These videos no doubt took a lot more prep time and planning than most of us realize. These were incredibly helpful in setting up my own Z9. Many thanks Hudson!
Hey Hudson - Hope you guys are enjoying SoCal. Finally have my Z9 - only shooting with the 100-400 so far. One other trick I do is pop out Slot 1 and then save settings to Slot 2. That way, if Slot 1 gets formatted or whatever in the field, the other card has the identical .bin file. Of course, I always have a backup on my laptop. It would be nice if we could also back up to SnapBridge. Looking forward to hearing about the SoCal workshops. All the best!
Dear Mr Hudson. Thank you very much for making these great videos. I have watched the four of them, and twice!. If I'm correct, they should be listed as 5 videos with the firmware 3.0 update that you did. Thank you for the great setup that makes it so easy for us to see it through your lenses and the connected camera screen and follow you step by step with your clear and flawless explenation. I'm about to receive my Nikon Z9 in two days, & I am, with the help of your videos, ready for it. Please keep up the good work... thank you sir
Dear Hudson, Thank you very much for these 4 videos. They are spot on as we photograph more or less the same things. These settings are a good starting point. I will go a use them and then make minor adjustments if needed. Keep on the good work. Pascal
The biggest things you should do is check whether you're in bracketing or the 30fps or 120fps modes. Those set a TON of limits. Set your camera up how you like it, then back it up to the card. If you get into greyed out menu options that you don't normally encounter, you've tweaked something. Just reload your saved settings. There are so many options that negate other options littered throughout the settings, I have a hard time imagining how to structure such a video in a meaningful way.
Thanks so much for these helpful videos on setting up the Z9. They were tremendously helpful! Looking forward to your updates as you use the camera more.
Excellent, Hudson! I haven't commented on the other three yet, but have watched all of them, which are great. (Still waiting for my Z9, so I like this pre-arrival "studying". Of course, I'll walk through it in real time when I have the camera in front of me.) Thanks again!
Hudson, your videos are such a great help! Thanks for taking the time to walk us through as many folks really benefit from it :) I'll send you an astro shot once I get one with Z9 :)
Thank you so much for these videos. I have watched all four more than once and set up the camera as you suggested but a few changes here and there. Would you please comment on the following points 1. For Action (specifically Wildlife) wouldn't it be better to set the subject as erratic? This is one of the few changes I did to your recommended settings. 2. For wildlife, wouldn't it be better to switch to the Centre-weighted metering? 3. Could you please make a supplementary video on the settings given the release of the FW 2.0? 4. Could you please make a video on how to use the AF system best while photographing small birds with more or less similar coloured backgrounds (eg, a greenish bird with green foliage)? 5. What should be the best settings to preserve the battery charge? In three hours I had lost nearly 60% of the full charge while photographing birds. 6. Is there any way to make the rear LCD monitor "on-demand" like the D-SLRs? The automatic switching between the EVF and the Monitor is not necessary always and it seems to be eating the battery. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thank you again.
Great 4 for 4 Hudson. Check Video 4 however as I think it was missed to mention to copy Landscape Bank to Bank D under CSM. The video started out in PSM and copying there but was never done under CSM. I found this as when I was checking my i Menu for Bank D in CSM some settings were all wrong.
Good info on the Z9 - still waiting for mine from BH. One suggestion however; For astro, when taking stills, always turn your long exposure noise reduction off. With noise reduction on, you'll likely lose some of the fainter stars. Best to deal with noise reduction in post.
That's not been my experience with tracking or stacking with the latest sensors. I get just as much detail without any of the dead pixels. Watch the free video in my milky way course for examples. Www.hudsonhenry.com/milkyway
My experience and workflow involves astro time lapse, so no tracking or stacking where disabling noise reduction can make a difference, even with late model sensors. However, since you're getting good results with tracked or stacked images, glad to hear that's not the case.
I do time lapse night work too. You certainly turn it off for that. But then Neat Noise reduction for After Effects and Premiere makes it totally unnessrsary anyway for sequences. :)
Yep, Neat is great and I've used it with Edius and DaVinci Resolve, but lately I've discovered that for astro time lapse content, the native noise reduction tools in DaVinci Resolve work great and with much less tweaking. So, from now on with this type of content, that's probably all I'll use. Of course, even with a 24 core system and Nvidia 3090 graphic card, the noise reduction with 4 or 8K is still a major ball and chain. 😀 On another note, when HOPEFULLY soon, I finally get the Z9 from BH, I definitely plan to spend some time going over your setup videos, as I'm sure they'll save me a lot of time and experimentation. I've got a couple of major filming projects on the Oregon coast and Vancouver Island planned next summer, so really keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have the camera and ordered lenses by then.
For still photography work, Long Exposure NR to ON is great if someone does not take calibration frames. When I'm shooting deep sky work, I will have this off as I'm adding Darks, Flats and Bias frames to my Light frames. Even if the camera "ate" some stars is not a big deal as too many stars can overwhelm a picture. I'm usually using a technique called star reduction in PP.
Next year is totally sold out except for Scotland which we haven't listed, but has a long advanced notice list. Reach out to Rick LePage rick@hudsonhenry.com He's the workshop coordinator and he's working on helping people get into workshops they want. We do have waiting lists as well. He can help out with all of that.
Hudson, thank you for all the great setup tutorials. I have the Z9 and Z7II ... I've set my Z9 up with the "Standard and Action" recommendations. As for "Landscaping and Astro" what are your thoughts about the Z7II being as capable for these areas compared to the Z9? Your thoughts are highly respected. Thank you! Myke.
It's low light autofocus isn't bad, but it's not on par and once you've used the starlight mode and warm display color settings, you'll really never go back to the Z7ii for night work. :-) The backlit controls are icing on the cake. The ZF is my current dream night rig having inherited all the Z8/9 display features alongside that epic noise performance of the less densely packed sensor and even better low light focus.
Hello, finally the Z9 has arrived. Not sure if I missed something but do you set up an I menu for each of the 4 banks? Namely standard, action, landscape and Astro? I seem to get different i menus
Watch the first video on bank A. It's longer but it goes into all those details. You need to set up one bank with all your primary settings (including the i-menu customization) and copy those settings into the other banks before tweaking them to taste.
Absolutely the best four "how to videos" to set up Banks on a Nikon Camera.
These videos no doubt took a lot more prep time and planning than most of us realize. These were incredibly helpful in setting up my own Z9. Many thanks Hudson!
I've watched the other three so far, and appreciate the effort. My new child is nearly set up to go out and meet the world.😆
Hey Hudson - Hope you guys are enjoying SoCal. Finally have my Z9 - only shooting with the 100-400 so far. One other trick I do is pop out Slot 1 and then save settings to Slot 2. That way, if Slot 1 gets formatted or whatever in the field, the other card has the identical .bin file. Of course, I always have a backup on my laptop. It would be nice if we could also back up to SnapBridge. Looking forward to hearing about the SoCal workshops. All the best!
Dear Mr Hudson. Thank you very much for making these great videos. I have watched the four of them, and twice!. If I'm correct, they should be listed as 5 videos with the firmware 3.0 update that you did. Thank you for the great setup that makes it so easy for us to see it through your lenses and the connected camera screen and follow you step by step with your clear and flawless explenation. I'm about to receive my Nikon Z9 in two days, & I am, with the help of your videos, ready for it. Please keep up the good work... thank you sir
These videos have been an invaluable learning experience.
Dear Hudson, Thank you very much for these 4 videos. They are spot on as we photograph more or less the same things. These settings are a good starting point. I will go a use them and then make minor adjustments if needed. Keep on the good work. Pascal
I wish someone would make a howto video on grayed out options and what causes each one.
Now that would be the most useful manual ever...
The biggest things you should do is check whether you're in bracketing or the 30fps or 120fps modes. Those set a TON of limits. Set your camera up how you like it, then back it up to the card. If you get into greyed out menu options that you don't normally encounter, you've tweaked something. Just reload your saved settings. There are so many options that negate other options littered throughout the settings, I have a hard time imagining how to structure such a video in a meaningful way.
Thanks so much for these helpful videos on setting up the Z9. They were tremendously helpful! Looking forward to your updates as you use the camera more.
Excellent, Hudson! I haven't commented on the other three yet, but have watched all of them, which are great. (Still waiting for my Z9, so I like this pre-arrival "studying". Of course, I'll walk through it in real time when I have the camera in front of me.) Thanks again!
Hudson, your videos are such a great help! Thanks for taking the time to walk us through as many folks really benefit from it :) I'll send you an astro shot once I get one with Z9 :)
Thanks H. Seriously helpful.
Great tips
Thank you so much for these videos. I have watched all four more than once and set up the camera as you suggested but a few changes here and there.
Would you please comment on the following points
1. For Action (specifically Wildlife) wouldn't it be better to set the subject as erratic? This is one of the few changes I did to your recommended settings.
2. For wildlife, wouldn't it be better to switch to the Centre-weighted metering?
3. Could you please make a supplementary video on the settings given the release of the FW 2.0?
4. Could you please make a video on how to use the AF system best while photographing small birds with more or less similar coloured backgrounds (eg, a greenish bird with green foliage)?
5. What should be the best settings to preserve the battery charge? In three hours I had lost nearly 60% of the full charge while photographing birds.
6. Is there any way to make the rear LCD monitor "on-demand" like the D-SLRs? The automatic switching between the EVF and the Monitor is not necessary always and it seems to be eating the battery. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thank you again.
Thank you so much you help me at many points
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Great 4 for 4 Hudson. Check Video 4 however as I think it was missed to mention to copy Landscape Bank to Bank D under CSM. The video started out in PSM and copying there but was never done under CSM. I found this as when I was checking my i Menu for Bank D in CSM some settings were all wrong.
Very well done and much appreciated.
Good info on the Z9 - still waiting for mine from BH.
One suggestion however; For astro, when taking stills, always turn your long exposure noise reduction off. With noise reduction on, you'll likely lose some of the fainter stars. Best to deal with noise reduction in post.
That's not been my experience with tracking or stacking with the latest sensors. I get just as much detail without any of the dead pixels. Watch the free video in my milky way course for examples. Www.hudsonhenry.com/milkyway
My experience and workflow involves astro time lapse, so no tracking or stacking where disabling noise reduction can make a difference, even with late model sensors. However, since you're getting good results with tracked or stacked images, glad to hear that's not the case.
I do time lapse night work too. You certainly turn it off for that. But then Neat Noise reduction for After Effects and Premiere makes it totally unnessrsary anyway for sequences. :)
Yep, Neat is great and I've used it with Edius and DaVinci Resolve, but lately I've discovered that for astro time lapse content, the native noise reduction tools in DaVinci Resolve work great and with much less tweaking. So, from now on with this type of content, that's probably all I'll use. Of course, even with a 24 core system and Nvidia 3090 graphic card, the noise reduction with 4 or 8K is still a major ball and chain. 😀
On another note, when HOPEFULLY soon, I finally get the Z9 from BH, I definitely plan to spend some time going over your setup videos, as I'm sure they'll save me a lot of time and experimentation. I've got a couple of major filming projects on the Oregon coast and Vancouver Island planned next summer, so really keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have the camera and ordered lenses by then.
For still photography work, Long Exposure NR to ON is great if someone does not take calibration frames. When I'm shooting deep sky work, I will have this off as I'm adding Darks, Flats and Bias frames to my Light frames. Even if the camera "ate" some stars is not a big deal as too many stars can overwhelm a picture. I'm usually using a technique called star reduction in PP.
Would love to attend a workshop! Are you offering more for this year or next?
Next year is totally sold out except for Scotland which we haven't listed, but has a long advanced notice list. Reach out to Rick LePage rick@hudsonhenry.com He's the workshop coordinator and he's working on helping people get into workshops they want. We do have waiting lists as well. He can help out with all of that.
Thanks again! It's Dark... ;)
Hudson, thank you for all the great setup tutorials. I have the Z9 and Z7II ... I've set my Z9 up with the "Standard and Action" recommendations. As for "Landscaping and Astro" what are your thoughts about the Z7II being as capable for these areas compared to the Z9? Your thoughts are highly respected. Thank you! Myke.
It's low light autofocus isn't bad, but it's not on par and once you've used the starlight mode and warm display color settings, you'll really never go back to the Z7ii for night work. :-) The backlit controls are icing on the cake. The ZF is my current dream night rig having inherited all the Z8/9 display features alongside that epic noise performance of the less densely packed sensor and even better low light focus.
Perfect-Τέλειο!!!!!
Have you confirmed that 400 is where the ISO switches from one variance to the other? I believe I've read elsewhere that it might be at 500.
Hello, finally the Z9 has arrived. Not sure if I missed something but do you set up an I menu for each of the 4 banks? Namely standard, action, landscape and Astro? I seem to get different i menus
Watch the first video on bank A. It's longer but it goes into all those details. You need to set up one bank with all your primary settings (including the i-menu customization) and copy those settings into the other banks before tweaking them to taste.
Hi hi community. Can anyone help me please. I have just got my hands on the amazing z9 but how do I setup subject tracking in video mode. Thanks
👍🏾🙏🏾