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Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

ajbarrett
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p.1 #1 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

I've been in collegiate sports photography for a number of years, but have recently been promoted as a Senior Photographer, managing an Athletics Creative Team for a NCAA D1 school. It's my first time overseeing gear, and managing things like needs, upgrades, etc...

I'm hoping to get some insight regarding Canon Mirrorless systems from other working-professionals who have experience with Sports Photography, especially with Canon equipment.
Like many schools, we're in the process of transitioning from EF-RF and currently our only mirrorless equipment are an R5mk1 and an R5C (originally purchased before our video team switched to Sony)
All of our glass is still EF, and I'm looking at recommendations to add to a list of proposed gear for the future.
The Marketing Team at our University has already made more progress on their switch, and has exponentially better gear than we currently have. While chatting with them, their two Senior Photogs mentioned that while they love their R3's, they often find themselves using their R6mk1 equally, and have stated that they feel those bodies do about 90% of the work that the R3's do.

In an ideal scenario, I'd propose a couple of R1's, a bunch of RF 70-200's, some 24-105's and a couple 100-300's, but unfortunately we live in the real world and it's hard to ask for $100,000 for new gear.

Outside of our mirrorless bodies, we have a couple of 1DX ii and some older 5Dmk4's

I like the cropping capabilities of the R5 and their use in studio work, but the large file sizes are mostly a hassle, and thus the reason I was interested in the R6's.

Has anyone used the R6 1,2,3's and could give some insight on those, and maybe a comparison to the 2 gen's of R5 and even maybe an R3 or R1?

The updates to the R6iii seem nice, but also mostly on the video side of things, outside of updated AF systems.

Any suggestions, advice, reviews and help would be greatly appreciated.

Apr 01, 2026 at 02:36 PM

garyvot
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p.1 #2 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

I have not shot the R6 III, but I have some experience with the R6 II, which is solid if not quite equal to an R3 (which I have shot) or R1 (which I have not).

The R6 III should be an improvement over the R6 II, due to inheriting the AF algorithms from the R1 and having a sensor with significantly faster readout speed (which will improve AF). However, it does not have a Digic Accelerator coprocessor like the higher end bodies. Still, I'm not sure if you will find better if the R3 and R1 are out of budget and the R5 II is too much sensor.

I mostly do equestrian sports these days. One FM user who I think could offer more practical field sport advice is @rscheffler. He has more experience with the R5 models. I'm sure he will have informed opinions for you.

As an additional point of reference, I was shooting 1D X Mark IIs prior to the R6 Mark IIs, and while the DSLRs were good, I got a higher hit-rate with the R6 IIs.

Apr 01, 2026 at 04:56 PM

ajbarrett
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p.1 #3 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

That's great to know. And after doing some more research it really seems as if the best current option would be between the R6 II and the R6 III

Looking closer at the R6ii I do like how it has the flexible-spot AF. An issue that I have using the R5mk1 currently is I'm either using the smallest Zone AF which is still too large, or the tracking function which works, but the initial point is almost too small.

Seems like the R6ii is a good middle-ground in terms of price/function, and now seems like a great time to try and purchase since they're still in-stock new from Canon, and haven't been discontinued yet.

Would be nice to maybe build out a couple of R6 II's and then if we needed more cropping power an R5 or R6 III

The only thing that intrigues me about the R6 III is the addition of pre-capture, which in theory seems really nice for shooting athletics. I haven't used it before, so not sure if it's mostly a gimmick or not, but seems nice.

Apr 01, 2026 at 05:12 PM

garyvot
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p.1 #4 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

ajbarrett wrote:
That's great to know. And after doing some more research it really seems as if the best current option would be between the R6 II and the R6 III

Looking closer at the R6ii I do like how it has the flexible-spot AF. An issue that I have using the R5mk1 currently is I'm either using the smallest Zone AF which is still too large, or the tracking function which works, but the initial point is almost too small.

Seems like the R6ii is a good middle-ground in terms of price/function, and now seems like a great time to try and purchase...Show more →

Given your position, it seems like you should have a Canon CPS membership. At the Platinum level ($300 per year), you will get priority access to equipment loans, expedited repairs with free shipping, 30% discount on all repair services, complimentary maintenance (10 per year), and on-site event support (if CPS is staffing your event).

I bring this up because you could obtain these cameras and lenses on loan in order to evaluate how they perform before making a commitment.

You also could rent them, but a CPS membership seems worthwhile for your team.

Apr 01, 2026 at 05:29 PM

justashooter
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p.1 #5 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

Your requirements in shooting sports, compared to the marketing dept. requires different gear. For one thing any sports that swings a tool will have rolling shutters issues with the R6 (too old, would not purchase) and the R6II etc. In sports such as golf, baseball, lacrosse, etc., you will have weirdly curved bats, sticks, clubs such as this. You can go to mechanical shutter with the R6II and eliminate this issue but you would also need version II or newer EF lenses or RF lenses to get 12fps in mechanical shutter. The R5 Mark II has a much faster image sensor and pretty much eliminates the rolling shutter issue. The R3 also eliminates this issue. Price wise, the R5 Mark II is $3900 + $410 for the grip ($4310) and the R3 is $4,400 right now, I would buy R3 since you stated the higher resolution was a hassle. I would certainly buy a R3 for each photographer and probably the R6II for a second body. The R3 and R6II have pretty much the same auto focus system. Unfortunately I have not handled the R6III so don't know how much better it is as far as rolling shutter, its readout speed is not much faster than the R6II. It is a 32MP sensor vs the 24MP in the R6II. I would add extenders for the RF 100-300 f/2.8, both are very sharp on that lens.

I have used the R6II for three years and added a R3 two years ago. They are pretty much a match in auto focus ability and use. Button placement is different between the two (it's great having two exact same cameras when accessing the buttons) but I have gotten used to the different placement.

Edited on Apr 01, 2026 at 06:03 PM · View previous versions

Apr 01, 2026 at 05:32 PM

BlueBomberTurbo
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p.1 #6 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

I shoot sports (soccer, football, hockey, basketball, marathons), and have Sony A9s and an R6 III. R6 III AF is close but not a match for A9. Biggest issues are basic tracking that can occasionally wander off (even Sony's 9yr old basic tracking is super sticky), and subject detection can randomly jump to a different subject when there's more than one of the same in the frame, and it shows up clearer because the original turned around or something. Sony's AF will just default back to basic tracking on the original subject until the it's identified again (face/eyes reprioritized), making it drastically more reliable. Low light AF between them is very similar, despite the gap in rated sensitivity.

In the end, R6 III AF is great for getting so close to a stacked sensor camera with over 2x the readout speed, but can still get lost if there's too much of the same thing around or the subject's appearance changes too much. For that reason, I still stick to the old A9s for sports. R5 II will be a better choice, as it has similar readout speed to the A9, which means more AF samples per second to enhance reliability. Whether it exceeds the A9's AF depends on if it handles tracking the same as the R6 III or not.

Apr 01, 2026 at 05:32 PM

ajbarrett
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p.1 #7 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

That's great to know, and something I don't believe our team currently has.

I believe our Marketing Photog team has a CPS account, as we bring our gear to them to send in to get serviced, but outside of repairs I haven't even considered the loaner options.

Apr 01, 2026 at 07:53 PM

ajbarrett
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p.1 #8 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

This is some great insight, and I'm glad to hear the R6II has performed well.

As far as the EF lenses go, we're fortunate to have mainly all lenses (outside of some primes) benefit from the 12fps mechanical shutter in the R5 & R5C. Ideally we'd work on getting RF lenses, but those things take time.

I have noticed the downsides of the rolling shutter, mostly in shooting golf as it is one of the rare sports that requires a silent shutter, but I've also tried to have our photogs practice not having to rely on 20+ fps to get the shot they want. It helps, but also with sports like golf, lax, bsb/sb you can't always hope to nail a single frame whenever you want.

In an ideal world, we'd be able to outfit 5 photogs with R3's and R6II's as secondary bodies, but that might take a couple years in order to get (unless we somehow get additional funding lol)

For the time being, would you say that the output of an R6II is close enough to that of an R3 to justify purchasing 2 R6's instead of 1 R3? Or would you say that the benefits of a singular R3 outweighs 2 lesser bodies?

Apr 01, 2026 at 08:01 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #9 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

ajbarrett wrote:
While chatting with them, their two Senior Photogs mentioned that while they love their R3's, they often find themselves using their R6mk1 equally, and have stated that they feel those bodies do about 90% of the work that the R3's do.

In an ideal scenario, I'd propose a couple of R1's, a bunch of RF 70-200's, some 24-105's and a couple 100-300's, but unfortunately we live in the real world and it's hard to ask for $100,000 for new gear.

Outside of our mirrorless bodies, we have a couple of 1DX ii and some older 5Dmk4's

I like the cropping capabilities...Show more →

The sports I mostly shoot are ice hockey and football. In 2022 I transitioned from the 1DXII to the R6II and also added a used R6. I have since added an R5II and have about 10 football games experience with CPS loaner R1s.

In respect to continuous frame AF consistency, all of these R bodies are more reliable than the 1DXII. However, the user experience varies across them. For regular non-sports work a marketing team would do at a university, the R6 is indeed fine, small, easy to use and reliable. For sports, less so because of processing power paired with sensor readout speed. For example the R6 EVF experience is a bit laggy and when used in e-shutter 20 fps, it can feel like you�re struggling a bit to keep up with a fast moving subject because you�re not getting a truly realtime EVF feed. IME the R5 is similar lagginess, though it has a higher dynamic range EVF that doesn�t block up shadows in high contrast scenes as quickly as the R6�s. Both the R5 and R6 �suffer� being Canon�s first �real� first-gen mirrorless cameras usable for action work. The R3 is more responsive and definitely a better sports camera, but it�s about 4 years old and is unlikely to receive major fw updates to keep up with newer releases. The R6II has a slightly less laggy EVF experience than the R5/6, but I still feel like I�m constantly slightly behind when I use it.

IMO the R1 and the R5II are the cameras to get for sports. Both have much better and similar subject detection responsiveness and better subject sticktion. For example when in shoot hockey with the R5II, as soon as I put the AF point on the subject it�s already recognized and put the focus point on their head. With the R6II there is a slight, but noticeable delay that I find in turn impedes my responsiveness.

Between the R1 and R5II, the latter is a more universal camera and sometimes the additional resolution can be useful. It�s UI is slightly less nice due to smaller buttons not friendly when wearing gloves and the add on grip isn�t as comfortable as the R3 or R1.

The word that comes to mind to describe the R1 is fluid. It just seems to be consistently ready before I am and can handle challenging action really well. I have a ton of 40 fps football sequences where every frame is in focus and it�s like I was shooting short video clips.

Do keep in mind that these cameras can generate a TON of images very quickly and you have to be ready for the volume. The good news is that the focus consistency is so good you can usually just browse thumbs to pick key moments and they�ll virtually always be in focus.

I haven�t yet tried the R6III. But I�m under no illusions that it will better the AF performance of the R5II in part due to the sensor readout speed difference. It�ll be incrementally better than the R6II and you�ll be able to shoot sports with it, but it will introduce more friction to the experience.

Regarding stacked vs non: while the R6 series sensors are fast enough to shoot action like football, rolling shutter will introduce distortion to round ball and straight stick sports. The faster the action, the more noticeable it will be. Also, the slower readout speed can be more susceptible to banding under artificial lighting. Less so in pro sports venues. You can mitigate this by switching to EFCS, but will be restricted to 12 fps and will experience EVF blackout.

Bottom line, get at least some stacked sensor cameras to do the major work at events and fill in the gaps with other options as the budget allows. If you can�t justify even the R5II, then maybe some used R3s, if the price is right?

The 100-300 is a very nice lens that works well with the TCs, but I�ve been really impressed by the 70-200Z. Very sharp across the range wide open on the R5II and also plays well with at least the 1.4x. That combo, R5II, Z and 1.4x in APS-C crop 17MP is basically a poor man�s R1 and 100-300.

Regarding the R5/R5II: when covering sports are you shooting jpeg or RAW? Jpeg allows a 24MP option and you can toggle to APS-C 17MP with a single button press by setting up the relevant custom function. If you shoot RAW, then it�s only full resolution or APS-C. I would highly recommend using CRAW (compressed RAW).

Apr 01, 2026 at 08:27 PM

JGwin
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p.1 #10 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

I shoot sports and have used the 1DX, 1DXII, R6II, R3 and R1. The R3 and R1 are better in every way than the 1DX's. The R6II is better in most ways than the 1DX and 1DXII - dynamic range, focus accuracy, and tracking are better with the R6II than either of the 1DX's, but it is slightly slower in initial focus acquisition and it drives some of the lenses slightly slower than the 1DX's. If you're not shooting them side by side, you probably won't notice the difference. Also, the viewfinder response on the R6II is slower harder to adjust to than the R3 or R1. I don't shoot baseball, but I have never encountered any issues with rolling shutter bowing in lacrosse or other sports on the R6II, R3 or R1 (I initially tried the original R6 and encountered significant rolling shutter issues)

The key with the mirrorless is to take the time to adjust to the differences with the focus tracking vs the way you normally shoot with a DSLR. It took me a long time to adjust, I initially used the R3 and R6II as if they were DSLR's with center point tracking, but once I adjusted to the tracking, it made a huge difference and I wouldn't go back With all of canon's cameras, focus will jump to other players at times or you will lose tracking, but the percentage of times where you lose focus is less than with DSLR's just at different times and scenarios, so it's a learning process.

For lenses, your existing EF lenses will last until you are able to move to RF, but once you start a mix of RF and EF lenses, you will want an EF to RF adapter on all of the EF lenses, it gets confusing and time consuming when you are switching from EF to RF or vice versa with a mix, you never remember if you need to keep or pull the adapter.

Out of the lenses you mentioned, the 100-300 is a game changer, anything you used to shoot with a 2 body combo of a 300 prime and a 70-200 is covered with one camera and it's an amazing lens. I would go to one or more of those as soon as the budget allows, with the other lenses, I think you can move to RF later.

I have used all of the EF 70-200 lenses and both RF versions. The RF versions are better lenses than the EF versions, but starting with the EF IS VII, they are all very good and the differences are miniscule. For sports, I would avoid the original RF70-200, the zoom throw on that lens is much longer and slower than the EF lenses and the Z lens. I wanted to love it because of the compact size, but in the end sold it and moved to the Z version.

Jim

Apr 01, 2026 at 08:29 PM

garyvot
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p.1 #11 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

This may be my old-school thinking at play here, but I just want to remind folks that pretty much all the recent Canon R bodies will do 12 frames per second in mechanical or EFCS modes, including the R6-series. For my work this is plenty fast enough (basically as good as my 1DX IIs), eliminates any rolling shutter issues, and reduces culling overhead in post.

Now, I concede there are times when 20 or 40fps is warranted. If you need that and you shoot something that makes warping visible, then there is no substitute for faster readout. Canon makes those cameras, but they cost more.

Apr 01, 2026 at 08:40 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #12 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

ajbarrett wrote:
For the time being, would you say that the output of an R6II is close enough to that of an R3 to justify purchasing 2 R6's instead of 1 R3? Or would you say that the benefits of a singular R3 outweighs 2 lesser bodies?

Technical image quality will be very similar though there may be some loss of low ISO DR with the R6II in e-shutter vs the R3. The R6II can definitely do good 40fps AF and on paper keep up with the R3. It�s actually why I got it rather than the R3 in 2022, as the significant price difference was difficult to justify.

But as I became more accustomed to the R6II I also became more aware of where Canon cut performance corners to hit its price point.

I feel you really need to compare them for a time across various sports to appreciate the user experience benefits one might bring over the other. I don�t know how much priority you place on the user/shooting experience. From my POV, I strongly dislike when it feels like a camera is getting in the way. Hence why I love the R1 and the R5II is close enough. The rest, other than the R3, are a noticeable step down.

I�d bet you could set up your school with Canon�s CPS program and request some cameras for evaluation�

Apr 01, 2026 at 08:47 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #13 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

garyvot wrote:
This may be my old-school thinking at play here, but I just want to remind folks that pretty much all the recent Canon R bodies will do 12 frames per second in mechanical or EFCS modes, including the R6-series. For my work this is plenty fast enough (basically as good as my 1DX IIs), eliminates any rolling shutter issues, and reduces culling overhead in post.

Now, I concede there are times when 20 or 40fps is warranted. If you need that and you shoot something that makes warping visible, then there is no substitute for faster readout. Canon makes those cameras,...Show more →

It�s fast enough most of the time. The problem I have with it is the EVF experience and blackout. While we had blackout with DSLRs, it was different in a way I can�t put my finger on. I could and did live with it following action during 12-14 fps bursts. With mirroless I get more discombobulated. It�s probably the slight EVF lag combined with blackout that when the feed resumes, the subject isn�t quite where I expected it to be.

So, high fps e-shutter mitigates this problem, for me, but the potential downside is the generation of a lot more images. With the R6II you�re stuck with choices of 5, 20 and 40 fps. Where is 10 or 15? Ok, you can use EFCS, with the trade offs that presents. It�s actually another reason I got the R5II, so I could select frame rates between 5 and 20 in e-shutter, and I use these a lot.

IMO this is an example of corner cutting to a price point and it indeed �forced� me to buy a more expensive model. But now I have a camera that pretty much does what I want and doesn�t get in the way too much. I guess buy once, cry once.

Apr 01, 2026 at 09:00 PM

JGwin
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p.1 #14 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

rscheffler wrote:
Technical image quality will be very similar though there may be some loss of low ISO DR with the R6II in e-shutter vs the R3. The R6II can definitely do good 40fps AF and on paper keep up with the R3. It�s actually why I got it rather than the R3 in 2022, as the significant price difference was difficult to justify.

But as I became more accustomed to the R6II I also became more aware of where Canon cut performance corners to hit its price point.

I feel you really need to compare them for a time across various...Show more →

Rscheffler - that is a very good reminder on the low ISO from the R6II - it is 12 bit in ES rather than 14 bit and I do find a noticeable difference in situations where you are shooting at bad times of the day or where your shooting position is limited and you have to shoot towards the sun. The R3 and R1 have more range and flexibility to handle extreme lighting differences and to recover highlights and colors in those scenarios

Apr 01, 2026 at 09:03 PM

justashooter
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p.1 #15 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

ajbarrett wrote:
For the time being, would you say that the output of an R6II is close enough to that of an R3 to justify purchasing 2 R6's instead of 1 R3? Or would you say that the benefits of a singular R3 outweighs 2 lesser bodies?

I believe the output of the R6II (image quality) is equal to the R3, it is the other issues I mentioned that make it a bit lesser camera. You can certainly create wonderful images with the R6II, use the mechanical shutter when needed to defeat the rolling shutter. Getting cameras in the hands of your photographers is more important. I find the auto focus in both the R6II and R3 to be very, very good. I shoot at 20fps or 12fps with mechanical shutter and find those speeds quite sufficient, I don't want to look through that many images anyhow. I make a lot very sharp images with these cameras. I have not shot either the R5II or R1 so can't compare (or afford to upgrade to them).

Duane

Apr 01, 2026 at 11:29 PM

rscheffler
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p.1 #16 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

ajbarrett wrote:
The only thing that intrigues me about the R6 III is the addition of pre-capture, which in theory seems really nice for shooting athletics. I haven't used it before, so not sure if it's mostly a gimmick or not, but seems nice.

Pre-capture gets kind of a bad rap on this board but it can be a useful tool in certain situations. I find that due to mirrorless's slight EVF lag, it's a bit more difficult to time certain kinds of shots that happen very briefly and without much warning. You know it will happen, but not exactly when. And when it happens - and you see it in the EVF - it's already too late. Pre-capture is great for this.

A non-sports example, but relevant to a university photographer, would be any kind of event with speeches or similar, where the speaker spends 90% of the time looking down at their notes and glances up for a fraction of a second.

I've tried it for some hockey where it was good for things like quick wrist shots or one-timers, if I kind of already anticipated it and had pre-capture running. Or sudden hits that I was slightly late reacting to. But again, you have to have pre-capture running and my camera control habit is actually not to press half-way on the shutter release all the time. If pre-capture could be applied to the AF-ON button (or any button assigned AF) being pressed, rather than half-pressing the shutter button, I would be much happier with it. I rarely used it for football other than maybe if I was specifically following a player. Or for example getting a linebacker powering out of their pre-snap stance. I could be slightly 'lazier' and just wait until they started moving and I'd be sure to have also captured the previous half-second or so.

The R6II also does pre-capture, but it's Canon's old implementation that packs all of the frames in a proprietary wrapper that only the camera or Canon's software can unbundle. Its pre-capture shooting experience is also somewhat more rigid. IIRC, as soon as you stop capturing images (stop pressing the shutter release), the camera locks you out until it clears the buffer. With the R1, R5II and I guess the R6III, it's the normal camera shooting experience.

Apr 01, 2026 at 11:34 PM

Uarctos
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p.1 #17 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

I would skip any R6 iteration, because of the EV, lag, rolling shutter, construction. I would look at the R5II or the R3. But I'm still shooting golf with the 5D4 so what do I know

Apr 02, 2026 at 01:29 AM

Steve Spencer
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p.1 #18 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

Uarctos wrote:
I would skip any R6 iteration, because of the EV, lag, rolling shutter, construction. I would look at the R5II or the R3. But I'm still shooting golf with the 5D4 so what do I know

I am not sure I can offer much advice about gear to buy because so much depends on your budget. Do you have $5,000 a year, $20,000 a year, something in between or something less or more. And we don't know how big your team is.

Also when you say Senior Photog at Athletics Creative Team at an NCAA D1 school, I think immediately about how you interface with NIL (Name Image Likeness) partners and whether that has changed your work. At the school where I teach (Ohio State) NIL money seems to have totally transformed the Athletics department. Perhaps that is handled by the Marketing team you mentioned but if that is the case it seems building cooperation between your team and that team will be important and one area to begin cooperation is discussing if and when it might make sense to share gear and to potentially coordinate gear purchases with them. With your budget can you provide something that will be useful to them? It sounds they can provide at least some things that would be useful to you and borrowing within the university is perhaps the cheapest solution available.

Right now is a terrible time for funding in higher education. Streams of income that have long been major sources of income (e.g., overhead on grants, extra tuition from foreign students) have significantly diminished so budgets are being tightened everywhere, but NIL is one new source of money, that you could possibiy leverage to justify your budget and it sounds like that marketing team has done a better job of justifying their budget and asking for funds. You could potentially learn from them how to do that and also be more efficient through cooperating with them.

That said I will make a couple of comments on gear. If the budget is real tight, then you might also consider at least some Canon R7s. Yes, it is APS-C, but you get a very capable camera that can do 15 fps in mechanical shutter mode and 30 fps in electronic shutter mode with a quite reasonable 33 MP resolution. Being APS-C it won't have the high ISO capabilities of FF cameras, but if you use it in good light there isn't a lot it can't do, so as part of a collection of cameras could be very useful for not much money. Electronic shutter and the EVF have the same issues as the R6 series and the EVF is even a bit smaller, but a lot can be done with that camera and they cost very little. Given those limitations you probably want to shoot in manual shutter mode most of the time, but the camera offers a lot if the budget is modest.

From my perspective cameras shake down R1 > R3 = R5 II > R6 III > R7 for the type of work you are doing and you should gradually start a roll over to R cameras that can be complete over the next 5 years. Get what you can afford based on your yearly budget.

I would also plan for a gradual turn over of the lenses over a 10 year period. For the work you are doing it seems that getting at least a couple 70-200 f/2.8 Zs ought to be a priority, but the EF to R adapter is going to be your friend and that allows you to replace lenses more slowly. If you have even $7,500 a year budgeted for gear you ought to be able to buy one camera (probably a mix of R3s and R5's in the newest interation) and build a set of seven R cameras in five years. If that is enough you are set on cameras over time. Then you can work with the EF lenses and a gradual replacement of them with R lenses over a ten year period. If the budget is less than that, I think you have to be a lot more frugal and focus on cooperating withe that marketing department to borrow some of their much nicer gear at times and perhaps expanding the budget by hitting up your NIL partners.

I hope this is helpful. I don't shoot sports often so listen to those folks about specific gear recommendations, but I have been in higher ed for 35 years and I do know how budgets work there and it seems to me that planning over time and handling the budget may be at least as much a part of the solution as the specific gear you buy.

Apr 02, 2026 at 05:35 AM

Tom_W
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p.1 #19 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

Fascinating discussion, informative for me as well as the OP, no doubt.

My thought is to make a gradual switch - grab an R5II or two (or an R6III or two, or an R1 & R3 or a couple), a couple of lenses, and several EF-RF adapters to use your favorite EF lenses. Slowly make the changeover from EF to RF rather than all at once if money is tight. Granted, there are operating differences between mirrorless and mirrored DSLR bodies, but letting or getting part of the team acquainted with the mirrorless operation and expand the presence of RF bodies as money allows - that would be a good way to do it.

Maybe replace part of the camera fleet on the fast sporting side first, or take the opposite approach and replace the marketing side, the slower shooting side of things first.

The iDxII bodies and 5D IV bodies you have are great cameras, but the features and capabilities of the newer mirrorless bodies are even better.

Apr 02, 2026 at 07:54 AM

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p.1 #20 · Upgrading Photo Team Gear - Seeking Canon Mirrorless Recommendations

As just a guy who likes to take photos of his kids athletics, I currently use a R6MII but I am looking to add a R5MII or R3. I sold my R7 due to the rolling shutter. The R6MII is good but I don't use electronic shutter for baseball or tennis. For soccer it does a pretty good job but occasionally will warp the ball a bit if the ball is moving across the frame.

It does well enough in low light using 2.8 lenses such as indoor basketball and dance recitals.

I would think as D1 photographers you would want 1,3,or 5MII series bodies as a main and 6MII or III for a backup, but anything will obviously get the job done in mechanical shutter as pointed out.

Apr 02, 2026 at 12:04 PM

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