Canon R6 Mk II vs R5?

I am making the switch to mirrorless.  I have been a Canon shooter for a long time. I have been very impressed with the articles and reviews on the new R6 Mk II. It seems its only drawback is the lower 24MP sensor. I want to make the right purchase to last several years so I looked at the R5 too. It is older and doesn’t have a few of the few features the new R6 does but it does have a 45MP sensor. Its biggest drawback is the price tag which is $1200 more than the R6 Mk II. Does anyone have any thoughts or direct experience with these 2 bodies? Thanks!!

My logic is that top quality lenses can do well on 45-60MP full frame sensors. Perhaps lesser quality lenses would show some limitations, where a body with 24MP or less could be less forgiving.

Another consideration is cropping, that may be important for birds photography.

With the improvements in CPU power, it seems newer cameras have no problem achieving very high frame rates on +45MP sensors, though not sure about processing later a large amount of huge pics on the laptop.

Unless you crop for reach a lot or make really huge prints (A1 and bigger) regularily R6Mk2 is better camera.

R5 is not more expensive by its body price only but also on memory cards and approx double size of the storage space needed in computer.

kentmcpherson wrote:

I am making the switch to mirrorless. I have been a Canon shooter for a long time. I have been very impressed with the articles and reviews on the new R6 Mk II. It seems its only drawback is the lower 24MP sensor. I want to make the right purchase to last several years so I looked at the R5 too. It is older and doesn’t have a few of the few features the new R6 does but it does have a 45MP sensor. Its biggest drawback is the price tag which is $1200 more than the R6 Mk II. Does anyone have any thoughts or direct experience with these 2 bodies? Thanks!!

I purchased both recently and for the last month I picked up the R5 instead of the R6Mk2. On my outings the R6 just sits in the back pack.

I do use the R6 when going out with the family where I takes photos and videos and I find the buttons and dials work faster compared to the R5 mode dial. I also like the human subject hold option in video so the focus doesn't shift or drift which is not available on the R5.

So for photos R5 - for video or hybrid perhaps the R6 Mk2 is better.

I think you have to decide whether you want the higher mp look to your shots? If you like the higher mp then obviously R5 is best for you.

whwn I had 5dsr 50mp and 1dxii 20mp, they looked different, not necessarily one better. But the 1dxii was so much better at everything else that it became a no brainer to stick to the 1dxii as primary body.

many more people though now prefer more mp.

kentmcpherson wrote:

I am making the switch to mirrorless. I have been a Canon shooter for a long time. I have been very impressed with the articles and reviews on the new R6 Mk II. It seems its only drawback is the lower 24MP sensor. I want to make the right purchase to last several years so I looked at the R5 too. It is older and doesn’t have a few of the few features the new R6 does but it does have a 45MP sensor. Its biggest drawback is the price tag which is $1200 more than the R6 Mk II. Does anyone have any thoughts or direct experience with these 2 bodies? Thanks!!

I wouldn't let the 24MP detract you. This not a low resolution camera, but rather 45MP+ is an extremely high resolution. We tend to "get used" to the numbers and forget that fact. Even most of the folks on these forums who want 100MP seem to be birders that want it so they can crop the $h!t out of their photos down to 20MP (ish) for final output. If cropping a lot for wildlife photography is important to you, then the R5 may be your choice.

20-24MP is more than enough for most applications, it's just how you get there. Do you plan to make prints over 30" wide on a regular basis and scrutinize them from nose length away? If not, 24MP is plenty. I've made many 12x18 prints over the years from 6MP cameras that nobody has ever complained they lacked detail.

All the megapixels in the world don't really matter unless you use them in some meaningful output. Pixel peeping on a screen can be fun but that rabbit hole has no bottom. I can 'peep a 500MP image all day, but it's doing nothing other than using a computer screen as a microscope.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of applications that can use more than 24MP for final output. But to me, if you have to ask the question you're not in that category. Landscape, fine art and high end commercial photography are the typical uses. And again, it only matters if a large print is your end goal.

The R6II is a fantastic camera. I've had one a few weeks, so it's still early days. But overall, I'm finding it to be just excellent for anything I point it at. The AF is everything they say it is, and the image quality is sublime. It's certainly going to be my most used camera going forward.

Oh, with everything I said above, I should note that I have a 50MP FF camera also.  And 16MP cameras with smaller sensors.  They all get heavy use.  Pics from any of them have yet to fail because of too few MP.