I use it for launches quite a bit, usual with subjects that spend long periods of time perched stalking prey such as Kestrels and other birds of prey, but I also find it useful for small passerines where reaction time is always important.
Just watched this new video from Jan.
Having used all three systems I agree with his findings 100%.
What I wanted to share is what he talks about staring around the 12min mark in the video. His workaround for better takeoff results with Canon is to only let the AF be active on the subject for 3-5s before letting off the shutter and reengaging precapture. He feels if you are holding down the AF for longer the camera seems to stay on the perch when the takeoff happens compared to only letting the AF/precapture run for shorter times.
Of course this has more risk of missing the takeoff but I don't think that would happen too often as it is just a split second to let off and reengage every 3-5s or so.
Canon guys...give it a try and see what you think. I'd be interested to see if this helps. I'll have some Canon gear to shoot from CPS sometime in the next month or two so will test this myself when I can.
arbitrage wrote:
Just watched this new video from Jan.
Having used all three systems I agree with his findings 100%.
What I wanted to share is what he talks about staring around the 12min mark in the video. His workaround for better takeoff results with Canon is to only let the AF be active on the subject for 3-5s before letting off the shutter and reengaging precapture. He feels if you are holding down the AF for longer the camera seems to stay on the perch when the takeoff happens compared to only letting the AF/precapture run for shorter times.
Of course this has more risk of missing the takeoff but I don't think that would happen too often as it is just a split second to let off and reengage every 3-5s or so.
Canon guys...give it a try and see what you think. I'd be interested to see if this helps. I'll have some Canon gear to shoot from CPS sometime in the next month or two so will test this myself when I can.
My experience with pre-capture is exactly the same but, the reason you have to reactivate every 3-5 seconds is because the AF will start jumping off the subject. That happens even if trying to anticipate the shot with the shutter half pressed. It's a crap shoot. Personally I think the combination of writing pre-capture images( it gets bogged down), and AF jumping off the subject it is best to just to leave it off. Or that is what I do and I get much better action shots, but of course I loose all the good ones. Canon Pre-capture is a joke.
I use it sometimes with I am a long way from the bird where the depth of field is very big. Stop down and distance will get you a few nice shots in pre-capture.
Not to speculate to much, but this problem reminds me of my working days. When scan rates on the chips got so fast it was moving so much data to the end device it would cause all kinds of problems. We would have to go in and write in software timers to slow things down so the hardware and the software was not going crazy...
Since Sony does it I assume they have a much better handle on the capabilities of their chips and hardware. Matching their systems to operate together.
Just leads me back to my opinion that Canon is extremely far behind.
This thread is amazing. Candidly I will say I appreciate BIF photos but they aren't my thing. This thread though, I scrolled through all of the posts because the action and storytelling presented (and the amazing photography). Precapture wasn't really on my radar as a feature I needed/wanted but now, ugh, it totally is.
I tried to enable pre-capture mode on the R1 for indoor pickleball and the menu item to enable it was unselectable because anti-flicker shooting was enabled.
If I was still shooting birds then I'd be over the moon.
A noob question for all pre-capturers. How long do you typically expect to wait aiming the camera at subject before you you expect action might take place? Is it like a couple of minutes or less, or longer? Of course one would try to predict, but birds are not always predictable.
indusphoto wrote:
A noob question for all pre-capturers. How long do you typically expect to wait aiming the camera at subject before you you expect action might take place? Is it like a couple of minutes or less, or longer? Of course one would try to predict, but birds are not always predictable.
Usually sparingly, only a few seconds at a time but occasionally perhaps as much as 20 seconds. That's 2,400 frames with the A9iii or 600 frames with the A1ii.
If you keep pre-capture on for much longer you're going to chew through your battery and probably overheat the camera so by the time you do need to capture the action it will have overheated and shut down or run out of battery.
