Hello all,
I picked up a Z 5 recently and have been facing an issue with AF-C mode. I have tried a bunch of different lenses that I own, and at the camera store:
70-300 VR AF-S
35mm 1.8G
Z 16-50
Z 24-50
On firmware version 1.10 for the camera body.
Here are videos of the problem in AF-C where the focus keeps jumping around a lot for a static scene:
To put the same camera+lens+scene to test I switched to Video mode in AF-F, and observed how well the focus is held.:
As you can see, the camera is perfectly capable of holding focus for the target I am trying. However, in almost ALL lighting and contrast conditions, the camera flutters around while in AF-C, but achieves super fast focus in AF-S, and holds perfect focus in AF-F (video mode).
At the store I tried a Z50 and a Z6 with the Z lenses mentioned above, and the Z 5 (mine, and a demo unit at the store) was the only one that behaved this way in AF-C.
The use-case problem from all this is that when I use subject/face/eye tracking and use AF-C for moving subjects with continuous shooting, I rarely get perfect focus. It's always just a little off.
I am wondering if I got a Z 5 that's from a bad batch, or whether this is a firmware problem on all Z 5s. If you could experiment and share your experience too, that would be great.