this feature need to enable an electronic shutter and what it does
1. focus and HALF press the shutter
2. the camera start record pictures within the frame
3. press the Shutter button and anything pre-happen before shutter button press (~<1s) will be a record
e.g. 3 White-bellied Woodpecker Nesting
– another good opportunity to use this special function
– 这个环境非常容易的用这个功能
video by combine 17 pictures within ~1s while the bird flying out from the nest and I only press the shutter button after seeing the bird flying out from the nest
eg. 1 this bird keep “displaying” but what we need just one position
whats you need to do just
1. Turn ON Pre-shot (require ES)
2. focus on the bird and half-press the shutter just like on left and waiting for any action of the bird. Press the Shutter immediately after the desired moment happen to mean frame 6/7 (anything within ~1s) then all the previous pictures will be recorded into the memory card.
*In traditional to capture the desired moment (5th frame from left, we need to keep burst the shutter and hope lucky to get the frame with a few hundred shots.
* in this testing, I only enable 8 fps
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eg2. Bird flying out from Nest
in this condition, the bird may stay in the nest hole for minutes, hours before it flies out and when it flying out could be just a split second. So it is not easy to capture the moment.
here is the frame I got
1. Enable Pre-Shot
2. focus and Half-press shutter button. The bird can be in this position for minutes and hours.
3. all of sudden the bird fly out and this is when I press my shutter button
But all the other frames before this last moment already captured into the memory card
This is just a feature that captures pre-moment so it is not continuous focus, so pre-plan the angle where the bird expects to have the next move is important to have a better focus picture.
Besides that, to have a wider or not too big a subject the frame can allow u to have long series of action pictures.
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So Have fun trying this lovely feature. Besides Fujifilm Xt3/4. Understand Panasonic which first launches this feature under Pre-burst and Olympus follow later call Pro-capture.
I am glad to be given a chance to be tried on the Fujifilm XF70-300mmF4-5.6 R LM OIS WR. Even though we don’t have that many opportunities to do more tests on this setup because of the Covid-19 lockdown.
for quick sharing from Fujifilm XF70-300mmF4-5.6 R LM OIS WR Liew WK – Lens Stories
For birding Photography, we always concern about on few camera and lens specifications
1. Image Quality
– how sharp and how’s the ISO performance
– with Teleconverter Image quality
2. Autofocus performance
– how fast the autofocus, how accurate autofocus, and how good is the tracking capability
3. Weather-resistant, Weight and Size
– no one can deny bigger lens (longer and bigger aperture) will give you better image quality but we need to know how much we can tolerate with Image quality drop with the size and weight reduce.
– most of the bird photography here (Tropical rainforest – Malaysia) involves a lot of tracking, walking, hiking so it is not really a good choice to carry heavy equipment to long hours to do bird photography here.
Some Extra Features
4. Minimum Focus Distance
– most of the Bird photographers also a nature lover who may also capture many other creatures (butterfly, snake, etc
– minimum focus distance of 0.83 which give magnification 0.33
5. Image stabilization
– I can’t comment much as not really do a lot of testing on this but some of the dark conditions where I shoot ~600mm at 1/10-1/30s also give a very good success rate but for my comfort. 1/100 is a base shutter speed to get a very high success rate for myself.
I also captured some videos handheld
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Very low light condition
ISO1600, F8.0, 1/30
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1. Image Quality
– with previous testing on the Fujifilm equipments
– as previous testing share, the X-T4 AF performance FAST, accurate and tracking is good too.
– I won’t share any single point AF here as all others above are using AFS or single focus but here I am sharing what I am concern about continuous focus for both lock focus & tracking capability
– Both above Loglight Condition sharing pictures were captured in very low light condition and AF is still fast and accurate for AFS
All pictures below captured with AFC – continuous focus and Zone (almost full screen). [I let the camera and lens decide to lock the object and track without any additional setting change]
i. Terns
– many of them flying far and near with moderate speed but in any direction under the hot sun
– most of the focus can lock fast and continuous tracking the bird by the next 1-2 s as the tern fly out from the frame
– it is almost no fail to lock focus when the birds flying with blue/white sky and sea background which has enough contrast
– it is getting difficult to lock focus when a bird flies into the frame where the background is green
– this owl all of a sudden fly out from the small palm oil plantation- the focus lock fast but the tracking miss 50% intermittent as it is flying toward me fast and close (some of the focus frame lock on the wing but not the head).*** the tracking may able to improve by some AF setting. as the focus locking is fast enough to focus again after miss out of focus within 1-2s flying toward me seriesFujifilm X-T4, Fujifilm XF70300, TC 1.4x [434mm, ISO800 F.8.0 1/1250]
– This is a special case where this hornbill standing on a building wall. So make use of the continuous focus & tracking mode. Even the bird is near the tracking work since the bird begins flying until it missing into a tree.
– the moment happens just ~2s, while I am shooting 7fps. and the focus just miss 2 frame
– it is very difficult to capture swift picture due to normally they are flying fast, all different direction
– success rate is not very high due to the flying speed very fast and accelerates in any direction for feeding. But the camera and lens still able to lock the focus as long as my position is at the right position.
– due to the APS-C sensor size the lens design in a smaller size compared to an equivalent 35mm equivalent lens (100-400mm)
– the lens with X-T4 which is 607g (including battery and SD memory card)
– 1.4x TC
with such focal length 107mm to 457mm or (107mm to 457mm)x1.4 or x2)
look at the size
4. Minimum Focus Distance
– this lens can take a photo at a minimum focus distance of 0.83 which give magnification 0.33 think this is also good for some butterfly, big object macro
I will slowly update some of my concern features which related to Tropical forest birding requirement e.g. ISO performance (we have many lowlight condition environment), lowlight Autofocus, Image Stabiliser (handheld shooting minimum shutter speed)
– with the longest focal length 400mm with 1.5x crop (crop body) it is equivalent to 600mm 35mm focal length. So this may be a major concern for birding where 600mm is the maximum reach and always too short.
So I am trying to shoot this lens with 1.4x tc, which gives 400mmx1.4x=560mm and this equivalent 560mmx1.5=840mm (35mm focal length equivalent)
Focal length: mm+1.4x tc ISO: 640
F number: 8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/60
4k 16:9, 59.94p, 200 Mbps MOV/H.265 (HEVC) LPCM, 4:2:0 10bit
Zone AutoFocus - can see with the lowlight condition and mess environment the Autofocus will trying to confuse by the nearby moving objects (eg leaf)
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Testing 3: Continuous Focus Tracking
– a test I am using mainly to test Bird in flight
– Continuous Focus, Zone
update 202102
– another good moment before last light the bird just flying out from roosting
– the fast focus lock of the X-T4 and tracking make me able to have many keepers of this bird flying just in short distance
– 這鳥在天黑前突然飛出來。X-T4 對焦很快與準。
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update 202101
- another day testing with X-T4 and 200mmF2
- mainly trying on AF lock speed and tracking for raptors
flying
- and this is an example using AF Zone in Video record 4k,
60p
update 202101
- lucky to encounter this bird, but it flies away immediately found I get close to it...
- with the Fujifim X-T4 fast AF I managed to capture the
flying moment
update 20210114
– very strong wind day, there are Barn Swallow, Pacific Swallow, House Swift, Silver-rumped Needletail, German’s Swiftlet, etc flying fast near the water dam.
– I mainly want to try the focus locking speed and tracking speed for the X-system
