The R6 for Wildlife Photography

It’s not often I buy a camera brand new and that’s just recently been release, but the R6 was an exception. I’m not the kind of person who needs to buy the latest camera because it’s ‘the latest’ and for the most part I was happy with my 80D which was 4 years old at the time.  There was, however, a few niggly things I was finding a little frustrating. Focusing for birds in flight wasn’t anything to write home about and the shutter sound was very audible, even on ‘silent’.

I like to photography in particularly mammals which tend to have good hearing and the last straw came when on two occasions the animal was spooked my the shutter sound and ran off.  Come along the release of the R5 and R6.  Reading the specs I could see a number of advantages and improvements.

Compatibility

I did have to consider this long and hard as most of my lenses were quite old, especially my long lenses.  Canon has a compatibility chart showing which lenses officially work with the R6 an R5 which I was worried about as only one of my lenses was on it.  Closer reading and it just meant that these lenses worked at the cameras full potential or close to.  For my interest, I wouldn’t get the full 12 fps rate.

Next, the adaptor.  I thought this must slow down the performance.  All the research suggest not at all but in fact, your lens will worker better.

R6 or R5

Ok, I’ll get this out of the way at the beginning.  I choose the R6 for some very good reasons from my point of view which I’ll list below.

• Price: The R6 is already an expensive camera at £2,599.00, but at the time of writing this the R5 was £4,299.00.  A price difference of £1,700.  Once you factor in the need of an adaptor (£199), a CF Express card (around £169 for a cheap 64GB), you will want the battery grip despite being over priced (around £429 give or take) and although it does take your older batteries, I would highly recommend the newer, high capacity one (£114).  Add that to cost and that’s another £911.  You may not need or want all of these additions, but the chances are you will want most.

Just to note that since buying the R6, I have brought the adaptor, two additional fast SD cards, a battery grip, additional battery and a used RF25-105mm f4 lens, still for less than the price of the R5 alone.

• Sensor: Now, nobody is going to chose a 20MB sensor over a 45MB sensor, but for me 20MB was ample for my needs. Reading through the forums on the internet and you would think you must have 45MB so that you can crop!  If you need to crop by any large amount then I would suggest your photography/field technique is lacking.  Look at images posted on image sharing sites and the highly cropped images stand out and look like they’ve been cropped.  Cropping an image by any large amount will also emphasise a lower quality lens, atmospheric conditions, camera shake, noise, etc.  If your lens can’t handle the megapixels, then you’re basically throwing away many of those 45MB.

• File size: For me, taking wildlife images, a 45MB sensor and the file sizes it creates is a real disadvantage.  You can take an awful lot of images with a camera that has such a high frame rate.  You then need to upload them, so needing a fast card, view and process them, so needing a good computer, then store them, so needing the storage space.  For this, all would have added to the likely overall cost.  If this camera was just for landscape work were I take far fewer images, then file sizes this large would not be so bad.

• Noise: This was a factor at first as I shoot a lot in low light, but I don’t think there’s a great difference between the two cameras until you start shooting a much higher ISO’s.

•  Battery Life: The battery has a slight benefit in battery life but not by any meaningful amount.

 

The R5 has some advantages such as additional video options (not a factor for me), a slightly better screen and EVF and the top LCD which is perhaps the only thing I would have liked.

In the Field

This is ultimately where it counts.  Out of all the camera upgrades I have done over the years, this has had the most impact and has made a massive difference to what and how I shoot.

Focusing

This has been the most outstanding and immediate aspect of this camera.  Every year during the summer, the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle is the home to a nesting colony of Kittiwakes which makes for a great opportunity to photograph birds in flight.  For a number of years I’ve gone here with different cameras – the 80D the 1DmkIII with very mixed results.  The birds fly through some changing and busy background and are constantly changing direction.  The R6 had no problems locking onto the birds.

Below is a series of images taken with the Canon 400mm f5.6 lens, showing the typical backgrounds that in prior years, with the same lens, caused misfocusing.

 

       

 

Animal Eye Tracking

This alone makes the R6 and R5 stand out.  It’s simply outstanding.  Once you latch onto an animal with it, it will just lock on and keep it in focus.  I have my camera set up to have two back button focusing.  One for the normal single point and the other for animal eye focusing.  If the eye focusing doesn’t immediately or struggles to pick up the animal then the single point will initiate or help it.  Normally it will pick up the eye.  If it can’t find that, it will find the head and if it can’t find that, the body.  Most of the time it will succeed but it isn’t perfect.

    

Using it with a x1.4 converter

The above were taken with a x1.4 converter on the lens (Canon MkII).  There seemed to be little difference in focusing speed.  I’ve also used it with a 3rd party lens and converter (Sigma 500mm f4.5 & x1.4 Teleplus Pro 300) which also gave me fast, if not as good as the native version.  Below is a series of images of a Brown Hare coming towards me.  It wasn’t able to get all images in focus, but it was as much to being unprepared for this event which also meant I was shooting at around 1/400s.  Not ideal for a fast moving animal.  No sharpening or noise reduction or cropping, just a bit of exposure adjustments.

 

 

 

     

The first one is slightly out of focus, maybe partially down to the slow shutter speed.  The Hare continued towards me until it was too close to focus.  I’ve no doubt my old camera combined with this lens and converter, would have misfocused most of these.  This series of images brings me onto the next subject.

Shutter Frame Rate

Earlier on I mentioned the frame rate with older lenses.  Using the mechanical shutter, I’m getting around 7-8 frames per second, which may not seem much by todays standards but it’s fast enough for most of my needs and if I need it faster I can switch to electronic where I’ll get the full 20.  I believe if you use the latest EF lenses you’ll get around 9-12 fps and obviously with the new RF, the full 12.

Rolling Shutter

This is something to be aware of if using the electronic shutter.  Not really an issue for me as I wanted the electronic shutter for it’s silence and will probably not be in a position where it’s going to distort an image.  Below is an example where it can effect your image.

     

Image Quality

Now comes the biggest issue people seem to have about this camera and that’s the 20 megapixel sensor.  I’ve already shared my feelings about a larger sensor size, but what about this one?

The first two images below are straight out of the camera and just converted from RAW, the second being a 100% enlargement of the birds head.  There’s plenty of detail there and having used the Canon 6D for a number of years, also a 20MB sensor, this one feels much cleaner and sharper.

 

 

My style of photography means I rarely end up cropping to any extent, usually only for aesthetics.  I’ll situate myself close enough to get an image that fills as much as the frame as possible and if not, I’ll make the best of the surroundings to make it part of the image.

 

The other argument is some need to print to a massive size.  There’s plenty of websites, books and YouTube videos that explain how we perceive large images, so I won’t go into that, needless to say, I’m not convinced of this reasoning either.

 

If you really need to enlarge or crop then I would highly recommend software such as Gigapixel A1.  Below is the same image again but then cropped using Gigapixel A1 and resized back to it’s original resolution of 5472 px by 3648 px.

 

 

 

Noise

Another reason for getting the R6 was better noise at high ISO’s but I wasn’t expecting just how good it was going to be.  Previously I topped my ISO at 6400 and even then used it sparingly.  Now I have it at 25600, though again sparingly but have no hesitation to go up 12800.  The first image below is at 20000 and with some noise reduction, whilst the second is at 25600, taken around 20 minutes before sunrise.

Thought it might be an interesting comparison to see how far camera sensor technology has come over the year.  The first image below was shot on my old 30D at 3200 ISO.  The second with the R6 at 12800 ISO.  Neither processed.

Battery Life and the Battery Grip

If like me and you’ve come straight from a DSLR, then the rated battery life of 360 shots is a bit of a worry.  I have to admit when I first went out with this camera, it felt much less and it started to concern me.  However, if you listen to others who have this camera, most are saying they are getting much more and I’ve since looked at advice on how to extend my battery life.  Soon I was getting a lot more, to the point I would carry a spare but not worry too much about it. 

Since then I’ve added the battery grip – admittedly over priced – but this did come with the offer of a free battery (the new LP-E6NH).  This now gets me through a whole day’s shooting.  The grip also helps with the balance of a long lens and just makes the camera a bit more ergonomically comfortable if a little heavier.

The EVF

I wasn't sure what to expect with the camera's EVF having never seen through one before, but I was pleasently surprised.  You can set it up in a number of ways including what you see is what you're image will look like or you can have it so that what you're seeing is how it currently looks.  Having the former means you can get the exposure correct up front.

It has an OLED EVF with around 3.69 million dots and a 119.88 fps refresh rate.  This can be reduced to save batteries but I've kept it on it's hight setting.  Since I shoot a lot in low light, having it set up so that what I see is the same as my exposure means it looks bright when my DSLR would look dim.

Buffering

I've been using ScanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-1 cards, so not the fastest but I've yet to experience reaching a buffer image, even shooting at 20 frames per second.  Having said that, I think the longest I've shot is around 3 seconds but I've found I can still take more straight after without delay.

Conclusion

I've had this camera for nearly a year now and haven't managed to shoot in every kind of situation or subject that I have using my previous DSLR, but I have covered most.  This has been the biggest and most notible upgrade of any camera I've made.  The biggest improvements for me for my wildlife photography have been the focus speed/eye tracking, lower noise and silent shutter.  I know without doubt I have got images I couldn't have on my pervious cameras.

 A Few Question Marks

There has been some negatives but most have been overcome, but will go through them here.  Megapixels.  I have said 20 is enought for my needs but there is that nagging psychological 'if only it had a few more'.  I think it's imprinted on digital photographers, but honestly, it hasn't been an issue.  I like to get as close to my subject as possible - it's part of the challange of wildlife photography.  If you have to crop heavily on a regular basis, there's something wrong with your fieldcraft.

I do miss not having a top LCD screen but it's something you adapt to.

View finder lag.  You can get this when shooting a fast moving image going across you.  It makes it a little more difficult to keep the subject in the view finder, however, you get used to this and compensate for it and now I don't realy think about it.

Battery life if not what I'm used to and at first was shocked how bad it seemed to be.  But a lot of research and delving into the settings along with a battery grip with the newer batteries, I no longer find this an issue.  It's something you just have to be aware of and I always take a spare set of batteries with me.

Electronics.  The more relient on electronics the more that can go wrong.  I've had one situation where the camera 'died' on my at the worst possible time.  After some researching it may have been down to the cards I was using and since doing a regular low level format on them, it hasn't happened again.

Any disadvantages are outweighed by the massive amout of advantages, to the point now where I would be hard pressed to go back to a DSLR, at least for my wildlife.

EF Lenses I've sucessfully used with no issues:

Canon 500mm f4 Mk1

Sigma 500mm f4.5

Canon 400mm f5.6

Canon 300mm f4

Canon 17-40mm f4

Samyang 14mm f2.8 (manual version)

Canon 1.4x II & Teleplus Pro 300 1.4x Extenders (the latter not working on the Canon 500mm)

The only lens I had some issues with but still works, is the Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro (non IS version)

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A Return

It's been a while since last posting. Not really sure if people are interested in looking at blogs anymore with social media replacing it. A lot of blogs I used to look at, also haven't posted anything in a long time. The last year has also seen a move for me and of course the lockdown, making getting out difficult. This has however, forced me to look locally for photo opportunities. 

The area is a mixture of built up residential and farmland but this is largely surrounded by the housing areas, so is quite isolated.  Just before lockdown I was able to go out to scout around the area for potential wildlife, but in late winter, it felt very bleak and with little around, so I wasn't hopeful.

After being stuck inside for months and we were able to go out with less restrictions, I got out with my camera by which time it was early summer and the area was transformed.  The most obvious of any hopeful opportunities was the abundance of Rabbits around the area, although extremly skittish.  Despite using the 'silent' shutter option on my camera, it would be enough for one click and the Rabbits would be off.  I would then have to wait up to 30-40 minutes again before any would return.

All the images were taken during the summer at around sunrise, so before there was too many people around to disturb them...and me.  The image two above, was taken of a Rabbit who seems a bit more plucky than some of the others as it seems more tolerant of the sound of my shutter.  I've seen it a few times, recognised by the left ear which has a bit missing.  Hopefully this won't be it's downfall as, on a recent visit I was surprised by a visiting Fox.

It was only a brief encounter, but gave me hope of taking pictures of which is probably my faviourite animal to see and photograph.

This was only my first sighting of a Fox after nearly three months so, unlike my usual location to photograph them, they presumably weren't common.

I have also seen the occassional Roe Deer though only ever individuals and the fields.

 

Hopefully, I'll start to post a bit more often now that I'm getting out again and as I continue to explore my local area.

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The Fox & Rabbit II

It’s not often  I will go back to a successful shoot at a location in the hope of replicating the success again as it rarely turns out that way, but at this time of year it’s a great time to see and photograph foxes as this years young haven’t left for their own territories so you have a number of foxes in one place some of which haven’t yet learnt to fear humans.

With that in mind I returned to the same location as before.  Conditions were different.  Instead of dull, damp weather there was sunshine and, out of the wind at least, a little warmer.  However this time the wind was coming from a different location so my previous ideal position now had it coming from behind me, making me upwind from their location.  This and the lack of rabbits feeding may have been the reason that, after two hours, little was seen.

Eventually, the mobbing calls of a couple of magpies caught my attention so moved to a different location to see what the fuss was about.  The new place was more sheltered and what little wind there was now came towards me.  Unfortunately, for the first time in a number of years I was hit by a bad case of hay fever, maybe because of the lack of wind but it was very sudden and my eyes were itching like mad and starting to stream.

Just then a fox came out of nowhere and across my front.  At this point I could barely see never mind try and focus on a moving fox through long grass.  A couple of shots is all I managed, mostly out of focus or largely hidden by the vegetation.  The rabbits further out, although alert to its presence, didn’t seem overly concerned until, after initially disappearing from my view, it sprinted out out after them.  It was all over in seconds and again, I had nothing but blurry images due to the problems of trying to focus in the long grass.

With my hay fever moderately better, after a couple of anti-histamines, decided to go back to my previous location despite the problems with the wind direction and being colder at least I had a more open view and it was where I had the previous weeks success.  Again, after another hour and nothing happening it had to be my being upwind that was the issue and after, once again hearing the mobbing of the magpies, moved to investigate.

As I approached the noise I kept coming up to rabbits, frozen.  Normally they would be off in a flash with someone approaching them but they clearly they thought I was a lesser threat than presumably the fox or foxes ahead.  Each time I chose not to make, what must have been an already stressful time for them any worse, so gave them some space and went around them.  One rabbit I stumbled across, I was so close I couldn’t even focus that near so had to back away just to get a photograph.

Despite the obvious presence of foxes, I wasn’t able to get closer due to the ring of clearly fraught rabbits around the area, so returned back to my original location.

I know there is a lot of photographers who shoot wildlife to whom getting ‘the image’ is all important and I don’t think they realise the impact they might have.  I remember reading once how, for wildlife, it’s a day-to-day struggle for survival it it did make me think.  I don’t chase after wildlife and if I think my presence will cause unnecessary stress, I will back away without an image.

There has been so many times I have had close encounters with an animal, particularly foxes and deer, where I stumbled across them without their knowing of my presence.  But because I was so close, rather than ‘get the image’ and inevitably give the animal a shock, I have stayed quiet and let them pass without knowing I was there.  There is a certain satisfaction in being within metres of a wild animal, unaware of you and simply being able to watch it rather than it see you and run off.

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In A Sea of Grass

A recent deluge of rain after a couple of months of almost none has given the the plants and grass a sudden sprout of growth though still not as tall and lushes as you would normally expect at this time of year.  Still, it means it’s easier to see the local wildlife.  Having said that, my first hour was spent watching a loan Rabbit which, despite my use of a net as a cover, I think it new I was there though didn’t seem particularly bothered.  Every now and then it would poke its head up and sniff the air as if there was a scent if was unsure about.

When it started to seem like all the morning would show would be this single Rabbit, from my left I saw a streak of red brown moving through the tall grass.  Although I could only see the very top, it could be only one thing, a Fox and it was heading in the same direction as the unsuspecting Rabbit.  A brief stop in an ideally located spot in the grass meant I managed to grab a quick snatch image before it plunged down again.

It disappeared for a while and I watched the line it was following, expecting it to come out at a spot near the Rabbit, it didn’t, instead making a 45 degree change of direction and headed away from me.  As it headed off, it wasn’t being very obliging for me although a quick look back meant I could at least get another quick couple of shots. I watched it for a further twenty minutes or so in the distance whilst it hunted for rodents with clearly some success as I could see it rummaging around in the undergrowth followed by a violent shaking of the head and some chomping on whatever it had found.

Eventually it went on its way leaving the Rabbit remaining completely oblivious as to how close it came to being a possible meal for the Fox though it’s quite likely the Fox could have continued on its original path and completely miss the unsuspecting Rabbit in the dense undergrowth.

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Summer Rabbits

I don’t seem to get out as much as I would like to these days, but the weather has been great recently, too good to miss so out I went.  At this time of year, Fox cubs are venturing out on their own and without their own territory and lacking the caution of their parents, it’s often a good time to find and photograph them.

Where better to find them than where there are Rabbits.  Well, Rabbits were a plenty but there was no sign of a Fox – at least I didn’t see one.  A number of Magpies and other birds were mobbing some kind of predator in some thickets and long grass but I couldn’t really get close enough with it being waist high and full of thistles.  Wearing only light, thin trousers, the thistles were easily penetrating them making progress rather painful.

I settled instead for simply enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and watching the Rabbits.  It was noticeable how relaxed the Rabbits were, with one even appearing to ‘sunbathe’, lying down and on one occasion, on its back.  Still, even here the grass was long so shooting through this meant much of the time many of the images looked quite soft.

Rabbits may be common and not the most glamorous subject to many but I find them quite endearing and entertaining to watch.

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Same Time, Same Place…

…different results.  As is so often I’ve found, you can rarely ever re-create the same success previously achieve, as was the case on this occasion. I wasn’t going to bother posting this as the images aren’t good and are few and far between but I did think it was a good example of how unpredictable wildlife, and particularly photographing it, can be.

I went to the exact same location at the same time with even the weather being the same, sunny, warm condition, in the hope of achieving the same success as before in seeing and photographing some young Foxes.  Result?  Completely different. 

As with a couple of weeks earlier I waited quietly in the same place and again, after a couple of hours the Magpies started to make a noise suggesting a predator was about but I only got a quick glimpse of a Fox.

Certainly the Rabbits were on high alert, obviously due to the Magpies activities.  The grass was a little higher than last time making any sighting harder to photograph, so when a particularly loud commotion came from my right, I went to investigate.  I stopped at a good vantage point only to see a Fox sprint across after one of the Rabbits.  Ironically, had I stayed where I previously was, I would have hand the perfect view!

The Fox, obviously unsuccessful in its hunt walked back the same way, spotted me, out in the open having not settled down yet – took one look at me and was off!

The Rabbits remained wary for a while but eventually settled back into their feeding.  The Magpies continued excitedly back and forth for a while but I didn’t get any further glimpses.

As I said, I wasn’t going to bother posting this due to it not being particularly exciting.  The Fox images were fleeting snaps and the sun was bright and in my face – and so behind the subjects making exposure difficult and way too contrasting.  Still, a morning spent in the warm sunshine is always a good thing.

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