How often have you waited patiently for a perched bird to take off, and
right at the critical moment, you let your attention slide just a
little, and end up with this...
and this....and this.
...and this...and even worse, this.
Fans of Olympus have had a solution to this all too common problem for about 10
years, with their Pro Capture function, and now finally Canon has joined the
party with the release of Raw Burst Mode
and pre shooting features.
These new features, which are available already on certain mirrorless cameras
are a game changer, especially for capturing birds in flight.
And in this video, I am going to explain how it works, how you should set up
correctly, and the best way to extract that winning image from a series of shots.
Stick around until the end and I will share with you my shortcut
customization which will take your keeper rate to even greater heights.
My name is Charl, and I am a professional wildlife photographer
with Pangolin Photo Safaris.
My job is to help my guests get the best shots possible with their cameras
no matter which brand they prefer.
And so it's important for me to keep up to date with all the
new technologies that are being released like this RAW Burst mode.
While researching this video, I discovered that this is actually not that new at all.
Back in 2019, the same raw burst and pre shooting modes were available in the M6
Mark II, which begs the question as to why this feature was not included in the first
version of the R3, the R5 and the R6.
The newest cameras with this function - as standard- are the
R6M KII, R7, R8 and the R10.
As the owner of the R3, I can't help but feel a little bit shortchanged.
Guess it will be included on the R3 MKII.
Better start saving.
Here is how it works.
These features can be accessed in the red shooting menu.
Once enabled, the camera groups a burst of raw images together, which
is then presented in a playback mode under a single thumbnail image,
with a special icon.
But the real game changer is the pre shooting feature that becomes available
when raw burst mode is turned on.
When enabled, the camera starts continuously recording images
to the buffer memory once the shutter button is half pressed.
As soon as the shutter button is fully pressed, the camera records at 30 frames
a second and the pre recording images for half a second before, which at 30
frames per second, is 15 frames, which are also saved to the memory card.
The bar on the left side of the frame shows the buffer memory.
A green color indicates that the shutter button has been fully
depressed and recording is in progress.
Once it turns red.
The buffer is full and the data is being processed.
This means that you must wait until the buffer is emptied
before you can shoot again.
A word of warning.
This can take quite a while if you are a little bit trigger happy - and
I would recommend only doing a short burst to reduce the waiting time,
so you don't miss the next shot.
You can now review the single frames that are embedded into a large RAW burst file.
This marker indicates the moment that you fully depressed the shutter button.
The frames before are the pre recorded frames.
These individual frames can be saved in camera as RAW, HEIF or
JPEG files onto your memory card.
This is an important step as common software such as Adobe
Lightroom won't recognize the raw burst file and won't copy it to
your specific destinations either.
Only Canon digital photo professional can read a raw burst at this point.
So simply extract the key burst from the raw burst file,
save them as individual files.
to your memory card and you are good to go.
Something important to mention is that the RAW burst mode and pre shooting
features only works with the electronic shutter, which is automatically
enabled when the robust mode is on.
So, just keep in mind that you might see some rolling shutter
with very fast moving subjects.
As I promised at the start, here is a little hack for you.
I have been shooting with this on my R6 II for a while now and I found that
I was in need of a shortcut to access this function exactly when I needed it.
So here is what I did.
First we open the raw burst option in the shooting menu.
Enable the raw burst just for a moment to enable the pre shooting features
and then turn the raw burst back off.
The pre shooting won't be active until we enable the RAW burst
again, but this saves us time later.
by not having to activate both.
Now go to the custom button menu and choose any button of your choice.
On my R6 II, I have selected the autofocus point button on the
outer right side of the camera.
Scroll through the different options and assign the RAW burst mode to this button.
It's important to note that this button you choose for a shortcut won't
actually turn RAW burst on or off,
but it will allow you to get to the place to do so, that much quicker,
without having to go into the menu.
Once you are done with the action sequence, you hit that same button again
and select disable for the RAW burst mode.
As easy as that.
From now on, you will never miss an important moment again.
If you have the right camera, of course.
I hope you are excited to give this a shot...and if you found this
video helpful, give it a thumbs up, and don't forget to subscribe for
more photography tips and reviews.
Until next time, happy shooting