My experience is that once a bird photographer experiences competent pre-capture in depth the feature becomes a requirement, not a nice to have.
To experience competent pre-capture the camera must have a decent readout speed, fast enough f/s, a deep enough buffer, quality AF bird subject ID and RAW output. When these features are present, the photographer quickly learns to always shoot in pre-capture because the subject may do something interesting.
A significant change may now occur. Capturing interesting behavior and activity becomes more impotent than superb image quality in that the photographer will consider an image with interesting activity a "keeper" or "fit to print" even when the image IQ is not up to snuff from a prior perspective.
I believe that this is something that must be experienced. As with any new feature it takes time to master it and understand how to deploy it in the field. The flip side is that if a photographer has NOT experience pre-capture in depth that photographer will not understand to real value of pre-capture and, therefore, will tend to discount it.
When the only way to experience pre-capture was with a m43 camera, it was easy to dismiss pre-capture, preferring the advantages of a large megapixel full-frame sensor but the new Canon R5-2 changes the game.
I bring this up in response to an expert bird photographer who shoots the Canon R5. I asked her if she upgraded to the R5-2. She said, "No, although pre-capture would be 'nice to have', the upgrade wasn't worth it."
The expert is something of a Grebe whisperer. She tried to teach me, in her experience, a difficult game. The goal was to catch the grebe as it dove for a fish and catch the reflection of the Grebe's eye in the water. She indicated that most photographers couldn't get the shot. She tried to help me. Based on her knowledge of Grebes she was able to predict when the Grebe was due to dive. She would say, "Get ready, get ready....., get ready, now!" and I was supposed to take the shot.
Of course, I turned on pre-capture and when she said "now" I pressed the shutter. In short order I had dozens of shots to choose from. Looking at the sequence of shots I took, even with her help the Grebe's eye was underwater. No joy. However, backing up the 4/10 second of pre-capture frames always captured 2-3 appropriate poses.
She was amazed.
In my view she shouldn't be. Birds do lots of cool things that we simply can't capture with normal means, but pre-capture makes trivial. You see a bird on a perch, and you take a carefully thought-out image like always. Then you simply turn on pre-capture half-press and wait for the bird to do something interesting. AS you get more into this cool action becomes as important as image IQ. Now you can't live without pre-capture.
Looking at this image I tend to overlook that maybe the black of the head didn't have enough detail. Yep it is a fair crop of an m43 image using a F/6.3 lens at a high shutter speed. What I did focus on was how the water tended to rise around the Grebe's beak at the exact instant of the plunge and how the ripples in the water seem to frame the action. In short, I preferred the action to better IQ.
Ultimately, of course the R5-2 will provide both.
To experience competent pre-capture the camera must have a decent readout speed, fast enough f/s, a deep enough buffer, quality AF bird subject ID and RAW output. When these features are present, the photographer quickly learns to always shoot in pre-capture because the subject may do something interesting.
A significant change may now occur. Capturing interesting behavior and activity becomes more impotent than superb image quality in that the photographer will consider an image with interesting activity a "keeper" or "fit to print" even when the image IQ is not up to snuff from a prior perspective.
I believe that this is something that must be experienced. As with any new feature it takes time to master it and understand how to deploy it in the field. The flip side is that if a photographer has NOT experience pre-capture in depth that photographer will not understand to real value of pre-capture and, therefore, will tend to discount it.
When the only way to experience pre-capture was with a m43 camera, it was easy to dismiss pre-capture, preferring the advantages of a large megapixel full-frame sensor but the new Canon R5-2 changes the game.
I bring this up in response to an expert bird photographer who shoots the Canon R5. I asked her if she upgraded to the R5-2. She said, "No, although pre-capture would be 'nice to have', the upgrade wasn't worth it."
The expert is something of a Grebe whisperer. She tried to teach me, in her experience, a difficult game. The goal was to catch the grebe as it dove for a fish and catch the reflection of the Grebe's eye in the water. She indicated that most photographers couldn't get the shot. She tried to help me. Based on her knowledge of Grebes she was able to predict when the Grebe was due to dive. She would say, "Get ready, get ready....., get ready, now!" and I was supposed to take the shot.
Of course, I turned on pre-capture and when she said "now" I pressed the shutter. In short order I had dozens of shots to choose from. Looking at the sequence of shots I took, even with her help the Grebe's eye was underwater. No joy. However, backing up the 4/10 second of pre-capture frames always captured 2-3 appropriate poses.
She was amazed.
In my view she shouldn't be. Birds do lots of cool things that we simply can't capture with normal means, but pre-capture makes trivial. You see a bird on a perch, and you take a carefully thought-out image like always. Then you simply turn on pre-capture half-press and wait for the bird to do something interesting. AS you get more into this cool action becomes as important as image IQ. Now you can't live without pre-capture.
Looking at this image I tend to overlook that maybe the black of the head didn't have enough detail. Yep it is a fair crop of an m43 image using a F/6.3 lens at a high shutter speed. What I did focus on was how the water tended to rise around the Grebe's beak at the exact instant of the plunge and how the ripples in the water seem to frame the action. In short, I preferred the action to better IQ.
Ultimately, of course the R5-2 will provide both.
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120 FPS and Pre Capture helped 
