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New lens vs full frame body

Aprice2016
Contributor

I’m new to photography and have been watching videos and googling info within this forum for hours daily trying to soak up just the basics. I am slowly learning how the three most important settings work together to get clean photos. I use my camera to shoot baseball practice and games  90% of the time approx 5 to 6 days a week. Lighting is still tricky because one minute it’s full sun then the next it’s shade so I have to adjust the settings. I am standing in the back field either behind the fence or within a clear opening. I am currently using the canon eos r7 with a RF 100-400 f5.6-8 I would like to invest a little more into this hobby and trying to decide if I go with a full frame camera vs the R7 that I have or should I upgrade my lens to get better low light photos. The lens I have considered is a Canon EF 70-200 f2.8l as I gifted a new EF lens adapter that fits my R7. Any recommendations, suggestions or insight are welcomed. I have no problem just learning how to use what I have either but I’m willing to look at a different lens too just would like to keep it under $3500. 

6 REPLIES 6

Tronhard
VIP
VIP

Hi and welcome!

I would like to start with asking a few questions to establish what you specifically need to address.   
What do you do with the photos, as regards output?  Do you present these on social media, digital devices or make prints from them?
How does the current focal range of 100-400 fit your needs?  Looking at your images, can you gauge from the focal lengths you most shoot at what range you need - is this how you came up with the 70-200 f/2.8?

If you depart from the R7 the logical thing is to move to a full-frame body.  This would have benefits in terms of dynamic range, noise reduction and focusing, especially if moving to something like the R6MkII which has the best combination of sensor, DR and focusing/tracking short of the R1 and R3 models and at a much reduced cost.

However, doing so will reduce the effective magnification you get from the crop sensor combined with your lenses.  If you have been watching this site for a while you will doubtless have read of my comments of sensor size and Field of view.  If not, or you want more details then read my paper on the subject: Sensor Size, FL and Field of View. 

So, with that in mind, on your R7, the 100-400 is currently delivering an equivalent FoV of a lens on a FF sensor of 160-640mm, and a 70-200 would render an equivalent FF FoV of 112-320mm - which is significantly lower, and thus my question to you.

What setting do you broadly use as regards the camera: what Mode are you in, and are you using a fixed or auto ISO, and what values for that?  If you are seeking to control depth of field and shutter speed, to deal with variations in light from clouds, having Auto ISO would make sense.  With that in mind, relative to an R6 series, the R7 performs very poorly -  having  much lower DR, and exhibiting ISO noise at much lower values: thus, moving to a 'cleaner' FF 20-24MP sensor would reap benefits for you or allow you to use a higher f/stop or shutter speed.  Thus I would suggest an initial scenario to you:

Move to the R6II: $1,759  Shop Canon Refurbished EOS R6 Mark II Body | Canon U.S.A., Inc. or 
alternatively R8: $1,169  Refurbished EOS R8 Body (canon.com)
then, take one of the following options:

EF 70-200L f/2.8:   $2,799  Shop Canon Refurbished EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM | Canon U.S.A.
RF 70-200L f/2.8:   $2,249  Shop Canon Refurbished RF70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM | Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Note that the RF version is actually cheaper than the EF version and would not require the EF-RF adapter and would also be fully compatible with the R6II IBIS.

I note that most solutions will exceed your $3,500 budget, but you could recoup some of the cost by selling the R7 and possibly the RF 100-400 lens.

All that said, much depends on your responses to my quesitons.


cheers, TREVOR

The mark of good photographer is less what they hold in their hand, it's more what they hold in their head;
"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris

Your always a wealth of priceless knowledge and appreciate your responses. Clearly I have so much to learn. So I assume now that going from a 100-400mm lens to a 70-200mm lens I am reducing the distance in which I could take good photos of my son. If I am usually in the backstop area I could be as far as 400 feet from the plate once he is on a high school baseball field. I use manual mode and try to keep my settings as close to these settings as possible. 
Shutter speed between 80 and 500

aperture between f7 and f10

iso between 100-500 

what I gathered is that 70-200 is the wrong lens. What do you recommend for outdoor sports with the r7 and maybe for Christmas I will be able to spend another possible 7 to 10k on a full frame and a different new lens for that body. 

Thank you for your appreciation!  We are all learning, and I shall learn from your situation too.

If you need to be able to get to 400ft, then you definitely want more reach than the 70-200 is going to offer, even with the boosting effect of a crop sensor.  The compromise for that sensor magnification loss is that you will be using super telephoto lenses and having to accept that such lenses are relatively slow, and given you said that is a challenge for you, we need to find a solution that will alleviate that.  This is where my suggestion of going full-frame comes into play.

Any APS-C sensor camera, compared to a FF camera with the same pixel value is going to perform worse in low light.  That is because the photosites, the light-gathering components in the sensor are smaller and more prone to noise.   The R7 has squeezed 32MP into its APS-C sensor which, if translated to the same density on a FF sensor, would be 83MP - which no camera maker has successfully achieved.  The results show up clearly in the tests of sensor performance in terms of ISO and dynamic range.  

See the chart below from a site called Photons to Photos, that geeks out on camera technology:

Tronhard_0-1727216895221.jpeg

The table represents the maximum ISO value that each camera could use to achieve a dynamic range of 6.5 stops.  The R7 is second from the poorest, while the the R6MkII is over twice as effective and just above the boxed around the R5.   There are also issues with the readout from the sensor at high frame rates, and bottlenecks throughout the data bus.   If you don't shoot high frame rates or shutter speed it might not be an issue, but the mechanical shutter sounds like a tinker's cart, which drives most people to use electronic shutter, which is where some of the issues start.

I would suggest that you can still do this in under your $3500 budget. So, with all that in mind I am suggesting you sell the R7 to help fund a FF body - better now that at Christmas when you are competing with the big sales.  Yes, you will lose the magnification boost of the APS-C cropped Field of View, but  you will gain significantly in terms of focus, dynamic range, and face/eye tracking.  I would recommend replacing it with the 24MP FF R6MkII - it is currently bested only by the R1 and R5 in terms of focus, and they are significantly more expensive.  You can use your current batteries and cards so that should be painless. There is a slight difference in controls but you can get used to that.  The R6II refurb at a cost of $1,699 has been reduced again.

Now to Optics:
Having improved your DR and focus, consider one of the following:
The Sigma 60-600s lens for Canon - you could get this from KEH.com.  There is none available right now, but you could expect to pay around $1,600 for a like new one - with a warranty.  That is an awesome lens - not light, but you can use it with a monopod very effectively from close far.  That, taken with the quality of the sensor, will allow you to crop if need be, but you will get good light performance because you can boost the ISO to something like 6400 - far better than you are doing right now.

Alternatively, if you can find one, consider the RF 200-800 f/6.3-9.  Canon have it listed at $1,899.   I have this lens and for the price, it is an amazing performer.  To compare the fields of view between the setup you have now and this one:
With the R7 equivalent: the 100-400 f/5.6-8 will render a FoV equivalent to lens160-640mm f/8-11
With the R6II you will get the 200-800 will give you the same native range, but you are now gaining an effective aperture benefit of 1 stop over the other lens - and it's a fabulous optic and has IS that will work with the far superior IBIS of the R6II.

So, if you were to sell the R7, you can keep the 100-400, get the R6II and RF 200-800 and should still stay within the $3500 budget.

As to your settings. 
I think I would be correct in saying that a lot of photographers for sports still shoot in Av mode.  Consider for every shot you have 3 variables to deal with, but you are dealing with a dynamic situation, so you want to cut those down as much as possible, so I use the following and it works with animals that don't cooperate.

ISO - set to auto, with an auto range up to 3200 or 6400 - start low and see how that works
Av mode, so the camera is sorting out the shutter speed, but again you can set parameters for that
Now all you have to do is deal with aperture, keep an eye on the S/Speed in the viewfinder and track.

If you have not done so, I recommend using Back Button focus, single point centre focus, in Servo mode using the default AF-On button on the back.  I also set the exposure to single point, centred and have that set via the * button on the back.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AXUzslHnRc&t=2s

Metering: Evaluative metering tries to average out the exposure, but often in contrasty situations that will not work well and you don't want to spend time using the EV dial to compensate.  You don't want the exposure linked to the focus point because there is no guarantee that this is rendering an18% reflectance that the sensor wants. 

So, the process is:
Centre the EVF on a point that has moderate balance between light and dark - it comes easy with experience - and TAP the * button to lock that:  a * appear in the EVF to confirm. If you want to change, point at the new place and tap the * again.

Centre the EVF on the subject's face.  With face and eye tracking enabled it may find it, but centring on the subject's face/eye and tapping the AF-ON button will confirm that to the focusing system and it should take over tracking. If the focus point is not on the centre to start with, tap the joy stick to centre it (if it is not set to do so, you can configure that in the menu).

Recompose and shoot.

It actually sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, and it is lightning fast once you get enough practise in - far faster than moving the joystick, for example.  I don't use touch focus as my face keeps touching the screen and confusing it.


cheers, TREVOR

The mark of good photographer is less what they hold in their hand, it's more what they hold in their head;
"All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow", Leo Tolstoy;
"Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase" Percy W. Harris

March411
Mentor

Aprice2016,

To piggyback on what Trevor has conveyed the 100-400mm on an APS-C camera should allow you to capture some nice if not beautiful images.

Just so you have some point of comparison the image below was shot with a R6 MkII and the RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM lens. It was taken from left/center field behind the home run fence. The settings were ISO 2000 - f8 @ 1/3200 - focal length/zoom 383mm on an overcast day as you can see, the players have no shadows.

The reach of your RF100-400 equivalent field of view of 160-640mm would allow you to achieve a very similar composition. The RF100-400 is also the lightest of the three lenses I mentioned coming in at 1.4 lbs, the 70-200mm - 2.36 lbs and the 100-500mm - 3.0 lbs.

One other consideration you may want to think about is using Auto ISO and setting you aperture and shutter speed manually.


Ballgame_2.jpg


No trees were destroyed in the posting of this message. However, a significant number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Marc
Windy City

R3 ~ R5 ~ R6 Mk II ~ R50
Adobe and Topaz Suite for post processing
Personal Gallery

Thank you for the feedback, I may just be getting ahead of myself and need to just work with what I have for awhile. That is a beautiful photo you took. 

March411
Mentor

@Aprice2016 wrote:

Thank you for the feedback, I may just be getting ahead of myself and need to just work with what I have for awhile. That is a beautiful photo you took.


I think that's a good plan for right now. The R7 and the RF100-400 will give you everything you need for baseball. As you continue to refine you style you'll pick up the equipment you really need to expand your photography.

Because after all, who doesn't want more equipment... 😁 And I thought I may have suggested some type of denoise and sharpening software. These will tighten up images in post and the R7 can use some assistance with noise as Trevor pointed out. Topaz and DXO are pretty common applications for a lot of folks. I use Topaz but they have been struggling lately with software development and if they don't get their acts together I may purchase DXO. Either one will be a benefit in your post production work flow.

And thank you for the compliment. A friend asked if I could grab some frames of their children.


No trees were destroyed in the posting of this message. However, a significant number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
Marc
Windy City

R3 ~ R5 ~ R6 Mk II ~ R50
Adobe and Topaz Suite for post processing
Personal Gallery

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