gdanmitchell
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dorian wrote:
As a long-time bird photographer and professional birding guide, I think the R1 announcement is likely to end my tenure as a Canon shooter (13 years). Sure, there are some sweet features in this body, but I cannot fathom what Canon expects me to do with 24MP when Sony and Nikon are offering me twice that for the equivalent price in the a1 and z9, respectively. Reach is premium for bird shooters, and I often do not have enough even with my R5/600/1.4. And sure, the R5 II will be a solid upgrade to my R5, but does anyone honestly believe the AF is going to be as good as the soon-to-be-updated a1, a camera which was, until the recent release of the Sony a9III, the industry leader in AF? Canon seems to be playing a perpetual game of catch-up while Sony plows ahead on the AF front. When Sony merges the a9III AF and the a1 45MP sensor, it'll be game over.
And that’s not the worst part as far as bird photography is concerned. It’s the long lenses category in which Canon seems to be particularly impotent.
First, The 100-500 is a great lens, but it’s 1/3 stop slower, 100mm shorter, and nearly $1,000 more expensive that the Sony 200-600. And on top of those comparative shortcomings, the engineers didn’t make the the full zoom range available when the TC is attached (the Sony functions as a 280-840mm f/9 with the 1.4 TC). This sort of oversight or corner cutting by Canon is exhausting. Pay more for less? No thanks.
Second, the Canon RF 600 is more hat than it is rabbit. It’s the same motor and optics as is in my 600 EF II. Not a significant thing has changed on those fronts since Feb 2011, when the lens was released. At that time, the fastest bodies shot 10 or 12 FPS, so the older motors were fine, but 20, 30, 60, or 120 FPS require better motors if one is to take advantage of that higher frame rate. Yes, you can use the RF TCs with the RF 600, but the lens core, the motor, is undeniably dated. Sony developed all their long lenses in conjunction with their mirrorless system, so it’s unsurprising that Sony tracks and captures much better than Canon. Canon is hellbent on bending EF lens technology to fit RF applications, and it doesn’t seem like its working as well as the targeted designs/builds of Sony and Nikon as far a bird photography is concerned.
Third, and against that lack of long lens innovation, it seems unsurprising that there isn’t a plan to produce new and exciting lenses as Nikon has done. Where are the lightweight options like the 800/6.3 and 600/6.3? Where is the 600 with the integrated TC? ***crickets***
While either the R1 or the R5II would be an upgrade on my R5, I don’t think the incremental gains mean much for bird shooters unless the company also addresses their long lens line-up. And I don’t see plans to do that. My 600 EF II is feeling heavier each year, and I’m not going to invest more money into a sagging brand just to save weight. If I’m gonna drop the big bucks to get a lighter lens, then I may as well pony up a few thousand more and get into brands which, at present, seem to be catering more to my photographic goals. I’m confident in my ability to make good images with any kit, but I’m tired of waiting for Canon to give me what I want. First World problem, I know……
Summary:
- Sony has the best AF and two amazing lenses in the 200-600 and 600/4.
- Nikon has a fantastic body in the z9 and the most interesting/exciting long lens line up.
- And Canon has……? Someone tell me, please.
PS - I don’t care about ISO and/or dynamic range. If the light sucks so bad that I need ISO 6400 or higher, then I leave the rig at home and go birding instead.
And since I haven’t posted here or in Nature/Wildlife in years, this is me: https://www.doriananderson.com/
Cheers!...Show more →
I do some bird photography, though my mainstays with my Canon system are other things. However, I’m coming around to a perspective very similar to yours.
That is uncomfortable to me and a bit of a surprise, as I generally don’t think brand switching accomplishes much and my experience over the years has been that when one company’s new offerings go a bit beyond another company’s previous offerings, the tables are typically reversed with the next update cycle.
When Canon moved to the R system, I think that they generally managed the transition quite well. However, since my main camera is a the high MP 5DsR, the things that were attractive in the R5 were not that significant to me — certainly not enough to overcome the eventual switch to new RF lenses — so I have continued to use the existing gear. It still works very well for the most part.
For my particular use, I’m more interested in higher MP systems. So the 45MP sensor in the R5, while just fine, didn’t seem like an upgrade. Rumors of an eventual high MP R5 version kept me hanging on, but now we’ve been through two cycles of R5 with nothing to show for it anywhere in the Canon line-up and not solid prospects that such a thing will come. (I guess there’s a part of me that still hopes — with no evidence — that maybe Canon will finally announce a R version with the 5DsR lineage once the R5ii is established. But I’m not counting on it.)
While I’m sure that the R5II is a fine camera, given what we see from other manufacturers and what we suspected might have come from Canon, it is pretty underwhelming. The same seems to be the case with the R1 from what I can tell.
I don’t take brand switching lightly, and I move slowly — at least while my existing gear works well. But at this point, for my personal use, I’m not seeing Canon as being nearly the compelling option that it was a couple of decades ago and up through the DSLR era. For reasons similar to those you mention, my attention is now shifting to where I’ll go moving forward. And at least two non-Canon alternatives are starting to look more compelling to me.
(No, I’m not tossing out my Canon gear, but at some point all of us upgrade/replace stuff. In the past it was a no-brainer for me to just upgrade to a more recent Canon body. But with the prospect of moving at some point away from my EF lens system, the monetary reasons to stick with Canon diminish to near zero, opening up a wider range of choices over the long term)
BTW, to the “announce my decision” trolls, this is a discussion board, and thoughts about the reasons to stick with a brand or not are a legitimate subject of discussion and the topic seems to be of interest to people. If you aren’t interested, feel free to not engage.
FWIW.
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