bgelfand

Perhaps you just had something (oxidation?) on the AF mode switch contacts and moving the switch between modes cleared it. If it continues to work, chalk it up to a gremlin that has departed and enjoy the camera. It is not as if your life depended upon that camera working. Having a working old camera, that does not have a dependable supply of spare parts, worked on can cause more problems than it fixes. Remember the old engineering saying. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Right now, "It ain't broke"

I expect you will see more sales of CFexpress V2 cards in the coming months and years. CFexpress V4, which communicates using 2 PCIe V4 lanes versus the 2 lanes of PCIe V3 that the current CFexpress V2 Type B cards use. Of course no cameras use the CFexpress V4 protocol, yet. Since the change is between PCIe V3 and V4, I do not believe there can be a simple firmware upgrade; this change will require a hardware change. On the bright side, CFexpress V4 cards are backward compatible with V2 devices.

Another way to use Sony E-mount lenses, both Sony and third party lenses. is with this adapter. MEGADAP Sony E to Nikon Z Autofocus Adapter (ETZ21 Pro) – Megadap I have not tried it; I do not own a Z-mount camera nor any E-mount lenses. The articles I have read praise it (for whatever that is worth). In a recent Tamron virtual seminar, The Fundamentals of Modern Optics, the presenters mentioned using it to mount Tamron E-mount lenses to Z-mount cameras and were positive about the results. I understand the latest version the ET-221 PRO, the third iteration of this device, corrects some of the problems encountered with last year's model the ET-221.

It could be an intermittent hardware problem with the grip or the connection between the grip and the body.. Do you have access to another grip? If so, try the other grip. If that solves the problem, send the grip to Nikon for repair. If it does not solve the problem, try the grip on another body, if you can. If that solves the problem, send the grip and the body to Nikon for repair.

Very sharp shots and very good poses, too. I see you are on eye level with your subjects. Did you raise the dogs on a platform or did you lower the camera, perhaps use the articulated view screen? What lens did you use?

At first I though it might be a Yellowjacket but it seems to have black on the face. Could it be be this: Dolichovespula sylvestris - Wikipedia

I checked my records. I regularly got 37 or even 38 frames on factory loaded cassettes,- mostly Fuji, Agfa APX, and Kodak Portra. Kodak T-Max was 36 only and Ilford occasionally gave me more than 36 frames.

No, it is probably going by ground (truck). If he dropped it at the UPS Store, it was probably not on a truck out of New Orleans until late at night on the 28th or more probably early morning on Thursday the 29th. If the package had to change trucks, no change would be made on Sunday, so you can deduct at least one day. UPS trucks move on weekends, but depot changes are not made. Tuesday the 4th of July, is a National Holiday (thanks to you Brits 😉). No deliveries that day or package sorting. And don't forget more traffic on the roads due to the holiday weekend. To put distances into perspective for you, it is about 1400 miles from New Orleans to New York. That would be like shipping a package from Portsmouth, England to Thurso, Scotland AND BACK again., in a time period that includes a weekend and a holiday and using union drivers and package handlers. The United States is a big country. No donkey needed.

Great choice. I am waiting for the price to drop around the holidays to get my set.

Which headphones did you purchase?

Two "old engineering saying" apply: 1) Never buy anything with a version that ends in .0 (Dot Zero). 2) Do you know how to tell a pioneer? They are the ones with the arrows sticking our of their rear ends. (This from the wagon train massacre scenes in the 1940 and 1950 B-Western movies.)

If your computer is always running the CPU fan and/or Graphics Card or case fans at high speed, you might wish to investigate why before just ignoring the situation. I would suggest using HWMonitor, a free software package as a starting point to see just how hot the CPU and various components are and how fast the fans are turning both under light loads and heavy loads. Here is a link to the HWMonitor software: LINK: HWMONITOR | Softwares | CPUID If the computer is running hot under normal load, it may be time for a thorough cleaning. Before you start it helps to have all your cables labeled and a diagram showing where they plug in to the case. The house vacuum cleaner with the crevice attachment is usually sufficient for many of the cleaning tasks along with some clean rags and a can of "compressed air". Unplug the computer. Remove the case air filters and vacuum them removing the accumulated dust, then wash the filters and dry them with warm (not hot) air from a hair dryer. Many cases have separate filters for the air drawn into the case to cool the motherboard and components and a separate filter for the power supply. Open the case and carefully vacuum inside to remove dust and detritus such as animal hair. When using the vacuum near fan blades such as case fans, CPU fan, Graphic card fans, immobilize the fan blades with your finger. The vacuum can cause the blades to spin faster than the fan is rated and may cause damage to the fan. Clean the all fan blades and housing with a damp cloth. Clean the CPU and Graphic Card heats sinks with the "canned air". Once again be sure to immobilize the fan blades with a finger. The compressed air may cause the fan blades to spin with excessive speed and damage the fan. Close the case, replace the filters, hook up you peripherals, and start the computer. Start HWMonitor and see if the operating temperatures are lower. If you are and "old guy" like me, remember newer CPUs and GPUs normally run at higher temperatures than the older versions. At the present time with an ambient temperature of approximately 24.2 C, my Ryzen 7- 3800x is running at 41 C with the CPU fan running at 1500 RPM. That is normal. Under heavy load it will approach 70 C and the fan will be just under 3000 RPM.

Or simply don a pair of good noise cancelling earphones and enjoy your favorite music as you edit.

Wikipedia is your friend. LINK: Aspheric lens - Wikipedia Scroll down to the heading "Manufacture"

I did not have the F2, but I did have the FTn which I purchased in 1970. It worked well until the early 1990's when the meter began to give erroneous reading especially in low light. I took it to a very good camera repair shop in Sunnyvale. They took one look at it and said, "It's the ring resistor and we cannot get a new one." I called Nikon and they said the same thing. Sine at the time I took mostly black and white flas pictures, I bought a Gossen light meter, and continued to use it for a few years. I finally bit the bullet and purchased an F100. Then while on the Internet, I came upon a post from a retired engineer who claimed to fix Nikon FTn (and I believe F2) meters for a flat fee of $85. I called him. He told me the usual problem was not the ring resistor but the cells themselves; at the same time he would calibrate the Tn head for silver oxide batteries, since the original mercury batteries were not available. He sounded reasonable, so I packed up the Tn head and a check for $85 and shipped them off. A few weeks later, the Tn head was returned. I put silver oxide batteries in, mounted it on my F body. The reading from the camera agreed closely to the reading from the Gossen meter, and the F100; not perfect, but close. I bought a roll of Kodachrome and shot it under various lighting conditions. The resulting slides looked good to me. The FTn continued to work until my home was burgled a few years later and the thief took it. The gentleman who repaired the meter was Robert Decker of Pleasant Grove, Utah. That was at least 25 years ago.

The center image, the one with a singles F/A-18 is outstanding. Talk about a sharp image. Just how close was he?

I use the Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 A022N on my D750. It is slightly smaller than the Sigma. I tested both lenses on my D750 and found the Tamron sharper to my eye. With its excellent VR, I do not have any problems hand holding it. If you find it too heavy, consider using a monopod with it. The Nikon weighing 5.07 pounds is even heavier than the Tamron at 4.38 pounds

I will give you a like for that pun, but it does not quite express its effect on me. I think what I am looking for is a man holding his nose. This one is so bad it's good, even great! 😉

This YouTube video may answer many questions beginners have about lenses: A Definitive Guide to Master Your Lenses in 15 Minutes | Fstoppers

I think you are correct; XQD uses AHCI over PCIe. Your SATA SSD may well have implemented some secure erase; my Crucial SATA SSD has a "sanitize function. The $64-question is did the XQD controller implement such a command? I have not found an answer to that. I suppose it might be in the XQD technical specifications, but I do not want to go wading through those even if they are available on the Web.

Thank you for the update for the D850 introductory price, Shun. I plugged that into the BLS calculator for an August 2017 date. The calculator reports that $3300 in 2017 has the same buying power as $4077 in April 2023 (the last date available in the calculator). Which means that today a Z8 would cost you that same "work" or forgoing other gratifications that the D850 would have cost you in 2017, assuming the person purchasing the Z8 has the appropriate Z lenses and the 2017 D850 purchaser had the appropriate F-mount lenses. To me that means the Z8 is priced appropriately if Nikon considers it a D850 replacement.

I can only compare the cost of the Z8 in U.S. dollars. When it was introduced in 2017, I believe the D850 cost about $3800 (US). Applying inflation from 2017 to the present day, it would cost $4695 today (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator CPI Inflation Calculator (bls.gov) ) If the D850 was prosumer in 2017, the Z8 certainly is today. If I was wrong about the cost of the D850 at introduction, follow the link to the calculator and plug your onw value in, and please post back to let me know.

CFExpress use the NVMe protocol over PCIe. To the best of my knowledge the XQD cards do not use NVMe. NVMe supports a Secure Erase command which the controller on the CFE card executes. The controller sets every bit on the card to a high state. Since the flash memory is NAND, this reads out as zero. I do not know which protocol XQD uses, but I suspect it does not have a Secure Erase command nor does the controller support such a command. I would add not only insure the images have been loaded to your computer, but that the computer files have been backed up - at very least to your on site backups. Remember the old Data Processing adage, "Never go nowhere you can't get back from no how!" 😉

It seems to work. 😉 All joking aside, it seems to be a sharp, versatile lens well matched to the Z9. How much post processing did you do for the images? Did you do much cropping? Sharpening?

Depending upon the magnification (a function of the distance the subject from the front of the lens), probably not. When you get close to the subject, the effective aperture gets smaller (larger f-stop number) e.g. f/3 rather than f/2.8 Rather than go into detail in this reply, here is a link that explains it better than I could: Effective Aperture and Macro | B&H eXplora (bhphotovideo.com) Try focusing on an object 10 or 20 feet away. Now does the camera report the aperture as f/2.8? Then focus on an object at the minimum focus distance. Is the aperture reported as f/3 (or perhaps smaller? If so, the lens is operating correctly. As to the second question, I suggest you turn off back button focus, perform the auto fine tune for the lens, then turn back button focus back on for normal use. The fine tune data for the lens should be stored and used.