XH2S - BIF

Alan Hewitt Photo wrote:

I'd agree that to increase your consistency a higher shutter speed would be a good plan. I'd start at 1/1600 as a minimum. As you become more experienced you will begin to understand which sort of species and their movement can be photographed with slower shutter speeds.

As you're using a wide angle / mid-range zoom, to judge sharpness requires quite a magnification on your subject and as they're small in the frame, I think this is exacerbating any minor focus and shutter speed errors too.

If you're using the bird tracking on the X-H2S, don't get caught up in worrying about selecting zone / single point / wide tracking etc. These are tools for selecting where you want to focus. With subject detection on, your camera's AI is finding the subject and focusing on that are.

I've got a blog on photograping birds in flight, it's centred around the Fujifilm system but I am currently updating it for the X-H2S / subject tracking etc so while it is a little out of date, it is still relevant:

Alan Hewitt, Birds in flight

Lastly, keep at it and enjoy. Birds in flight are a very difficult subject with and without subject detection and it requires developing technique for smooth panning. Try not to be put off, you'll get there in the end. Save some money and invest in a telephoto too! That's when you'll see your results shiiiine!

I agree with Alan.  Your biggest issue is that you need a lot more practice.  Changing focus settings will simply confuse you.  Chose a method that lets you get sharp enough for the subject tracking to take over.  I favor zone and I feel that single point will be very difficult unless you have made a huge point, in which case you are actually using zone with out the advantage of the AF-C custom settings that help the camera focus.

That short lens is going to cause you to get too close to your subjects and scare them so they will fly off adding to your frustration.  Save for something longer and consider used from a reliable vendor to reduce the cost.

Morris