You will usually find Will Burrard-Lucas photographing endangered wildlife in Africa, but for his latest project, he was much closer to home.

“I live in Buckinghamshire, where we've got tons of red kites,” says Will. “Every time I sit in the garden, I see them wheeling overhead and think to myself how nice it would be to photograph them.” The perfect opportunity came when Sony released Alpha 9 III. “It is the perfect camera for capturing rapid action and I couldn't think of any better subject,” Will says, “than these red kites with their incredible aerobatic prowess.”

Despite having red kites on his doorstep, research led Will to a location in Wales that was one of the best places in the UK to photograph the birds. “Red kites almost went extinct in the UK, one of their last strongholds was an area in Wales called the Elan Valley.”

Thanks to a concerted breeding and reintroduction effort, the red kite population has increased in the UK, but the Elan Valley is still one of the best places to photograph them. “There is a farm called Gigrin, where they have been feeding the kites for over 30 years. They’ve also set up some photographic hides. Every afternoon you can see and photograph the red kites as they're wheeling around overhead and swooping down to pick up the scraps.”

The behaviour of red kites makes them a challenging subject to photograph, and a real test for the Sony Alpha 9 III. “They are quite piratical in a way,” says Will. “When they spot something, they'll swoop down and snatch it up off the ground. But then other kites might try and snatch it off them, or other birds, like seagulls and crows. There's all sorts of antics going on as they compete for the best scraps.”

Will has been shooting with the Sony Alpha 1 for a long time, so he already had a good understanding of what the Alpha 9 III would be capable of. “The Alpha 1 is so good it is hard to believe that the Alpha 9 III could be any better, but several features really stand out,” says Will. For him, the headline feature is the 120fps shooting of full resolution raw files, with full autofocus and exposure tracking, with no viewfinder blackout. This makes it possible to capture every fraction of a second, whilst still being able to track these erratic birds in flight.

“The action is very fast. They'll suddenly spot something and in a split-second, change direction, swoop down, and enter this sort of crazy dive that's almost so fast you can barely track it. It is very challenging to try and capture because the speeds are high, and there’s an unpredictability in how quickly the birds can do a 90-degree turn. It's quite breathtaking really.”

“The frame rate hugely increases the odds of capturing the perfect moment, but you can’t shoot at 120fps constantly and those perfect shots happen so quickly that you can’t always react in time. That’s where Pre-Capture comes in – I can leave my finger half-pressed on the shutter and track the bird and then press fully down when I spot the manoeuvre,” says Will. “Thanks to Pre-Capture, reaction time is no longer a limiting factor. In the past, I've not always been able to respond quickly enough to get that moment I wanted. But with pre-capture, it's a trivial challenge – this tech is a real game changer for fast action.”

Mounted to the Alpha 9 III was a Sony FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens, and also a 2x Teleconverter. “The lens was a dream to autofocus,” says Will. “I always knew that the lens on its own would perform well, but even with the 2x converter making it an 800mm focal length, the autofocus was excellent. The combination works really well with the red kites providing a very challenging subject. You just can’t get that across in words. It’s only when you see the autofocus in action that you realise just how impressive it is.”

Will doesn’t know what his next project will be – whether in UK or back on the plains of Africa – but he is sure that the Alpha 9 III will play a part in it. “If there are predators hunting or birds in flight, there's definitely nothing better than this camera to allow a photographer to capture those really fast-moving subjects.”