I shoot mostly wildlife myself. I used to shoot macro mammals and a host of other animals, but as I am now resident in NZ, the name of the game is birds: often in deep bush with lots of clutter. I used to shoot with the 60D's amongst other cameras, so I have some sense of where you are coming from. I am now retired and produce digital images for display on web pages and display on digital devices, some large, plus some medium sized prints - around A2 metric.
I absolutely, and firmly echo Ricky's support for the R6MkII. I sold most of my DSLR gear (although I keep an 80D and 5DsR along with some EF lenses, including the 100-400L MkII). I went with the R5 and both R6 versions. I deliberately chose to avoid the R7 after both checking reviews I trusted, but also doing my own shooting.
While the idea of a crop sensor may sound appealing, the R7 was built to a budget and IMHO has some serious flaws.
Sensor: while it has a 32MP APS-C sensor, that gives a pixel density equivalent to that of a 83MP FF sensor, which no maker has successfully approached. There are two implications from this:
- Rolling shutter: the high-speed electronic shutter was much touted for its frame rate of 30FPS, but because the sensor is slow - it is neither BSI or stacked, the refresh speed creates a lot of rolling shutter at high frame rates. One could use mechanical shutter at 15FPS, but it sounds extremely loud, and even on 1st curtain electronic is not ideal.
- Impact on buffer: because the data bus is slow: in part, because all that data is being sent to relatively slow SD cards, if one is shooting at high frame rates, using RAW, the buffer chokes after about 1.2sec! Not ideal. Also, there is evidence that the focusing system which is a cut-down version of that for the R3, (which has a fast data bus), and as a result it pulses at times as it tries to find focus, especially when eye tracking. Again, not stellar...
The body does not support a battery grip, so handling portrait mode with a large, heavy telephoto hand-held is unnecessarily awkward. There are 3rd party battery grips but they are somewhat clunky.
The R6II. Has a new 24MP sensor, excellent body, that accepts the same battery grip (BG-10) as the other R5 and R6 models. It has great sealing, fantastic focus and tracking and a fast data bus with high speed processors that support fast tracking, eye and face detection and tracking and reasonably high frame rates. The fast data buses and larger buffer make the use of dual SD cards more workable, and I have never had the camera choke on bursts.
While you can use your existing EF and EF-S lenses via the EF-RF adapter, I would not use EF-S lenses as they force the camera into APS-C mode, cropping the image area by a factor of 2.56 reducing your MP count from 24 to about 9.5MP - which may be acceptable, that depends on you.
As regards RF lenses, while one may not get the FoV boost from a crop sensor, I have used the fallowing lenses successfully with the R series bodies: EF 17-40L, 24-105L, 70-200L MkII, 30-300L, 100-400MkII L. However, if one puts on the native RF lenses the camera gets added performance from the combination of both IBIS and Optical stabilization, plus faster tracking. The RF lenses are brilliant! I use the following:
RF 14-35L, 24-105L f/4, 100-500L, - all are excellent optics and allow cropping if required.
Thus, in summary, the R6II is a brilliant camera. There will likely be an upgraded R7 at some stage, but if they invest in the tech to make it really work it will likely be a lot more expensive.
cheers, TREVOR
"The Amount of Misery expands to fill the space available"
"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
