Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 as an upgrade to 70-200mm f/2.8 for sports?

atolk wrote:

You seem to be confusing CRAW with cropping.

Indeed I was. I conflated the 1.6X Cropping/Aspect Ration option available in R6 and required for EF-S lenses with the reduced size sRAW format I briefly used on my 40D. I don't think I ever used it on 6D if it is even available.

I have to re-read about cRAW and then read some more. Sounds like a good option for sports.

I tend to milk the JPEG option (with the picture profile adjusted to the subject, high-ISO NR, lighting optimizer, etc.) under favorable lighting conditions and not just for space, but for the look of the photos coming out of the camera. However, when switching to RAW in bad light (such as being forced to the wrong side of the pool and shooting into the sun), it sounds like I might want to give cRAW preference over both JPEG and RAW.

Thanks for the clue!

C-RAW is typically a little less than 3x the size of the highest quality Camera JPEG and about half the size of full RAW.

That ~2x decrease in size of RAW means double the buffer size and 2x the download speed.

Using C-RAW over JPEG means you get all the big advantages of RAW, particularly:

•  "Saving" a slightly overexposed picture (impossible to do with JPEG)
• Pulling out shadows (which will reveal JPEG artifacts)
• Fixing white balance. Usually, the camera does a great job but once in a while, it gets fooled by a tricky lighting situation. 
• Noise reduction of higher ISOs

Most of the time when you have exposure or ISO noise problems you won't know it until you are back looking at the result on your computer.

All the software I use, including my photo shorting and editing programs as well as even  Windows 10 file manager (you may need to download an update for it) can show C-CRAW files so there is little or no need for me to keep JPEGs. By keeping CRAW, I or my descendants can decades from now go back with some whizzy new software and improve the images (as I am doing with DxO PL5 on some images I took 20 years ago).

A small study on fStoppers about the quality difference of RAW vs C-CRAW: https://fstoppers.com/education/there-any-quality-difference-between-raw-and-craw-new-canon-mirrorless-cameras-527209

Quoting their conclusion:

"By conducting this experiment, I have found cRAW to have little to no decrease in quality, despite the smaller file size. Perhaps a closer look will show some difference, especially if something like a color checker is photographed.

But I found this experiment a more realistic comparison, resembling a real-life situation. I think it is safe to say cRAW shows a negligible decrease in quality. I feel it is very safe to use the cRAW file format when shooting important events like weddings, even with extreme post-processing."

Another study on PentaPixel with a similar conclusion: https://petapixel.com/2020/09/05/canon-r5-and-r6-comparing-the-file-formats-raw-craw-jpeg-and-heif/

Jan Wegener video on using CRAW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9NzemVc6NU