R5 or R7 with rf100-500 (1 Viewer)

[Sahara]

I am so stuck and going round and round in circles here.

I have an R10 but looking to pass that on to my son and ise as a second body. But what to get.

I have the rf100-500 lens.

Do I go with the R7 and gain the equivalent of around 700mm or get the R5

I am worried about the reach of a full frame camera. I have never owned one and don’t often get particularly close to the birds I photograph.

Is it going to frustrate me or are the extra pixels on the R5 good enough to help and enable me to crop.

The rolling shutter concerns me on the R7 and I want to get BIF as well as perched shots.

I like the idea of increased low light performance but Lightroom does a pretty good job of cleaning noise.

I would like to hire one but it’s not cheap for the amount of time I’d like to explore the camera.

Have you upgraded to full frame and regretted it?

I could wait for the r7 mkii but how long is a piece of string in that respect

Tia

 

[Montereyman]

If you take a shot with the full frame R5 camera it can be cropped to provide the image size and pixel density of the R7 camera. I am sure that there is a DX mode with the R5 so you can crop while taking pictures when desired.

With bird photography many cameras provide excellent subject detection for wildlife. My Z9 for example with a Bird setting will lock onto the eyes and stay focused on this part of the bird as it moves around inside the frame. With my DSLR cameras I needed to focus manually to achieve this.

With Nikon the Z8 and Z9 have this feature and with Sony it is their a1 and the a7R V. I would check at to which Canon camera provides this same capability as it is very important for photographing birds.

Reach can be confusing as cropping an image with a APS-C sensor camera does not increase the actual image size. Important to evaluate the pixels provided in the output image files. For example the Nikon 20MP full frame cameras in APS-C crop mode provide a 9MP image file which is going to pixelate when enlarged for a print.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

The R5 used in crop mode gives you a 17.5MP image (or thereabouts), roughly equivalent to a 7D mk1, and most shots of birds require further cropping.

The R7 is 32MP. For birds in general, once I bought my R7 it became my birding camera, although almost exclusively in First Curtain Electronic Shutter. I found the rolling shutter when using full electronic to be a real weakness, especially when hand holding, with flying birds that were nimble. My R5 was put to other uses that weren't bird-related.

 

[paddyluke]

i would go for r5 from panamoz or cotswold cameras for approx £2,000

 

[E_S]

I have that lens (as well as the 200-800mm) and both bodies. Took out both on a few pelagic trips, here are my experiences so far:

• Rolling shutter is an issue with both bodies, a bit more so with the R7, however electronic shutter plus 20 fps is now by far my preferred mode for fast action, as some of the pictures will have a little bit of rolling shutter, others won't, but most importantly I will get the shot. The rolling shutter issues I've had were mostly due to the boat (camera position) moving itself, not so much due to subject motion. So if you shoot from a stationary position, you can pretty much not worry about rolling shutter, unless you pan and the background is something like buildings or tree trunks. Note that the rolling shutter issue largely disappears if your background is sky or water!
• There are some reports (Duade Paton and others) that the R7's processor is not as fast as the R5's which results in misfocused shots at 20 fps. I did not find that I get worse results at that frame rate, I found the opposite to be the case compared to slower frame rates. Likewise, I get roughly similar keeper rate with both bodies.
• The R7 is noticeably thinner and lighter. I can carry the R7 plus 100-500mm plus 10x32mm bins plus a laptop almost every day in a small backpack without a problem.
• The 1.6x crop mode on the R5 gives a meager 18MP that I feel is just not enough, because with birds usually you never fill the frame, you almost always have to crop even further on top of the APS-C crop.
• Most lenses (even Canon lenses) will have noticeably degraded image quality at the edges, especially with zooms, and especially with teleconverters. The APS-C crop avoids this, allowing you to crop further inside the lens' sweet spot.
• The 100-500mm is spectacular. For example, I found that the old 400mm DO IS II lens plus 1.4x TC is less sharp than the zoom plus 1.4x TC. I suppose the 600mm prime is slightly sharper than the zoom, but you won't be able to spot a difference in Lightroom unless you look at background blur.
• Absolutely do get the 1.4x RF extender. Extremely sharp combination that works with both bodies, amazingly this TC on this particular zoom lens (100-500mm) feels like no TC at all to the point you cannot tell a difference in Lightroom at 100% magnification. There is zero focus speed penalty with the TC. The fact that the lens cannot collapse all the way back to 100mm with this TC attached is not a problem. I found that when I use a bare zoom lens and am in the midst of fast action with some crazy/rare bird flyover, I sometimes forget to zoom in. So the limited 420-700mm range I get with the TC actually prevents me from making that mistake.
• I pretty much never use the bare lens on the R5, I always put the TC on (this realization had led me to acquire the 200-800mm which I also like but not nearly as much as the 100-500mm). I do use the bare lens with the R7 with great results.
• The mechanical shutter on the R7 is obnoxiously loud compared to the R5, but to my surprise I found that birds tend to ignore that sound. Sometimes when they do not ignore it, it can actually help you with getting the shot because they will turn their eye towards you after hearing it.
• Lens advice: if you haven't already, get camo lens cover (I use LensCoat). Not so much because of camouflage effect, but because it prevents people from gawking at your lens too much (which can be fun at first but gets annoying eventually), prevents you from hitting MF switch on the lens accidentally (happened to me without lens cover!) and missing subsequent shots, prevents lens from being scratched accidentally, and with some lens coats (like LensCover) also prevents moisture from getting into the telescoping assembly.

 

[ApusApus]

I am so stuck and going round and round in circles here.

I have an R10 but looking to pass that on to my son and ise as a second body. But what to get.

I have the rf100-500 lens.

Do I go with the R7 and gain the equivalent of around 700mm or get the R5

I am worried about the reach of a full frame camera. I have never owned one and don’t often get particularly close to the birds I photograph.

Is it going to frustrate me or are the extra pixels on the R5 good enough to help and enable me to crop.

The rolling shutter concerns me on the R7 and I want to get BIF as well as perched shots.

I like the idea of increased low light performance but Lightroom does a pretty good job of cleaning noise.

I would like to hire one but it’s not cheap for the amount of time I’d like to explore the camera.

Have you upgraded to full frame and regretted it?

I could wait for the r7 mkii but how long is a piece of string in that respect

Tia

Firstly, you will be happy with either combination!

Secondly, there are pros & cons with either combination, probably to many to go through here!

Regarding the specific points you raise, the extra reach of the R7 is noticeable in the view finder.

The R5 will be more "cropable" although I have found the R7 excellent in this area.

The rolling shutter effect with the R7 is really only noticeable when shooting at 30fps but this is a gimmicky selling point from Canon really as you will fill the buffer after around 1.5 secs at this frame rate in CRAW. I use 15 fps setting but generally shoot only 4-6 frames in batches and that works fine for me.

Finally, don't wait for the R7II, it may or may not happen!

A couple of photos with my R7/100-500 are below.


Shane

 

[edenwatcher]

Another perspective. I never got on with the R7 - it doesn't excel in a Scottish winter. I got an R5 about 18 months ago and haven't picked up the R7 since. I use crop mode in most cases and switch to full frame for close birds/ flight shots.

Rob

 

[Missy_MT_AK]

I have both the R7 and the R5.
I prefer the 1.6 crop factor with 32 mp in the R7.

I typically shoot the R7 with the RF 200-800mm
and the R5 for low light environmental shots with the RF 70-200mm F2.8.