Putting the new Canon Pre-Capture to good use

You may remember when I was using the pre-production Canon R1 camera and Canon R5 Mark II at the Summer Olympics in Paris, this was the first time I had really put the new pre-capture feature to good use.

For those not familiar with this new feature, it allows the user to press halfway down on the shutter button of the camera (to start the camera writing images to the internal memory buffer) and then when pressing all the way down, it will go back half a second and grab those images and write them to the memory card. thus capturing images that we might have otherwise missed. To make that simpler, the camera captures a burst of images before we even hit the shutter button. And this can be done with JPEG or RAW photos.

When I first heard about this feature, my first thought was "this would be perfect for capturing birds and other wildlife that move fast."  But as it turns out, it benefited me first at the Olympics.

I knew that capturing images of Simone Biles was important for these Olympics, and I did not want to miss any key shots of the GOAT in action. I think that this was the first time I turned on pre-capture. When setting up both cameras, I added the pre-capture menu to the green "My menu" screen so that I could easily turn this on and off. 

You might be thinking that, with this cool feature, why would I not use it all the time? And I will tell you why. It adds an additional 15 or so images every time I hit the shutter button. This is great for those key moments with unpredictable action, but I did not want to shoot hundreds more images than needed. It was just more images to go through, and with my crazy fast deadlines, this was a killer. 

For the first water polo game that I photographed in Paris, I left pre-capture on for the whole game and ended up with 5700 images by the end of the match. That was WAY too many to sort through in my 15 minute deadline. I promised myself that this was the last time I would do that! But I did turn on pre-capture whenever there was a penalty shot. These shots happen very fast and I did capture some really nice photos that I probably would have missed without this new feature. 

When photographing sports like badminton and volleyball (beach and indoor), I relied on the pre-capture pretty heavily. These are sports that I have not captured very often and I found myself missing some of the best action shots. Once I turned on pre-capture, then I was able to get more "peak of action" shots, like the ones you see above and below.

Two weeks ago I was down in the rain forest of Costa Rica for yet another photo tour and this gave me a chance to put the pre-capture to good use for nature photography. 

While we were out searching for monkeys and other wildlife to photograph, we came across this Roadside Hawk. It was perched on this post and I saw this as the perfect time to put pre-capture to it's test. Remember, this was the moment I had first visualized when being told about the new feature at a Canon briefing. 

In the past, when waiting for these birds to take off, myself and most of my tour guests would get tired of holding the cameras in position and miss that moment ending up with shots like this. Arghhh.

This time I was using pre-capture and hoping to get the hawk taking off from the post. I had the shutter button pressed half way down and saw the bird poop. Usually, when a bird poops, it is about to take off. In this case the pre-capture ended up capturing the bird pooping and then...

...the bird took off and I got the shot that I otherwise would have missed.

Within the 28 frames that I captured, I got numerous photos of the bird in flight

Later that same day, we saw about 20 Scarlet Macaw taking turns grabbing fruit from this palm tree. I used the pre-capture to capture as many frames as I could, The goal was to get the best image of the birds with their wings open and showing as much color as possible. 

If you saw any of my social media posts, you know that we had a ton of rain on this trip. Way more than normal! But even with the bad weather, we managed to go out for the dolphin watching tour. The pre-capture feature worked VERY well in this instance. The Spinner dolphins would jump high out of the water and we had a split second to point the camera in the right direction, achieve focus and then hope for the dolphin to do another jump. Those of us who had the cameras with pre-capture would hold the button halfway down and hope to get another jump. Look at the height that this dolphin jumped!

I also used the pre-capture when the dolphins were riding the wake of the boat. The second I would see their heads emerge from the water I would press the shutter button all the way down, knowing that the camera would capture the entire sequence, from beginning to end. Then, when viewing the photos on my computer, I could select my favorites.

On our last day of the Costa Rica photo tour, we took a boat ride on the Sierpe River. We saw this Little blue heron on the shoreline. As we approached the bird, I locked focus on it's face and hoped that it would take off. Before I expected this, it flew off. Without pre-capture I know for sure that I would have missed this shot. After the bird was gone, I looked into the viewfinder of the Canon R5 Mark II and saw this image. I love that the heron almost looks like a ballet dancer in this shot.

I was happy to see that I also had numerous other photos of the bird in flight.

This last image is of a Tropical kingbird. It was sitting on this branch and we all focused our lenses on this little guy. As it turns out, the bird did not fly away, but it did jump up in the air to change positions. Seeing this happen, I pressed the shutter button all the way down and got this photo of the bird in mid air. Something the happened before I even hit the shutter button. So cool!

I know that other cameras have had this feature for some time, and I glad that Canon has added this to their lineup. Currently, the Canon R1, Canon R5 Mark II, and Canon R6 Mark II (with a slightly different take on pre-capture) have this feature, but I expect this to be available in many more models in the future.

I would love to know how you all are using pre-capture.

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Asia and more. 

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MacBook Air and MacBook Pro - Which is better for photographers and travel?

You may remember that, before the start of the Summer Olympics in Paris, I got my hands on a MacBook Pro M3 Max and a MacBook Air. At this point you might be wondering why I would want both laptops. And the quick answer is this...I was not sure which laptop would be best for the Olympics, my photo tours, and for my photo business at home.

As it turns out, there was no easy answer as to which laptop was best for all situations, and that each had their own best use cases.

The MacBook Pro 16"

Let me start with the MacBook Pro. This laptop is larger and heavier than the MacBook Air but also has a lot more processing power and storage capabilities. When choosing a laptop for the Olympics, this was an easy decision. Since I have crazy tight deadlines for Team USA, I need all the power and speed that I can get. The MacBook Pro gives me the following advantages over the MacBook Air:

* Faster processing speed

* More storage (since the SSD option goes up to 8TB)

* More DRAM which helps decrease editing time

* Faster GPU to speed up the screen redraw

* More ports (for connecting card readers, SSDs, HDMI and more)

* Slightly larger screen (making it easier to view and retouch my images)

Not only is the MacBook Pro great for the Olympics, but I also use this computer for my photo tours in Costa Rica. Why just Costa Rica and not all the others? Because in Costa Rica we are basically in one location the whole time. This way I can take the larger and heavier laptop, knowing that I do not need to lug it all over the country. I can pop it down on my desk at the resort and never have to move it for the entire trip.

The MacBook Air 15"

Even though the MacBook Air is not as fast as it's bigger brother, I still choose it for many of my photo tours and for those times when weight is a factor. Not only do I appreciate the lighter weight and smaller size, I also love that the power supply is tiny. This all makes for a very portable solution, which I love for all those times when I am moving from one hotel room to another. This was the case for my recent photo tour in Indochina. We were constantly on the move, changing hotels almost every night and having to travel on numerous flights, trains and buses. Every bit of weight saving was appreciated. The MacBook Air provides very good speed with the ultimate in portability. With that said, I can tell the difference in speed when working with the Air. When scrolling through images in Photo Mechanic, there are times when the image needs to render before I can see it clearly, and this never happens with the MacBook Pro.  People sometimes ask me if I use the 13" MacBook Air or the 15" model and my answer is always the same. "I find it difficult to work on my images on the smaller screen and always opt for the larger size."

To recap, the MacBook Air has these advantages:

* Light weight

* Thin design

* Very small power adaptor

* Larger screen option (since 13" is not enough)

I have used the Mac laptops for the last 20 years and really prefer them to all the others. I love that Apple controls the hardware and software, making the solution more reliable than any PC (in my opinion). I also love the quality of the screens that they use. Not only are they very color accurate, but they hold calibration better than most laptops.

 I hope that this helps you if you are trying to decide on which laptop you want to purchase.

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Asia and more. 

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Slowing down the shutter speed in Asia and capturing cool photos!

Yikes - it has been almost 3 weeks since I have shared a blog post with all of you! I was traveling through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia on another photo tour and we were moving fast. There just was no time to write a blog during this time. Then I came home to a ton of work and some jet lag too. But now I am back home (for one week before heading to Costa Rica once again).

I have a ton of images from the last trip and have added them to my "Around the World" web page. If you have not checked that out, you should do so, since I put all my favorite travel images there. 

For this blog post, I thought I would share some of my favorite creative images from the trip that have one thing in common, they were taken with a slow shutter speed. And...just before posting this blog, I learned of this really cool story about the trip which you will find at the end of this post.

And so...here is the new blog post.

Our first stop on this Indochina photo tour was Laos. It was my first time in the country (since we could not get into the country on our last trip, due to the pandemic), and we all loved it. As part of that trip, we visited the Khouang Si waterfalls and they were beautiful. Some waterfalls are amazing but not good for photography, with either too much water or not enough cascading falls. This one had the right elements for great photos. I was using the new Canon R5 MKII camera with the RF 24-105mm lens (with a Tiffen Circular Polarizing filter) and knew that this would be a great combination for photos at this location. I lowered the ISO all the way down to 50 and set the aperture to f/22, which gave me a shutter speed of 1/4 second. I was shooting handheld and appreciated the image stabilization of the camera and lens, making it possible to capture this images without a tripod.

I started taking photos of people in the falls and loved the results. Nobody that I knew but...more on that in a little bit. 

Four of our tour guests were swimming in the water and I asked them if they wanted a really cool photo. I kept the slow shutter speed and asked them to keep very still. This is the resulting image which we all really loved.

Here is another photo from the upper trail of the Khouang Si waterfalls. So pretty!

The next morning we got up early to watch the monks receive their daily offerings from the public who lines the streets of Laos every morning. After getting the "safe shots" I once again slowed the camera shutter (this time to 1/13 sec) and panned with the monks as they walked by.

While in Vietnam, we always make an early morning stop to the flower market. When we were there two years ago, my favorite image was a motion pan taken right as we exited the market. I wanted to try and reproduce that image with even better results. The challenge was on! Did I beat the image from my last trip? Not sure, but I like all of them. (This image was taken at 1/10 second.) 

We saw this guy who was parked on the sidewalk, and he had a ton of flowers on his motorcycle and I knew that it could make a really cool motion pan photo. I really wanted to teach this photography technique to our guests, so we asked him if he would drive around a couple of times for us. This photo was taken at 1/30 sec and captures the guy pretty sharp but did not show enough blur in the background.

On his second pass, I lowered the shutter speed to 1/10th sec as he sped by and got this photo. It is one of my favorite photos of the trip.

On our final day in Asia, we had a really long layover in Bangkok. Since our flight home did not leave until 4am, some of us decided to do a night tour in Bangkok. Go ahead and sing "One Night in Bangkok" of you like, we did. :) 

While walking around, we had a pretty good rain storm for about 10 minutes. It passed quickly but provided some great reflections on the ground. I saw the tuk tuks cruising through the streets and thought that it would make for some fun photos.

For these photos, I kept the shutter speed between 1/15 sec and 1/5 sec.  The lights on the vehicles really made for dramatic and colorful photos.

And now for the last minute story. As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, I wrote most of this post earlier and was about to post it when something popped up on my phone. It said that some person had posted on Facebook and tagged me. It was not a name of anyone I recognized. I decided to click on the link to see what was posted and was really surprised and happy to see this.

Many times when I am traveling and take a nice photo of someone, I get their email address and send them the photo. As it turns out, this guy was one of those people who I captured in the waterfall. There was a quick moment where he stopped, looked up, closed his eyes. It was the perfect moment to capture him still with motion all around him. After he got out of the water, I went over to him and showed him the photo. It turned out that he was from Italy. I got his email address and sent him the photo later that day. When I read his Facebook post and saw that I captured this on his birthday, it was extra special. I ended up giving him a birthday gift, without even knowing that I was doing so. That makes me smile!

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Asia and more. 

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Our final days in Peru: Exploring the Amazon

After spending more than a week traveling around Peru, our final stop of the photo tour was in the Amazon rain forest. At this point we expected very warm weather back down at sea level, but that was not the case. When we landed at the airport, we were greeted with cool weather and light rain. This is very abnormal for the rain forest.

We got to our resort which was really nice, and everyone settled in for the day. It was great to hang out at the edge of the river and watch the small boats go by.

There was a small cayman which hangs out by the dock and if you go down and whistle, you are likely to get it's attention. Some of us went down and made enough noise to see the little guy.

The next day we had our first boat trip on the river. We cruised around and saw some wildlife including these capybara on the shoreline. I was using a combination of the Canon R5 and Canon R6 MKII with the RF 24-105mm lens and RF 100-500mm lens.

We also saw some cool birds from the boat and our room at the resort.

There was a mealy amazon bird which frequented our resort.

On our second day in the Amazon, we took a short boat ride to these amazing hanging bridges. Everyone had a great time walking across these as we looked down on the canopy of the rain forest.

Since the weather was so cold, we did not see a ton of wildlife, but we did see these amazingly colorful birds!

As we walked around, we came across some leaf cutter ants. Even though I have photographed these many times in Costa Rica, I thought it would be fun to capture some Peruvian ants.

After walking across the hanging bridges, we then went on a nice slow boat ride on the river.

We saw some cool birds in the water. This one had just caught a large fish and we had fun photographing it as it swallowed it's meal.

This is a photo of our second boat, with everyone photographing some monkeys in the nearby trees.

We saw some more interesting birds...

...but the best part of the trip was the tranquil boat ride through the Amazon.

Towards the end of our boat ride, we saw a small pack of monkeys in the trees. This one was hanging out on a fallen tree, watching us as we passed by. Even though I have photographed many monkeys in Costa Rica and Africa, it was fun to see a new species.

And raps up the best of our trip to Peru. I can tell you that everyone had an amazing time and I heard people saying that it was the best trip they had ever taken. Some of the guests had no idea what to expect and were blown away by this photo tour.

You can sign up for the 2025 trip HERE. I still have some openings.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Asia and more. 

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Peru Photo Tour: Visiting the markets in Cusco

After being in Peru for a week, we had all adjusted pretty well to the altitude by the time we visited the town of Cusco. The city of Cusco is situated at an altitude of 11,000 feet and is so worth visiting. The city has narrow streets, quaint squares, interesting buildings and some fun markets. 

Our hotel was located right in the heart of Cusco, and on our first day in the city we walked through some of the local markets. I took my Canon R5 camera with the RF 24-105mm lens, figuring that this would be the perfect combination for the day.

Much like our stores here in the United States, the market was segmented by categories. There were  clothing, vegetables, fruits, meat and even toys. We all split up and photographed whatever intrigued us. I saw this woman walking down this row and loved the scene that was presented in front of me.

Most of the people were happy to be photographed. I looked for the vendors that were surrounded by interesting offerings, and had good light on their faces.

This one woman was sorting and bagging kernels of corn. I saw her repeating this process over and over and thought that it would be fun to slow the shutter of the camera to get motion in the corn. I took this photo at 1/60th of a second to blur the corn but keep her face sharp. I showed this to the other tour attendees to inspire them to try this same technique for their own.

I love going to markets which cater to the locals. It is fun to watch the interaction between the people. This man was purchasing Coca leaves which are used for tea in the region. We actually drank a lot of Coca tea since it helps with altitude sickness (which nobody got). It was really tasty, and no, there is no high from the leaves.

I loved the way this this woman was passing the time while being surrounded by all the food.

This older lady was selling fabric and clothing, and just had an interesting face with a lot of character.

The people were going about their daily routines while we all had fun capturing photos.

We were having fun and so were they.

Our time was up at the market, so we walked outside to meet our guide and driver. Before getting in the van, I saw this man sitting in front of his storefront and loved the light on his face and his expression.  

When I go back to this market next year (on my next photo tour to Peru - which still has openings), I want to print some of these images and bring them to give these people.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Asia and more. 

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