Canon 1DX3 vs Sony a9ii

I have been a Canon user for the most part. I currently have a 5DiV and have sold all of my L glass with the exception of the trinity lenses and 100-400 II. I shoot sports and portraits. Previously, I had the 5DIII. I want something faster and better in low light for sports. I would also hope to get more into BIF work.

I wanted to get peoples thoughts on the choice above. AF seems to still be better with the A9ii. Im not clear on the low light performance. I had wished the 1D had been a little higher on the MP, but 20 to 24 I am not sure if it is really observable. I love Canon's ergonomics and build. Color-I see both have some good and some bad elements. But really haven't used Sony. I will likely get the R5, but I doubt it will be a sports camera so I will likely be getting one of the others for the fall.

I know about lenses and investing in the system. It is the other considerations, I would appreciate thoughts on. Thank you so much.

You like Canon ergo so I'd stick with Canon since you already have the lenses and are familiar with the menu system.
The 1D series is also built like a tank. I would trust it way more than the Sony outdoors.

If you cannot do it with the 1Dx3 then I'm not sure what the Sony is going to add for you.
Nothing wrong with Sony but switching now doesn't seem to be the greatest idea to me.

I made the switch, but honestly either will give you great results. Im not sure I would fix something that isn't really broken.

As an aside I use my canon L glass with my Sony's now... I went the metabones route.... I do have a sigma MC-11 and it works pretty good to. So if your looking for a bridge if you do go Sony, these work pretty dang well. My 70-200 works super good up to about 180mm... then for some reason has focus issues beyond that. I have not updated firmware on the metabone, so perhaps that will fix that issue.

But I don't think you can go wrong with either.

I would recommend the 1dx3 only because you are planning on getting the r5

May i ask what made you switch? What were you shooting? My main reason to switch has been the AF and the IQ. I’ve not seen 1DX3 photos that really consistently stand out. I wanted to like the camera but it gives me pause. Faces seem to lack detail in sport shots or the eyes in BIF seem soft. Stationary animals seem fine to have sufficient detail That’s why I was considering the A9ii.
Do you find the Sigma or Metabones works better for EF glass?

neurorx wrote in post #19084735
May i ask what made you switch? What were you shooting? My main reason to switch has been the AF and the IQ. I’ve not seen 1DX3 photos that really consistently stand out. I wanted to like the camera but it gives me pause. Faces seem to lack detail in sport shots or the eyes in BIF seem soft. Stationary animals seem fine to have sufficient detail That’s why I was considering the A9ii.
Do you find the Sigma or Metabones works better for EF glass?

the adapters essentially dumb down the camera to 10 fps..... sigma 100-400 comes in native variety, but if I were to adapt, sigma mc-11 with sigma contemporary/art will give you closest to native. Sigma is the better adapter, gets more updates, uses the true e-mount protocol vs reversed engineering.

the Sony 200-600 is best in class, and very reasonable price. Beats the tamron and sigma 150-600 in optics and AF speed, the defacto birding lens.

the A9 and 1Dx behave very differently, the A9 has a lock and track across the frame, no blackout, while the 1Dx has DSLR style tracking and true optics that do not lag at all (EVF has inherent lag and limited to 120Hz refresh rate)

Thank you for your insights.

Do you own either?

Crossposted from my response in the 1DxIII thread:

Couple things that stood out to me when I forayed into Sony land:

1. Build quality is not similar. In fact, it's not even close, which you already know.
2. I don't care for using SD cards for recording images that matter. Personally, I've had too many fail.
3. Sony's glass isn't bad, but it's not Canon's. I had a ton of trouble getting my lenses to work adapted on either the A7III, A74, A9 or A9II. Apparently, I am in the minority, but I had little success and it was documented by my local camera store. That said, 3rd party glass seems to work really well in the native mount. Adapting is not the way to go.
4. The menu system is a little wonky, but not terrible. Definitely not as well laid out and organized as Canon. There's some things that took an extra step or two with Sony, but nothing major.
5. If you use flash, this is where I hit the breaking point. Sony trigger with Godox lights and I was getting all kinds of weird firings. Sometimes, lights would just start flashing for no reason. Sometimes, they wouldn't flash period. Sometimes they worked perfect. Never could get an explanation on what was going on or why.
6. The fold out screen is a pretty nifty tool if you think you might use it. Can definitely be helpful at times.

All that said, the one thing that always brings me back to the 1D-series bodies is the images. Even among Canon cameras, there's something about the 1D images that just stands out and separates them from the rest. The same holds true in Nikon land for their D-series camera. The Sony images are good (outside some weird color at times), but the images from a 1D body just have a little something extra. It's like Canon's secret sauce.

As a reference point, I have owned or shot extensively with all 4 of the bodies above and currently own a 1DxII and 2 1DxIIIs.

Looked at the DXO data... and the Canon isn't looking that great from pure specs. I don't understand why Canon seems to have lost it mojo in this regard. But the other side of this is there are a lot more to a camera than the just the sensor. And maybe the big bang change will be when they come out with their next generation RF class sensors. And for the most part, the Canon sensors are good enough.

If you are a Canon shooter... no reason to change.. right now.