On New Year’s Day, I had just stepped out onto my patio and set the Merlin App to record birds it heard. I saw that the app announced that “Your Bird of the Day” is an Anna’s Hummingbird. I don’t know if Merlin is affiliated with Google, that seems to know everything you’ve been thinking let alone searching for, but indeed I had already decided that my bird of the day was an Anna’s Hummingbird, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t say it out loud. I was on day 8 practicing with my new Nikon Z6III (a Christmas present to myself) and a feature called Pre-release Capture. This feature is not new and my Z8 and Z9 also have this ability. But because the feature records only JPEG images and not RAW images, I was reluctant to use it until now. My reluctance turned into “I must have this” after seeing the results Moose was getting. Capturing in-focus images that show the bird with various wing positions as it takes off can be a challenge. It requires a high shutter speed to freeze the action and in order to get the necessary high shutter speed, it also usually needs a high ISO. The Z6III handles high ISO on a jpeg image without the inherent noise that can be so objectionable. My other cameras don’t do it as well. The magic of this feature is that the camera records up to a full second of images BEFORE you press the shutter release. The delay between seeing the action and taking action to press the shutter release is enough to miss the action. That’s the beauty of Pre-release Capture… you have images you otherwise would have missed and hopefully, those are the images for which you pressed the shutter release. And, because it is a JPEG, the image is finished, straight out of the camera. No need for post processing.
This image is of one of the three male Anna’s Hummingbirds that have been squabbling over the feeders in my yard. It is the first successful take-off shot I captured yesterday. I’m thinking this feature will help me get those elusive hummingbird flight images with all sorts of interesting flight positions. Stay tuned. This is a work in progress.