Milan Hutera
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 p.1 #1 · Convince me to buy R6 for sports/events | |
Hello everybody.
I rarely start a topic, so here goes  . The title pretty much says it all, but I owe you some explanation of why I'm starting this and what situation I'm in.
Although I'm pretty much convinced that my career of shooting sports is pretty much over, there are parts of me that still keep hanging in there and hoping for better times. The cold hard truth is, the *virus that shall not be named* pretty much destroyed everything that has to do with sports, especially in my country. The money will be in short supply for the next few years for sure, there are some sporting events that have been cancelled two years in a row now. Even before the pandemic, the situation was terrible. Despite rising costs of everything, the service fees for photographers were getting lower and lower. The magazine I worked for pretty much stopped using any freelance service and just before Christmas it officially disbanded. The other magazine I did some materials for in the past (including writing) paid so little money it was laughable for anyone who actually had to go to the event and not write about it from the comfort of his/her home. Essentially, this was pretty much a side gig for writing journalists, who looked for a way to earn some more money. If you actually had to go somewhere (usually on a weekend and by car), then the transportation costs alone would be essentially as high as the money you would receive for your piece. Anyway...
Almost two years ago, when it wast time to replace my aging 1D Mark IV, I got 5D Mark IV. "Nah, it will be fine," I said. I don't mind 7 fps. They say the AF is as good as 1 series camera, so that's what matters.... It's no secret here that I absolutely LOATHE the AF of 5DIV. It's jumpy, unreliable and the layout of the array is simply horrific. There were countless times when I simply had to take 5-6 photos instead of 1-2 because the AF wouldn't simply lock where I wanted it to. I would guestimate, that over 1.5 years, I put about 7-8000 additional shots on my shutter because of this. The group shots are for some reason a nightmare to take with this camera. One shot AF or AI Servo - doesn't matter. I take 6 shots, refocus between each shutter press and 4 of them are slightly out of focus that sharpening won't save. My 16-35L IS and 70-200 L IS II were reduced to coke bottles because of AF inconsistency. Last week I was shooting some "Earth day" stuff - some trash cleaning and the AF once again gave me a headache with 70-200 L IS II. The AFMA values, that have been working for me simply didn't. I had to go +20(!) on Tele end to get it working. When I got home, I did some testing and settled on +2... on the same freaking day and in the same freaking light!!! "Well, why didn't you have it serviced then," you might ask. Last year I did send it to CPS after disasterous tennis session in broad daylight (which would be a walk in the park for 1D IV, we are talking ISO 100 - 200 and 1/2000sec. SS). It came back a week later with "The AF behavior cannot be changed at service center" message.
So with two and two together, this cannot continue. I have lost almost all the joy from shooting "moving stuff" with this camera, because I know how much missed shots I will have to go through once I get home. I do like the files it produces and when it hits the files are great. To be fair, it still hits quite a lot of times, but there were quite a lot of times when I missed the good shots because it was OOF and a lot of time strangely unresponsive. This leaves me two choices - R5 or R6. With everything I've written here, R5 is out of the question, price wise. So I'm looking to get an R6 with the intention of keeping 5DIV as a "tripod" camera when I'll be needing bigger files or find myself in less demanding situations.
Here are my thoughts and "concerns" with R6:
- the file size - yes, 20mpix is significantly less than 30mpix, but since I'll get the freedom to put my AF point basically anywhere in the frame and the AF will work great (I'm hoping), I will have to crop a lot less with this camera. When I deliver my files, I usually deliver 16mpix anyway so they are all the same size.
- the mechanical shutter limit - my main telephoto is 300mm f2.8 L IS, which is supposed to go 7-8fps in mechanical shutter mode. Although I think this is nothing but a kick in the balls from Canon, since the same lens happily fires away at 10-12 or even higher FPS on a DSLR, this doesn't concern me that much. I like to be more deliberate and as long as the AF will deliver it's OK.
- the AF, from what I understand, is superb and on the level of 1Dx/1DxII.
- the shutter life is 300 000 actuations, which is great for "body economy/depreciation" of the camera. On 5DIV it's half that and given the cost of a new one, the cost per 1000 frames is abysmal, when I want it to be paid after certain number of shots.
- the 20fps electronic shutter/rolling shutter - I don't know how big of a problem it is. Since my main telephoto is crippled and would go faster only in electronic shutter mode, I'd like to know more.
- the reduced bit depth and dynamic range in electronic shutter mode concerns me a bit, but in high ISO scenarios, this is less apparent in high ISO scenarios.
- I've noticed that several people on this board mentioned that they "don't like shooting motorsports" with R5/6. Why?
- how is the weather sealing on the camera? I hear it's not as good as R5, which should be a little bit better than 5DIV, but still decent.
- how is the size/grip of R6? For my height (5"11 or ~180cm) I have pretty big hands and the grips of both 1DIV and 5DIV are fine, but could be a bit bigger...
- I will be doing a DNG conversion of the files for the forseeable future in case anybody wanted to know.
I've done some quick math and R6 + EF/RF adapter, a spare battery and two decent SD cards are expensive, but doable - especially considering that there is a Canon cashback available until August. Regular posters here will know what I'm about and what "quality" I'm looking for. So please, share your opinions about the concerns I've raised about R6 or any other positive/or negative! experiences with the camera and most importantly pictures of *moving things*.
Thanks!
Edit: Of course, I took a look at "Post your R6 photos" thread, but there aren't that many photos there to begin with and only some of them were sports shots.
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