I just got quite a few captures of a black squirrel (with black eyes) and my Z9’s AF kept wanting to focus on its tail, not its eye. Is there a technique to get the eye in AF with its existing lack of contrast? BTW, I’m using a 180-600 lens with a Nikon 1.4 TC and the subject was about 40 yards off.
Without some kind of reflection in the eye and at that distance, I think getting the focus to lock on the eye would be pretty tough, Dave. It might work better to sacrifice some iso and stop down a bit to gain a little depth of field or even go to manual with focus peaking if it’s not moving too fast.
Hey, thanks. I might just have to go “old school” and try hand cranking the focus. They were fairly friendly. Maybe I can get closer.
I’ve had no trouble with black squirrels and the animal detect finding the eye with my gear, but it may depend on the light and your angle. If it isn’t well silhouetted the system may find it a bit troubling. One thing I do in settings is to have manual focus adjust with auto focus. That might be useful with focus peaking assuming your rig has both as well. I’ve also tuned my focus ring to be a bit quicker than how it shipped.