EVF Delay and a maxed out Z 180-600mm lens

[Old Sub Sailor]

I had my Z 180-600mm lens on my Z8, tripod mounted to an Arca-Swiss D4 GP head. I was trying to shoot tankers that were about 9 miles away. It was a bright sunny day, shooting across Trinity Bay (Houston/Galveston Texas area) in the heat of the Texas Summer day.

When I used the vertical gear (knob) to slowly move the focus point (single shot focus) up or down to a ship, the point would continue to move in that direction and past the ship after I stopped turning the knob. At 600mm it looked like it moved a tremendous bit past the ship, but I am sure it was a fraction of a mm at that focal length, distance and background.

The Arca-Swiss folks believe that it is EVF delay, and sent me all sorts of explanations about what that is.

I was turning the knob very slowly by the way, and the ships were at anchor so they were not moving. I did have the High FPS Viewfinder turned ON, however, I also had image stabilization on (while on the tripod) which I have been reading is not a good thing. I felt that I may not have had the axis locks tight enough, and the setup was creeping a minute fraction, but was also concerned about getting them too tight so I did not crank them down. The Arca-Swiss head can easily handle the weight of that lens and camera, but I think that is still a bit of weight after all.

 

[BF Hammer]

I do not use your setup, but aspire to some day.

I do use a Z5 and an adapted Sigma 150-600mm lens. I use for astrophotography and wildlife, including flying birds. I don't have actual trouble with lag while tracking, it's when I shoot a continuous series that the action freezes for each exposure. I actually set to black out the EVF during this it mimic a DSLR blackout during exposure.

Motion causes the image to jump suddenly with stabilization on. I would certainly turn off if using a geared head that micro-adjusts. Another thought is could pre-release capture be messing this up?

 

[Old Sub Sailor]

Thank you for your reply.
I believe that I understand your question regarding precapture (seems to me that is when you are shooting super fast rates??), and would have to look, but I do not believe that it is on. I was not in any type of continuous focus or shutter release setup at the time. It was pretty much landscape back button focus type shooting.

 

[BF Hammer]

Precapture buffers in images before you press the shutter release. So if you are a bit slow with the trigger finger, you might still have a good shot in the burst.

 

[Old Sub Sailor]

Howdy
I think that we are saying or talking about the same thing?
However, That still requires that the shutter-release is fully pressed in high-speed frame capture + mode according to the manual.
I'm in mule plod along mode.

 

[Clovishound]

With the Z8, when you enable pre release capture, it will only go into that mode when you choose JPG 15 fps mode or higher. A pre release icon will appear in the viewfinder and backscreen display. When you are in pre release mode, it will start buffering when you half press the shutter button. You will get a a small light come on beside the icon when you are buffering. At the moment you fully press the shutter, the system will save the buffered images to your card. You can set the amount of time from several options up to 1 sec. You can also set the amount of time that it will save images after you press the shutter button all the way.

I leave pre release enabled all the time with my Z8. I always shoot in RAW, so the system automatically disables pre release. When I want to use pre release, I just switch frame rate to 30 fps JPG mode and pre release is then enabled. FYI, they must have recently added the 15 fps JPG mode, as it used to be a minimum of 30 fps. I like having the option of a lower frame rate for pre release as you can really rack up a lot of images shooting PR.

As to the OP's original issue, I don't believe the viewfinder/backscreen images lag enough to create the issue, but that is just my gut feeling based on what I see in my screens during use. I've never thought about trying to correlate the time that something is happening with the subject, and when it appears on the screen. I've always just assumed it was too small a delay to register. I do know that I don't experience the blackouts at higher frame rates with the Z8 as opposed to the Z5 and 7ii. Although I don't think you can characterize the Z5's maximum of 4.5 fps a high frame rate. I wasn't into wildlife photography when I originally purchased my Z5, and frame rate wasn't a priority for me. Not sure I really want anything faster than the 20 fps the 8 provides, although, if I am willing to accept JPG files, I can get higher rates up to an insane 120 fps. I really can't imagine using that high a frame rate. But I digress.