Z9 Release Thread

[Birna Rørslett]

Having a shutter sound is very frequently helping the photographer to ensure the timing of capture was OK. Whether the sound is physical or synthetic generated is immaterial. At times there is a need to have a silent camera. The Z series can do both.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Having a shutter sound is very frequently helping the photographer to ensure the timing of capture was OK. Whether the sound is physical or synthetic generated is immaterial. At times there is a need to have a silent camera. The Z series can do both.

The confirmation could be visual (such as a small indicator light in the viewfinder that blinks at the time of capture) and would thus not necessarily require sound. 

[MFloyd]

The confirmation could be visual (such as a small indicator light in the viewfinder that blinks at the time of capture) and would thus not necessarily require sound.

Doesn’t work in an environment already saturated with visual information. Think about the universal (western / eastern) use of  Bitchin’ Bettys in fighter jets.

https://youtu.be/yx7-yvXf6f8

“Where a visual warning or light bulb wouldn’t work ….”

“Audio neural response time and coordination is by far #1 when the it comes to humans. Visual doesn’t even come close and people will get it all messed up in just about every format” John Gury

[Erik Lund]

Much better adding a vibrator like you have in your phone  Seriously, as long as you can turn it on/off I see no issue.
For those who was longing for a 100-400 zoom it seems confirmed now with image of it

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Doesn’t work in an environment already saturated with visual information. Think about the universal (western / eastern) use of  Bitchin’ Bettys in fighter jets.

https://youtu.be/yx7-yvXf6f8

“Where a visual warning or light bulb wouldn’t work ….”

“Audio neural response time and coordination is by far #1 when the it comes to humans. Visual doesn’t even come close and people will get it all messed up in just about every format” John Gury

The issue here is that the auditory information comes with a different delay than the visual whereas if it's a visual confirmation it matches the image on screen so you can see the blink synchronously with the image that was captured so there is no guesswork involved as to the content of the image captured.

In the case of auditory information you have to correct these delays to get a feel for what was captured and it's unlikely to be very accurate. The human brain is used to synchronizing auditory sensation with visual from the naked eyes, but that doesn't factor in the EVF delay which then puts the system off sync and causes nausea and other issues.  What's worse is that in many cameras the EVF delay depends on the light level so in dimmer light the EVF is delayed further. I just don't see how you can synchronize auditory and visual perception in this case.

The modern way to deal with timing is to capture every moment at the highest rate available and hope for the best. ;-)

[Birna Rørslett]

The problem with action-style photography and a completely silent camera is I can never be certain the shutter release actually was pushed .... For my studio work with focus stacking done under remote control, this is not a problem and in fact, will remove a potential source of vibration. OK, the latter not so much with the Z7, so that's the main reason I dropped the DSLRs and went mirrorless for this line of work. Still my Z cameras are set to silent mode when I do high-magnification stacks.

"Machine-gunning" photography never appealed to me before, and the arrival of Z9 will not change that sentiment for me.

[Jack Dahlgren]

A Vehicle sound can be a definite plus. A few years back a guy in a Toyota Prius backed up without warning and bumped me with his car. There was of course no engine starting sound to alert me that the car was occupied and about to move. The idiot was upset that I touched his car not that he might have injured me. People who are profoundly deaf must have ways to deal with this. Someone with normal hearing not so much.

Dave

Dave, in the cars I'm talking about, the fake sound of your own engine is pumped through your own stereo INSIDE the car. Some people like the sound of their own exhaust.

[MFloyd]

The issue here is that the auditory information comes with a different delay than the visual whereas if it's a visual confirmation it matches the image on screen so you can see the blink synchronously with the image that was captured so there is no guesswork involved as to the content of the image captured.

In the case of auditory information you have to correct these delays to get a feel for what was captured and it's unlikely to be very accurate. The human brain is used to synchronizing auditory sensation with visual from the naked eyes, but that doesn't factor in the EVF delay which then puts the system off sync and causes nausea and other issues.  What's worse is that in many cameras the EVF delay depends on the light level so in dimmer light the EVF is delayed further. I just don't see how you can synchronize auditory and visual perception in this case.

The modern way to deal with timing is to capture every moment at the highest rate available and hope for the best. ;-)

Different problem. I just want to hear the click when I push the button; and the delay of the sound crossing 25 centimeters at 330 m/s will not make any difference. End of discussion for me 

[golunvolo]

I have never thought of that. In my Z6 there is either sound confirmation or visual (flickr or stop-motion). I´m curious as how is going to be implemented in the Z9 when shooting in silent mode if the viewfinder does not flickr of blackout...

[Ilkka Nissilä]

Different problem. I just want to hear the click when I push the button; and the delay of the sound crossing 25 centimeters at 330 m/s will not make any difference. End of discussion for me 

The point I was trying to make was that the auditory and visual tracks have different timing offsets whereas a visual indicator and image will be perfectly synchronized. The sound propagation delay I listed just for completeness, not to imply any particular significance to its contribution. The EVF has a delay which is likely to be similar to the delay on the LCD or around 30-35ms (A9II measured by Jim Kasson) and is dependent on how bright the light level is. Whether this is a significant delay or not depends on how particular you are but a visual indicator on the EVF can have less temporal offset (if 5 ms is the display update from top to bottom then it would be of that order of magnitude) vs the image displayed. 30 ms > 5 ms.

So basically the image displayed in the EVF at the time of the click is not the image which is captured in the file and the error in the timing varies depends on shooting conditions. If it doesn't matter to a particular photographer, then it doesn't matter to them but it is erroneous to think that in this case the sound would convey the timing more accurately than a visual indicator. Of course, if the sound is completely synthetic, the manufacturer could correct the timing error between the sound and EVF image by delaying it according to the calculated EVF delay in the current lighting level but I doubt they have thought about that (they could, but this is sort of v1). And if the photographer then chooses to use the mechanical shutter, the timing discrepancy returns. Then there is the human factor which complicates the audio-visual integration on top of the hardware and physics.

[David H. Hartman]

The confirmation could be visual (such as a small indicator light in the viewfinder that blinks at the time of capture) and would thus not necessarily require sound.

This would not be a practical way to let the subject know when a photograph is take.

Dave

[David H. Hartman]

The problem with action-style photography and a completely silent camera is I can never be certain the shutter release actually was pushed .... For my studio work with focus stacking done under remote control, this is not a problem and in fact, will remove a potential source of vibration. OK, the latter not so much with the Z7, so that's the main reason I dropped the DSLRs and went mirrorless for this line of work. Still my Z cameras are set to silent mode when I do high-magnification stacks.

"Machine-gunning" photography never appealed to me before, and the arrival of Z9 will not change that sentiment for me.

The problem for me for Machine-gunning is all the variants to view and cull. There are times where I want to shoot a sequence but for the most part I set my camera to CL and speed up CL some then squeeze off single frames.

[ThomasAdams]

I just like having the option which allows me to select the preferred mode for a particular environment.

[chambeshi]

Latest update
https://nikonrumors.com/2021/10/25/confirmed-nikon-z9-ftz-ii-adapter-and-2-3-new-nikkor-z-lenses-to-be-announced.aspx/

[Randy Stout]

Teaser #4 just dropped. 

Showed no EVF lag, or blackout that I could see.  Disappointed that there was nothing about bird photography!

https://youtu.be/xQHfwi-omvw

Randy