Thank you for your comments. I need to do more shooting with the R7 combo to see if I am satisfied with the results.

Thanks, Dave, will check it out.

Thanks for your feedback. I will look for your Oct post. Do you find that using the 1.4x extender provides high quality images, as good as shooting without it, or do you see a slight degradation of the image?

Thank you for your comments. I intended to have the settings indentical-SS and aperture. Don't know why they are not. I currently shoot RAW and use DXO and Topaz Denoise or Neat Image to remove noise if necessary, so a slight bit of noise is not a concern to me. If I would do this over again, I would be more precise with my settings, use a tripod, and shoot at a closer subject as noted by imagemeister.

The ISO was 500 for the 800mm shot, 800 for the R5-500mm cropped, and 1250 for the R7-500mm. So, yes, maybe the ISO should have been the same with all the photos. But I shot all three of them the way I would have shot them if I was out in the field. Shot in the manual mode, same shutter speed, f11, and auto ISO. Since that is the way I often shoot, that is the way I took these photos.

Agree. Don't have the 1.4X.

Thank you for your comments.

I didn't have the time to set up a tripod, set up controlled lighting, or control the sun.

I think it proves that any of these combinations works in the right situation. It proves that one is not clearly better than another all the time. If one of the combinations would have consistently produced poor results, I would sell that combination.

My purpose for posting this was to provide information to others that might be in my same situation or were contemplating buying gear.

Other than that, sorry to have bothered you. You always have the choice to skip the post and move on, rather than make a snippy remark.

Yea, it probably would be better to show comparison photos under different conditions and using different settings. But I am pretty sure which combo would win in low light. The 800mm/f11 at low light would require a higher ISO setting. So more noise. I know the R5 is a better camera in low light than the R7. So I guess I'm saying I'm pretty sure the R5 with the 100-500mm lens would win that battle. I will probably be using the R7 with the 18-150 lens because it is smaller/lighter and provides a good walk around range.

I did not use a tripod, but I was resting my camera and lens on the window of my car shooting at 1/2000. Subject was pretty far away, so many it would work better on a closer subject.

Thank you, 100-500mm is a great lens. Focuses as close as 3 feet, very useful in multiply situations. So, if you get it, you won't regret it.

No question here. Just wanted to share a comparison analysis with you. I have a Canon R5, an R7, and two lenses-a 100 to 500mm RF zoom and a Canon 800mm RF prime. I have often wondered which combination of camera/lens would provide the best results at 800mm. I was not able to find a good analysis of this with a google search or in the Ugly Hedgehog search, so I decided to conduct my own comparison. Maybe not the most scientifically controlled, but my best effort.

Here is the setup-
-R5 with an 800mm lens.
-R5 with the 100-500mm lens, cropped in post to get to 800mm.
-R7 with the 100-500mm lens, no crop needed since this is a crop sensor camera 1.6X

I took several different sets of images in these three scenarios. I have attached one of those sets. I went into this thinking the R5/100-500mm cropped image would be the best. It will probably be the system I use most often, but the results did not make it a clear cut winner. In fact I think the image quality on all three were quite close. See the images provided.

Here are some of my conclusions:
-Because the 800mm lens has a fixed aperture at f11, it is only usable in good light and also when the subject is more that 18 feet away. The sample images provided were about 200 yards away.
-The DOF using the 800mm lens is less than when using the 100-500mm lens.
-I also paired the 800mm lens with the R7 to get an effective focal length of 1280mm, but I have not been successful at getting any quality images with this setup. So I don't plan on using that combination.
-The R5/100-500mm is obviously the most flexible system, so another reason to use it.
-The JPG file size/pixel count of the R5/100-500mm-cropped option was significantly less than the other two alternatives, so that may make it less usable for enlargements.
-In some of my other test shots, the image quality from R7/100-500mm combination tended to be a bit less detailed, but it required some pixel peeping to make that determination.
-When using any of these setups, a high shutter speed was required to eliminate camera shake. Definitely 1/1000 or higher (shorter).
-Originally, I was thinking about selling my 800mm lens or my R7, but now I think I will keep them. There may be situations when I will want to use one combination over the other.

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I use IDrive and SyncbacPro. IDrive for off-site backup and SyncbacPro for backing up to external drive. SyncbacPro can also be used to backup to OneDrive which is off-site with Microsoft. Pleased with both.