Any birders using the R6?

I maybe should have posted this in the Bird Talk forum but this forum seems to get a lot more traffic..............

Anyway, the time has come to replace my battered, dying 7DM2 and the choice boils down to the R5 or R6. So, the megapixels of the R5 vs the more affordable price of the R6. The R5 would also mean I'd have to upgrade my monitor, some internal components of my PC, and buy new memory cards/readers.

I photograph birds 99% of the time, very occasionally mammals. I have the EF 500 f4 II as my main lens and the 1.4X/2X III teleconverters.

I'd be interested in any folk who use (or have used) the R6 for birding and their experiences (both positive and negative). Do you find you are limited by the 20-megapixel sensor in terms of being able to crop? Has anyone tried both the R5/R6 for birding and can chime in?

Any opinions, thoughts would be welcome.

HokkaidoStu wrote in post #19189856
I maybe should have posted this in the Bird Talk forum but this forum seems to get a lot more traffic..............

Anyway, the time has come to replace my battered, dying 7DM2 and the choice boils down to the R5 or R6. So, the megapixels of the R5 vs the more affordable price of the R6. The R5 would also mean I'd have to upgrade my monitor, some internal components of my PC, and buy new memory cards/readers.

I photograph birds 99% of the time, very occasionally mammals. I have the EF 500 f4 II as my main lens and the 1.4X/2X III teleconverters.

I'd be interested in any folk who use (or have used) the R6 for birding and their experiences (both positive and negative). Do you find you are limited by the 20-megapixel sensor in terms of being able to crop? Has anyone tried both the R5/R6 for birding and can chime in?

Any opinions, thoughts would be welcome.

Why not look in the R6 thread?
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1517099

Or, in short, it works, but if you really want to crop, the R5 is the way to go, and some, who thought the R6 is good enough, are so impressed with it, that they want to go R5 to get even better results - croppability is much greater after all.

HTH, kind regards, Wim

I would not buy anything until you can get the EF to EOS R adapter to go with your 500 F4 II. That being said, I could not justify the price of the R5 because I also wanted the 800mm F11 which is another grand.

I'm very satisfied with the R6. I do crop, and sure a little more MP (24MP?) would have been nice. With the reach of a 500mm plus a TC, if you have that, cropping may not be so necessary.

the R6 will be great for birding. No question, it's AF is amazing.
That said, I would have been disappointed in the resolution after years shooting the 5D4. I know this as I just sold my 1DXIII with the same res 20mp FF sensor as the R6. I loved that camera, but could not come to terms with the lower res for birding. For the rest, it was fantastic, and 20Mp was plenty.

R5 solves it all, (mind you at a cost) even more res than the 5D4, and better AF in one body.
You could wade into it and put off CFExpress for a while if budget dictates, as the R5 will shoot stills just fine with an SD card. Maybe someone will finally make a CFExress SD adapter as well?

Good point on the EF/RF adapter, at the very least, be prepared to buy a 3rd party to get you by.

For what it's worth, in the last year I went from being a 5D4 and 7D2 shooter, to a 1DXIII and 5D4 shooter, to an R5 and 5D4 shooter.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19190051
You could wade into it and put off CFExpress for a while if budget dictates, as the R5 will shoot stills just fine with an SD card. Maybe someone will finally make a CFExress SD adapter as well?

Good point on the EF/RF adapter, at the very least, be prepared to buy a 3rd party to get you by.

Yes, I'll probably get a 128GB or even 256GB SD UHS-II card and forget about the CFExpress card/reader for now. I have a couple of 64GB SD UHS-I cards I use as overflow cards on my 7DM2 but they sometimes buffer when I take longer bursts, they may be frustrating to use on the R5 and 64GB is not a lot of storage for those big files especially if I have only 1 card in the slot. I will probably use the compressed RAW format for BIFs as my C3 custom setting on the R5 anyway.

The EF-RF adapters don't seem to have any supply issues in Japan AFAIK.

Although the R6 would be a substantial improvement on my 7DM2 in most birding situations I'm about 80/20 in favour of the R5 at this point. If the R6 was a say 1/3 cheaper or had 28 or even 24 megapixels I'd get it but I feel given the R6's specs if I got the R6 I'd always regret not getting the R5.

HokkaidoStu wrote in post #19190342
...

Although the R6 would be a substantial improvement on my 7DM2 in most birding situations I'm about 80/20 in favour of the R5 at this point. If the R6 was a say 1/3 cheaper or had 28 or even 24 megapixels I'd get it but I feel given the R6's specs if I got the R6 I'd always regret not getting the R5.

Part of why I have the R5,.. that and it just replaces so much.

I sold three cameras when I got the R5, and gave my 7D2 to my wife (that's going from 5 bodies to two)
Just keeping the 5D4 as I often shoot two bodies and always want a backup.

Based on your comment, the ONLY reason to get the R6 would be financial. If you can swing the R5, get it. I love my R6, but wish I’d gotten the R5 now that I’m shooting more birds.

prime80 wrote in post #19191524
Based on your comment, the ONLY reason to get the R6 would be financial. If you can swing the R5, get it. I love my R6, but wish I’d gotten the R5 now that I’m shooting more birds.

Just ordered the R5 yesterday actually. I'll have to wait until the end of the month for it to arrive (hopefully the adapter will arrive at the same time). The R6 was in stock, I almost went for it but glad I didn't.

HokkaidoStu wrote in post #19191966
Just ordered the R5 yesterday actually. I'll have to wait until the end of the month for it to arrive (hopefully the adapter will arrive at the same time). The R6 was in stock, I almost went for it but glad I didn't.

Good choice, you'll never second guess yourself now.

And hey, for now and I'd imagine the near future, you could buy a new R6 for what you could sell a used R5 for.

chuckmiller wrote in post #19192072
Good choice, you'll never second guess yourself now.

And hey, for now and I'd imagine the near future, you could buy a new R6 for what you could sell a used R5 for.

And that's when I'll get the R5 LOL

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19190051
(sniped some out...)

For what it's worth, in the last year I went from being a 5D4 and 7D2 shooter, to a 1DXIII and 5D4 shooter, to an R5 and 5D4 shooter.

Dang, I managed to skip the 1DXIII part of your migration, but matched you on the start and end.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #19190051
...

For what it's worth, in the last year I went from being a 5D4 and 7D2 shooter, to a 1DXIII and 5D4 shooter, to an R5 and 5D4 shooter.

Same, minus the 1DX3 intermediary.

HokkaidoStu wrote in post #19190342
Yes, I'll probably get a 128GB or even 256GB SD UHS-II card and forget about the CFExpress card/reader for now. I have a couple of 64GB SD UHS-I cards I use as overflow cards on my 7DM2 but they sometimes buffer when I take longer bursts, they may be frustrating to use on the R5 and 64GB is not a lot of storage for those big files especially if I have only 1 card in the slot. I will probably use the compressed RAW format for BIFs as my C3 custom setting on the R5 anyway.

The EF-RF adapters don't seem to have any supply issues in Japan AFAIK.

Although the R6 would be a substantial improvement on my 7DM2 in most birding situations I'm about 80/20 in favour of the R5 at this point. If the R6 was a say 1/3 cheaper or had 28 or even 24 megapixels I'd get it but I feel given the R6's specs if I got the R6 I'd always regret not getting the R5.

I saw that you went with the R5, which I think will definitely serve you best. I would have been very disappointed in the loss of the crop resolution from the 7DII to the R6; but, the huge jump in res from the 7DII to the R5 absolutely makes up for it, handily. You can comfortably crop down to the same framing as you'd have SOOC from the 7DII and still have a 20mp-ish image. So, even if you would have done additional cropping with your 7DII results for framing/etc, you'll still have a pretty equivalent baseline out of the R5.

Re: cards, I posted a quick tally in the R5 thread last week, and was able to hit around 60-ish full sized RAW before buffering when shooting to a 256 UHS-II SD card (post link here); so, holding off on the CF-E card for the time being shouldn't be any noticeable burden, IMO.