Out yesterday with the R7 and RF 100-400mm, I came across a tree that had no less than FIVE species of sunbirds, including one I’d never seen before, flitting about. Knowing they’d suck up the nectar from all the blossoms and be gone within a few minutes, I started shooting away madly.

Unlike the many sunbirds I’ve photographed feeding on ginger blossoms over the years, the ones on tree blossoms never stop moving, not even for a second. And with branches, leaves, and twigs in the way on almost every shot, I figured I might get lucky with four or five frames in focus out of close to a hundred shot.

It was discouraging, but I also realized that my keeper rate with my much-vaunted manual focus preference for shooting through foliage would probably have been absolute ZERO with this flock. But when I got my shots on the screen, I was surprised to see that the R7 had managed to get quite a few shots in focus.

I had been switching back and forth between two custom modes as I shot, one with tracking enabled and one without. The tracking mode worked amazingly well considering the conditions. And I was reminded of one reason I prefer the 100-400mm over the 100-500mm L lens: its weight and size make it much more maneuverable.

Below is a shot of a Striped-Throated Bulbul captured in the same session. The bird sat still for maybe one second, and the setup still managed to get the shot with a twig right in the focus square.

Maybe here in the age of AI my expectations are a bit low. But anytime AF does better than I can do with MF, I’m impressed.

R7/RF 100-400mm . . .