First Bald Eagle Photos Using The Fujifilm X-H2S And “Bird” Subject Recognition Autofocus

This was as close to this Bald Eagle as I could get.  I normally wouldn’t make an image of a scene
that looks like this (the back of the eagle as well as being obscured) but my goal was to find out
how well the X-H2S's "Bird" subject recognition AF worked with the eagle partially obscured
and at a great distance. This was made at the full frame equivalent of a 600mm field of view.
(click to enlarge)

Last week I had the opportunity to take out the X-H2S and look for some Bald Eagles and ospreys along the Colonial Parkway in the Williamsburg/Jamestown area of SE Virginia.  There are several nests in the area of the Parkway that are active and I wanted to try out the camera's "Bird” subject recognition AF on two of the raptor species that I like to photograph most.

Unfortunately, I saw only one Bald Eagle and it appears the ospreys have already started their southerly migration.  The Bald Eagle sat across the roadway high in a dead tree and partially obscured by a couple of pine bows from other nearby trees.  Good test, I thought to myself.  A difficult test.  Will the AF system recognize the bird and, if so, will it lock onto it?  Is the AF system sensitive enough to find and lock on to the Eagle’s eye?

I have one of the X-H2S's presets (C1-C7) programmed for bird photography.  I have the camera set for Shutter Priority, 1/2000th sec., Auto WB, Auto ISO, 15fps, RAW and the Custom AF-C set for #2 (I'm still trying to learn which of these Custom AF-C settings for capturing different types of subjects and different types of movement works best.  If any of you have experience and/or recommendations, please let me know).

As for a lens, I used the Fujifilm XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens at @ 400mm.  My aperture was f/5.6.  I felt comfortable handholding the camera/lens combination as the X-H2S's in-body-image-stabilization (IBIS) has undergone a noticeable improvement.  Very much welcomed.

This is a crop of the above image that represents about 7.5% of the entire frame.  About 1.9mp.
(click to enlarge)

I walked as close to the eagle as I could get.  I raised the camera and lens and found it in my viewfinder.  The "Bird Detect" white box immediately appeared and danced around on the eagle and where the eagle sat.  It appeared to me it was trying to zero in on the eagle.  I pressed the AF-On button (using my usual back-button focus) as well as the shutter button and soon the green box appeared and locked first on to the eagle's head then quickly on its eye.  I made several 15fps burst exposures as the eagle turned its head and, eventually, flew away.

(click to enlarge)

This also is a crop that represents about 7.5% of the entire frame.  About 1.9mp. (click to enlarge)

Of the 89 images I made of the eagle using four different bursts, 79 were in sharp focus.  The ones that were slightly out of focus were ones in the first burst where the camera was trying to initially find the bird.  I think I actually pressed the shutter before the green box appeared so I expected some of those first shots to be out of focus.  After that, all images in subsequent bursts were in sharp focus.

I've included two images here.  Two are of the entire 26mp frame and two are severe crops showing the eagle's eye to be sharply focused.  The two cropped images are 1410 px X 1410 px. or about 7.5% of the overall frame.  After looking very closely at these and the other images at 100% in Lightroom Classic, I am pleased with the camera and lens' performance.

These images represent only one use case.  No definite conclusions can be made from this one outing.  However, I'll be using this camera more in the future to fully understand its capabilities, shortcomings and how to get the most out of it.  Stay tuned.

If any of you have this camera and have recommendations or advice to get the most out of its AF system, please leave a comment for the benefit of all of us.

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

All content on this blog is © 2013-2022 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.