where there’s smoke there’s fire

Birding with Nikon Z6 and the Nikkor 500 f/4 lens by Cedric Beggue (fast birds in flight taken with Nikon Z6 AF tracking):

I own a Z6 since December and decided to take it to its first real challenge in terms of autofocus speed and tracking with my Sigma 500mm F4 Sport lens on European bee-eaters

Last year I had the 400mm F2.8 G with the D500 and I was amazed by the AF performance (almost as much as by the wonderful colors of these birds). I found that group AF worked best for me in this situation, the camera would sometimes lock on the background but not so often while still tracking if the subject went on the corners of the frame.

The Z6 doesn’t have an equivalent for group AF, I struggled trying Dynamic Area / Wide S and Wide L but it would not work, always locking on the background.

Keep in mind the birds are not so large (less than 30cm) and the average shooting distance was ~15-20 meters, they are not easy to keep in the frame with the way they fly.

So I tried auto AF and it just worked…

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