Is it worth upgrading R6 mk1 to mk2 for wildlife/birding/BIF?

steeldrake wrote:

And finally if you have the experience, is the AF and animal/bird tracking really noticeable better in mk2?

Yes, better subject detection

With R6 AF often struggles in these scenarios

I think first you need to verify that all of your settings are optimized for the kind of shooting that you’re doing.  It takes a while to develop a good setup and good technique.

1. while shooting fishing Ospreys the background changes quickly when following the bird and water splashes all over when the bird hits water.

Diving ospreys are indeed HARD.  Follow that sucker as perfectly as you can, keeping it in exactly the same location in the viewfinder (don’t let it wander or you’ll get subject motion blur).  Keep your shutter speed up.

Remain aware of your depth of field.  You’ll often have enough DOF so that you can let off of the autofocus as the bird hits the water (so that the focal plane doesn’t wander due to the splash).  Back button focus helps with this, but you can also program a button to Stop Focus if that’s your thing.  We’re fortunate that an osprey’s dive is so vertical!

2. trying to focus to a bearded tit in the middle of reeds. Any comment whether mk2 is any better?

I haven’t been out in the bush birding with my R6ii yet (my R5 is assigned this duty).  From my experience shooting people (and sports) with the R6 and R6ii, I’d suspect that the mk2’s AF would be slightly improved for birding.  The way I shoot, the increased options for AF areas don’t really come into play for birding (for people, bigtime).

A couple of techniques that may help with birds (literally) in the bush: Turn off Exposure Simulation in dark habitats.  This brightens the image that the AF has to work with and improves subject recognition and acquisition.  Second, put the camera in 1.6x Crop Mode.  This also helps with (especially eye) AF recognition and acquisition on distant and/or partially obscured subjects.  I keep “Aspect Ratio” programmed to the “Set” button for easy access.

See if any of this helps the next time you’re out.  Best of luck!

R2