X-H2S Firmware V 3.0 Initial Impressions for BIF

I shot flight images at Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge on this cool gray day that turned very windy. This is hardly ideal conditions for birds in flight yet it's a good stress test. Observations:

- The camera now detects birds very far away thus rather small in the frame. It was not consistent when the camera would identify a bird in the distance yet when it did not zone AF still nailed focus.

- The camera did a much better job of finding a bird in the sky when the first view of the bird was so far out of focus that it could not be seen. Rather than laugh at me for requesting focus it actually hunted and found the subject.

- I had many bursts at 40 FPS where every frame was sharp. There were still some bursts where a few frames would be good enough.

- The camera can still perfectly track an out of focus subject and keep it out of focus. I finally understand this Fuji unique feature. It happens if you start taking photos before the camera has focused on the subject yet it should still focus and it does not. My X-T3 also did this. This does not happen every time.

- When tracking a bird into an area where there is very little contrast or color difference between the bird and the background, focus is sometimes lost. This is much more common with distant subjects. If the subject enters an area with contrast focus is near instant.

- The camera still can't tell a head from a tail when I bird is in profile. For birds in flight this did not happen in the past, only when a bird bent down to feed. The good news is that when the bird is parallel to the focus plane which is when this happens focusing on the tail will usually result in a sharp image.

The conditions I was shooting in was a torture test. I look forward to working with a blue sky also during the magic hours.

Morris