Pre-capture and high-level bird flight photography

Pre-capture is a great advance for bird flight photography, as a bird bursts into flight. And for other explosive bird action photography. But, buying a camera that has that capability in no way ensures you will capture excellent action images. There are a number of factors to consider, and this video reveals them - especially how to evaluate conditions in-the-field and adjust to them, both with your approach and with settings. It discusses limitations of your equipment, as well. With this knowledge you will increase your success ratio tremendously. This video does not cover how to set your camera up for this type of photography.

0:00 Introduction
0:40 Defining a good image of explosive bird action
1:09 Pre-capture for burst take-offs, and wind direction
2:10 Pre-capture for expected action that happens too fast
3:00 Necessity of dialing in enough shutter speed and some depth of field; and knowing your ISO limitations for noise
4:40 Why megapixels do matter - ability to crop with birds flying through frame
5:43 The difference between F4 and F6.3, where you shoot wide open at those apertures
6:41 20 FPS vs 30 FPS - the big difference between the two for bird flight photography
7:47 Blue-winged Teal male burst take-off - raw image sequence demo, illustrating previous points
10:22 Demonstration of how 20 FPS can sync with flap rate, and the consequences
11:13 Why 30 FPS has 4x the success rate of 20 FPS
12:19 Blow-ups of raw images - Blue-winged Teal take-off sequence
13:37 Circumstances when using pre-capture is not the best choice