What made you switch to Canon RF mirrorless?

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

If Pentax wants to be relevant in the mirrorless market, which I don’t think they do, they need something truly innovative and they need to push it toward the adventure crowd. OM Systems does a great job with that. If Pentax (or anyone) came up with an interchangeable lens camera that was at least 12 mp, in a 1 inch sensor that produced excellent image quality, handled noise well, and was well built, weather sealed, and light/small, they’d attract some folks.

As an example I’ve been thinking of adding a crop sensor mirrorless camera to my bag and I am giving a hard look at OM Systems and Lumix. I see what those cameras are putting out and I don’t see a reason for a bigger unit on an APS-C size sensor. I’d be happy with FF and MFT. I have to imagine the same tech could be successfully applied to a smaller sensor within its own limits.

 

[Dcweather]

Much like you I was a Nikon shooter, shooting wildlife almost exclusively. A pair of D500's were my primaries with a D750 as my main for everything else. I bought a Z6ii in May 2021 planning to transition to it from the D750 and was impressed though the AF tracking lagged somewhat. Over Memorial Day I visited a Canon pro shooter who had been trying to get me to switch for 5 years. He handed me an R5 with 100-500mm and I was dumbfounded. He allowed me to shoot with it for a weekend and I immediately started the Nikon sell-off. I missed the reach of the DX D500 w 500mm, but the number of keepers I'd get and the accuracy of the AF was amazing.

I have no regrets, but seeing things like the 800mm Z PF released have given me pause. But I'd rather have the 100-500mm RF than the 100-400mm Z any day of the week, and with the R7 I get the reach - I just wish it had come in at $500 higher with a buffer and processor that can manage the AF system. That would have been an amazing wildlife camera. Maybe the R7ii?

I'm with you Jake as you've probably gathered from our other posts that have crossed. There are some differences though. My Nikon D500 (I still haven't sold it) is the best camera I ever had, But when I was out birding my mate (he is a lot younger that might be a factor) if something popped up he was on it and focused in an instant with his 7Dmkii and EF100-400 ii lens. Under normal circumstances his shots looked sharper than my D500 + 150-600mm .
So when I realised that DSLR's were unlikely to improve and finding the weight of my Nikon +Sigma was becoming an issue I decided to swap. I have to say my research was quite early on so I fell a bit for the hype from Canon and early reviewers about the AF on the R7. That aspect has been a big regret and the rolling shutter though I have learnt to avoid that. I wished I could have justified the R5 in a way. But with the RF100-400 and 600mm F11 RF I have got the weight reduction and some excellent shots. My thoughts now are to get the R8 for the AF improvements for now and try out the 100-500 mm RF on test drive. Then wait for developments in the next year or so. Clearly an R7mk2 would solve almost everything for us birders and with a number of issues it must be a candidate from Canon and they would absolutely clean up if it came out about £4-500 above current model.

 

[Philnick]

Since 1968, when I graduated high school, I shot with a Canon FT QL, an FL-mount camera that was manual focus with microprism on the ground-glass, spot-metering stopped down, and the ability to load a roll of 35mm film running down the street with its hinged inner flap to hold down the tounge of the film.

Went digital in 2005 with a Rebel XT, then the XTi a month later, then the T4i with the first scattered dual pixels on the sensor, then the 70D - learned how to do MicroAutoFocus calibration, then the 80D.

Along the line I picked up a Powershot G5X, a pocket camera that thinks it's a DSLR - but I now realize really was a proto-mirrorless. Fell in love with the EVF, which liberated me from auto-exposure, and started me pining for a successor to my 80D which would have an EVF.

Didn't want to go full-frame since I had several well-loved EF-S lenses, including the 17-55mm f/2.8.

Then the R7 came out. Has a great EVF and is better in every way than my 80D. Can't understand the hate it gets. No battery grip? So what? I never used the one I had for the 70D and 80D. The Control Ring gave me back the f/stop ring I had on my FL lenses, I can set shutter speed on the top deck and it feels like my old FT. I can "change film" by setting ISO with the ring around the joystick next to the viewfinder. I use AF On to trigger eye-AF and * to trigger spot AF. Playback can be turned on with the MF button on the top deck., since I have direct control of all three corners of the exposure triangle all the time. I can drag the focus point around with my thumb on the rear display - and this body is as small - and lighter - than my old FT. No micro AF calibration needed any more.

Unlike my big and heavy DSLRs, which I mainly used on vacation, the R7 is used all the time. It's given my hobby a rebirth.

I have a few RF lenses, like the 28mm pancake (my 45mm equivalent "normal" lens), the 85mm f/2 macro, and the 16mm, but I've bought as many EF lenses recently - the 200mm f/2.8L II and the 24-70mm f/2.8L, and the 50mm f/1.4 - the R7's IBIS makes those ultra-sharp old lenses perfectly hand-holdable even though they don't have optical IS - and with the Control Ring adapter even they have f/stop rings! And I've held onto the EF-S 18-135mm USM power-zoomable lens (I have that adapter!) in case I want to shoot a video - which I haven't done in years. Recently picked up the Tokina EF 11-20 - which is a crop-sensor lens.

About the only thing I envy in the full-frame bodies is lower noise at high ISOs, but the high pixel density of the R7 lets me do deep crops that not even the R5 can match. So I just buy fast lenses - none are slower than f/2.8

You can see my work at photos.philolenick.com - the first three galleries were shot with various Canon DSLRs, the newer galleries were all shot with my R7. The butterfly and birds in flight shots are all deep crops that the R7's 32.5mp sensor makes possible.

 

[pcassel]

I have both the R7 and R6ii. I feel the only area the R7 falls behind in is noise. There is a significant difference in image noise once the ISO hits 3200 or so. I've never studied it. IIRC, DPreview had, as part of the R6ii review the ability to compare noise between the two cameras which confirmed what I saw. I have no idea if the R7ii will address noise. If it does, it'll be THE camera to use, IMO.

 

[Philnick]

I have both the R7 and R6ii. I feel the only area the R7 falls behind in is noise. There is a significant difference in image noise once the ISO hits 3200 or so. I've never studied it. IIRC, DPreview had, as part of the R6ii review the ability to compare noise between the two cameras which confirmed what I saw. I have no idea if the R7ii will address noise. If it does, it'll be THE camera to use, IMO.

I try to keep ISO at around 500 to minimize the need for noise reduction.

 

[Dcweather]

I try to keep ISO at around 500 to minimize the need for noise reduction.

..... which is near impossible most of the time in the UK with only reasonably priced long lenses being F7.1 - F11. But we have learned the wonders of modern AI denoise software.

 

[MrSparks999]

Better a noisy shot than no shot at all

 

[Philnick]

My "long lens" is my EF 200mm f/2.8 L II, with the EF 1.4 teleconverter, for an effective 280mm f/4. That 200 f/2.8L II cost me about $500 used (not refurbed). The teleconverter wasn't very expensive either. The R7's IBIS makes that a hand-holdable combo, which is much faster than the RF 100-400 f/5.6-8, which is approaching f/8 once you get into that neighborhood - that two stops wider means four times the light.

If you look at the birds in flight seagull shots at my photo site linked below, the shots early in that gallery were taken with the 100-400, which I returned, while the ones at the end, which are much better closeups with motion better frozen, were taken with the 280mm f/4 teleconverted rig. Better max aperture means better motion stopping and lower ISO. The high pixel density of the R7 let me crop in on that much further, for the effect of a much longer focal length.

 

[ctitanic]

Well, believe it or not, I just got a 5D Mark III. Probably because I'm missing the feeling of shooting with a DSLR. Most of my lens are EF glass so it makes sense to me getting a EF camera as a backup camera and the 5D Mark III is a classic that you can get now for very good price.

 

[border guy]

AF tracking and lens choice for me. I had the Nikon D500 and the D750 which are both great cameras, my main lens for wildlife was the Tamron 150-600 G2 but in my old age I was finding the combination hard to hold steady as it was quite a heavy set-up. One day I bumped into a fellow photographer friend who had converted from Nikon to Canon, he had opted for the R5 and RF 100-500 lens and I asked him if would he be kind enough to let me take a couple of shots with his new toy which he did, That was it I was hooked! Couldn't afford the R5 so I opted for the R62 and RF 100-500 and I've never looked back. Just bought the RP with the RF 24-105 lens for my railway photography which I have yet to try out.