Re: R5+100-500+1.4x or R7+100-500?
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drsnoopy wrote:
I have the R5 and 100-500, and very happy with the combination. I also have an R7 on order but now I'm wondering whether anyone has done a comparison between the R5 with the 1.4xTC (giving 700mm max FL) and the r7 with the bare lens (giving 800mm effective max FL). I do understand the issue with the TC restricting the short end of the zoom range. I've also tried crop mode on the R5 (17MP) and the results are mostly good but would like the extra sensor resolution. My feeling is that the r7 should have the edge, bearing in mind of course the differences in noise, which I am happy to deal with in RAW conversion (DXO) or in post (Topaz). However the TC would be less expensive...
Thanks for any examples or pointers towards other sources.
The R7 has less noise than a 1.6x crop from the R5. It may seem otherwise due to two sources of illusion; 100% pixel views, and the bias that converter defaults have towards accentuating noise with smaller pixels, by sharpening them more, even when the final display target can't even show original pixel-level detail. Even the R6, which has less noise than the R5, is no better in crop mode for noise than the R7. The R7 has Canon's best recording in an APS-C sensor area, period. It has about the same visible noise as the R6, but about 4x the pixels-on-subject, and less noise than the R5, with about 2x as many pixels-on-subject.
A TC on the R5 or R6 would get more pixels-on-subject, but the noise differences between the cameras don't really change in any positive way like that, because to get the same pixels-on-subject with the FF cameras, you need a 1.4x on the R5, which will double the ISO, and a 2x on the R6, which will quadruple the ISO (with the same shutter speed and pupil size). The TCs add a small bit of their own aberration, and that makes details punch through the noise a little less than with the R7 with no TC. Also, any benefit of the R5 or more so R6 for "low light AF sensitivity" is lost to the TCs solutions. The fact is, when normalized for pixels-on-subject with TCs, the R5 and R7 have the same Canon-claimed sensitivity, and the R6 is a 1/2 stop less sensitive. IOW, -6.5EV, -6EV and -5EV become -4.5EV (R6), -5EV (R5), and -5EV (R7). So, the fact that the R7 will AF more slowly in low light with the same lens becomes irrelevant when you start biasing things with TCs.
As far as the R3 is concerned, despite its amazing speed by 2022 standards, it is also noisier than the R7, similar to the R5, when cropped or when using TCs.