If you followed the release of the new Canon EOS R8 Mark II, you might be wondering what the feature pre-continuous shooting is, otherwise known as pre-capture (Sony and Nikon), Pro Capture (OM System), Pre-Burst (Panasonic) or Pre-shot ES (Fujifilm).

The feature has been around for a while now having been introduced by OM System (Olympus), and it’s slowly worked its way across brands and into affordable models, including the R8 II, Sony A7 V and Nikon Z5 II.

I'm here to explain pre-capture, and show you the benefit of this feature with images I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to capture without it. Let’s dive in.

What is pre-capture and how does it work?

Picture this — you’ve got your camera fixed on a subject, poised for the action to happen; athletes on the 100m start line, a kingfisher on a branch that could take flight at any moment, a potential goal in a soccer match.

Sometimes your reactions aren’t up to speed to capture the key moment, and it's gone before your finger has pressed the shutter button. It’s exactly these scenarios that pre-capture is designed for, and it's the feature that helped me get the images of birds in flight, where previously I’d have missed the moment or simply settled for ones of them perched on branches.

Pre-capture gives you up to a 1 second head start (depending on the model) before the shutter is pressed, continually shooting (to a temporary buffer) before you press the shutter button, at which point the images shot in the specified time before the shutter button was fully pressed are recorded retrospectively.

With pre-capture on, it's typically initiated by half pressing the shutter button (or fully pressing an assignable button, such as the autofocus button), as is the case with the Sony A7 V I used to take the pictures in this feature.

The Canon EOS R8 Mark II, for example, can shoot up to 40fps and offers up to 0.5 second pre-capture, meaning you can retrospectively record a 20 photo sequence in the half second before you press the shutter button. The Sony A7 V can shoot up to 30fps with up to 1 second pre-capture, so that’s up to 15 images.

How to use pre-capture effectively

I recently got into bird photography and it didn’t take me long to bag some beautiful photos of the varied birdlife in my local nature reserve and wetland, using some superb review gear — including the Sony 400-800mm F6.3-8 super telephoto zoom lens.

As enjoyable as this hobby is (and it really is), soon enough I was considering how I could mix up the kind of photos I was making, besides stationary birds on branches. Pre-capture came to mind. How about capturing photos of the birds taking flight?

Birds in flight is one of the toughest photography challenges — as I found out during a recent hands-on with the Fujifilm XF 400mm F4.5 R LM WR lens at a birds of prey experience. And that was when I had some idea of where the birds would be flying. But wild birds in flight? Nigh on impossible, I thought.

I chose the most appropriate autofocus mode (in this case bird subject detection), the continuous high drive mode (30fps), set a suitably fast shutter speed to freeze movement (1/1000sec, wasn't fast enough it turned out) and, of course, activated pre-capture. I started with the maximum time possible of 1 second, though the camera in question has options from 0.1 sec to 1 sec in full decimal points.

Pre-capture helped me get the shots you see in this article, but there were a couple more non-technical ingredients in the recipe: an eye for the shot and, ultimately, patience.

Once I had the composition and subject I liked, I kept the camera locked in with the shutter half pressed and waited for the bird to take flight. Many times the bird was content for several minutes, and I could feel my finger / thumb burning by the time it moved.

On my first attempt I thought I had missed the moment even with pre-capture active, but low and behold my slow reactions were redeemed.

I think my patience has paid off. Yes, the photos of the birds stationary are still lovely, but the ones of them in flight in an already well-composed scene take them to new heights.

There are plenty of other scenarios that benefit from pre-capture, and if you’re a keen sports or wildlife photographer it’s well worth trying out — I’ve included a list of recent cameras equipped with the feature, plus shopping links, below.

Cameras with pre-capture

The following cameras are listed as having each company's version of pre-capture:

• Canon EOS R1, EOS R5 Mark II, EOS R6 Mark II, EOS R6 Mark III, EOS R8 Mark II
• Nikon Z9, Nikon Z8, Nikon Z6 III, Nikon Z5 II, Nikon Z50 II
• Sony A9 III, Sony A1 II, Sony A7R VI, Sony A7 V
• OM System OM-1, OM1 Mark-II, OM-5 Mark II, Olympus OM-D E-M1 X, E-M1 Mark III, E-M1 Mark II, E-M5 Mark III, Tough TG-6, Tough TG-7
• Panasonic Lumix G9, Lumix G9 II, Lumix S5 II / X, Lumix S1 II, Lumix S1 II R
• Fujifilm X-T5, X-T4, X-T3, X-T30 III, X-T30 II, X-T30, X-H2S, X-H2, X-Pro3, X100VI

The iPhone 18 Pro Max main camera's new variable aperture is a huge deal and, in my limited experience, I can already see that it could transform iPhone photography. Still, to know why this matters, you need to understand how it works.

The best analogy is your eyes.

If you've ever squinted to read something, you understand how an aperture works. The more open your pupil, the more light that comes in, but it's widely scattered, making objects in the distance out of focus. If you squint, that cuts the amount of light coming into your eye, but it also removes more of the scattered light, leaving only the sharper light and imagery. On a camera, the open aperture (represented by lower f-stop numbers) has the same effect as your wide-open pupils. Lots more light, but only stuff nearest you is in focus. A smaller aperture, represented by higher f-stop numbers, is the eye-squint: less light but more focus throughout the frame.

Ever since Apple announced the iPhone 18 Pro (and Pro Max's) big camera update, which also includes voluminous Pro-level controls, I've been itching to try them. As soon as I got my iPhone 18 Pro Max in black, I ran outside to see if the update makes an appreciable difference in photography quality and possibilities.

The short answer is yes.

Understanding this new variable aperture

A few things you should know about this new hardware feature. First, it's only on the 48MP main lens, so the 48MP, 4x telephoto, and 48MP ultrawide cameras only have fixed apertures: ƒ/2.8 and ƒ/2.2, respectively. Those are decently wide apertures, but the Main camera has Auto, ƒ/1.48, ƒ/1.8, ƒ/2.8, ƒ/4.0. That's a wide range. It's not quite DSLR-level, where you can stop down to, say, ƒ/11, which can be useful for deep focus and for capturing ultra-bright objects like the moon at night.

It's also worth noting that these are physical f-stops. The iPhone 18 Pro Max Main camera aperture features an array of interlocked blades thinner than a human hair, and they slide over each other as the aperture opens and closes. It's an engineering marvel. In the right light, you can see them adjusting.

I think it's fair to wonder why we need a physical, variable aperture when many of the iPhones since the iPhone 7 Plus have included portrait mode technology. In the early days, it used information from its wide and telephoto lenses to craft a bokeh effect. Eventually, Apple started using software to analyse the image and create a portrait mode with just a single lens (see 2020's iPhone SE). No matter how the iPhones have done it over the years, it's impressive and, for most users, good enough.

My goal, though, was to see how the portrait mode on the iPhone 18 Pro Max might differ from variable aperture photography (my preferred setting was f1.48). In other words, software vs. hardware. I did also fiddle with the other f-stops, but in bright daylight, the bokeh effect on ƒ/1.8 and ƒ/2.8 is quite subtle.

I took pictures of myself, photos of statues, and the image above of a drying leaf. That photo, or rather that one compared to the Portrait Mode shot of the same leaf, is what convinced me: this is a game changer.

When you use Portrait Mode on an iPhone, you can adjust the bokeh before or after photography. It's a reminder that this is, at least in part, a software effect that can include or discard as much background sharpness as you desire.

A new leaf

Using the variable aperture is more akin to traditional photography. You have the lens, the aperture settings, and, now, if you choose, shutter speed, exposure, and focus. In the initial images, I left everything alone except for the aperture. To access it, you select the grid menu in the camera app, choose Aperture, and then select the aperture opening of your choice.

I chose f1.48 and snapped a photo of the same leaf.

The result, which you can see above, was two pretty good pictures, but closer examination reveals how Portrait Mode struggled with the curling leaf. Look at the stem. It's almost gone. By contrast, on the variable aperture shot, it was clear that the phone wasn't trying to apply some software magic to separate the leaf from the background and create the bokeh. The leaf is complete. The whole image looks natural and, honestly, the hardware does what it would do on a traditional camera: let the lens and aperture opening make the call.

The leaf is in stark, colorful focus, and the background, while not as blurred as you get from Portrait Mode's default settings, is pleasantly out of focus.

I saw similar results with my selfies. Again, Portrait Mode goes hard on the background blur, but because it's largely computational, some artifacts remain. In particular, the space between the right stem of my glasses and my head is oddly sharp. And, if I'm being honest, the default level of bokeh sort of disconnects me from the background environment.

The results on the Gertrude Stein statue are less equivocal. The default portrait mode seems to favor the figure a bit more, though I still like the variable apertures' more realistic background blur.

Let's go Pro

Later, I started fiddling with a combination of aperture settings, shutter speeds, exposures, and focus. There are limits on all of these tools, but that's really the limitation of a smartphone camera. Without the really big sensor, wider space between the lens, aperture, shutter, and sensor, there's only so much you can do.

Still, I was impressed. My variable aperture shots look closer than ever to pro-level photography, and the additional pro controls are just so much fun to play with.

If there's any disappointment here, it's that we have just one variable aperture. I could do amazing things with more f-stops on the telephoto lens. Ah well, there's always next year.

Check out my gallery to see some of what I shot on my first day with the iPhone 18 Pro Max.