What Can Pre-Capture Do For You? And How to Use It

Your Call

Which of today’s two featured Turkey Vulture images do you like best? What do you like about it?

Sony a-9 iii Mirrorless Camera Body

Sold the first afternoon

Yours truly, Arthur Morris, AKA artie, is offering a Sony a9 iii Mirrorless camera bodies, this one in excellent plus plus condition for a ridiculously low $3998.00. The sale includes the original product box, the body cap, the battery charger, one battery, the strap, and insured ground shipping via major courier to lower-48 US addresses only. Your item will not ship until your check clears unless other arrangements are made.

Your purchase will also include my latest a9 iii Set-up e-mail, the new Buttons and Dials Guide, and the new INFO Sheet. This body already has my latest settings on it so you will be good to head out and start making great images as soon as you review the e-mailed materials.

Please contact artie via e-mail.

This camera’s incredible frame rate, an unheard of 120fps, gives you at least four times as many wing positions and flight poses as the other top-of-the-line mirrorless camera bodies. With the incredible AF system that is even better than the AF system of the a-1 with Firmware v2.02, most every single image will be sharp on the bird’s eye. And the raw files can stand up to decent crops. A new one sells at B&H for $5,998.00. B&H has two used a9 iii bodies list right now, one for $5,217.95 and another for $55217.95! And KEH is offering a used like-new a9iii for $5823.00! Used Gear Page regular Karen McCormick sold a used a9 iii for $4298.00 last month. If you have been thinking of an a9 iii, grab my lightly used a9 iii right now and save a sweet $2,000.00. artie

ps: You can see some of my a9 iii images in the blog post here.

Important BAA Blog Notices 🙂

#1: It has come to my attention that the e-mail addresses for some folks who were previously receiving blog notifications did not make it into the new Newsletter data base. Please go to the blog and click on the Subscribe tab on the lower yellow/orange menu bar at the top of the page and re-subscribe. It is the third one in from the right.

#2: At least two folks have e-mailed stating that the link to the new blog post that they are now receiving via Newsletter is not an active link. Please understand that the link is an active link and that the problem is caused by the recipient’s e-mail settings. How do I know that? Both folks replied to the sending e-mail and when it arrived in my Inbox the link was active..

If that is the case, and you cannot figure out how to rectify the problem, simply save the BAA Blog address as a Favorite. When you receive the e-mail notifying you of a new post with the seemingly dead link, go to the blog from your Favorites menu and click on the BAA Blog. The Home page with the three latest posts will appear. Now, click on the tile of the top post and you will be good to go, to enjoy and learn from the blog, and to leave a comment.

What’s Up?

On Sunday night, Bob Eastman and I enjoyed our second consecutive incredible sunset. There were few birds, but we stayed out on the pier till 30 minutes after the sun had gone down photographing the grand scene with our cell phones. On Monday morning, we played around with a Cattle Egret flock for a while and then photographed some vultures at the desiccated Coyote skeleton. Pickings were slim both for the vultures and the photographers. At 8:52am, I said to Bob, “Eight minute warning” and continued the countdown every minute or two until the clock in my SUV struck nine. As we were about to turn north to head home, Bob said, “An Osprey just landed in the small bay and is taking a bath. Hey, there are two of them.” Before I got my vehicle into position, one flew off and circled around in flight. We had some good chances and were stunned when the bird landed right in front of us right down sun angle about five feet from the shore, bathed, and took flight right at us into the southeast wind.

After some high fives, we turned around and headed for my house. Again. And again, Bob interrupted me. This time he said, “There’s a Turkey Vulture with its wings raised on the Skinny Perch.” I drove a big circle on the South Peninsula to get on sun angle and avoid scaring the bird. We went to work. It was obvious that the wet, bedraggled bird had just emerged from a bath and was drying its wings. I moved the car to get a bit closer and put the wind right behind us albeit a bit off sun angle. Within a few seconds, the bird lifted off and flew right at us. Thanks to Pre-Capture on the a-1 ii, I got some frames of the bird just before it lifted off as well as the entire take-off. I lifted the lens off the BLUBB- and got some nice flight shots as well.

We surely made hay with our fifteen minutes of overtime!

I stayed in all day on Tuesday to start packing for San Diego. Today is Wednesday 8 January and as my photo gear is already packed, I will be taking the whole day off again. I still have to finish packing and tie up lots of loose ends. Whatever you choose to do, I hope that you choose to have a happy and productive day. Jim is taking Bob and me to the airport at 3:30am on Thursday for our non-stop flight to San Diego.

If an item — a Delkin flash card, or a tripod head — for example, that is available from B&H and/or Bedfords, is also available in the BAA Online Store, it would be great, and greatly appreciated, if you would opt to purchase from us. We will match any price. Please remember also to use my B&H affiliate links or to earn 3% cash back at Bedfords by using the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout for your major gear purchases. Doing either often earns you free guides and/or discounts. And always earns my great appreciation.

Should You Upgrade to or Purchase a Sony a-1 ii?

Aside from the improved ergonomics — more room for cold weather gloves and a more comfortable position for the shutter button — both as compared to the a-1, other nice features include the fact that the rear screen tilts both ways. Pre-capture will surely prove to be a plus. In addition, the resolution on the rear monitor has been improved dramatically. Not to mention that Bird Face-Eye tracking on the a-1 ii is significantly better than on the a-1 and that the 51MP files are to die for. Tracking: Spot XS and Wide are so much better with the a-1 ii that I have activated both of them. And don’t forget the Pre-Capture feature! On the other hand, in my opinion, the Speed Boost feature on the a-1 ii is a total waste for bird photography. Why? You want to be at 30 fps all the time.

So, the big question is, is the a-1 ii “worth” a gear upgrade. Remembering that I can never know whether or not something is worth it to you, I can say that I was not floored when using my a-1 ii. The differences between the a-1 ii and the original a-1, are neither huge nor eye-opening. The huge difference between the new camera body and the a9 iii is, of course, the 51MP a-1 raw files (as compared to the 24MP files rendered by the a9 iii).

With the price of a new a-1 having recently dropped $1500.00 to $4,998.00, the decision for new Sony buyers is a very tough one. The a-1 II sells new for 6,498.00. And the price of used a-1 bodies will continue to drop (but not as much as I had thought before using the a-1 ii).

All that said, I will be purchasing a second a-1 ii ASAP. As Bob would say, “Gooder is goober.”

If you do purchase an a-1 ii, be sure to use one of my two affiliate links so that you will receive my a-1 ii settings (in the form of a CAMSETii.DAT file), the Buttons and Dials Guide, and an Info Sheet. Folks who do not purchase their new a-i using my B&H link or from Bedfords here and entering the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout will be able to purchase the a-1 ii guide for $227.43. If you are at all confused and do not want to screw up your order, please get in touch via e-mail.

This image was created on 1 January 2025 (HNY!) down by the lake near my home at ILE, FL. Seated in the front seat of my SUV I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter (at 622mm) and the and The Latest Greatest Flagship Body, the Sony a1 II Mirrorless Camera. Shutter Priority -1 stop (1): 1/2000 sec. at f/11 (stoped down 2/3-stop) AUTO ISO set ISO 125. The exposure determined via Zebras with Exposure Compensation on the Thumb Wheel. AWB at 7:30:45am just after sunrise. Tracking: Spot S/AF-C with Bird Eye/Face Detection enabled performed perfectly. Image #1: Turkey Vulture diving off perch at sunrise image

What Pre-Capture Can Do For You

Before you can realize the advantages of Pre-Capture, you need to understand exactly how it works. You must, of course, have the feature turned on. Next, you must be half-pressing the shutter button so that autofocus is tracking the bird, usually the eye or the face. Then, when you fully depress that shutter button the camera will save the images recorded during the pre-set duration. On my a-1 ii, I keep Pre-Capture turned on with the Pre-Capture Rec Time set to 0.5 seconds. At 30 fps, that gets me the 15 images that were registered by the camera body before I fully pressed the shutter button and began shooting. Magic!

When the vulture dived off the perch, I said to Bob in back seat, “Darn! I missed that.” I absolutely did not press the shutter button until an instant before the bird disappeared into the blackness of the trees below the perch. I was stunned later that morning when I saw that Pre-Capture had recorded and saved the perfect frame of the take-off, Image #1 above.

In this case, Pre-Capture saved the day even though I was slow to act.

The Time Has Never Been Better!

With the Sony 200-600 available for less than $2K (new) and the price of a-1 bodies falling, there has never been a better time to change your life. As you see in above and have seen in many recent blog posts, the versatility of this inexpensive lens often trumps the faster, far more expensive fixed focal length telephoto lenses offered by Sony: the 600mm f/4, the 400mm f/2.8, and the 300mm f/2.8.

Use one of my affiliate links and I can have you set up making great images in a matter of minutes, just as I’ve done with Bob Eastman, the amazing Anita North, Pat Fishburne (at age 86!), Andrew Schonbek, Steve and Elizabeth Shore, Carolyn Johnson (at age 80), Geri Georg, and too many more to remember. They all switched. You can do it too!

This image was created on 6 January 2024 down by the lake near my home at ILE, FL. Seated in the front seat of my SUV, I used the BLUBB-supported Sony FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS lens with the Sony FE 1.4x Teleconverter, and Sony’s Latest Greatest Flagship Body, the a-1 ii Mirrorless Camera. ISO 1000. The exposure was determined by Zebras with ISO on the rear wheel: 1/2500 second at f/6.3 (stopped down 1/3-stop in error) in Manual mode. RawDigger showed that the exposure was perfect. AWB at 9:12:13am on sunny morning. Zone AF-C with Bird-Eye/Face Detection performed perfectly. Click on the image to enjoy the high-res version. Image #2: Turkey Vulture taking flight from the Skinny Perch

Another Pre-Capture Plus

With Image #2, I was right on the bird and focusing accurately when it began to take off. Even so, human reaction time is far from instantaneous. And those reaction times become incrementally longer as you age. As I will be 79 this coming June, I need all the help that I can get. With Image #2, Pre-Captured enabled me to capture a complete, all-encompassing sequence.

Realize This

With both of today’s featured images, the lens was supported by my BLUBB. A tripod or monopod would do the trick as well. When hand holding, stamina comes into play. Depending on the weight of your rig, the wait for a bird to take flight can tax your strength to the point of exhaustion. Many times, when you relax and lower your lens, the bird will leave the perch. In those cases, not even Pre-Capture can help you.

Supporting My Efforts Here

If you enjoy and learn from the blog, are all set for gear, or live overseas, consider leaving a BAA Blog Thank You Gift here.

If you enjoy and learn from the blog, please consider using one of my affiliate links when purchasing new gear. It will never cost you a single penny. To support my effort here, please order from B&H by beginning your search here. Or, click here, to order from Bedfords and enter the discount code BIRDSASART at checkout to receive 3% cash back to your credit card and enjoy free Second-Day Air Fed-Ex shipping. It is always best to write for advice via e-mail.

In many cases, I can help you save some serious dollars. And/or prevent you from purchasing the wrong gear from the wrong shop.

Typos

With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.