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

Thanks BirdShooter7 (and all others). All relevant comments so far support my thinking. I would need to pay roughly 1400€ to upgrade, so at this point i think i wait  for R5 mkii and see, if i could afford that and keep R6 as the second body.

steeldrake wrote:

Thanks BirdShooter7 (and all others). All relevant comments so far support my thinking. I would need to pay roughly 1400€ to upgrade, so at this point i think i wait for R5 mkii and see, if i could afford that and keep R6 as the second body.

If you were shooting events, sports, or other groups of people I’d recommend the R6 to R6ii upgrade in a heartbeat. The additional AF selectively is that useful.

However for wildlife you can set up the R5/R6 (and use technique) to usually work around this. Which by the sound of things you’re already doing. Don’t get me wrong, the upgrades are nice to have, but (IMHO) not crucial (esp for 1400€).  I think it’s sensible to wait for the R5ii.

R2

steeldrake wrote:

I struggle to decide if i should spend a reasonably big amount of money to upgrade my R6 to mk2, I know the differences in specs but one thing really bothers me and if any of you have experience (or even can share example raws) on this, i would be happy:

I do lot of wildlife and BIF (birds in flight) with R6 and RF100-500, sometimes with RF1.4 extender. Still depending on subject and situation i often need to crop quite alot. Now 24 is not much more that 20 but i read a lot of info and experiences that the IQ and details are much better in mk2. Perhaps due to different AA filter or something similar.

So will you get a much better highly cropped image from Mk2?

I sometimes use Topaz gigapixel and it creates often anomalies in e.g. bird feathers. I also wonder if a more detailed original picture would generate less artefacts...

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

Thanks for any help in the difficult question ;).

I use my R6Mii when my EF100-400mm M2 has enough reach. My R7 does the job otherwise. You can't go wrong with either of these two bodies. The 8mp difference is not a deal breaker unless you always heavily crop your shots.

The R6Mii is the best Canon camera I've ever used when it comes to image quality, and that says a lot coming from the R6 which produces gorgeous images!

Thanks, all, for your advice. I ended up upgrading after all. After thorough examination i concluded that the new features in AF and others are valuable for my type of wildlife and BIF. So far i am really happy i did upgrade. This camera is really improved in so many areas compared to R6.

BirdShooter7 wrote:

Nice! I’d love to hear more details about what improvements you’ve found most useful.

A few initial thoughts..

The AF has really been developed a lot. There are more and better possibilities to control how it finds what you plan to shoot and how to keep it focusing on what you want. It feels better in some very  challenging situations.

I often struggled with R6 when i shoot 20fps (now 40fps) and end up having lots of pictures i need to manage and possibly mass delete. Mk2 lets you delete the whole series of pictures at once. And the raw burst mode seems - based on my very initial experiences  - very usefull (also when not using the pre-buffer): You can shoot a series of images and then easily extract just those images you want to keep and save as separate CR3's - either in camera or in DPP (which i do not use). Then you can easily delete the "roll" as they call it. It is a bit clumsy implementation but i see many good sides too - time will tell how practical it is. And the pre-buffer (i.e. getting 15 images from the 0,5sec before you press the shutter fully) would have helped me a lot in the past and enabled to get perfect shots in situations that i missed.

I feel 20fps was enough for me but i guess in some situations 40 might be good. And less rolling shutter is good.

I feel it has been improved in so many little ways that it just feels better.

I guess the upgrade is not that worthwhile for landscape, wedding, portrait etc photographers but for wildlife, especially BIF, i honestly think it is a good upgrade.

I had the R which is 30mp. I had the R5 which I sold and picked up the R6II and R7. I didn't have the R6 to compare it to but the R6 surprised me.

steeldrake wrote:

I struggle to decide if i should spend a reasonably big amount of money to upgrade my R6 to mk2, I know the differences in specs but one thing really bothers me and if any of you have experience (or even can share example raws) on this, i would be happy:

I do lot of wildlife and BIF (birds in flight) with R6 and RF100-500, sometimes with RF1.4 extender. Still depending on subject and situation i often need to crop quite alot. Now 24 is not much more that 20 but i read a lot of info and experiences that the IQ and details are much better in mk2. Perhaps due to different AA filter or something similar.

So will you get a much better highly cropped image from Mk2?

I sometimes use Topaz gigapixel and it creates often anomalies in e.g. bird feathers. I also wonder if a more detailed original picture would generate less artefacts...

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

Thanks for any help in the difficult question ;).

I think you should “upgrade” to the R7 🙂

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

I think you should “upgrade” to the R7 🙂

I considered that too as a second body, but having earlier upgraded from crop (7D, 7D mkii) to ff i am not so keen going back. Sure it would help with cropping, but i need fast shutter speed and use mainly rf100-500, often with rf1.4 extender . So the lens is not fast (but otherwise excellent). R6 is so much better in low light and great with this lens compo.

steeldrake wrote:

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

I think you should “upgrade” to the R7 🙂

I considered that too as a second body, but having earlier upgraded from crop (7D, 7D mkii) to ff i am not so keen going back. Sure it would help with cropping, but i need fast shutter speed and use mainly rf100-500, often with rf1.4 extender . So the lens is not fast (but otherwise excellent). R6 is so much better in low light and great with this lens compo.

I got the R7 a month ago as a backup for my R5. Selling my R5 tomorrow, to get another R7

BTW, I used to have a 7D. It was great for the time. I heard that the Mk II was way better... But I went to the full frame 6D and started doing a lot more landscapes which it was great for. Had that camera for 7 yrs. Then went straight from it, to the R5 and WoW ! What an amazing camera. But I feel like my experience with the R7 has been even better. Especially with the longer reach. Shooting at 1280mm, I finally feel long enough for most of my needs

I dunno.... maybe you shoot bigger, or closer birds ? For myself, even shooting at 800mm I was often not close enough. But I am now

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

steeldrake wrote:

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

I think you should “upgrade” to the R7 🙂

.

I got the R7 a month ago as a backup for my R5. Selling my R5 tomorrow, to get another R7

BTW, I used to have a 7D. It was great for the time. I heard that the Mk II was way better... But I went to the full frame 6D and started doing a lot more landscapes which it was great for. Had that camera for 7 yrs. Then went straight from it, to the R5 and WoW ! What an amazing camera. But I feel like my experience with the R7 has been even better. Especially with the longer reach. Shooting at 1280mm, I finally feel long enough for most of my needs

I dunno.... maybe you shoot bigger, or closer birds ? For myself, even shooting at 800mm I was often not close enough. But I am now

I fully agree with your thinking and understand your decision very well. I might get an r7 as second body some day. I also struggle with distance and reach, but also with lack of light. What is the practical max iso you use with R7?

steeldrake wrote:

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

steeldrake wrote:

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

I think you should “upgrade” to the R7 🙂

.

I got the R7 a month ago as a backup for my R5. Selling my R5 tomorrow, to get another R7

BTW, I used to have a 7D. It was great for the time. I heard that the Mk II was way better... But I went to the full frame 6D and started doing a lot more landscapes which it was great for. Had that camera for 7 yrs. Then went straight from it, to the R5 and WoW ! What an amazing camera. But I feel like my experience with the R7 has been even better. Especially with the longer reach. Shooting at 1280mm, I finally feel long enough for most of my needs

I dunno.... maybe you shoot bigger, or closer birds ? For myself, even shooting at 800mm I was often not close enough. But I am now

I fully agree with your thinking and understand your decision very well. I might get an r7 as second body some day. I also struggle with distance and reach, but also with lack of light. What is the practical max iso you use with R7?

That is a very good question. TBH, I really haven't pushed it much yet. I try to keep it to ISO 1000 or less, but that's because I'm always shooting for max image quality, sharpness, and detail. I guess I've had some good shots at ISO 2500.

I used to have a max set in my R5 at 12,800... But haven't really seen a place in the R7 to set the max iso ? I figured I'd set that for 6400....

Anyway so far, even in solid clouds, or sun not quite up, or just went down, I've still been about to keep my ISO to like 1600 or lower, by running my shutter speed as low as 1/160th. I mean, I have even gotten a few sharp shots at 1/30 and 1/40th, but that's when i take a burst of 30 shots, and maybe i get 1 or 2 sharp ones.

steeldrake wrote:

I struggle to decide if i should spend a reasonably big amount of money to upgrade my R6 to mk2, I know the differences in specs but one thing really bothers me and if any of you have experience (or even can share example raws) on this, i would be happy:

I do lot of wildlife and BIF (birds in flight) with R6 and RF100-500, sometimes with RF1.4 extender. Still depending on subject and situation i often need to crop quite alot. Now 24 is not much more that 20 but i read a lot of info and experiences that the IQ and details are much better in mk2. Perhaps due to different AA filter or something similar.

So will you get a much better highly cropped image from Mk2?

I sometimes use Topaz gigapixel and it creates often anomalies in e.g. bird feathers. I also wonder if a more detailed original picture would generate less artefacts...

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

Thanks for any help in the difficult question ;).

Have you seen this?

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/66932700

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

steeldrake wrote:

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

steeldrake wrote:

Chris Wolfgram wrote:

I think you should “upgrade” to the R7 🙂

.

I got the R7 a month ago as a backup for my R5. Selling my R5 tomorrow, to get another R7

BTW, I used to have a 7D. It was great for the time. I heard that the Mk II was way better... But I went to the full frame 6D and started doing a lot more landscapes which it was great for. Had that camera for 7 yrs. Then went straight from it, to the R5 and WoW ! What an amazing camera. But I feel like my experience with the R7 has been even better. Especially with the longer reach. Shooting at 1280mm, I finally feel long enough for most of my needs

I dunno.... maybe you shoot bigger, or closer birds ? For myself, even shooting at 800mm I was often not close enough. But I am now

I fully agree with your thinking and understand your decision very well. I might get an r7 as second body some day. I also struggle with distance and reach, but also with lack of light. What is the practical max iso you use with R7?

That is a very good question. TBH, I really haven't pushed it much yet. I try to keep it to ISO 1000 or less, but that's because I'm always shooting for max image quality, sharpness, and detail. I guess I've had some good shots at ISO 2500.

I used to have a max set in my R5 at 12,800... But haven't really seen a place in the R7 to set the max iso ? I figured I'd set that for 6400....

Anyway so far, even in solid clouds, or sun not quite up, or just went down, I've still been about to keep my ISO to like 1600 or lower, by running my shutter speed as low as 1/160th. I mean, I have even gotten a few sharp shots at 1/30 and 1/40th, but that's when i take a burst of 30 shots, and maybe i get 1 or 2 sharp ones.

Thanks. That sounds far too low iso for me. With rf 100-500 often with 1.4ext the aperture is usually 7.1-10 and for fast action i need 1/1600-1/2000 min. So when light is not super bright i often need 10000-20000 iso and they make really usable results with r6 mki and mkii using topaz. 
i already upgraded some time ago and i am very happy with r6mkii.