Osprey1959maine

Any feedback on the Canon R5 for wildlife photography vs Sony vs Nikon???

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

It is a great debate ! .......for me it is mostly about FPS, BIF EVF and AF trackability and the availability of long fast light weight lenses like the Nikon 500 PF and Canon 400 DO II for hand holding.
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Brucej67 Loc: Cary, NC

Don't know about Canon or Sony, but as far as Nikon Z6 II and Nikon Z7 II for wildlife I would stick to the D850. Focusing is slow and under low contrast photography it loses focus on the subject and it is hard to get it back.

Zooman 1

I have and use the Canon Rs, so can't comment on the other brands. A good friend uses Nikon gear and is happy with it. I like my Canon's. Up to you!

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

The Canon R5 would be an excellent choice for wildlife photography, in large part because of the RF-mount lenses that have been developed for use on it.

Wildlife photography typically calls for a lot of telephoto work. Canon is already producing a number of those for the system. In addition, older EF mount lenses also can be used via adapters and may even work better on the R-series cameras.

Normally I'd recommend an APS-C crop sensor camera for most wildlife photography. The smaller sensor is more than sufficient for most peoples' uses and it allows you to use less extreme, smaller, lighter and less expensive telephotos. Canon doesn't yet produce an APS-C camera in the R-series (probably will within a year or two), but they've been innovative developing smaller, lighter and, in some cases, pretty affordable lenses for the full frame cameras. Also, since the R5 is a 45MP camera, there's room for some cropping and still be able to be produce high quality shots (the 20MP R6 doesn't offer as much "crop-ability").

For example...

Canon already has two RF 70-200mm lenses... an f/2.8 and an f/4. The f/2.8 is more compact and at about 2.35 lb. is lighter than Canon's own EF 70-200mm f/2.8 (3.26 lb.) as well as lighter and smaller than any 70-200mm being offered by Nikon, Sony, Tamron, Sigma or Panasonic. The other, more recently introduced RF 70-200mm f/4 is even smaller and lighter at about 1.5 lb.!

Further, Canon offers an RF 24-250mm that's affordable, compact and reasonably light at 1.65 lb.

Canon also offers an excellent RF 100-500mm that's both got 100mm more reach and is lighter than their EF 100-400mm.

They've also produced two affordable, lightweight f/11 fixed aperture super telephotos: RF 600mm and RF 800mm.

And, if you have a fairly unlimited budget and really, really want to haul around big lenses, they have RF 400mm f/2.8 and 600mm f/4. These appear to simply be permanently adapted from their EF versions (which are excellent, even if they are big, heavy and expensive).

So far the longest telephoto lens Nikon has produced for their full frame Z-series is 200mm.... a 70-200mm and a 24-200mm. They do have two APS-C mirrorless cameras (Z50 and Zfc) in the same mount, as well as a couple DX lenses specifically for those cameras... one of which is zoom that reaches 250mm.

It's good that you can easily adapt lenses for use on these cameras. There are many legacy F-mount Nikkors that can be used on the Z-series cameras. Canon also has EF to RF adapters allowing the use of their legacy lenses. In fact, Canon was clever with their adapters and offers several different types. One is plain... just an adapter. Another has a "control ring", like many of their lenses (this can be user programmed to provide different functions). The last and most expensive version provides a drop-in filter slot and either comes with a circular polarizer or a variable neutral density. These can be handy if using lenses that don't accommodate filters (such as ultrawides with convex front elements). Note: You can adapt both Canon and Nikon lenses for use on Sony cameras, too. However, there is some loss of AF performance doing that.

Sony has a more extensive lens system for their mirrorless cameras than either Nikon or Canon. That makes sense since Sony has been building their e-mount mirrorless for five or six years longer than Nikon Z-mount or Canon RF-mount (Canbon has their M-series APS-C format mirrorless.... but haven't really developed that eight or nine year old system).

Sony offers a couple 70-200s, a 70-300, 100-400 and 200-600 zooms, as well as 400mm and 600mm primes. They are supposedly soon going to be introducing an improved 70-200mm f/2.8, which has been in need of an update. Sony also offers both full frame and APS-C e-mount cameras.

There are lens "roadmaps" from both Canon and Nikon, showing what they intend to produce for their mirrorless systems in the near future (the timelines are a bit off, due to pandemic disruption an global shortage of some necessary products like computer chips). Google and you'll find more info about what the future is expected to bring, if you wish.

After lens availability, auto focus performance is the other really critical factor for wildlife photography. Right now Sony and the two most recent Canon (R5 and R6) offer the very best performing AF systems. They can do things that DSLRs only dreamed of doing, such as finding and locking onto the subject's eye (both animal and people). These mirrorless also offer very fast frame rates.... 10 or 12 frames per second with a mechanical shutter and even faster with a silent, electronic shutter (however, with moving subjects you have to be concerned about "rolling shutter effect" with electronic shutters... Google it for more info if you wish).

If you want full frame, the Canon R5 would be an excellent choice for wildlife photography, thanks to an exceptionally good AF system. Sony makes some excellent focusing cameras, too. Nikon's Z-series AF system is good too, but not as good as the other two. Canon has the lenses you'll need. So does Sony, though they haven't been as innovative with them. Nikon doesn't yet offer the native lenses, so you'd be adapting legacy lenses for use with them (such as their 80-400mm or 200-500mm F-mount Nikkors).

Be aware that a full frame mirrorless camera and the lenses for it won't save very much size or weight compared to many DSLRs and their lenses. Of the three, Canon is doing a better job of making things lighter and more compact. But there's a limit. If this is a concern, you should look at APS-C crop sensor cameras. Those are both smaller, lighter cameras and they allow you to use smaller, lighter lenses. Right now this would largely limit you to Sony or Nikon. There are no Canon R-series in that format, as of right now... they are expected to begin offering one or two sometime within the next year. I believe that the Nikon APS-C cameras are 21MP, while Sony's a6000-series are 24MP. When Canon finally gets around to offering their APS-C R-series, hopefully one of them will use the 32MP sensor they put in the 90D and M6 Mark II. (The other will probably be a more pro-oriented camera with 20, 21 or 24MP.)

Have fun shopping!

Osprey1959maine

Great summary thanks