Sell the R5 and get an R7 and R? Crazy?

mraifman wrote:

ThrillaMozilla wrote:

Sittatunga wrote:

mraifman wrote:

... For my bird photography, I find myself always using crop mode on the R5 and also wishing for more subject differentiation and nicer blurred backgrounds.

If you're always cropping your shots a lot, subject differentiation and nice blurred backgrounds are a function of the size of your lens aperture, not the size of the sensor. If the distances are the same and the focal length and aperture are constant, the geometry doesn't change, so the subject differentiation and background blur won't change, whatever the crop. You need a bigger aperture (in mm, not f/ number) to improve those things.

Absolutely. Switching camera bodies between R5 and R7 won't help at all with (1) depth of field; (2) out-of-focus background; (3) noise, or (4) high-ISO performance.

The R5 will not capture a single photon from the duck more than the R7 will.

The LENS, and the lens APERTURE (diameter) determine all of those properties. You don't switch camera bodies. You switch lenses.

Oh yes, I apologize if some of this got lost in my write up. The depth of field and bokeh from the 300mm f/2.8 mk ii is extraordinary. I love it. But it doesn't have enough reach for birding in my opinion on the R5, even with the 1.4x TC mk III. I don't like the IQ with the 2x so I'm less keen to go that route. So...getting a 1.6x crop on the 300mm f/2.8 and keeping the DOF and out of focus backgrounds is the goal. That's why I hypothesize that the 300mm f/2.8 + R7 is a killer combo for birding, giving nice DoF/bokeh, subject differentiation, and reach (480mm equiv naked; 672mm with 1.4x TC)

Hmm, I still don't think you've figured this out right.

The R7 has 0.0032 mm pixels; the R5 has 0.0044 mm pixels--about 1.38 times larger.  With a 1.4x TC on the R5, you will have VERY similar results as on the R7.  You will have almost exactly the same number of pixels per duck either way.  The R7 is not a step up in that respect.

I think you are being mislead by the 1.6 crop.  It just means that you will have a slightly narrower field of view with the R7, compared to the R5 with 1.4x TC.

Now we don't know exactly what optical effect the 1.4x TC will have on bokeh, etc., but I'll bet it's pretty good.  Someone did a resolution test recently, and there was very little image degradation with the lens he tested.