility in flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Welcome Swallow with moulted tail feathers hawking an insect in flight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Welcome Swallow with moulted tail feathers in flight after hawking an insect<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

All photos were with the Nikon Z9 set to continuous AF activated by the AF-on button, wide area (large) AF with animal face\/eye recognition on. Z9 firmware version 1.00. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am looking forward to trialling with firmware version 2.00<\/a>, especially the new wider AF area modes as I think these may be useful in acquiring focus more easily with erratic subjects. The Pre-release Capture sounds interesting but is severely limited by only being available for jpeg images at 30fps or 120fps. I see no reason that it could not be applied to RAW capture as the buffer should easily manage 20 RAW files, especially with a fast CFExpress card to off load to once the shutter is triggered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photographing Swallows in Flight with the Nikon Z9 – episode 2. Further exploring the challenges of Swallow flight images with the Nikon Z9. Using the Z100-400 and 300mm f4PF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[982,3,29,178],"tags":[578,26,25,220,144,247,1018,984,221,983,609,603,651,650,971,779],"class_list":["post-15468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography","category-birds","category-new-zealand","category-opinion","tag-bird","tag-bird-photography","tag-birds","tag-birds-in-flight","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-bird","tag-nikkor-300pf","tag-nikkor-z-100-400","tag-nikon","tag-nikon-z9","tag-nikonnz","tag-nz-birds","tag-swallow-in-flight","tag-welcome-swallow","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-photography","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\nPhotographing Swallows in Flight with the Nikon Z9 - episode 2 - WildLight Photography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Photographing Swallows in Flight with the Nikon Z9 - episode 2. 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Nikon Z9 with Nikkor 100-400 Apologies to those who are sick of swallow pictures. This will be the last post for this series after the last 2 weeks exploring the Nikon Z9 with firmware version 1.00. This week we look at how it performs\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WelcomeSwallow-NZ9_6592-2-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WelcomeSwallow-NZ9_6592-2-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WelcomeSwallow-NZ9_6592-2-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/WelcomeSwallow-NZ9_6592-2-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15013,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/15013","url_meta":{"origin":15468,"position":2},"title":"Nikon Z9 for Birds in Flight","author":"tony","date":"January 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Some thoughts after testing the Nikon Z9 for birds in flight at Muriwai Gannet colony","rel":"","context":"In "Bird Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Bird Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/bird-photography"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo of an Australasian Gannet - Nikon Z9 with Nikkor Z 100-400 - full frame","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Gannet-NZ9_3604-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Gannet-NZ9_3604-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Gannet-NZ9_3604-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Gannet-NZ9_3604-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Gannet-NZ9_3604-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15552,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/15552","url_meta":{"origin":15468,"position":3},"title":"Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S – Another Evolution in Bird Photography.","author":"tony","date":"May 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S - what is it's role in the bird photography ecosystem","rel":"","context":"In "Bird Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Bird Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/bird-photography"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo of a k\u014dtuku ngutupapa\/Royal Spoonbill","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/RoyalSpoonbill-NZ9_6270-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/RoyalSpoonbill-NZ9_6270-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/RoyalSpoonbill-NZ9_6270-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/RoyalSpoonbill-NZ9_6270-web.jpg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14973,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/14973","url_meta":{"origin":15468,"position":4},"title":"Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 100-400 for Bird Photography – First Impressions","author":"tony","date":"December 26, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Testing the new Nikon Z9 with the Nikkor Z 100-400mm for Bird Photography","rel":"","context":"In "Bird Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Bird Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/bird-photography"},"img":{"alt_text":"Little Shag in flight- Nikon Z9 with Nikkor Z 100-400 f4.5-5.6 VR S","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Z9-Z100-400Test-1069-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Z9-Z100-400Test-1069-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Z9-Z100-400Test-1069-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Z9-Z100-400Test-1069-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":17057,"url":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/17057","url_meta":{"origin":15468,"position":5},"title":"Bushy Park Fantails","author":"tony","date":"July 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Bushy Park Fantails - opportunity to practice photographing Fantails feeding in flight. Suggestion for Nikon Z9\/Z8 focus settings.","rel":"","context":"In "Bird Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Bird Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/archives\/category\/bird-photography"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo of Piwakawaka\/Fantail hawking a midge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Fantail-20230607-NZ9_9841-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Fantail-20230607-NZ9_9841-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Fantail-20230607-NZ9_9841-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Fantail-20230607-NZ9_9841-NEF_DxO-web.jpg?fit=960%2C640&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tonywhitehead.com\/wildlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}