Ed, good question! The reason I didn’t use focus tracking was simply because the action was so fast I wanted the camera to shoot as quick as possible. FPS slow down when the camera is trying to work out focus as well as exposure etc and I wanted max frame rate to catch a good pose.

Also as the bird was out of frame to start with, all that had to happen between me pressing the button and the camera shooting was my reaction time – and I could cheat that a little by keeping my other eye on the bird and starting to shoot as I saw the twitch before he took off, before he was in frame. Had I used 3D tracking I would have to wait for him to be in frame so the focus had something to lock on to, then press the button. There would have been that brief moment when the D3 would have to work out where in the frame the bird was after pressing the button so, there would be that delay as well as the slow down in shooting as it tried to track it. I’ve no doubt 3D tracking works well in many situations but after past experience with 3D tracking, in this instance I feel it would have slowed me down. I hope that answers your question.