Canon R5II - long term review and comparison to the R5 and Sony A7RV.

Canon R5II with Canon EF 100-400 L using EF-RF adapter. Probably my most used combination this year for bears along the Quinsam River in the fall and on our Safari trip to Tanzania.

Canon R5II compared to the original R5 and Sony A7RV, three camera I own (or runtil ecently did). I have been using Canon cameras since the late 1990s and have used many Canon and Sony digital SLRs over the years starting with the original digital rebel and many APSC cameras, through all of the 5D series cameras and even a 1D. On the Sony side I started with the A7R and have been using many of the A7R series as my main camera for a good number of years now.

When Canon finally started to get into mirrorless cameras it took them a while to come out with something that I thought was more useful that the 5DS. The first R series cameras were quite underwhelming with mediocre specs and autofocus that was less than stellar compared to the Sony cameras. The R5 came out with many of the features that I was looking for, mainly an autofocus that was similar to the A7R4 that I was using at the time. I purchased the camera shortly after it came out but it turned out to be a rather big disappointment. The version I had was very buggy, which was really unusual to me for a Canon product. I couldn’t rely on it when things counted as it would error out and need to have the battery removed regularly just as I hit the shutter button. This was a shame as the autofocus was really good, the quality of the images was great (very close to the 5DS at low ISO and so much better as the ISO increased) but this camera almost made me sell off the rest of my Canon gear it was so frustrating.

When the R5II came out I was a little nervous about spending that much money in hopes that I would be happy again with Canon. Turns out it was a good decision and this camera is as stable as any of my previous Canon cameras that I had come to rely on, and the improvements over the R5 for the type of shooting that I do was well worth the upgrade. For the first time in quite a few years I have a Canon camera that is as good as my Sonys and is in some ways better (at least for a camera of similar cost right now).

improvements from the R5 to the R5II

So first off let’s look at the improvements on the R5II. The sensor is the biggest change going from a relatively standard CMOS sensor to a stacked sensor. This allows us to actually use the electronic shutter most of the time without much in the way of noticeable rolling shutter in any but the fastest moving things. The second thing is the camera’s reliaablity. I have now had this camera for more than 6 months and I can’t remember a single system crash. The autofocus may be slightly better but the R5 was actually very good. At this point in some situations the Canon is better than my A7RV and in other situations it is the other way around but both do the job in a way that I expect it to work in better than 99% of cases that I will be shooting.

The new pre-capture feature is fantastic and I hope this is something that will come to a similarly priced Sony camera soon. This is great for moments where you are waiting for action to happen and would often just miss the defining moment by a fraction of a second. I can now quickly set up for pre-capture and know that unless I’m completely looking away when something happens I will have a good chance of getting the shot. The 30 fps shooting is also very nice to have although I have found that I usually set it for 20 fps and have the front depth of field button set up to increase back to 30fps when I feel I might need it. That is something that I find a bit annoying since when you hit that buffer limit the camera completely stops shooting unlike the Sony that just reduces the number of frames per second.

Canon R5II with the only RF lens I currently use, the RF 14-35 f/4 L. I like the extra field of view from our EF 16-35 but both lenses work well on this camera.

The R5 was actually a good camera and was pretty equivalent to the A7R5 that I also use regularly, it was only the reliability of that camera that really was the issue and now that the R5II has come out without those issues and with the improvements noted above, it is possibly a slightly better camera than the Sony. There are other issues with Canon though that make it difficult to just go with one or the other.

RF mount and cost

The new RF mount and the lack of reasonably priced Canon lenses and the total lack of third party lenses is still a big issue. I have now owned a Canon mirrorless camera for a few years and at this time I have only purchased one RF lens. I picked up the 14-35 f/4 lens when prices were a bit cheaper. This is a good lens but I can’t really say it is sharper or than much more useful than the 16-35 f/4 EF lens that we still own and use on the 5DS. I mostly use the EF 100-400, EF 500 F/4 II, EF 100 f/2.8 IS macro, EF Sigma 35 f/1.4, Tamron 85 f/1.8, and Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 lenses with the EF to RF adapter and don’t currently see much reason to purchase much more expensive RF glass.

I have put most of my money recently into FE glass for the Sony system, including Tamron 35-150 f/2.2.8, Sigma 500 f/5.6 and am looking at other new Sigma super telephoto lenses in the future. There are some very good RF lenses out there but they are so expensive and not that much better (if at all) than the recent Tamron and Sigma lenses and even some of the next tier lenses that have improved significantly in the last few years that I don’t see a good reason to make new investment in Canon glass. This may in the end be the reason that I do at some point finally move off of Canon completely. The main saving grace is that the EF lenses that I have work well on the current camera and ones like the 500 f/4 II are so good I can’t get anything better currently for a reasonable price other than maybe the Sigma 300-600.

Top view of the Canon R5II. I really like the on/off switch in the new location which makes it quick and easy to turn on the camera while bringing the camera and lens to my eye. I rarely switch to video unless I’m on a tripod so having that switch on the left side of the camera is good for me even though I know other people don’t much like it.

Comparing R5II with the Sony A7R5

This may be a bit of an unfair comparison since Sony currently doesn’t have a stacked sensor camera to compete in the price range of the Canon R5II or the Nikon Z8 so this is really the only option and it is a bit dated now compared to either of those cameras. That being said the Sony A7R5 is a workhorse of a camera. The autofocus is excellent and for the most part on par with the R5II. A maximum of 10 fps though really is limiting now (although I thought it was perfectly adequate for many years). The electronic shutter is basically unusable on this camera except possibly for landscapes but I have no idea why you would want electronic shutter over mechanical in that case other than maybe some camera shake for certain shots. Image quality on both of these cameras is fantastic. I do like to have the extra pixels on the Sony when I need to crop in on animals but I am very happy with the image quality on the 45mp Canon sensor. There are subtle differences when it comes to high ISOs but for the most part I get a similar quality image from both even up to 12800 ISO (I pretty much never shoot higher than that).

When it comes to handling this is very subjective. At this time I prefer the Sony due to the number of buttons and dials that I am able to set up the way I like to shoot. On the Canon I find I have to do multiple button combinations to get the same thing done or use the touch screen (which is not useful when I have the camera up to my eye). I have both cameras set up so that I rarely have to go the the main menu, things are either available directly via buttons and dials or via the quick menu for a few things that I don’t use regularly. The more I use the Canon again the more I get used to the button layout and the only thing I find annoying is changing ISO. This isn’t a game changer because I shoot most nature photography with auto ISO. When I’m shooting landscapes I don’t mind taking my eye from the viewfinder for a few seconds.

The back of the R5II looks very familiar to anyone having used Canon cameras over the last 20 years but that viewfinder is huge and is a big improvement over the previous version. Not quite as many programmable buttons as the Sony A7RV which does mean I need to go to the quick menu more often than I would like but maybe other photographers prefer the touch screen which is only useful for me when on a tripod shooting landscapes.

the view finder

Speaking of the viewfinder, this is another nice improvement over the R5 and there are features that I have not yet used. The new viewfinder is significantly better in terms of me being able to see through it. I wear glasses all the time and with the R5 I found that if I shot anywhere other than with the sun behind me I was getting glare into the viewfinder that was washing out the image. The new one seems so much better maybe just due to the different shape and size but I really love looking through it now. The new eye autofocus is the one thing that I have yet to try. I want to and would have fun comparing it to my elan 7e which also had eye autofocus but for the most part the cameras autofocus works so well I don’t need another way to focus on an object. I may change my mind after trying it out but that would really just be a bonus.

The LCD screen on the R5II is good and useful but the Sony A7R5 has the best articulating screen out there and really every company should adopt a similar type of articulation. I’m not that picky about the resolution of the LCD so I haven’t really noticed if one is better than the other. For people that shoot with the LCD screen instead of the viewfinder this may be more important. For most of the things I do both screens do the job well enough.

There are so many interesting features on these cameras that I use only a few times a year; exposure bracketing, time lapse, focus stacking, are all things I sometimes do and each camera has something that helps with those types of shots.

Out in the field

I have now had a good amount of time shooting with the R5II after 3 months straight shooting black bears during the salmon spawn this year and a 2 week safari to Tanzania.

First off I can say that this camera is reliable and stable and works as it should which is fantastic. It is really nice being able to use the electronic shutter with the 30 frames per second and being able to be completely silent. The pre-shooting also came in very handy as I waited for bears to launch after a salmon. I have the camera set most of the time now to 20 frames per second with the depth of field button on the front of the camera set up to increase to 30 frames per second when needed. I also have one of the memory positions set so that I can have pre-shooting quickly. I really would like to have it set up so that I can turn on and off pre-shooting with a single press of a button. Not sure if that is an option now on newer firmware but I hope it can be added if it isn’t already.

Autofocus seems to be very similar to the R5 and that is not a bad thing. The R5’s autofocus was very good and the R5 II may be slightly better but I’m not seeing any significant changes. It tends to be a bit better than Sony for capturing the eye on far subjects but lags a bit behind Sony when it comes to subjects close to busy backgrounds and still struggles a bit to find a bird or animal under those conditions. Sony used to have that same sort of issue back with the A7RII but the latest cameras are much better even with very contrasty backgrounds. It is certainly possible that this could be improved via firmware updates but we shall see.

At the moment I have few RF mount lenses, and all of the long telephoto lenses I use for nature photography are EF mount. The 500 f/4 IS II is still an amazing lens and there still isn’t a replacement for it. The pictures from that lens are spectacular which is good since it was the main reason I bought this camera. For the subjects that I have been shooting this year the 100-400 L II has been the most used lens and again has not been given a direct update on RF.

Black bears on the river tend to be in dark conditions but are relatively close. This is where the R5II really shines. Under these conditions I am often shooting higher than ISO 3200 to be able to stop the action and as long as I have the subject reasonably large in the frame I am able to get shots at ISO 6400 and even 12800 that are usable with a bit of noise reduction in post. Compared to the old Canon 5DS this is amazing as I really wouldn’t consider shooting above ISO1600 with that camera which limited the action shots I was able to get in the past. Although the detail is not quite at the level of the Sony which has 61 MegaPixels most of the time the difference is not extreme. I do still find that things like feather details are still a bit better with the Sony but only nature lovers tend to look that close.

The main reason I bought the R5II was to be able to continue to use my EF 500mm f/4 IS II. This lens is my favourite birding lens and with the 1.4 teleconverter as seen here I get fantastic image quality and am able to track subjects quickly. I don’t know if Canon will ever produce a new 500mm but I doubt it will come in anywhere near the same price as this gem.

The reason I have dropped my shooting speed down to 20 frames per second is mainly due to the buffer in the R5II. Although it is better than previous 5 series cameras it still runs out fairly quickly and when it does shooting stops completely. I don’t tend to put the shutter down until the buffer is full but I will tend to do short bursts as the action is happening and have hit the buffer more often than I would like. I have missed shots due to the fact that the camera won’t allow any more shots until it clears. Would love to see an update so that it would act more like the Sony which slows down but continues to shoot once the buffer is hit. I have found that at 20 frames per second I don’t hit the buffer nearly as often and for the most part the subjects I have been shooting it is fast enough to ensure I get the best wing position or the action at the right time more often than not.

In the end what I can say is the R5II has become my favourite Canon camera of all time and I’m finding it to be as consistent and capable as my trusty A7RV. For nature photography I would say it is Canon’s best camera up to this point in time.

Tanzania teaser- Start with the big five and add a few

Elephant family slowly making its way towards the river for a drink

Growing up in small town Ontario, I remember waking up on Saturday mornings to one of two exciting things;  Cartoons and Nature shows.  I probably never really grew up because I have never gotten over either of them.  We only had 3 TV channels and had to move the antennae each time we wanted to change the channel. So with the TV guide in hand, we would plan what shows to watch.  We had just a few options but Lorne Greene's New Wilderness, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and Untamed World are the ones I remember and it was always the African Safari episodes that kept me imagining myself in a safari vehicle exploring with a camera.

Standing in our Toyota Land Cruiser. Looks pretty similar to the ones I saw on TV as a kid. (Photo by Salwa Farah)

Years later, as a nature photographer, my dream has always been to go to Africa to live that life, even if only for a short time. Nearly a year ago, we made plans for a 2 week trip to Tanzania with a group of nature photographers. With just one week to go, we got news of protests that resulted in deaths during the Tanzanian election. This resulted in a number of countries making statements basically saying "do not travel" to Tanzania. Needless to say, I was stressed out and a bit depressed with the idea that the money we had put towards a once in a lifetime trip may be gone. Fortunately, after going back and forth with the safari company and reassurance from customers on the ground in Tanzania, with the exception of one couple, we made the decision to go. The trip was a success and I believe I got almost everything I wanted out of it. My inner child saw everything he dreamed about and more.

I didn’t realize that lions climbed into trees as often as they do.

Getting the big five animals in Africa was certainly one of the goals, but it wasn't about ticking things off a list.  I really wanted to get to see these animals living their lives. It wasn’t about just getting a pretty portrait of each.  For the big five I can say we managed to get good pictures for 80% on that goal. There was so much more to see than the big five, and I'll explore those later, but for now let's take a look at some of the big ones, let's call them the big five-ish.

A pair of male lions doing a bit a of dance before lying down to rest on the Serengeti

So, let's start with what is the accepted definition of the big five.  They consist of elephants, lions, leopards, buffalo, and rhinos.  For me the "ish" part adds in giraffe, hippos, and cheetah.

Three cheetah taking a quick look back before heading off.

With nature photography in Canada you can usually count the number of animals you see on a single hand, On our first day out in Tanzania, we saw a half dozen giraffe in the first 5 minutes of crossing into our first National Park, and things got even better from there.

Giraffe at the entrance to Arusha National Park with an elephant statue in the background near the gate.

Giraffe

Giraffe are an interesting challenge to photograph, especially from a truck that can't leave the road. This is where the Tamron 35-150mm lens became the most useful not only for big subjects that were up close, but also for those shots that include more of the environment.  We saw giraffe almost everyday, and in so many different environments.  These are a majestic animals that I could easily take pictures of daily without ever getting bored.

Lone giraffe wandering across the stark grasslands

Elephants

While the Giraffe were fun to watch, usually one or two at a time, the elephants on the other hand were most often seen in family groups.  The interactions between the elephants made for the best shots, I really had no idea how active they were and how much they interacted with each other.  This was a show again I could watch over and over again.  We watched them walking together slowly in long trains to reach water, but once they got there they were like a bunch of children in a playground.

Two elephants play fighting in the water left in the river basin

Sometimes they would play fight, other times they sprayed water or dirt over their hides, and the little ones would fall and roll in the dust, as if they were still discovering how to use their legs and trunks.

Spraying a little dirt overhead, I’m assuming it helps with the bugs or the sun.

Lions

Most times of the year you are limited to staying on the roads in Tanzania’s National Parks, so getting to see lions at first was mostly a case of seeing them at a far distance as they lay under the shade of a tree to escape from the heat of the sun.  Fortunately, the more we explored, the more lions we saw. We found several families resting near the road and another group hanging around in a large sausage tree.

Lions are not quite as agile as leopards when it comes to climbing but this one managed pretty well

These animals are so used to the vehicles that most of the time they barely noticed us, and when they did it was in passing as they used the shade of a truck to get out of the sun before making their way towards a watering hole. Luckily for us, most of the time we got to enjoy the lions by ourselves. Although this wasn’t the busiest time of year for safari’s, there were occasions when we saw lions in a tree with a bunch more vehicles. I managed to get a shot of one descending from the tree with a Land Cruiser in the background.

With safari vehicles in front and behind, this lion acted as if we weren’t there at all but wandered behind our truck to get out of the sun for a bit before heading back to the rest of the pride.

We were lucky to see many lion cubs, sometimes playing with the rest of the pride lazing in the sun and with a couple that were a little curious about us.

Fuzzy and cute, lion cubs seemed to act a lot like house kittens, curious and energetic but often a bit clumsy.

Leopards

I can say that we were very lucky to see several leopards on this trip.  Our guide was pretty thrilled since typically they can only get a glimpse of them in a distant tree. Instead, we got to spend a good amount of time watching one resting in a tree, another coming down from a tree to start to hunt, as well as another beside a tree after an unsuccessful hunt for a mongoose.

lone leopard in a tree noticing something interesting back behind us

Although the light was challenging to get great shots, the fact that we were able to spend as much time with this elusive cat made it worth having to do a little work to get the best out of the shots.

Buffalo

Cape buffalo were a little difficult to get interesting photos of, at first we only saw them far away in small herds and often mostly hidden in the brush, but in the Ngorongoro crater we got to see a larger group of them in a wet, muddy open area.  One of the photographers in our group was on a mission to get a picture with oxpeckers on the buffalo which, after patiently waiting, we did manage to get exactly the shot he wanted. I also managed to get something, but the composition I really wanted would have been a backlit headshot.

Cape Buffalo with a pair of oxpeckers in the Ngorongoro crater

Rhinoceros

Salwa wanted to see a black rhino, from our first day out it was on her list and it wasn't until the final day that we had a chance to see them.  In this case that was pretty much all we can claim is that we saw a couple as it was from a long distance though many trees with a significant amount of heat haze in the air.  I only managed to get a couple of shots off, and I think I can at least say for certain that it was a rhino but I'm not going to be showing off any of these photos.  I think in this case I'm mostly disappointed about the fact that rhinos now need to be protected so much due to human predation and over tourism that they have had to close down many of the roads to allow them a bit of room away from people.  It is our own fault and I hope that some of the work being done will mean that these magnificent animals will have a future. For now, I can live without getting a nice picture.

Highly cropped image of two black rhinos deep in the bushes on a hot afternoon in Ngorongoro conservation area. Not a great shot but at least we got to see them on the last day.

Cheetah

From day 1 of the trip, when asked what I wanted to see, it was always a cheetah on the hunt.  While I didn't get to see one at full stride chasing an antelope I did get to see a mom with two cubs and three active cheetahs on the plains.   I think these were my favourite moments from the entire trip, and something that child watching TV on Saturday mornings can now say he got to see in person.

Cheetah mom and cub on a termite mound to give it a bit better view of anything wandering by

Hippos

Anytime we came close to water and the air smelled rank, there was a good chance that we might be close to some hippopotamus.   The rainy season had not quite started yet so most of the time we found hippos in muddy, putrid ponds where they were all squeezed close together.  Hippos seem to be rather ornery creatures, but I suppose I would be as well if someone was flinging dung in my face with their tail.

Big yawn, very big teeth and a lot of attitude.

The one thing we watched numerous times that I hadn't expected was hippos rolling over with their feet up in the air on a regular basis.  It helps to keep their backs wet and muddy so they don't get sun burnt, and it was amusing to watch.

Hippos can move very quickly in water, and tend to raise a good bit of muck while doing so

While we can certainly call the trip a success on the basis of seeing and photographing the big five, there was so much more to see.  So many antelopes of different types, numerous birds everywhere, lizards, smaller mammals, and monkeys.  We travelled through Arusha National Park, Tarangere, Lake Manyara, the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater over 10 days.  I’ll have many more photos to share in the next few posts. You can take a look at the Tanzania Gallery for some of my favourites.

What's in my bag for Tanzania

Option 1: In the left side Canon R5II with EF 100-400 lens attached, 14-35 f/4 RF lens, set of magnetic filters. On the right side we have the Sigma 500 f/5.6, Sony A7R5 with 35-150 f/2-2.8 lens, DJI Osmo Pocket 3, Canon 1.4x EF teleconverter.

We are not long term planners, usually deciding on trips a few weeks ahead and then just doing our own thing without a major schedule or others to rely on. This year we decided to finally do an African safari, basically a trip of a lifetime for us, but we are doing so with 3 other couples. This is a photography trip and we are all nature photographers so at least we will have the same priorities for the most part. We started planning this trip more than 8 months ago so for once I have plenty of time to consider what I need/want to bring with me from a gear perspective. I normally carry a long telephoto zoom and a big white telephoto prime for much of my photography closer to home but I don’t think this is going to be the best gear for this trip. Taking that gear on a number of planes would also be challenging so I have really had to think about what we are going to be shooting, the distances from the subject, how much gear and how heavy my bag will be.

I’ve watched a number of different youtube shows from other photographers on different safaris to try to get some idea of what will be most useful that can all fit in one backpack. The general consensus seems to be that unless the trip is mostly birding you will not really need a super long lens. 400mm is likely as long as will be needed most of the time and with some of the bigger animals you may be close enough to need a normal or wide lens. I always like to do some landscape work while traveling so most likely an ultrawide zoom will be good to have. To keep things light and still have a good assortment of focal lengths zooms will be most practical.

Based on all of that, I think I have determined that the types of photography I will be doing will be closer to the bear photography that I do in the fall where we have larger subjects often at medium to fairly close distances and in low light. To this end I have put together a set of kit that I think I will take on the trip and have been using that most of the time during salmon season this year.

The gear includes the following:

• Canon R5II

• Canon 100-400 EF f/4-5.6 L

• Canon EF 1.4x teleconverter

• Canon RF 14-35 f/4 L

• Sony A7R5

• Tamron 35-150 f/2-2.8

• Sigma 500 f/5.6

I will also be bringing along the DJI Pocket 3 and the Sony ZV1 for capturing video as we are shooting. I have also now a new MacBook Air m4 plus a number of external SSD drives for backing up pictures and videos each night.

Accessories going in one of the bags are the Macbook air, 2 small cases of memory cards, extra batteries for all cameras, card readers for CF Express type A and B as well as for SD cards, external SSDs for quick backup of files each night and the trusty Sony ZV1 for quick videos.

To hold everything I have 2 options, a PGYTech Onemo 2 35L camera bag shown above or the Gura Gear Kiboko 16L below. The PGYTech fits everything above fairly easily but with the Gura Gear I would need to leave the 500 Sigma at home. That bag would not have worked at all originally since it can’t fit a large laptop but now with the macbook air I can take either easily. I haven’t made the decision yet but am leaning towards the smaller bag at the moment.

For Option 2 in the Gura Gear bag which is significantly smaller I have the Canon R5II with the EF 100-400 lens and the Canon EF 1.4 teleconverter.

Side 2. I have the Sony A7R5 with the 35-150, Osmo Pocket 3, and the Canon 14-35 f/4. This bag has plenty of storage for all the accessories and a small area that will fit the Macbook air.

During Salmon season this year I have mostly carried the Canon R5II with the 100-400 lens and the Sony A7r5 with the Tamron 35-150 lens and have found this to cover fairly well what I am shooting. Most of the time for these medium sized mammals at distances of between 10-40 metres these lenses have worked out well. I’m hoping most of the time the shooting will be similar from the safari vehicles based on what I have heard from other photographers.

If money were no object, I would absolutely prefer to have a low light beast like the Canon 100-300 f/2.8 along with a couple of teleconverters which would allow for a great range plus good low light performance but that lens is significantly out of budget and I’m hoping Sigma will come out with a new version of their 120-300 at some point for FE mount at a much more reasonable price point.

The 35-150 has turned out to be a very versatile lens for both photography and video. I think that this lens may stay on the Sony camera for much of the trip especially for many of the large animals that we will come across and for more environmental shots with the animals.

The 100-400 range will likely be sufficient for most of the other nature photography and I’m expecting that we will have pretty good light much of the trip. The 1.4 teleconverter is for just in case we see some birds that I can’t pass up the chance of capturing.

If I have the 14-35mm lens on the Canon for some landscape or wide environmental shots then I might switch to the 500mm on the Sony to ensure that I have a long telephoto ready for big cat action. The Sigma 500 is such a light and small super telephoto prime that it may be worth bringing even if I don’t use it most of the time. Salwa will have a 16-35 in her bag if I do need a quick wide angle shot on the A7RV and the Canon is busy.

he main reason for the wide range of the lenses on a trip like this is because most of the time we will be in a safari vehicle and will be unable to get out to change perspective so we will absolutely have to do so with the zoom lenses.

Salwa similarly will be bringing a set of lenses that cover the gamut from 16mm to 560mm with a 16-35 f/4, 24-105 f/4, 100-400 f/4-5.6 and a 1.4 teleconverter all on her Sony A74. It is likely she will be doing a lot more video than I will and she is very comfortable with this lens setup that she takes on most of her video shoots.

The other little things we will be bringing:

• Many memory cards for all the cameras.

• SSDs for backup

• Insta360 X5

• Filters (ND and polarizers)

• DJI wireless microphone

• On camera microphone

Otherwise we will have minimal clothing, a bit of medicine incase of any trip related issues and not much more. Can’t wait to get out there, planning a trip this far ahead is very difficult for us to not get too excited too early. Hopefully I haven’t over examined this with all the time I have had…sometimes overthinking is bad :)

I will revisit my decisions once we come back from the trip to see if we ended up having what we needed or if we should have brought other gear. So far things are working well enough for shooting black bears on the rivers edge and elk out in the fields.

Summertime Bald Eagles - a few pointers for those who want to get some interesting eagle shots.

Bald Eagle taking off along the shore in an industrial area. Certainly not the most beautiful background but it does tell a story.

Summer can be difficult for nature photographers, the spring migration is over and here on the wet coast we are eagerly awaiting the salmon to head up river as autumn arrives. Here in Campbell River we do have a huge number of Bald eagles along the coast in summer and they can be very active fishing off the coast or just grabbing leftovers from the fisher people as they come back from a day on the water. Although the best times of day for interesting light are early morning and as evening approaches, often these eagles are very active in the bright light of day. This can often make shooting eagles difficult as we can have deep shadows and very bright whites just on the eagle. Personally I like having some interesting shadows on some of my bird shots to give a bit more emphasis on the brighter portions but that does mean that I have to be picky about which shots have the light on the most interesting part of the bird….and that means shooting at high number of frames per second. This is a nice option to have as just a few years ago I was getting a maximum of 5 frames per second which meant I often missed that crucial moment when the eyes were in the light. Some of the latest cameras like the Canon R5II that I am using now allow me to get up to 30 frames per second and even allow for precapture so that I get up to 15 shots from before I pressed the shutter button. This really does mean that I come home with a much better chance of having the best shot possible on my memory card.

Eagle in flight on a bright day. Notice the shadows of the wing tips across its neck which gives an interesting added element to this shot. Taken with Canon R5 II with 500 f/4 at 1/4000s, f/4, ISO 320.

Bright days of summer do mean that you don’t necessarily need to have a large aperture telephoto prime to stop motion and get reasonably good detail in the shot. This allows for lenses like my 200-600 which has a maximum aperture of 6.3 at 600 to still be able to get shots at 1/2000-1/3000s at relatively low ISO which means minimal noise. This allows us to get interesting in flight and interaction shots relatively easily.

Adult bald eagle circling near a boat launch while a juvenile eagle sits on the rocks in the background. Taken with Canon R5 II with 500 f/4 at 1/4000s, f/4, ISO 500.

In flight eagle shots can be very fun to capture. Eagles here are often flying fairly low and banking around the beaches looking for fish. If you find a place where someone has left parts of fish after filleting their catches you can easily have a dozen eagles vying for a piece of the easy prize. The eagles also tend to stay around certain beaches as the tide recedes waiting to see what gets caught out of water. In these cases I have found that having a long telephoto zoom allows you to capture many of the fleeting moments that occur sometimes fairly close to you but also nice shots as the birds approach and circle around the scene. My usual starting camera setting for these situations are with the camera set to M (manual but not really), auto ISO (which is the not really), shutter speed of 1/2000s, and the aperture as open as possible. This allows for easy changes to the aperture if you have situations where you need a deeper depth of field, like trying to capture multiple birds interacting. It also allows for quick changes to shutter speed if you need it but still allows the camera to determine the ISO which will usually mean that you let the computer on board determine the exposure as the birds move in and out of the light. Depending on the exposure metering method and how well it obtains automagical exposures you can still change things with the exposure compensation more to your liking as you see your shots come out. Eagles can be difficult as you have white and very dark areas on the bird so it can be easy to blow out the whites on the eagles head if you aren’t paying attention.

Two juvenile eagles fighting over some salmon left on the beach. Because they were so close to the same distance from the camera they are mostly both in focus with the other eagles well out of the range of the depth of focus. Taken with Sony A7R5 with Sigma 500 f/5.6 at 1/2000s, f/5.6, ISO ??

Hot days in the summer do have one major issue for shooting long distances especially close to the ground/water. The further away you try to take a shot the more the atmosphere itself between you and the subject can reduce the perceived sharpness of your image. Especially over water you can often see a shimmering in the air and trying to take images through that is basically not going to produce the best results. Luckily this effect is reduced as you get closer to the subject but just be aware that you may not notice this effect as you are taking your shots until you get back to processing your images.

Pair of Bald Eagles on an old phone pole at the local spit. This portrait was taken while waiting for these guys to take off and hopefully do something interesting. Taken with Sony A7R5 and Sony 200-600mm at 600mm, f/6.3, 1/2000s, ISO 320. I could have reduced the shutter speed but since I was waiting for action I had it set at 1/2000s.

If you don’t get to see eagles often, you will likely be happy grabbing some beautiful shots of perched birds often as they are sitting on dead branches looking for their next meal or on the beach at low tide. You can get some fantastic portraits and environmental shots often of single eagles or of small groups of them together. In these cases I will often reduce my shutter speed to get the lowest ISO I can to reduce noise. Once you have those shots in the bag, then the birds in flight shots are often the next target. Although a few shot of the underside of an eagle as it passes over you are kind of fun, I have found the most interesting shots are as the eagle banks and turns. In these cases you can often get beautiful full wing spreads hopefully with the eagle looking towards you (or at least towards the water/ground but in your direction). If you can get the sun behind you a bit in these situations you should also be able to get a good bit of light on the eyes which will really help to liven up the image. As the eagles come down to the surface they will usually start to bring their legs down and open their talons. These can produce some interesting shots and if all goes well you might capture them as they grab a fish from the water or something interesting from the beach.

I managed to get many of the elements that I wanted in this shot, good light, grabbing a fish from the shallows, nice wing spread but I just missed in the wing position being able to see the eyes. The other shots were just before it grabbed the fish and then in the air. Taken with Canon R5II, 500mm +1.4 teleconverter, 700mm at f/5.6, 1/2500s, ISO320

If there is some competition for the food on the beach you will often be able to capture some interactions between the eagles (or eagles and turkey vultures, ravens, or gulls). In these cases a slight increase in your aperture value to increase the depth of field can help to get a shot with most of that action in focus. Determining the amount of increase in depth of field depends on the focal length of the lens, the distance from the subject and the sensor type. Having a tool on your phone like PhotoPills can help you to determine how much extra depth of field you can achieve but it is always going to mean that you have to give in to either higher ISO or lower shutter speed. I much prefer to deal with a bit more noise in these situations that to have blurry action due to slower shutter speeds but this is something you will need to determine for the situation you are in. If you have the time (and can move around the scene) you can improve your chances of getting things in focus by moving around until the birds are closer to the same plane of focus. This may not be possible if the action if happening quickly or you are on a cliff/waters edge.

As this eagle circled about I was able to get in a location that gave me nice light, and what I considered a nice background since the other directions were pure blue sky or houses along the shore.

If you have a choice of location then there are a couple other things to consider. The first for me is the direction of the sun, most of the time I prefer not shooting into the sun (there are always exceptions to this). The second for birds is the wind direction. Most eagles will tend to take off into the wind so if you want those shots you will have a higher chance if you put yours slightly upwind of the bird so that it takes off towards you. The last major thing I consider is the background and foreground of the shot. Once the other two conditions have been given me a general location then determining a nice background (and sometimes interesting foreground) can take a clean shot and make it a much more interesting one.

With the salmon leftovers on the beach quite a few eagles were fighting over the spoils. In this case I did not have many options for shooting locations as I had only a small spot on the beach to observe. With only a prime lens I had to choose for close up action shots at a high shutter speed.

I hope some of this helps anyone who is interested in photographing eagles. Here on Vancouver Island in the summer you will get many chances to practice and hopefully capture some fantastic shots.

A bit different shot with the wings half cocked and the cedar bows as a close background. This background isn’t too distracting since it is all one set of textures and colour shades.

Persistence and Patience - Short eared owls

Sometimes there are dry spells, sometimes months between interesting moments when you do nature photography.  After the Salmon spawning season last fall I have been experiencing one of those times.  Three months of rain nearly every day then a cold spell made it difficult to get out much in a time of the year when there often isn't much to shoot.  Even when there may be something out there you still need a good deal of patience.  Since moving to Vancouver Island just around a year and a half ago I have been looking into areas in which I might be able to find different types of owls and other birds of prey.  Eagles are very abundant here and there are some very good times of the year to photograph them but other birds of prey are a bit harder to find here than in other areas I have lived.  Determining where to find birds can take a long time if you don't have any local knowledge and I'm building that slowly but surely.  Barred owls are in the area and I've seen a few but don't currently know of any good spots to reliably find them.  Great horned owls are less abundant on the island but can be found.  This will take some footwork getting out in the evenings and mostly just listening for them at dusk.

Pygmy owls have been kind of elusive, I have seen a couple but currently do not yet understand their habits to reliably figure out where to find them.  Short eared owls, however, are a bit easier to figure out.  These owls tend to like to hunt over open fields with good trees to hide in nearby.  There are often found in fields that northern harriers also hunt in.  I also had some intel on a couple of locations that they had been seen.  Short eared owls are a bit more predictable in terms of when they like to hunt, they will hunt anytime during the day but tend to prefer to come out an hour or two before sunset.  This is a good thing from a photography perspective as it is the nicest light to catch them as they swoop along the fields and drop down on unsuspecting rodents.

This is where persistence comes to play.  Knowing where they have been and when they usually start hunting is a good starting point but like most animals they don't tend to put up a schedule so the best you can do is try to be in the right location at the right time.  This year it took me 5 separate trips to 2 different locations to finally get a chance for some shots.  For most people spending 20-30 hours standing outside often in the cold and rain for a few minutes of being able to capture some interesting shots of a owl in flight seems silly but for me it was all part of the fun and I will almost certainly spend significantly more time in dry spells hoping to be able to see that interesting moment that I have in my mind or one that I never expected.  In fact I have just recently spent a good 8 hour day searching for pygmy owls and came up with nothing and am already planning my next road trip to try again.

For me, the time with those creatures is well worth all the time, walking, cold, and even sometimes the boredom.  The photography is the reason that I do it, but even before I did photography I used to spend almost the same amount of time out in nature just watching and trying to understand it a bit more.   Hopefully the pictures I have shown today are worth the few minutes of reading this article, they were certainly worth the time I took to get them! See below for a small gallery of pictures from an afternoon shooting 3 short eared owls and their interaction with a north harrier.

Sony A1 II - Seemingly a disappointment, but a fantastic camera

Sony A1 II

My thoughts on the latest flagship camera from Sony and what it means for the gear I will purchase in the near future.

My opinions on how the new A1 II compares to other options are clearly biased by how I use my gear and what gear I currently use most of the time so likely won't be the same as your thought process but maybe these thoughts will help you to make your own decisions.

Quick summary of specs on the new camera:

• 50.1MP Stack CMOS sensor (same as A1)

• in body image stabilization up to 8.5EV (improved over A1)

• updated subject recognition algorithms and hardware with new automatic subject selection option. (mostly same as A7RV or A9III)

• Continuous shooting at up to 30fps (no change from A1)

• pre-release capture from .03 to 1 second (similar to A9III)

• up to 8K 30p/4k 120p video (I don't believe there are many video changes from the A1)

• 9.44M dot viewfinder (I believe slightly updated for refresh rates).

• 3.2 inch 2.1M dot fully articulating tilt rear screen (introduced on A7RV)

• body design from the A9III

Nearly four years after stunning the photography world with the A1, Sony has released the next version in that line.  Sony has kind of gone the way of Canon and made what looks to be a not very exciting update and more of a small incremental upgrade.  But also, much like how Canon does these things, the update turns out to improve the camera in many ways that don't seem exciting but really do improve the use of the camera.

A few months ago I was watching the Canon forums when the R5 II came out and the discussion were very nearly the same and they are now with the Sony A1 II. There were those that thought the R5 II was barely an upgrade at all since it didn't do much more for the type of photography they were interested in and then there were those who thought it was a very useful update.  I think I firmly land in the later camp since when I sold my R5 it was in hope that Canon would come out with a higher MegaPixel stacked sensor camera so that I could enjoy the silent shutter that those with the A1 had been using for years.  Now we are seeing the same conversations around the A1 II.  It seems to be a reasonable update for an already excellent camera (just like the R5 II was) but unless you are interested in the physical improvements or those few added features then it was quite disappointing for those that wanted a release to match the original A1.  I do believe that we are more used to this type of update from Canon (5DIII - 5DIV for just one example) than we are from Sony as they really have given us ground breaking new tech in both the A1 and A9 series cameras in the last few years.  I do currently own the A9 II which again was not a significant update from the A9 and we had to wait for the next iteration for something brand new again.  I do think we are starting to get to a point in camera technology where we will not be seeing such great leaps especially since the cameras we have now really can do so much that we couldn't do before.

Back to the A1 II.   What we have here seems to be taking all of the things that Sony has added (that have been improvements) to other cameras over the last 4 years and put them in here.  The improvements to the rear screen that is on the A7RV, the body of the A9III, new autofocus chip (with machine learning algorithms) that I believe was also from the A7RV and a few other software features like the pre-shooting that Canon and Nikon have but Sony didn't until now.  Those types of updates are similar to what we saw on the A9II based on what had changed at that time.  Of those changes I think the only one that could have been put in the A1 (at least in theory) is the pre-shooting since it really should just be a software solution.  I doubt that feature will be added to the A1 as a future firmware update but it would really be a nice thing if they did so.  We have some solid updates to make the A1 II Sony's best camera but I can see where it is a disappointment to many because there isn't really anything substantially new on this camera that either was already on other Sony cameras or is catching up to the other brands.

So what are the benefits of these improvements?  Let's take a look at what you are getting if you already have a previous generation Sony camera of some sort.  If you already own the A1 you would basically get the newer body including that rear screen that both tilts and also swings out to the side.  It also has the new customizable button on the front that by default allows you to go to a faster number of frames per second very quickly.  You also get the new AI (machine learning) based chip with the latest algorithms for subject detection and a new mode that isn't on any other Sony camera that automatically detects the subject type so you don't have to tell it you want to detect birds instead of people or any other combo.  It seems like most other things around shooting speed and capabilities are the same as the original A1 including mostly the same video capabilities which may be one of the reasons that many people are disappointed in the update.  I have never used the A1 personally but I have seen the improvements in subject detection that I got when I updated to the A7RV compared to both the A7RIV and the A9II.  Those updates were significant in terms of how quickly and effectively the camera was able to pick up both animal and bird subjects and was much better at getting the eyes of those subjects.  I also found that it was better at getting locks on a subject even in conditions where the background is very busy and contrasty.  This is something that I have to deal with a lot and I have slowly seen improvements with each iteration of Sony's tech since the original A6000 started to be able to quickly focus even though it didn't have much in the way of subject detection.  I'm assuming the A1 was similar but possibly a little better than the A9II so I think the A1 II is going to just be that much better but you may only notice that improvement when going back to the older one.

If you currently are shooting with the A9 or A9II upgrading to the A1II would get you all the benefits above along with a stacked sensor that can now do 30 frames per second instead of 20 and has 50 MegaPixels instead of 24.  While I enjoy using the A9II for the silent shutter I do find the lower resolution to be limiting for getting that detail that I prefer to have in my nature photography (once I know what I can get it is hard to go back to lower resolutions).  There is also more room to crop for those times that you just can't get as close as you would like to your subject.

If you are shooting with the A7RV the main thing that you might be missing is that stacked sensor.  What this gives a nature photographer is a fast silent electronic shutter for those times that any noise can change the behaviour of your subject and an electronic shutter where you don't have to worry about artifacts in your image due to the slow readout of that A7RV sensor.

Currently I have to choose between that beautiful high resolution sensor of the A7RV and the high frame rate of the A9II so that I can increase the possibility to capture just the perfect moment.  When it comes to my landscape work there really isn't any benefit of that electronic sensor and the A7RV is very nearly the perfect camera but for capturing interactions between birds or animals that A9II can sometimes be nearly perfect.  It would seem that the A1 II could be the best of both worlds if it wasn't also currently more expensive than buying both the A7RV and the A9II (used), but then again the A1 already had many of those benefits.

If you currently have any other Sony camera (and do mostly photography and not so much video) then the A1 II is the best camera you can get but also by far the most expensive one.  Be aware that like most technology there are diminishing returns as you move up to the highest end gear.  Most of the time the difference between an entry level camera and those just below the top tier gives more return than the difference between that second tier and the top but as you get deeper into any hobby this is often true.

Comparing the A1 to the flagship (or equivalent) cameras from other companies is much more difficult as most people who are looking for these top tier cameras are unlikely to switch to another company since the cost of purchasing a whole new set of lenses at that level would eclipse the costs (and benefits) of the differences in those cameras.  For the sake of just understanding the differences we have Canon with the R1 which to me is more like the A9 series than the A1 and the R5 II which at nearly $1700 USD cheaper than the A1 is actually pretty comparable but doesn't have quite the same buffer as the A1 II and does have some interesting new autofocus tech.  If you are currently using Canon then the R5 II is a great choice for a top tier nature photography camera.  Nikon has taken a different approach to a similar set of technology with both the Z8 and Z9.   The Z8 is significantly less expensive than the A1 II (and the R5 II) but is quite compelling in the technology that it has.  The autofocus is not quite as good as the other two, the frames per second is lower (for raw images) and it has no physical shutter which can still be useful.  On the other hand, the Nikon systems has been quite busy with a very good set of nature photography lenses that go from around $2000 USD, with options all the way up to the price of a small car.  Sony has more 3rd party options but not as many interesting prime lenses and Canon has a much more limited selection of glass (mostly great at the highest end).

What would (did) I purchase?

This is a very difficult question.  I currently still have a lot of good EF lenses but I don't see myself investing in the RF glass and the 3rd party options are pretty much nonexistent.  I currently have a 500mm F/4 IS II that is not getting as much use as I would like and selling EF primes is not really going to get me much so that I could purchase either a big Sony or Canon RF lens so the purchase of a R5II has been an option to allow me to continue to use that 500mm for at least another 5 years with a pretty great camera.  On the other hand we currently own a bunch of Sony cameras and a used A1 might be a good choice to have almost everything I want by trading in some older gear. If I could sell the 500mm I might be able to pick up a 300mm f/2.8 used which would be great for bear photography in the fall. In all likelihood I would keep the A7R5 and have the A1 and I would be pretty happy without completely breaking the bank.  If money was not a consideration I would absolutely pick up an A1 II as that camera has everything that I would like to have in a camera.  This is a tough question and I will likely wait to see how the A1 drops in price (both new and used) over the next couple of months as well as see if anyone is interested in any of my older gear.  It is never easy when money is the limiting factor.

UPDATE: (I waited a few months and ended up purchasing the Canon R5 II to use with my 500mm lens. This camera currently is proving to be much better than the R5, no crashes and the stacked sensor allows me to use the silent shutter nearly all the time. I do think this combination will be useful for quite a while or at least until I could trade up to the A1 II and the new Sigma 300-600 f/4….but that is another story)

Second tier Nature photography setups from each brand.

From a few years back carrying both Canon and Sony gear while shooting elk in the Cataloochee Valley

If you are, or want to be, a nature photographer there is a bit of gear that is actually necessary to be able to do so.  Most of us are aware of the high-end gear, those huge lenses that cost as much as a small car, and the high speed, high resolution cameras that the companies show off with all the latest tech (or so we are told), and if price was no object, or if it is your full time job and can write the expenses off, then this article isn’t for you!

For those of us who do this as a hobby (or slight obsession) we can't always afford the biggest and most expensive even if we might dream big.  20 years ago this meant that what you could produce with mid-range gear was unlikely to be on par with what was produced by that from the top tier. Over the past 5 years, with the improvements in autofocus, frame rates and noise levels of current sensors along with the massive improvements in sharpness of almost all lenses, the gap between a 2nd tier set of gear and the best of the best is not nearly as wide as it used to be. 

There is still a lower, more inexpensive tier that when I started was very slow and not very sharp. Even beginners looking to get into nature photography can find "reasonably priced" long telephoto lenses along with useful crop sensor cameras that are adequate enough, that is until they start looking in depth at the details. The lowest tier is how many photographers get into nature photography.  They either already have a camera that they may use for other genres of photography or they are just looking to purchase their first camera.  At this point most will figure out they need a longer telephoto lens to be able to capture birds or animals and they often start with a typical 70-300 or 3rd party superzoom.  Back in the early days of digital photography these lenses were really subpar both in terms of sharpness and with how well they could focus on a moving target.   This didn’t matter too much at this point, as getting those first shots was a huge part of getting hooked on this type of photography.  You could finally get a reasonable closeup shot that at least resembled what you may have seen on National Geographic back when magazines were a thing.

Over time, if you kept on with nature photography, you may have started the incremental journey to better gear.  This is where the 2nd tier fits in and it basically consists of all of the options for nature photography except the cost prohibitive top tier cameras and the big super telephoto lenses. Below I’ve summarized the useful gear combinations I would have in my camera bag and the reasons why I made those choices depending on what I'm actually shooting.

Canon

Let's start with Canon since that is also where I started my journey.

First off let's start with the camera.  My current choice for a second tier nature camera would be the R5 mark II and up until recently I used the original R5.  This camera is not considered the top of the line by Canon but I think for many nature photographers it may well be their first choice. Currently the first tier is the R1 and R3 which may be comparable but neither has the resolution of the R5 II which, for me, has almost always been more important than how many shots I can take per second.  There will be some people who like the larger camera and battery in the field, but I have found that it is just as easy for me to carry a few batteries (warmed in my pocket) and I actually prefer to have the smaller body since I mostly hold the gear by the lens. I do not find balance to be an issue as much as weight.

Now this camera and its predecessor have fantastic autofocus for animals and birds, and the new R5 II has a stacked sensor to allow for silent shutter without artifacts due to that quick sensor.  If you are moving up from a crop sensor camera or lower resolution full-frame camera, you will find the results to be pretty amazing and you will be able to crop into your shots significantly when you can't quite get close enough to the subject (which happens more often than we would like).

Now the issue at the moment on the Canon side of the world is with finding good but not too expensive second tier lenses for nature photography.  The 100-500 RF lens is good and sharp but quite slow at the long end and is a challenge to use with the teleconverters since you don't get the full zoom range when teleconverters are attached.  This may not be a big issue if you mostly don't shoot in low light.  This is also not an inexpensive lens coming in just under $3000 USD.  A good alternative is the EF 100-400 f4.5-5.6 IS II which is very sharp and a little brighter but doesn't have that extra reach.  It does however handle the 1.4x teleconverter very well and gives you a full range of 140-560 at around f/6.3-f/8.  There is also a new RF 200-800 f/6.3-f/9 which gives a significantly long range but at the expense of being a very slow lens and it extends with a very long zoom throw.  Now the leap from this second tier to the top tier lenses on the Canon front garners a huge price increase and there are not any choices between these lenses currently and the big white primes or the 100-300 f/2.8.  If you find the 2 Canon RF lenses useful then you have a solid base system but your choices are a bit limited at the moment unless your budget is closer to top tier. There are currently no 3rd party lenses for RF that can be used and 3rd party EF lenses are more on the beginner side of things (except for a few older Sigma lenses that you might be able to pick up relatively cheap).

The two major options on Canon for 2nd Tier are below.

Canon R5 II

Canon R5 II, RF 100-500 f/4.5-7.1 approximately $6900 USD

Canon 100-500mm

or slightly lower cost option:

Canon R5 II, RF 200-800 f6.3-9 approximately $6200 USD

Canon 200-800mm

Sony

Sony on the other hand does have their long telephoto lenses in a similar range to Canon but the options are quite different.  There are however not as many choices on the camera side at the moment.  The best choice from my perspective is the A7RV which has a 60 MP back side illuminated sensor but does not have a stacked sensor like the Canon (or Nikon).  This camera can shoot at up to 10 frames per second with the mechanical shutter and has an electronic shutter which is basically useless for anything other than static subjects as the readout time of this sensor is one of the longest of any current camera.  For the same price range, there is also the A9II which does have the stacked sensor but has "only" 24 MP sensor and does not have the latest autofocus algorithms which I also use. For the most part, the A7RV is, for what I do, the best 2nd tier choice at the moment from Sony. 

Unlike their competitors, Sony doesn’t currently have a high-megapixel stacked sensor camera at a 2nd tier price point, and likely won't for the foreseeable future now that they have just released the A1 II for their top tier option. 

On the lens side of things we have the standard 100-400 f4.5-5.6 that is very sharp.  This lens is still not cheap but has a good range and has been a staple for nature photographers for a long time.  The standout lens for me is the 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 and is likely my most useful lens.  This is a relatively slow lens but has a bunch of features that make it amazing.  The internal zoom and short throw on the zoom make it really easy to use.  It is not quite as sharp as the 100-400 at 400 but is sharper than using a 1.4 teleconverter on that lens at the top end of the zoom range which is really where I use the lens the most.  There are a number of other options depending on your requirements from 3rd party lens makers that are very high quality.  The Sigma 500mm f/5.6 is a reasonably priced very light and small prime lens that is a fantastic option. Keep in mind that Sony will not allow you to use teleconverters with 3rd party lenses.  I would consider the Sigma and Tamron 150-600 options to be more of a beginner lens option but Tamron does have a really useful 50-400 f/4.5-6.3 which may be a little slow but is great for those times that you may need more zoom range in the field.  If you are doing more environmental nature shots, Tamron also has a really fantastic 35-150 f2-2.8 lens which is rather unique in the market compared the to usual 70-200 f/2.8 that all companies have.

The two options I would look at currently for Sony E-mount are ( I currently own both lenses and the A7RV):

Sony A7RV

Sony A7RV, FE 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 approximately $5300 USD

Sony 200-600mm

or

Sony A7RV, Sigma 500 f/5.6 approximately $6100 USD

Sigma 500mm f/5.6

Nikon

Nikon has probably the most interesting options at the moment for 2nd tier gear with a reasonably priced Z8 stacked 45 MP camera with some fantastic features for nature photography and after some of the latest firmware updates, has much improved autofocus that at least is close to what Canon and Sony currently have.  This camera is similar to Nikon’s top tier Z9 camera but with a smaller body at a price that is much lower than the Canon R5II and equivalent to the Sony A7RV. 

On the lens front, Nikon has the typical 100-400 option and much like Sony now has a 180-600 f5.6-6.3 which also is an internally zooming and relatively inexpensive option that provides very similar quality as the Sony option.  That lens and the Z8 are likely the least expensive high quality option out there at the moment and would be the combination I would likely advise people to choose if they were not currently already using gear from one of the other companies even though I have never really used Nikon gear for any length of time myself. 

Nikon also has some options for prime lenses that no one else currently has that are considerably less expensive than the usual big primes.  There is a 400mm f4.5 for around $3000USD, a 300mm F mount f/4 at $2000, a 600mm f/6.3 at $4000 USD, and if you really want to go big an 800mm f/6.3 at $5700 USD.  These are all Phase Fresnel lenses which make them significantly smaller and lighter than other options (much like Canon's older diffractive optics lenses) and give lens options with prices in between the normal 2nd tier and the $10000 plus top tier primes that currently no other camera system offers.  Tamron is also starting to produce some of their lenses for the Z mount including that 50-400 that I mentioned earlier.

Nikon Z8

Nikon Z8, Z 180-600 f5.6-6.3 approximately $5400 USD

Nikon 180-600mm

or

Nikon Z8, 600 f6.3 approximately $7500 USD

Nikon 600mm f/6.3

Other Options

There are few other companies that really try to offer good options for nature photography and are close to but not quite the same as the 2nd tier options above.  OM systems is definitely showing some promise but is held back a bit by the lower resolution sensors on the micro four thirds platform even though there are some very good lens options that are relatively small for the effective focal length. They have telephoto lens options from 70-300 all the way to 150-600 at many different price points.  The examples I have shown below are rather expensive but if you want relatively small and light gear these are some of the better options currently.

OM Systems

OM system is a great option for those who want long effective focal lengths (narrow field of view) but with a smaller and lighter set of gear.

OM1 II, Olympus 300mm f/4 approximately $4600 USD

OM 300mm f/4

up to

OM1 II, OM 150-400 f/4.5 with 1.25 teleconverter $9400 USD

OM 150-400mm

FUJIFILM

Fuji has a couple of options now with the H series cameras and their higher end lenses that can compete with the full frame cameras but have no room to move to top tier later.  Fuji also has a new 500mm option for their medium format cameras which may be an option for certain types of nature photography but that system is still a bit behind in terms of autofocus even though the image quality would be superb.

Fuji X-H2, 150-600 f/5.6-8 approximately $4000 USD

Fuji 150-600mm

up to

Fuji X-H2S, XF200mm f/2  approximately $7500 USD

Fuji 200mm with teleconverter

and

Fuji GFX 100S II, GF 500mm f/5.6 approximately $8500 USD

Fuji GFX 500mm

There is a lot of superb gear out there at the moment that allows a photographer to do things now that only the highest end gear could do a few years ago.  None of this gear is cheap but over time you can build up a pretty useful setup that should continue to give you excellent shots for years to come.  If you currently are invested in one of the companies above it is likely best to stay in that system from a cost perspective since you can get fairly close to the same level of gear on all of them.  If you are currently looking to move up to this level of gear and are not invested heavily already then Nikon offers a compelling set of options at the moment to get up and running.  Sony and Canon may make changes to their line up in the near future to change that perspective but Nikon looks pretty good right now.  Seems like an interesting conclusion from someone who has been using Canon gear for 35 years and Sony for around 12 years. A venture to another system, at this point, is unlikely.

Salmon run on Vancouver Island - How to get Good shots while Watching Black Bears get Fat

A rather large black bear lunging after a salmon on the Quinsam River.  Taken with Sony A9II and 200-600mm at 448mm, f/6.3, 1/640s,ISO 12800

As fall approaches we wait for the first rains to help the water flow in the rivers along the coast of Vancouver Island.  This increase in water flow is one of the signals for the Pacific Salmon to start their spawn migration upstream to the locations they originally hatched.  This is not only an important time for the salmon but also for the people that live (and have lived here for well before it was ever referred to as Vancouver Island) here and also for many species of wildlife that need the salmon for their own survival.  Here on the Island, the main species I like to photograph that benefit from this abundance are the Black bears and the eagles. Of course, there are many others that directly or indirectly benefit from the salmon run.

This is then a time for nature photographers to also get out with those long lenses to try to capture some of the action.  For me this means getting out daily and walking along the river trails, quietly waiting for some interesting action to happen.  At first, I focus on capturing pretty pictures of bears, eagles, herons, mink and other animals. Once I have those in my back pocket,  I start looking for action shots and the interactions that really make a picture tell an interesting story.  Sometimes it is best to find a good location and wait for the action to come to you, other times I have to go find the action, either way if you aren't out there, you're not going to get the shot.

Brownish Black bear taken near dusk.  Taken with Sony A7RV with Sigma 500mm f5/6 at 1/2000s, f/5.6, ISO 12800.  I turned a corner and saw this bear fishing, this was one of the first few shots I got.  Luckily my camera settings were good for getting a quick and sharp image even if we could likely have reduced the shutter speed considerably and still gotten a sharp image once we had time to consider the light more.

The best time to see bears is near dark, as most black bears spend their day sleeping in a tree and only start fishing about an hour before the sunset.  While there's a higher chance of finding bears at the river's edge at this time, the small window when there's enough light to get the shot at anything less than ISO 12800 means the likelihood of getting an exciting action shot it limited.  Not all bears sleep during the day, and a few will try their luck during the day. They may be nervous of the bigger bears the fish in the evening, or much like me, they just can't sleep when they are hungry. Either way, this provides opportunities to capture shots in better light.  Higher shutter speeds and lower ISOs means a better chance at a shot that I'll be able to print and not just use for a quick social media post.  As always, there's a balance - sometimes the harsh midday sun combined with the deep shadows in the woods are challenging to capture all in one image.  Isn't that what it's all about? Trying to get the right shot, in the right light to tell an interesting story. I do have to say that with the latest camera image sensors and the improvements in noise reduction techniques, we can get much better results at high ISOs than ever before.

More light makes a significant difference in the details of the shot.  In this case I was lucky to find this bear in the afternoon but the shadows could be a challenge if it turned the wrong way.

What Lens Should I Use?

When it comes to gear, I've found a combination of lenses and settings that best work for the variable light conditions.  The best lenses I've found would be somewhere between 100-400 maximum, and if you can afford it, a large aperture of about f/2 to f/2.8.  That's out of reach for most of us, but a 70-200 f/2.8, 70-300, or 100-400 would likely do the trick in most cases.  While the 70-200 may be a little short in some cases, the extra light gathering capabilities of the f/2.8 will allow you to continue to shoot at higher shutter speeds and lower ISOs longer into the evening.  The 70-300 and 100-400 lenses that are common for each of the brands have a great range for capturing the bears up close and still being able to get the environmental shots at the wider end, but you'll find that you're often shooting at double the ISO of a f/2.8 lens which can quickly make the shots noisy.  If you can afford it, there are a couple of very good lenses that can be found.  The best in my opinion would be the 100-300 f/2.8 for Canon and the 120-300 f/2.8 for Nikon (Sigma used to have a 120-300 f/2.8 that I would love to see updated for mirrorless but that is another story).  These two lenses have both the large aperture and the versatility of range that are excellent for close conditions.

Momma black bear bringing a huge salmon over to an expectant cub.  These are the types of shots that tell a more interesting story than just a pretty portrait.   These moments I will remember for a long time thanks to these pictures.

My Photo Techniques to Capture the Best Bear Photos

Back to technique for capturing bears.  Get down low, sitting is a good position for bears.  There are 2 reasons for this.  The first has to do with being at eye level.  I think this is a well-known concept, but it really is a good way to make sure you aren't always seeing bears with their eyes looking down.  It also changes the background behind the bear so that you often get foliage instead of just water.  The second reason is more for the bears and that has to do with the fact that animals notice a person standing as much more of a threat or worry than if you were to have a smaller, lower profile.  This definitely applies to other animals and birds.  While a hide would be your best option, I've found that animals ignore you more when sitting (or lying down).  Much of this also has to do with how much movement there is and keeping fairly still without a lot of large gestures is also a good idea  This doesn't mean that the bears don't know you're there.  They likely knew about you well before you even saw them (depending on the wind and noise).  It has more to do with an animal feeling like it can continue with what it's doing without constantly looking towards you.   There are a few ways to tell if the bear is not comfortable; one is by constantly looking towards you, usually followed with a yawn.  When I see this behaviour, I back away and find a better place or even back off entirely and let them continue on their way.  Even with my more than 25-years of experience with black bears, I don't consider myself an expert and there are better forums out there that delve into this topic.  Having said that, bears have their own unique personalities, and even general tendencies in one area may not be the same for other bears in other conditions.  The bears around Campbell River are more used to fishing alongside people, but by no means does that make them tame.

When a black bear is not concerned about us photographers it may even sit and eat lunch right in front of you.  

In my experience shooting wildlife, I have a few basic camera settings that may be helpful to others. First, my in-camera set up as a starting point (on the M1 memory on camera).  I set the camera to this position before I head out as it usually will get me a first shot or two that's going to be in focus, sharp (even if moving quickly) but may be noisy depending on the light.  I set it up with auto ISO (with a maximum of 12800), 1/2000 sec shutter speed, lens set with it's most open aperture, autofocus set to animal subject tracking and wide (all focus points).  This setup is great if you happen along a situation where action is happening in front of you and you need to get a shot before you miss the moment.  This has allowed me to capture fleeting moments that I may have missed otherwise.  In these cases I may not get a perfect shot as I haven't had any time to think about composition, lighting or optimal settings, but I most often get a shot that I can use and sometimes these quick shots are the only opportunities I get with that subject.

Shadow and light are critical components of a composition and help to give a feel for the actual conditions on the river.

If you have more time with the subject, this is when you start to adjust for the "better" shot.  First I try to get a few shots at lower ISOs and with better consideration for the composition.   If you have more time or can set up prior to the animal coming to you, then there are more choices.  As I'm walking, I am always thinking about where the sun is with respect to the subject but you can't always put yourself in the best location right away.  When time does permit, the light and the environment around the subject become the next thoughts.  Most times shooting with the light behind you or to the side of the subject is better than having the sun in line with the subject (except in very specific situations where you might want a silhouette or faded look).  Many animals will be ok with you moving sideways to them in a slow manner but do keep an eye if their mannerisms change as you move.  The background behind the subject is the next consideration.  A busy background that is relatively close to the animal compared to the distance you're from the subject will often make the subject blend in.  A background that's simple will be easier to manage and bring out the subject in certain cases, but also consider if the surrounding environment is part of the story.  No one method is correct, so try different options and take multiple shots.

It was really exciting to watch this sow come down to the river with her 2 cubs.  The interaction in this case lasted a long time so I was able to get a number of interesting shots of all three and each individual as well as a number of action shots.  This doesn’t happen often but when it does I can go through most of the ideas I have been talking about here.  From the initial quick grabs to the low noise shots and then get the shots with different environmental conditions and different angles.

If you're lucky, you might even have a number of shots.  The initial quick shot of the subject (sometimes some unique action that you happened to witness), some cleaner shots of the subject, and maybe some ongoing action with camera setting that will ensure better results.  More time with the subject means that you may have a chance to make different choices around the background and the light, and if all goes well, possibly a shot or two to add to your portfolio.

Some other things to think about when out with black bears.

1. Keep the noise to a minimum mostly for the bears but also for others who may be trying to enjoy the moment.

2. Do not make fast movements if possible.  This will inevitably distract the bear from what it's doing.

3. Try not to have anything near you that smells.  Cologne/perfume and smoking are the worst as bears can smell that from a significant distance and may avoid you entirely.

4. Try not to crowd the animal.  I know it is difficult as often I will see a group of 10 or more people trying to get close enough for a shot, but if possible, it is best with 1 or 2 people at most at a distance that you will need a fairly long telephoto lens to allow for the best observations. This will also ensure the bear has a higher likelihood of going about it's business of catching fish.

5. If a bear is looking uncomfortable with your presence back away (slowly) if you can until it goes back to more normal activity. You may just have to leave that bear alone.   Not only will you not get good shots if the bear is uncomfortable, but the bear may miss an essential meal if it is concentrating on you instead of fishing.

Sometimes you don’t have to work hard to have a picture tell a story

Being able to watch these bears in this area is a fantastic way to get a better understanding of nature. My intention is to encourage others to do the same in a respectful way that minimizes direct interaction with the bears and where people remain at a safe distance.  Even though I always carry bear spray, I hope I never have to use it, particularly as a response to my own interactions with a bear.  Bear interactions in this area of Vancouver Island are inevitable if you walk regularly in nature areas. I only hope that with better understanding, and through observation, we can live with them and not feel like we need to remove them from their own territory due to our fears and ignorance.

Action shots at high ISO but a fast enough shutter speed to get a reasonably sharp image.  New noise reduction algorithms definitely help to reduce the colour noise in these shots.

Sigma, Please bring it back!

Sigma 120-300 for Canon EF mount. I do miss this range of telephoto goodness.

For many years my go to lens for nature photography, especially for lower light conditions, was the Sigma 120-300 f/2.8. This was by far the sharpest lens I had ever owned at least until the Canon 500 f/4 II. At the time on my 5D II and 1DIV the autofocus was pretty reasonable, at times a little slower to track than my Canon lenses but even with the 1.4 and 2 times teleconverters it was very usable.

Great Grey Owl hunting in a farmer’s field near dusk on a very cold winter day. Taken with Canon 1D IV with Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 and 2x teleconverter.

At the time I was shooting owls and needed something that was capable of keeping the ISO down to a maximum of 1600 for as long as possible as those cameras really started to get noisy past that point. My Canon 100-400 push-pull at the time was a much lighter lens, and the focus was a bit faster but the image quality just was not in the same ballpark and the smaller apertures made it not as useful at dusk or dawn.

Canon 1D IV with Sigma 12-300 and 2x Teleconverter at 600mm. Even cropped in this lens made the best out of the APS-H 16Mpixel sensor.

As I moved to mirrorless cameras over the last 10 years or so with the improvements in low light capabilities I was able to get away with current 100-400 and now the 200-600 lenses in many conditions.  Recently I moved to the west coast of Canada into an area where nature photography often takes me into deep woods or leads me down narrow river basins in search of bears and other fun stuff.  The light in these areas is challenging at best and the sun disappears behind mountains to an extent that I'm finding that to get a reasonable shutter speed for the action I'm shooting at 10000 ISO or greater at F/5.6 or 6.3 depending on the lens I have.  I have also found in these situations that I don't as often need >400mm and am often less than 300mm for most shots.  This is a range where having a large aperture telephoto zoom would really come in handy again.

Some very low light as the sun was dropping low in the sky on a cold winter day. This shot has been brightened considerably but I was able to get the shot at 1/2000 second and still have a usable ISO.

Now Canon has recently come out with a 100-300 which looks to be a spectacular lens but they have also typically priced it out of reach for most of us who aren't as daffy duck would say "I'm rich,I'm wealthy, I'm comfortably well off".  Nikon has also a 120-300 f/2.8 but for their older mount which you can pick up a bit cheaper than the Canon but they don't have one for the Z mount.  So this brings me to my opening statement....Sigma could you make a new 120-300 f/2.8 lens?  I'm certain that you can make it much lighter than the original, and hopefully still make it for a "reasonable" price.  With the improvements in Sigma lenses over the last few years I could see this being an amazing lens.   I did recently purchase the Sigma 500 f/5.6 which is a fantastic lens for the E mount (although I would really love to be able to use it with teleconverters....not Sigma's fault it would seem).  This light super telephoto lens gives me hope that they could produce the lens I want and likely make it significantly lighter than their original and with the new autofocus and even just the same optical capabilities it would quickly become my goto lens again.

Some of my favourite images were taken with the Sigma 120-300 and even though this was a heavy lens it was still very useful for action shots. Not bad tracking for a bird coming straight towards me with that Canon 1D IV and a third party lens.

Now for the dreamer - to make this lens perfect for my use it would either need to be usable with the teleconverters or even better come with a built in 1.4 or 2 times teleconverter.  That would likely boost the cost a bit but I have a feeling that lens would rarely come off my camera at that point.

So Sigma, if you happen to read this, get in touch if you need someone to help you test out this lens in the field :)

My love/hate relationship with the Canon R5 and what to do with the R5 Mark II.

Canon R5 Mark II image from Canon’s web site.

I have been using Canon cameras since before the year 2000 and up until recent years they have been the main tools that I have used for photography for most of that time. Other than in my youth with various film cameras I started actually doing photography as a hobby when some of the first digital cameras were coming out. The first I bough for myself was the S400 elph and since that time I have progressed through the Canon lineup and relied on these tools for both pleasure and work.

Canon cameras that we have owned and used over the last 25 years. S400 elph, s95, sx50 HS, original digital Rebel, Rebel xti, Rebel t1i, 20D, 50D, 7D, 5D, 5D II, 5DIII, 1DIV, 5DS, m50, R5, and Elan 7e. I currently still own the s95, 5DS, m50 and the Elan 7e.

About 2 months ago I sold my Canon R5 with a couple things in mind.  I knew there was a Canon R5II coming soon and the rumours looked like it might be a camera worth keeping my 500 F/4 II lens to use.  I also figured that Sony would need to come out with something similar in the near future and it is likely that one of those two options will decide what gear I will be using for the next few years.

The R5 was a good camera…not a great camera and not one that I could rely on to get the shot when the moment happened.  The picture quality was great, nearly as good as the Sony A7RIV and A7RV which are currently my main cameras.  The autofocus is great, pretty much on par with the Sony A7RV and a bit better than the A7RIV when it comes to tracking wildlife which is what I really need it for.  The biggest reason I have not moved fully away from Canon over the last few years is that big white lens that I bought for a lot of money that I really can’t afford to replace with either a new RF or a Sony FE big white.  I also have most of the old EF lenses that I still use with both my DSLR 5DS and SLR Elan 7e.

I enjoyed shooting with the R5 most of the time however there were two issues that really made it difficult to use when I needed to get that shot.  The first is the battery life and with the long lens it seemed like if I was below 50% battery focus became a challenge.  The second was how often the camera would crash.  This last one would happen with any lens (RF or EF), under just about any conditions (landscape with single shot or tracking for nature) and was pretty much completely unpredictable.  I might not occur for hours on a shoot and then pop up a couple of times or it might happen constantly for a while and then just be fine again for a while.  It got really frustrating when I was waiting for a bird or animal to do something and as soon as it did the camera would lock up needing to have the battery removed and I would lose all chance to get the shot during the action.  I have been using Canon cameras for more than 20 years and have never had issues like this with any other one.  On the forums it seems that many people also had this issue and a number of firmware updates tried to address it but never fully did (I felt like the last ones made things a bit more stable but that might have been wishful thinking).

Catching the moment. Eagles fighting over some Salmon. These are the types of shots I can rely on capturing with the Sony A7RV but worry about with the R5. The hope is that with a camera like the R5 Mark II we could silently capture 3 times more images in that interaction and not worry about the camera crashing at just that moment.

I have been using both Canon and Sony camera systems pretty much since I tried the Sony A7R when it came out.  This was a very slow camera but had some amazing resolution for the time.  Over the years Sony has improved just about everything on these cameras and they are now a very stable and useful tool even if some people think they are not exciting to use.  For me a camera is a tool that just needs to work and make getting the shots as easy as possible, and that is what they have done for me over the last few years.  They also have the advantage of being useful for video which means Salwa has switched over from Canon completely now since her job has become more about video than photo in recent years.

From my perspective at the moment there are only a few things that I think might be a compelling reason to get a new camera right now.  Stacked sensors is one of them.  When the Sony A9 came out with the first stacked sensor camera and the ability to take completely silent shots and also shoot at a high number of frames per second I knew that it was a technology that I was going to want.  However I was not willing to use a lower resolution camera to get that and the price was pretty much out of reach.  The A1 solved the first problem but price was still an obstacle.  Then Nikon came out with the Z8 which was really close to what I wanted but I did not want to get into a third set of lenses or sell off the Canon gear at that point.   So I have been left waiting to see what Canon and Sony would do in response to a reasonably priced high resolution stacked sensor camera.  Sony doesn’t seem to be in a hurry since no one has managed to match the specs of the A1 even after  nearly 5 years on the market.  I have a feeling they have a camera sitting on a shelf ready to come out when it feels like matching or beating Nikon and Canon but I don’t know when that will/might happen.  The rumours of the Canon R5 having exactly what I have been waiting for and at a (sort of) reasonable price have had me watching and waiting and now starting to watch whatever reviews are going to be out there for this camera.   

With that out of the way let’s get back to Canon’s recent announcements for the R5II.

The specs are pretty much perfect for me.  Same resolution as the R5 as I was quite happy with that before.  Improved autofocus is a bonus as it was really good before.  The stacked sensor seems to be fast enough for the type of shooting I will do and will be great for trying to get silent shots from a hide or when I’m close enough that the subject might notice the sound and possibly stop if from catching a meal or just make it nervous.  I really try to ensure that my presence doesn’t change  how the animal/bird acts as much as possible.

There are a few bonus additions that I can see from early reports.  The viewfinder is a bit bigger and the eye control autofocus is now in this camera (hopefully better than that in my elan 7e). There is a new battery which may help with some of the issues I had before and I’m hoping Canon has improved power usage with the new camera.  Full size hdmi port is nice since I do use monitors quite often.  They have moved the power button and changed how they move from stills to movie shooting.  Both look better although I would prefer the power switch to be under the shutter button.  Pre-continuous shooting is another nice addition as I have definitely just missed the moment many times. Everything else to me was either already what I needed on the R5 or a nice incremental improvement and it doesn’t look like they have taken anything away (the old cripple hammer…as Camera Conspiracies would put it). 

The only initial issues I have heard so far have to do with the size of the buffer and with pre-continuous shooting of .5 seconds which may have some issues with heating up the camera.

Now comes the big question…do I buy this camera?  Unlike when the R5 came out, I think, this time I’m going to wait for a while to see if this camera also has glitches like the R5 and how well it actually performs.  I will also give it a bit of time to see if Sony is going to come out with something in the same range and price soon and it is has some amazing new thing that I didn’t know I needed.  I won’t wait too long as I do miss using that big white prime but if I don’t end up buying the R5II that lens will likely be looking for a new home.  So to answer my original question, yes I do believe the R5II is a worthy upgrade but I’m not yet sure when or if I will actually do so.

It really has been a good few years to be a nature photographer.  We have gone in the last 20 years from mostly slow tracking of subjects with 1 (or a few) useful focus point(s) to full screen tracking with object recognition that allows us to automatically focus on the eye of a rather small subject while in fast motion.  This also allows us to compose shots exactly how we want them while the action is happening. We have gone from a couple frames per second to a point where I no longer would need to use the fastest available on a regular basis.  We can even get the shot before we hit the shutter button now (oh how many shots I have missed by just a split second).  We have resolutions now that make printing a pleasure and allow for useful cropping when we still can’t quite get close enough to our subject.  Even mid tier cameras and lenses now can do the job.  It is much easier to get into nature photography now (just as big a jump in some ways as moving from film to digital).  Even if I don’t get this new camera, I am able now to get shots I never thought I would be able to get consistently and each new feature is like a bit more icing on the cake.

Winter trip - Final stage - ...and this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home

Silhouette of Salwa looking down from Indian Bread Rocks.

Ok, we went wee in many odd places along the way, not really the most interesting part of the story I hope.

Our winter trip took a bit of a turn to the east so that we could go to a boat show in Florida, after some fixes to the trailer in east Texas we made a beeline to Miami spent a week there and then quickly again started to head back west.  I did manage to get some birding in and a few other shots along the coast in South Carolina, you can see a few of them below.

The trip back was pretty accelerated with a short stay in South Carolina to see old friends from when we lived in Greenville.  We began to slow down again when we got back to the desert states and finally started to find BLM land to camp on.  Not being always in State or National Parks was a treat in terms of finding locations where we were mostly on our own and had some unique and interesting landscapes.

The first of these was Indian Bread Rocks Rec Area in Arizona, a great stop a little south of Highway 10 near Bowie.  This felt a lot like the recreation areas we have in British Columbia.  Just a few camping spots well spread out, a pit toilet and plenty of space to wander about.  Our spot was at the foot of a large rock formation with plenty of boulders all around us.  

This area is also available for cows to graze so we did have to watch our step in case we stepped on a cow patty.  After a couple of weeks of mostly driving and city life it was really relaxing to just enjoy our time around the trailer, hiking into the rocks and waiting for the right light for a few interesting shots.

Next stop was near a pretty fantastic birding location called Madera Canyon.  Although there is camping in the park, just before you get to the park there is some BLM land with some beautiful campsites.  These ones don’t have toilets but it is a relatively short drive/long walk to the park entrance which did have facilities.

Much like the last spot, the free part of the camping was nice but not really the reason we liked BLM camping.  It was the ability again to be mostly on our own, in this case there were a couple of others camping but not close enough to really even notice most of the time, ok, except for the one that let their dog free and it decided to chase after some cows nearby.  That was a bit annoying!

This was the first time in a while that I plunked myself down at a set of bird feeders in the park to just get to see a few birds that I have never seen before and to grab a few shots.  This was quite relaxing, and there was even a coffee shop and nice seats to make this a fun afternoon of not really in nature-nature photography.  

We didn’t stay long in Arizona this time around, moving on to Southern California and a highlight of the trip for me.  There are only a few types of owls in North America that I haven’t been able to get shots in the wild, and the burrowing owl has been one that I haven’t been lucky enough to find before in the south west or in Florida…and I have made specific day trips just to see them multiple times, all of which were unsuccessful.  So, driving down a farm road on our way to a bird sanctuary and just seeing them on the side of the road was amazing.  Not sure what people driving by thought of me laying on the side of the road with a big lens shooting into the gutter but it was really a fantastic time for me.  The fact that I managed to get some portfolio shots from that location is a big bonus.  This was definitely a highlight for the area as we were at the wrong time of year to see much else around  the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Wildlife refuge.

Burrowing Owl in flight along a farm road in California.

Moving on back to the coast for that long wet trip back north and the fun task of finding a new place to live when we got there, we headed for Morro Bay, some good sushi and a little time with sea otters and their young.  Could have stayed and watched them all day and we pretty much did.

There was an area around the docks in town where about 20 or so otters congregated, a bunch of them had babies that stayed on their bellies and pretty much just looked cute.  If you want to be able to see sea otters up close this is definitely the town to do so.   That was mostly it for California this time, other than a stop at Elk Meadow in Redwood National Park to see….well elk of course, and some redwoods.

A little practice sparring for these bull elk.

We didn’t have much time left before I had to start a new contract and go back to work like as a normal person, so we started up the coast staying just a day or two in any given location.  We were back to either State Parks or city campgrounds along the coast which at least had running water and hookups so although we were no longer alone in the wild we were pretty comfortable even in the rain.

We did manage to spend a bit more time on the beautiful Oregon coast, this time in and around Coos Bay where the coastline is absolutely breathtaking.  This is a location we will need to come back to for the fall storms and King tides so that we can get some of those epic wave shots.

For now, the seascapes and rock formations will do quite nicely.

Two more seascape stops at Yaquina Head and Cape Lookout showed us some more amazing locations and our last sunsets on the beach that would have to hold us over as we headed back to Canada through central Washington, into the Kootenays and our stopping point (at least at that time) in Nelson, BC.

A hole in the rock

This was our first really long road trip, with our new trailer camper and plenty of time to just travel.  It was kind of a sampler tour, we never stayed long in any one spot.  We didn’t really plan much when it came to our photography, just took advantage of what was there at the time.  I think we learned a lot about this type of travel, we now know many places that we would like to go back to and spend more time hopefully choosing the right time of year for some special shots or for birds and animals to be more likely to be around.  We also learned a lot about our comfort level with different types of camping, we definitely prefer the open spaces and BLM lands when we can.  It will be fun now that we know the capabilities of our truck and trailer to go further into the unknown, but we also now know our own limitations.  I do think that many of the places further into these BLM lands and onto off-road trails means making sure we are not alone.  Getting stuck on your own out there can have grave consequences, even if you are relatively competent.  

Now that we are back in Canada, we have a new set of adventures ahead as we finally found a place to settle down on Vancouver Island and we can start exploring the coast, the mountains and all the surrounding small islands.  Plenty of new landscapes to view, so many birds and animals to photograph and maybe we can start to do some of it from a boat?!

Fujifilm GFX100 II - is this a camera system for people who do both wildlife and landscape photography?

Like many photographers I have looked at medium format cameras as a possible next step up in that search for, well just more.  More resolution without making the pixel size smaller, more color depth, more dynamic range possible…mostly just more.  This also has meant in the past more weight, more money but less choice.  

The more money aspect is still true but to a much lesser degree than in the past.  The GFX100 II is coming in at around 7500 USD with lenses mostly in the 2000 USD range making it likely only about 30-40% more expensive for a camera and 3 lens kit than what I would currently carry.  That is not bad compared to when most medium format cameras were starting anywhere from 15 to 50 thousand a few years ago.  If you are purely a landscape photographer you can get into this system now for less than 10000 quite easily.

The more weight has been mitigated in many of the latest medium format cameras themselves but the lenses of course have to deal with the physics of optical elements and that is difficult to make smaller and lighter but still cover a bigger image circle.  For many landscape photographers that is not a big issue as wide angle up to short telephoto lenses are available and are only slightly larger than their 35mm counterparts.  That is not an issue for me as it seems Fuji have a pretty good assortment of lenses that will cover what I would shoot for landscape.  The bigger question for me is could I start to use a system like this for some of my nature photography.  I’m not expecting it to replace what I use for bird photography but for many of the animals I shoot I can get away with 200-300mm equivalent focal lengths and now that Fuji can focus relatively quickly and shoot a few frames per second we seem to be on par with camera systems I shot with a few years ago like my Canon 5DS.   That is a system I managed to use for wildlife photography for a good number of years and even though the newer mirrorless systems have made that feel like ancient technology I was still able to get what I considered great shots.

It would be interesting to see if I could do as well or better now with something like the GFX 100 II.  There are a number of situations that I think would work well, shooting black bear during the salmon run, or elk and Big horned sheep during the fall rutt.  These are scenes in which I often want to capture nature in action with more of the environment they are in.  These shots would be for larger prints in which the animals are often a much smaller portion of the scene but I want to have a great amount of detail still in both the subject and the surroundings.  The challenge of course with this is still related to the physics of optics as the larger format also tends to mean a shallower depth of field which can be nice for separation but not so much when you want the whole scene in focus (or at least multiple animals interacting).

So camera wise it would seem that we are in a good position.  The new 100 II has image stabilization, reasonably quick continuous autofocus, it can shoot up to 8 frames per second.  These are all things that are on par or better than my old Canon 5DS and then we have 100 megapixels and 16 bit color depth.  The next question is about the lenses.

So this is what I can see is currently available or coming for GFX line.

20-35 f/4

23 f/4

30 f/3.5

30 f/5.6 TS

32-64 f/4

35-70 f/4.5-5.6

45-100 f/4 OIS

45 f/2.8

50 f/3.5

55 f/1.7

63 f/2.8

80 f/1.7

100-200 f/5.6 OIS

110 f/2

110 f/5.6 TS

120 f/4 OIS Macro

250 f/4 OIS

500 f/5.6 (coming next year???)

So this gives us a pretty good range of lenses from 35mm equivalent 16mm out to currently about 200mm and possibly 400mm by next year.  For landscape I would be very happy with a 20-35, 100-200 and one of the 32-64/35-70/45-100 to give me close to what I usually carry around now.  For nature photography the 100-200, 250 and future 500 sounds like a great setup (along with the teleconverter) to allow for most scenarios for shooting black bears, Bighorn sheep, elk and deer.  Not enough for birds or for sea life around Vancouver Island that it is difficult or not appropriate to get that close.  Without the 500mm a setup like this would come in at between 17 and 19000 USD.  Not a small amount of money but I have certainly spent more than that on my current systems.

So, now that we know that we have a camera and at least one lens combination that could work for limited animal/bird photography (and a fantastic system for landscape) does this make sense for someone like me?  Currently I would say that about a quarter of the time I spend outdoors is doing landscape photography and 3/4 is nature.  Of that time I would say that still most of it I need a long telephoto lens at a minimum of 400mm and usually longer.   I would guess that about 25 % of the time that I would be able to use shorter telephoto lenses so that the current options for medium format would work.

So then it comes down to what is important to me since if I had money to buy all the gear I want I would certainly have this as one of my setups.  Sadly, I’m not (as Daffy Duck would say) rich, rich, I’m independently wealthy.  So choices will continue to need to be made.  I would like to take this from a thought experiment and try out the Fujifilm at least to see if the results come close to my expectations.  That being said, I also wish to be able to afford something like the Sony A1 so that I could shoot very high frame rates silently for what is likely a much higher percentage of the subjects I like to shoot.  With those two cameras being in the same price range purchasing one of them may be within possibility in the next couple of years but both is very unlikely so I’m going to need to see what my priorities are….or continue to wait and see how technology like this might come down to that second tier in the camera world.

We shall see what the future brings as currently I have been keeping both Sony and Canon camera systems around with much the same lens lineup.  This doesn’t make sense long term if I was going to have two separate systems it would make sense that they overlap somewhat but there should be a good reason to use one over the other.  Currently the only reason is that I have a big white lens on the Canon side that I am unwilling to replace as the cost of those have gone up significantly in the last few years.  So until that changes I won’t likely sell off what I have in the way of Canon gear.

It’s good to have so many interesting choices out there now and things are continuing to get better so I’ll see if I can try out some of these options and wait for the right opportunity.

Nikon - you’re certainly tempting me!

In the last year Canon and Sony have been relatively quiet at least for those of us who are looking at nature photography tools.  Salwa and I are  currently quite highly invested in both of those companies with multiple cameras and a significant number of lenses for both.  For the most part we are very happy with the gear that we have for photography and video work but….and this is quite a but….Nikon has been turning my head quite often with the gear they have been putting out.

The first things that caught my eye were the PF primes.  The 500mm f/5.6 in particular with the Phase Fresnel design (similar to the DO or Diffractive optics from Canon) was so small and light in comparison to my Canon 500 F/4 II that the aperture reduction seemed like a very worth while thing to deal with.  The price difference ($3300 USD compared to the $9000USD I paid for the Canon a number of  years ago) also made that lens into something that was quite reasonable and didn’t feel like having to make a decision between it and my next vehicle.  This lens seems quite sharp, not sure how it compares directly with the Canon 400 f/4 DO but those who I know that have it are very happy with it.

Nikon 500 f/5.6 PF lens, a relatively small but mighty prime.

Canon 400 f/4 DO II lens.

At the time a couple of great and inexpensive lenses was an interesting but not alluring thing especially since there wasn’t a camera to pair it with that could focus anywhere near as well as the cameras I had (A7RIV, A7IV, R5) even though the Z7 had some fantastic image quality.  This brings us to the Z9 and now the Z8.  Both of these cameras have upped the game for Nikon significantly and although they don’t quite match the competition in all aspects they are very competitive.  It is the price that is the real game changer at the moment.  With those two cameras we are getting very close to the capabilities of the Sony A1 for significantly less money, with the Z8 coming in around the same price as the A7RV.  Now I really like the A7RV and it does everything I want except for fast silent shooting and up until the Z8 came around I thought that was going to be out of reach unless I wanted to shell out significantly more money for the A1….now I’m a little jealous and really waiting to see how Sony responds.  My Canon R5 is mostly keeping up with the A7R5 but pretty much has the same limitations.

Nikon Z8

The latest thing from Nikon shows me that they really want to lure in nature photographers and that is the announcement of the 180-600 f5.6-6.3.  This lens looks like almost a clone of the Sony 200-600 with the only real differences I can see being the extra 20mm and the black color.  This is another great move by Nikon as the 200-600 lens I think is the best value lens for nature photographers at the moment.  It is pretty sharp, relatively inexpensive, has internal zoom, fast (enough) autofocus and is on my camera likely 80 percent of the time.  For those people who want good reach, good quality, portability but don’t have 10 to 12 thousand dollars sitting around for a fast prime this lens hits the spot.  I think there is a pretty big niche of amateur and professional photographers that this lens will appeal to and now also to the Nikon version.

Nikon 180-600 f/5.6-6.3

Sony 200-600 f/5.6-6.3

Can’t wait to see if/when Canon and Sony decide to deal with this competition…currently I think Sony could come out with a camera that can compete and beat the Z8 very quickly since they likely have an equivalent to the Z8 sensor ready to go for themselves and they already have the 200-600 so they are only lacking in the Diffractive Optics area.  Canon has DO technology but and are likely coming out with a higher resolution stacked sensor for the D1 but the Z8 may have changed the game on them and they may need something close to the D1 at a much lower price than they likely would like to have out there.  The competition is going to be interesting again for a while, or so I hope.

Winter trip - Stage 3 - Desert States

When it is time to run from the cold and rain, the desert states seem like the perfect place to get back to sunshine and that dry heat.  That was the plan and for the most part we found a good amount of sun but for some odd reason the cold was still following us down from the north.  We left the coast after visiting friends near San Jose and travelled up to Lake Isabella. It was a fantastic road up through Sequoia National Forest and our first night of BLM camping along the Kern river.  

The view from our campsite on the Kern River. Sony A7III with 16-35 f/4 at 19mm, f/9, 1/800s ISO 1600

This is definitely an area we would like to come back and explore again as there were old mines fantastic rock formations and signs of animals in the area.  This trip however we just spent the one night and headed towards Death Valley.  This seemed like a great idea as it almost never rains there, right?

Well, we were lucky enough to come in just before a huge wind and rainstorm that tested the strength of our camper (and our sanity).  It wasn’t all bad, in fact the weather actually made for some pretty spectacular photography.  Scenes that were probably pretty rare with storm clouds on one side of the valley and sun on the other.

Salwa was finding sand in her hair for days after this hike. Sony A7RIV with 24-105 f/4 at 46mm, f/9, 1/400s, ISO 100

The salt flats is the first spot we went to see what sunset would be like.  The views were amazing, the salt flats such a cool thing to see but that evening the light wasn’t fantastic.  We did get a few interesting shots but went away that night without a portfolio shot.

Salt flats at sunset, not quite the sunset we hoped for but still such an amazing place to explore. Sony A7III with 16-35 f/4 at 19mm, f/10, 1/20s, ISO 100

The next day was a different story.  The wind picked up again and we could see storm clouds around us so we drove north again towards the sand dunes which looked promising.  We managed to get out about a half mile into the dunes when the wind suddenly went crazy, blasting sand at us and then the sky opened up pelting us with rain that felt like pellets from an air gun.  This didn’t stop us completely as we tried to get some video of the situation, mostly so that we could laugh at ourselves.  We got back to the truck and the rain moved away after about 10 minutes.   This was when the sky started to look wild.  Dark clouds and rain in front of us with harsh sunlight on the dunes and the wind still throwing the sand around.  I think I have at least 10 shots that I could print from the next hour out there…maybe more.

A rain storm making its way past us across the valley of Sand dunes. Sony A7RIV with 24-105 at 105mm, f/10, 1/250s, ISO 100

The sand was still blowing in the distance, but the light and shadows were amazing as the storm clouds moved on. Sony A7RIV with 24-105 at 43mm, f/9, 1/320s, ISO 100

Salwa on the top edge of one of the larger sand dunes. Sony A7III with 16-35 f/4 at 34mm, f/9, 1/320s, ISO 100

As per usual on this trip the weather was starting to turn again as we heard that snow was coming for the mountains on the way to Vegas.  We decided to run for the hills, and got to the very top just in time for the snow.  It was a slow and nervous trip down into Las Vegas that night but after a night at a KOA campground to get a shower, wash some clothes and get the batteries topped up we were headed to a park on the other side of Vegas called Valley of Fire.

Salwa near the beginning of wave of fire hike. Sony A7III with 70-200 f/4 at 70mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO 100

This turned out to be one of the best stops of the entire trip, and I had barely heard of the place before we went there.  We camped at the Atlatl Rock campground in the park where we were surrounded by fantastic red rocks with desert bighorn sheep wandering through regularly.  Just hiking through these rocks could take up your time for days.

Waves of weathered rock. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 17mm, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 100

We spent most of our time hiking along White Domes road with beautiful slot canyons that we accessed from the end of the road.

Part of the Slot canyon near White Dome. Sony A7III with 16-35 f/4 at 16mm, f/10, 1/20s, ISO 100

From just after the sun came up we wandered all around Fire Wave trail.  This area had some of the most spectator rock formations and wild colors.  This is an area to check out with a quick hike and then come back again and again in different light.  I think I would like to come back here and spend at least a week capturing dawn and sunset shots.  If you are into astro or night sky photography you might find you will really never have time to sleep in this park.

So many textures and colours make the Wave of Fire hike a photographers dream. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 16mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 100

Pink, orange, red…pick your favourite colour. Sony A7III, 16-35 f/4 at 16mm, f/8, 1/100s, ISO 100

When we finally did leave Valley of Fire we were off to another very different desert landscape. This was an area we visited years ago in a 1976 VW Westfalia.  Joshua tree may not have the same wild colors but the shapes of the boulders, and the Joshua trees themselves make for some wild landscapes.

If you can’t find camping in the park, there is an area at the south end of the park for BLM camping which will allow you to spend your days in the park without too much time on the road.  On this trip we spent most of our time around Jumbo Rocks and Cottonwood. 

A dead tree with some fantastic boulders in the background. Sony A7RIV with 24-105 f/4 at 34mm, f/8, 1/80s, ISO 100

I see a face, do you? Sony A7RIV with 24-105 f/4 at 49mm, f/9, 1/320s, ISO 100

a boulder playground. Sony A7III with 16-35 f/4 at 22mm, f/7.1, 1/800s, ISO 100

Joshua tree hugging Salwa…always another tree to hug. Sony A7III with 16-35 f/4 at 26mm, f/9, 1/250s, ISO 100

hiking near Cottonwood campground. Sony A7RIV with 24-105mm at 31mm, f/13, 1/25s, ISO 100

Night sky and a Joshua tree. Sony A7III with 16-35 f/4 at 16mm, f/4, 25s, ISO 1600

At this point we started to put California, and Nevada into our rear view mirror and headed to Arizona.  Organ Pipe Cactus National monument was going to be our first stop and was one of the first times we actually had some warm weather (at least for a couple of days).  This park is a little south west of Phoenix down on the Mexican border and it is easy to see what this park is named for.

Sunset in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Sony A7III with 70-200 f/4 at 200mm, f/5.6, 1/1000s ISO 1600

This is also when we started seeing more birds and I was able to pull out the big lens.

Cactus Wren. Sony A7III with 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 at 600mm, f/6.3, 1/1250s, ISO 250

Phainopepla. Sony A7RIV with 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 at 600mm, f/6.3, 1/2000s, ISO 250

Mexican Scrub Jay. Sony A7RIV with 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 at 600mm, f/6.3, 1/2000s, ISO 200

Again, just outside of this park is some BLM land for camping, we stayed in the park this time and learned quickly that there is an area that is generator free so that you don’t have to listen to loud engines instead of the nature in the park.

I have parents that were snowbirds for around 20 years and spent a good deal of their winters in Tucson so I have in the past been able to come down and spend time in that area.  Tucson Mountain state park is a great area to get into some of the desert hiking and to wander amongst the Saguaro cactus that so much reminds me of Saturday mornings watching the bugs bunny/road runner hour. 

Saguaro cactii and the view into Tucson Mountains state park. Sony A7III with 24-105 f/4 at 24mm, f/8, 1/320s, ISO 100

This time around we spent only a couple of nights in this area but also went up to Mount Lemmon to check out some wildly different terrain and to give us some time for some good food in Tucson itself.  

multiple hoodoos to hike through and around. Sony A7III with 24-105 f/4 at 24mm, f/10, 1/160s, ISO 100, 6 shot panorama

More interesting rock formations along the road up Mt. Lemmon. Sony A7III with 24-105 f/4 at 34mm, f/10, 1/320s, ISO 100

On the next portion of the trip we went to a bunch of areas we found out about through other campers, as we headed east just before the New Mexico border there is a small town called Portal which is just that, a little portal into another amazing piece of landscape and also another little birders haven.  The whole area from Madera Canyon to Patagonia Lake and across to Portal are great locations to find hummingbirds and many birds that are only found in Arizona and Mexico.

Anna’s hummingbird near Patagonia Lake, Arizona. Sony A7RIV with 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 at 600mm, f/6.3, 1/2000s, ISO 1000

Blue throated hummingbird. Sony A7RIV with 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 at 600mm, f/6.3, 1/800s, ISO 8000

broad billed hummingbird. Sony A7RIV with 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 at 600mm, f/6.3, 1/2000s, ISO 500

Since moving into Arizona we had been lucky enough to have much more sunny weather even if not nearly as warm as we would have liked.  This continued as we worked our way into New Mexico and White Sands national park but our hopes to head into northern portions of New Mexico were not going to be on this trip as ice and snow were in the forecast for Albuquerque and Santa Fe.  

The shadows bring out the textures in these nearly monochromatic images. Sony A7RIV with 24-105 f/4 at 24mm, f/11, 1/320s, ISO 100

The wind shapes the land. Sony A7RIV with 24-105 f/4 at 52mm, f/11, 1/250s, ISO 100

Black and white image of the rolling dunes. Sony A7RIV with 24-105 f/4 at 89mm, f/11, 1/400s, ISO 100

This meant a whole new plan was in order and now Texas looked to be one of the few areas that was going to be warm enough for us to camp.  On the map was Big Bend Nation Park and as with anything in Texas it was a fairly long drive.  Our first stop on this leg was Hueco Tanks, a park I had always wanted to visit when I was a younger and was fairly active in bouldering and climbing.  This park is a haven for bouldering and we watched a few climbers attempting stuff I couldn’t think of now.

An example of the defining feature here in Hueco Tanks. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 22mm, f/14, 1/80s, ISO 100

Hueco tanks is a very protected area with some significant native historical landmarks and petroglyphs so treading carefully and only in the self-guided parts is important to ensure others will be able to enjoy this area for years to come.

Some fantastic petroglyphs in a cave. We had to be so careful not to touch the wall in this tight and slippery location. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 16mm, f/4, 1/8s, ISO 1600

Just the view from in the cave, but the light was so amazing this is one of my favourite shots from the trip. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 16mm, f/9, 4s, ISO 100

Getting a bit closer to Big Bend, we found a nice park to stay at in Fort Davis which has a big Observatory near by.   Nice hiking, camping and dark skies along with some more desert bighorn sheep made for a good stopover before some outback camping on the north end of Big Bend. We didn’t get a chance to check out the observatory this time, but I definitely would like to come back just for that.

Sunset from the lookout at Davis Mountain. Sony A7III with 24-105 f/4 at 105mm, f/22, 1/15s, ISO 640

Our first night in Big Bend was at a spot called Nine Point Draw and we were out there completely on our own.  This was so beautiful and quiet.  We were able to really relax and just enjoy the scenery.  I think we could have spent weeks in the National Park and the state park combined.  We managed a number of interesting hikes, one called balancing rock (how many of those are there?) was very picturesque, the hike down to what was called the window to the world was busy but still worth it.  Finally the view into Santa Elena Canyon was amazing.

Balancing rock, Big Bend National Park. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 35mm, f/10, 1/125s, ISO 100

Window to the world. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 16mm, f/10, 1/40s, ISO 100

Santa Elena Canyon. Sony A7RIV with 16-35 f/4 at 35mm, f/8, 1/50s, ISO 100

At this point in out trip things took a turn…we didn’t know if we should head back west and try to find warm weather in southern Arizona and California or to continue east since we were interested in a boat show in Miami in a couple of weeks.  Our indecision was also challenged as we found a problem with our trailer that caused us to spend a week in San Antonio to get fixed (thank you Arkto for dealing with this so well for us).  Our decision was made for us as the weather became ice and snow all the way to San Antonio and we managed to miss the worst of it by heading straight towards Louisiana and onwards to the east coast, but that’s a story for the next posting.

This was a fun road through Big Bend State Park. Sony A7III with 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 at 200mm, f/7.1, 1/2000s, ISO 2000

Winter trip - Stage 2 - Quickly down the US west coast

Coastal photography, we have spent a great deal of time shooting on the east coast of the US when we lived in South Carolina.  The west coast is a different beast altogether.  Rocky coastlines, big waves crashing, fantastic tidal pools all make for very different shots and of course the fact that the sun goes down over the ocean instead of rising again makes shooting very different. 

The view from “Secret Beach” one of many stops along the Samuel H. Boardman State Scenic Corridor.

Nature along this coast is also very different, we don’t see many different types of herons or egrets and gators are not something we need to worry about but we can look forward to sea lions, elephant seals and sea otters. 

Since we are on the road continuously we are at the whim of the weather for the few days we were at each location. This means that whatever conditions we see that day is likely what we have to shoot.  In that sense we often stopped at many locations during the day with the hope that one of those locations would be a good sunset shot…with the hope that conditions at sunset will be good or at least interesting enough.  With storms and rainy weather following us down the coast it did make for some interesting seascapes and sunsets.

Photo taken with Sony A7RIV and 70-200 f/4 lens at 82mm, ISO 1000, f/4, 1/2000s. This was just a quick stop at a lookout along the highway where we saw waves crashing from a distance.

Writing these articles helps to ensure I look back at the photos I’ve taken.  I usually pick what I think are the best photos from that day when I download them into Lightroom but what I have found is that if I go through them again a few weeks or even months later I find quite a few shots that I overlooked when I first downloaded them.  I’m not sure what it is that changes how I look at them but I’m glad I do this once in a while.

I almost overlooked this shot on my first pass. After a couple of months I looked back through the library and this one stood out for some reason.

Our first real taste of the coast was at Cape Disappointment as the south end of Washington State.  We basically didn’t get much of a chance to see anything else due to two full days of rain that kept us on the road from Port Angeles along hwy 101.  I’m hoping that we will get a chance to revisit the Washington coastline but grey and rainy is not the best way to see any of that area.

Disappointment was definitely not disappointing.  In fact as our first real taste of this rocky coastline it had a pretty big impact on us.  One of the first sights was the Lighthouse and with the first bit of sunlight we had seen in many days it was the first time we wanted to get out with the cameras.  One of the best small hikes we did was to head into Deadman’s Cove which turned out to have a cool island in the middle with a lone tree….an interesting subject to do a bit on long exposure photography and after the trip I still think it gave me one of my favourite shots of the trip.

It took some time to get this shot just right. With a 6 stop filter we were trying for long enough exposer to smooth out the waves but that log to the right moved when the waves were too large. This was one of my favourite shot of the trip. Photo taken with Sony A7III with 24-105 lens at 50 mm, ISO 100, f/13, 30 seconds.

Oregon has been on my list of places to visit for a long time.  I’ve been watching a landscape photographer on YouTube named Nick Page (https://www.youtube.com/@NickPage) so I had some ideas of what was possible, although I knew it was unlikely I would be lucky enough to get an opportunity to get shots that were as good as his when our window was usually one or possibly two days at any one area.   I just hoped that we would get some weather windows at dawn and dusk with interesting weather…not pure grey skies and drizzling rain or pure blue skies.  If you are looking on a map some of the spots we stopped at are Bandon Beach, Shore Acres State Park near Coos Bay, Cape Blanco, and Secret Beach near Brookings. This is just a few as we stopped many times along the highway all the way through Oregon.

Bandon Beach as the sun was getting low. Very little colour with the grey clouds and mist from the sea so I thought black and white would give a better feeling. Photo taken with Sony A7RIV and 70-200 f/4 at 100mm, ISO f/13, at 1/640s.

Turned out we did get some really windy days but we managed to miss a king tide with those winds by just a couple of days.   That being said we did manage to get some nice shots around Bandon and scoped out a few areas around what is referred to as secret beach??  This is a place I would like to come back and spend some time near so that I could find a better spot to take shots from.  The places I stood made me feel like I was just missing the shot.

We did manage to get very lucky on one of our coastal walks. By lucky I mean we ended up with a storm coming right over us as we wandered down the beach and got absolutely soaked but as this storm moved off we got one of the most amazing rainbows that I have seen with dark skies in the background and sunlight hitting the rocks. It was worth the painful rain/ice hitting us as we tried to get these shots.

A wet and cold walk on Lone Ranch Beach through a very windy storm was all worth it for these shots as the storm passed through. It was a fleeting moment but one I’m glad we caught. Photo taken with Sony A7RIV with 24-105 f/4 lens at 27 mm, ISO 160, f/11, 1/200s.

Before heading inland we took a little time along the California coast.  

Along Highway 1 we continuously saw hawks hovering above the cliffs over the grassy hills hunting.  At times they would go into another hawks territory and that would cause some interesting interactions.  If we didn’t need to get to our campsite I could likely have stayed for hours waiting and watching those hawks.

A pair of Red-tailed hawks fighting above Highway 1 in Northern California. This was a quick stop on the side of the road as we saw numerous hawks hunting in the grass above the ocean. Photo taken with Sony A7RIV with the 200-600 lens and 1.4 teleconverter at 840mm, ISO 250, f/9, 1/1250s.

I am always eager to find some wildlife and we hit the jackpot with a sea otter that was getting ready to sleep, rolling in the kelp and fluffing up its fur for a good half hour only 20 feet from us on the beach.  It finally settled in to sleep, seemingly without a worry in the world.

Sea Otter wrapping itself in the weeds and starting to puff up and clean before settling down for a nap. Photo taken with Sony A7RIV and 200-600 lens at 400mm, ISO 2000, f/9, 1/1250s to ensure I stopped the motion and was able to get the whole otter in focus.

You can see more of this cuteness in our vlog on no.fixed.plans on YouTube, you can also look directly at the West Coast Gallery for more pictures.

With horrible weather always just one step behind us, we really did not spend the amount of time we wanted to on this trip.  It was a good sampler and now that we have some ideas I think that we can make some more trips down to the Oregon coast especially and hopefully get to spend more quality time behind the camera. With that cold and wet weather coming for us again our next step was to head inland towards Death Valley, but that will be in the next post.

Predictions and hopes for Sony gear in the coming year (or two). ( Updates now that the A7RV is out)

From the start of the mirrorless camera era Sony was quick to come out with both many cameras and many lenses each year.  This allowed Sony to quickly make improvements in a way that I never saw Canon or Nikon do during the DSLR era.  Sony also allowed/encouraged third parties to make lenses for E mount which has given Sony users a great assortment of cameras and lenses now to work with.  

New Sony A7RV with the 200-600.

Since the Sony A7IV and the last announcement that I can remember of a 16-35 PZ lens that still seems to be unavailable anywhere, Sony seems to have been very quiet.  Now on the sensor front, there seems to be some interesting stacked sensors for APS-C and some high resolution sensors that are showing up but no Sony cameras are coming with any of this updated hardware.  They were also the leader in autofocus technology but now Canon has caught up (and surpassed them in some ways) and Nikon is getting close as well.  Fuji still has some work to do :)  

Here are some of the things I would like to see from Sony in the next couple of years and things that I think might be just around the corner.

1. Sony needs to come out with a new APS-C higher end camera.  Something to compete with the latest stacked sensor Fuji and something to compete against the new 40MP Fuji and the latest APS-C mirrorless from Canon.  There is little doubt in my mind that a A6XXX or something similar with a stacked sensor and Sony’s autofocus would be a fantastic seller (and one that I might actually pick up assuming full frame stacked sensor cameras are going to continue to be out of reach of most pocket books).

2. Sony has some great super telephoto primes and an amazingly useful 200-600 but I think they need to get into the second tier telephoto primes hopefully using some sort of Fresnel optics (assuming they can come up with a method that isn’t the same as Nikon or Canon and end up in a patent war.  Nikon has built some game changing DO/PF type lenses.  Canon was the leader in this area but really since the 400DO II for EF I don’t know what they have been doing.  Lenses in the 3000-7000 USD are ones that nature photographers like me would consider much more often than a 12000-14000 USD lens.  Currently I actually bought the Canon R5 mostly to use on the 500F/4 since I can’t afford to shell out for one of the Sony super-telephotos (or the latest Canon for that matter).

3. While I really love the Sony A7RIV, it is time for an update to the high resolution end of the camera line.  I know that currently it is still just as good as anything out there from Nikon and Canon but the low light performance of that sensor is starting to show its age.  I’m sure there is a new one in the works, the question is are they going to increase the resolution or improve the low light capabilities…or both?  The next camera will likely also end up doing 8K video, which is a nice addition for a high resolution camera.  The latest Canon cameras are all coming out with mechanical shutter frame rates up and around 15 fps.  This would be a nice addition since these cameras are much too slow at getting the information off the sensor in electronic shutter to be of much use.  The last addition that would be interesting and would bring these cameras a little closer to current medium formats is having 16 bit colour depth.  Update - the A7RV is out, I now have it. Although it doesn’t meet all the hopes I had for it, the updates to the autofocus, back screen, viewfinder and processing have just made it a much more useful camera for nature photography. I still use the A7RIV for landscapes since the quality of the sensor output is identical but otherwise this is a great new camera. Would have been nice to have a bump in number of shots per second but I can live with this for now.

4. I would like to also see more power zoom (or at least video oriented) lenses for E mount.  The 16-35 is one that I will be buying as soon as it is available but as a nature photographer a telephoto PZ would be amazing.  Something like a 100-300 range would be a great all around lens for some of my video work.  If it was reasonably close to parfocal it would be even better. Update - I now have the 16-35 PZ lens and it just makes the statements above even more true…Sony lets get more of these.

5. My last one is more for the wish list.  I would really like to see Sony come out with a medium format camera to compete with Fuji.  What would be even better would be to partner with Fuji on the lens mount and the two of them really corner the market on the affordable medium market front.  This would also allow both Fuji and Sony to get a great set of complimentary lenses out for the mount.  Currently Fuji is where I would like to go for high resolution landscape but the lack of lens options is keeping it limited.  This may also open things up for Sigma and Tamron to start building for that mount.  I think that there is a chance for the “small” medium format to take over a larger portion of the “Full frame” camera market in the next 5-10 years.  

Lastly, Sony does need to come out with some new entry level cameras.  Currently they have an ok line up but since there is nothing new, people are starting to look at the latest from Canon and Nikon and forget about a Sony camera that might be competitive in many respects but because it is 2-4 years old they think it is out of date (and in some ways they are correct).  Replacing the A6000 series with a new line up would go a long way to at least make it look like they have new stuff for people wanting to get into photography now.

Nature photography on the road - Chasing the sun (blog version) part 1.

I had a plan.  This plan was to reduce the amount of time I spend working in my real job (I am a physicist who migrated to the financial world to build computer software and systems for mathematical modeling).  If I did this right I would be able to take some long trips to do the types of photography I love in new places for extended periods.  

My plan has come to fruition, but of course not everything goes to plan the way you think it will.  I have been working on contracts that last about 18 months and then I take 6 months to do other things.  The first of these “sabbaticals” was during the pandemic and we moved ourselves from southern Ontario (where we landed for a job in Buffalo, NY) to south central British Columbia.  This in itself was a challenge as we had hoped to buy a small acreage and look towards building a tiny house as a base.  Housing and land prices skyrocketed during the pandemic so that part of the plan turned into a long term rental in the Okanagan Valley and a second 18 month contract working from home.  

With the pandemic slowing (not entirely) and travel being allowed again into the United States we decided to prepare for our next 6 month excursion by purchasing a camping trailer and a pickup truck and set out to photograph the west coasts of both British Columbia and the United States.

Ford Ranger and Arkto trailer, ready for our photo excursion.

Our journey started one month after my contract completed and we were able to close out our lease and pack everything we own into a storage container and our little trailer.  Of course the weather had plans for us that would change our well laid out plans completely.

One thing I had to learn quickly on these trips is to change the way I think about photography.  When you are shooting nature or landscapes close to home (within about 6 hours driving) you have time to understand the habitat you are in, including where you are likely to see animals or birds and the best place to be to get the shot both without disturbing the subject and ensuring an interesting photo.  You do not have that luxury when you are on the road unless you are with a guide that has that knowledge.  In most cases we are only in a location for 2 or maybe 3 days.  This usually means doing some work beforehand on the internet to see if we can figure out some good locations and then the first day is mostly about hiking the area to see for ourselves what is around and when and where we might come back for some shots.  For the landscape shots we take this can be enough to get a good location but we need to get lucky for the weather to be just right to get some good shots the next morning or evening.  For nature photography we have much the same conditions we would like to have but now we also need to get lucky and have something show up.  Often we also need to choose whether we are going to do landscape or nature since the best times of day are sunrise and sunset for both.  Although, some birds of prey are best shot in bright daylight, and that is one of my favorite things to shoot.

A pair of red-tailed hawks fighting over a hunting area.

What we do try to do is to make notes where we go, just in case we do manage to get back to those locations so that we might be able to capitalize on that knowledge when the conditions are looking good.

All that being said, when you are out each evening and morning you do still get some pretty fantastic shots.  I guess what is different is if you can come back regularly you can refine you compositions until you get what you picture in your mind, whereas currently I try to take a number of different shots relatively quickly while the light is good so that I can look at them later to decide what composition was better.

We have also been doing significantly more video in the last couple of years.  Some of this is to document our trip, but also just because video is one of the best ways to get yourself known out here on the internet, and there is so much potential in that medium.

This poses other issues, as we are shooting video while we are trying to take shots, looking at getting “B roll” that is interesting and trying to story board a cohesive video that we hope others may find interesting.  That, of course, is not just twice the work but significantly more than just trying to get out there and produce some compelling photos as I’m sure many of the YouTubers that do these type of videos will attest.

The last thing that we always need to remember is to take some time to just enjoy  the trip.  Not everything has to be around getting a good photo and we do need time to relax or to do regular daily things.  Since we do love taking photos it is sometimes difficult to remember to just relax.

Back to the trip.

The first leg of our journey was to be a month in British Columbia, starting from the Okanagan Valley to Vancouver and then over to Vancouver Island for what is usually a wet but mild November.  We were looking forward to exploring the west coast of the Island along with some treks north to check out some smaller islands and the north west coast.

Sunlight tries to penetrate the canopy

Our first stop was near Vancouver in Golden Ears Provincial Park.  The campsite was nestled under a canopy of huge evergreens with that typical west coast rainforest feel.  Beautiful mountains surrounding us, a very large creek just below feeding into a long valley lake.  In the summer this place would be completely full with campers and day hikers in from the city, but in November there was only a half dozen other people in the campground that had basic amenities of a pit toilet and not much else this time of year.

Plenty of water rushing down from the mountain in Golden Ears Provincial park.

Moss and ferns make the scene into a flood of greens

Our next stop was a campground near central Vancouver.  We were here to meet some friends, do some shopping and eat at some nice restaurants before our ferry trip across to the island.  It was also during this stay that we started to understand that we had a few leaking issues on the camper as one of those atmospheric rivers decided to descend on Vancouver.  Despite the rain is was a good layover with good friends including one I had not seen in about 40 years. Not much in the way of photography was to be done here, other that the quick shot of the Lion’s Gate Bridge as we had our morning coffee.

Lion’s Gate bridge in Vancouver with a good bit of flare from shooting into the sun.

I love ferry rides, usually I stay out on the top deck with cameras looking for coastal shots and maybe even a whale or some dolphins.  This trip was indicative of much of our time on the island as it was cold, wet, and overall uninviting.  It didn’t stop me from getting on deck for a bit to get a few shots off.  

View from the ferry on our crossing to Vancouver Island.

The eastern coast of Vancouver Island is a very interesting landscape.  You can nearly always see the coast of the mainland with white capped mountains but in between there are many smaller islands.  Many of these island are worth a trip in themselves as we have found out on previous trips.  Wildlife is more abundant on the island and especially on the coast.  The first place we camped was near Parksville where a number of resident bald eagles could be heard at any given point and the seals and sea lions are constantly poking their heads up as I try taking pictures of some of the shore birds coming in for what is left as the tide recedes.  These are some reasons that we would love to come back to some of these areas not just for photography but to find that little piece of land so that we can explore the area much more.  

Bald Eagle watching the shoreline as the tide goes out in Rathtrevor Provincial park, Parksville, BC.

Great Blue heron fishing along the coast with the BC mainland in the background.

shorebirds taking off as a wave disturbs their feeding.

Seal keeping an eye on us two legged things on the shore.

Our next trip was directly across the island to an area that has always been on my list of places to go.  Ucuelet and Tofino are rather remote but definitely a tourist destination not just for the beautiful scenery but also for the surf as a choice destination for many surfers in almost any weather.  As you can see by many of the photos this area is rich in coastal scenery and fantastic if you enjoy “long walks on a beach” with a significant other.

View from the lookout of Cox bay. The hike up to this point is quite a muddy climb but well worth it.

We stayed at the Surf Grove campground, which as the name suggests was filled with surfers waiting for the November storms to bring in the big waves. This was a great campsite for a base but can be rather expensive. This time of year the choices were few and there are not really any places to camp that are off grid on this part of the coast. Be sure to make plans ahead of time to stay in the area.

Lone surfer getting the last waves before the sun finally sets on Cox Bay beach.

Foggy morning as we walked through the trees to get to the beach, Cox Bay.

Just after sunset on Cox Bay beach, the surf was still rolling in with the rain heading our way.

Surfer getting a little air. Good practice for when I might get to see some dolphins riding the waves.

The hikes in Ucuelet should be high on any list, but the beaches along the coast especially Cox beach shouldn’t be missed.  If you are there during tourist season, there are many boat tours for marine and coastal life.  I will definitely go back hopefully with a boat at some point.

Panoramic view from Ucuelet. Looks like a fantastic area to explore by boat.

Sunset looking out to the west from Ucuelet near the lighthouse.

Our time on Vancouver Island was cut short by a weather forecast that showed not just a ton of rain but one of the coldest and snowiest Novembers on record.  With a 3 season camper we were not at all prepared for that.  

Pine martin in Goldstream provincial park just outside of Victoria.

We ended up camping in the city near Victoria, mostly a parking lot but with a great view of the harbour and our neighbours were a collection of boathouses that looked very inviting.

Our little camper trailer and the house boats on the harbour in Victoria, BC

Our best choice was to head down to Victoria, spend a bit of time again with some friends and then take the ferry to Port Angeles to start the next stage of our tour through Washington and Oregon. Our first few weeks was definitely high on the learning curve. Figuring out the ins and outs of the trailer, dealing with plenty of rain and wind, and just learning what it means to try to do photography on the road. I am finding that flexibility is going to be the key. Take the shot even if you aren’t sure it is the one. When I have been looking back at my pictures it the shot I finally decide to work on is often not the one that I thought was my best one when I was out there.

waiting for the Port Angeles ferry to start the next leg of our journey.

Go to No.fixed.plans on Youtube for our trip vlogs and a bit more footage of Vancouver Island. Hopefully we will get back to this area in the summer.

Canon EOS R5 vs Sony A7RIV

As a Nature and wildlife photographer there was a “holy grail” camera that I had been looking for.  High resolution, great tracking autofocus, and high number of frames per second for that tracking.  I had waited a long time for some company to come out with this camera and the first to kind of get there was the A7RIII and the subsequent A7RIV which I did buy to replace my A7RII.  A year (and likely a bit more) later Canon finally came out with the R5 which I also promptly purchased to replace the 5DS.

It seemed to take forever to get all the things I wanted in one camera and amazingly I now have 2 cameras that meet pretty much all my needs.  Now, after using both for quite a long time, it is time to compare them a little side by side for how I use them.  

I tend to carry a pretty simple combination of lenses with me.  I have a wide angle zoom (16-35 F/4) for both Canon and Sony, a mid range zoom ( 24-70 f/2.8 Tamron for the canon system and a Sony G 24-105 f/4).  I nearly always carry a 100-400 telephoto zoom for both systems and I have a very long lens for both systems (500 F/4 prime for Canon and the Sony 200-600 zoom).  Along with a couple of teleconverters I pretty much cover 16-1000mm and 16-840 for Canon and Sony respectively.

There are a number of reasons that I use both Canon and Sony, but that really doesn’t matter now.  Since I have both systems I find I use them both pretty much equally but take one out rather that the other often for different reasons.

I often take both cameras on any given shoot.  If I think I need both a long zoom and a wide angle I will take the Sony 200-600 and put the 16-35 or 24-70 on the R5.  If I think I will need to use the 500mm I will often also take the Sony either with the long zoom for those cases when a bird or animal gets too close for the 500 or I will put a wider  angle on the Sony for more environmental shots.

When it comes to wide angle shots (anything less than 100mm to me is wide angle :) ) I have really found very little difference between the two cameras.  At the long end the differences are really about the lenses.  The Canon 500mm F/4 IS II is the sharpest lens I have ever owned and is the main reason that I bought the EOS R5 as I didn’t really want to sell that lens and try to get the much more expensive Sony 600mm.

Of course with that amazing sharpness and detail available using that lens you pay the price of carrying a very heavy lens out on long hikes to find the animals and birds I shoot.  This is where the Sony 200-600 comes into its element.  It is a slightly heavier lens that the 100-400 but the extra reach is something that I always need and with the A7RIV the autofocus is really amazing….even with the 1.4 teleconverter.  This combination gets me to 840 mm with a 60 MPixel image which is really close to the maximum range I can get with the Canon’s 45 MPixels and 1000mm if I use the 2x teleconverter but weighs significantly less.

When it comes to the cameras themselves there are some great things about both and a few things that annoy me as well. 

I’ve had the A7RIV the longest and am very used to the way the Sony full frame cameras work.  Each A7 camera has evolved and improved over the last few years to become a very useful machine.  With all the buttons on the camera I am able to assign pretty much everything I regularly change to one.  This along with the quick menu means I really only go into the main menu very rarely…and usually anything I need in the menu more than once I have put in the custom menu portion.  

For birds and animals I regularly use two main autofocus modes.  Wide tracking is where I usually leave things and for the most part the camera will pick out the subject and hold onto it.  Again this has evolved to a point now that I don’t very often have to worry about complex backgrounds or how small the subject is.  However, I do still really need to consider my depth of field to ensure that I will have the whole subject in focus since this camera really doesn’t have useful animal or bird eye autofocus. Most of the time this is not an issue but this is one place the Canon is just better at this time. 

When wide focus doesn’t grab the subject or when I need to pick out a subject in the bushes or in a crowd I use the button on the long lenses to switch to single point or small group tracking.  Then I can get the subject to track and recompose the shot quickly or move the point with the joystick for quicker subject grabs.  The ability to have subject tracking in any autofocus mode  and starting with any (or all) focus points is really useful and something that the R5 cannot yet do (either all points or center point to start tracking).

The high plus mode on the A7RIV allows for 10 frames per second shooting and when I have the long lenses on the camera I pretty much leave it in this mode.  In this mode you get 12 bit images, but for the most part I’m ok with that for action shots.  From a resolution point of view using the 200-600 the images are good and sharp and with the 1.4 teleconverter the loss of detail is minimal for the gain in reach.  The big thing that you are giving up is the amount of light as this combo is f/6.3 at 600 and f/9 and 840.  If you can get the subject fully in the frame the images look good even at relatively high ISO (up to about 6400).  However, if the subject is still small in the frame and you need to crop afterwards the combination of high ISO and cropping will quickly reduce the ability to get a useful final image.  This is the main compromise for carrying a much lighter lens on longer hikes and most of the time it is worth it.

It has taken a number of years for Sony to get to the point that their system is where it is now (As I finish writing this the A7RV is now out and looks to have improved pretty significantly in both photo and video).  I find it highly reliable and predictable which is very important to me.  I know that I am likely to get the shot and I have good muscle memory for all the settings.   This took a long time since I learned photography on Canon but now I can use both systems quickly and easily.

The Canon EOS R5 is the first full frame canon mirrorless camera that I have used.  I have been using Canon digital cameras since the original rebel.  We have had rebels, everything from the 20D up to the 50D, the 1D IV and the 5D series I, II,III, and DS.  I loved using Canon DSLRs but also new that mirrorless technology was going to improve many things so bought into Sony as well while Canon sat on the fence for years with mirrorless.  

The R5 was actually quite a surprise after the R and RP.  Canon finally put everything (they had tech wise) into a camera again….something they had not done since the 5DII.  This camera promised a great deal and so far it has delivered amazingly well from a photo perspective.  This camera matches the speed of the A7RIV with a sensor that is almost the same resolution as the 5DS and an autofocus system that for the most part matches the Sony and even beats it in a few cases.  Being able to use EF lenses without much in the way of limits is fantastic.  There is one issue with that for me.  The EF to RF adapter from Canon has been out of stock everywhere since I bought the camera.  This means that I have had to pick up a third party Commlite adapter to be able to use my current batch of EF lenses.  Most of the time this works well.  The problem is that I do often get error messages where the camera shuts down.  It is mostly unpredictable and as such it means that I don’t take this system out when I absolutely have to get the shot.  UPDATE:  I did get the canon adapter and still had the error messages, these issues have been reduced but not eliminated in the latest firmware for the camera.

The good thing is that I either just have to turn off the camera or remove the battery and I can shoot again.  I have though missed shots of birds taking off or landing because of this.  Sometimes I can go hundreds of shots without the error happening other times it happens over and over again and can become quite frustrating.  For the next few years I will be relying on these adapters as I don’t expect to re-purchase RF version of the big whites any time soon.  In fact, with the price increases in many RF lenses I may not be replacing many of the EF lenses at all.  So far the only lens that I have bought is the 14-35 F/4 which gives me a little more wide angle than I have other than the 8-16 fisheye.  The recent news that Canon is discouraging 3rd party lenses on the RF side is another reason I’m not getting many new lenses for Canon.

When the R5 is stable the shooting experience is really quite fantastic.  The best part for me is the animal autofocus.  Canon has really come from behind to have the best animal eye focus tracking out there.  I have found it to get a birds eye even with the subject quite small in the frame.  Tracking feels nearly perfect, and you can easily switch subjects when multiple are in the frame.  The only complaint that I have is that unlike the Sony tracking is not available in anything but the wide area mode (or center point).  If you could use movable single point, or small group to pick out your subject but have it track throughout the frame like the Sony can then I think it would have everything I need.

For someone currently looking at both systems and thinking of starting to spend money on one or the other here are some comparisons between the two and my very biased opinion (it has to be biased, it is mine).

View finder

Sony A7RIV - 5.76M dot, 1.3 cm, .78x reproduction

Canon R5 - also 5.76M dot, .76x reproduction

Both are very clear and easy to use.  Tracking in the viewfinder is really amazing and just so much better than previous mirrorless cameras that I have owned.  Out in the field I regularly use the viewfinder to review pictures since the rear screens are often useless in the sun.  

For people who use glasses the Canon viewfinder is almost unusable if there is light coming at you from the behind and to the right.  I have to put my hand around my glasses and try to hit the shutter with my baby finger under those conditions.  I’m not sure why this is, I have used Canon cameras since the early 2000s and have never had this issue with any before.  I would imagine there are some third party eye cups that could alleviate this issue but I haven’t looked into it yet.

A big issue with the A7RIV is the light sensor with sunlight behind me.  This sensor seems way too sensitive and will for some reason trigger the back screen and will not go back to viewfinder when I put it to my eye.  Often times I have to turn off and on the camera to get it to switch properly.  This has actually cost me shots as I put my eye to the viewfinder to find a blank screen just as the action starts to happen.  Much like the Canon situation above I have not seen this issue with any other Sony camera I have used ( I have the A7III and tried to replicate the issue unsuccessfully in the same light).  

Blackout - Both cameras in the 10 fps mode act very similarly in terms of viewfinder blackout.  It exists, but is very usable for tracking.  I really don’t find either any different than using a DSLR where the mirror goes up and down.  Compared to the A7RII or A7R that I had previously both cameras are totally usable and I can get good results tracking even fast birds .  I have not yet used a A9 or A1 to experience the differences that technology brings to make a comparison with the latest technology.

Rear Screen

Sony A7RIV - 3 inch, 1.44M dots, touch screen (not for everything)

Canon R5 - 3.15 inch, 2.1M dots, touch screen.

Personally I like both the tilting screen of the Sony and the fully articulating screen on the Canon.  They both have the range of motion that I normally need when doing landscape or astro photography.  Even for video they both are great since I really have never used one of these cameras to see myself.  I think the one limitation for the Sony is not being able to tilt while vertical for low angle shooting.   The Sony screen doesn’t seem as clear as the Canon however I have noticed a few issues with the Canon screen becoming hard to see in very cold conditions (below -30 Celsius).

Canon’s touch screen has many more capabilities than the Sony, including the ability to use it for menu selection. For the most part unless I am doing video I find the touch screen to be more of a pain than useful so I don’t use either very often. I really prefer using the buttons and wheels which both work very well and very quickly on the Canon and Sony cameras.

Batteries

Sony A7RIV - NP-FZ100 2280mAh

Canon R5 - LP-E6NH 2950mAh

The newer Sony batteries have been amazing for anyone who used the original A7 batteries.  I usually have one extra batteries with me but rarely need it on a full day of shooting.  I have a vertical grip for the A7III but found that I would rather just carry the extra battery instead of making the camera bigger so have not bothered getting the grip for the A7RIV. 

Canon gave a newer higher capacity battery with the R5.  I have found that the battery life is significantly shorter than the Sony under similar conditions.  I have other older batteries for Canon but they don’t last very long especially driving long lenses along with the camera.  I usually carry 2 extra batteries on a day out and regularly go through at least half of the second.  This is not a huge issue for me, but it is good to know that you need to be aware of your battery situation before going out each day, unlike the older DSLRs where I could regularly go out for a couple of days on the same battery.  I will likely purchase a couple more of the new Canon battery since the high fps shooting seems to require a battery that is more than half full to shoot a the highest frame rate.

Adapters

Sony A7RIV - metabones (many others available for different legacy mounts)

Canon R5 - commlite and canon.

I have a Metabones adapter for Canon lenses (one of the older versions) that will work when necessary but I have the main lenses I use regularly in native FE so I don’t use the adapter much anymore.  When used the autofocus works reasonably well even for tracking but can hunt under some conditions.  It is a useful tool to have around for some special cases like using some wide primes for astrophotography.

For Canon I started using the Commlite adapter almost all the time (I only had the 35 f/1.8 RF native lens at the time). This adapter worked well for tracking with both the 100-400 II and the 500 f/4 IS II that I use most of the time along with both the 1.4 and 2x teleconverters.  There are glitches and errors that happen semi-regularly which usually require me to cycle the power and once in a while to remove the battery.  Compared to using the Sony adapter, the Commlite does not seem to limit the capabilities of the camera and lens combination.  I was  hoping the Canon adapter would reduce the error messages and possibility of missing shots but that turned out not to be the case and I still have issues that lock up the camera while shooting fairly often even with the new firmware updates (there is one new one at the time of writing this but it doesn’t claim to fix any of these issues).

Autofocus

Sony A7RIV - 567 phase detection points plus 425 contrast detection points

Canon R5 - Dual Pixel CMOS AF II (1053 Available AF areas when automatically selected)

Both of these cameras have autofocus capabilities that are so much better than anything I have used in the past.  With the addition of 10 fps and good tracking it has changed the game for me since I also like having a high resolution camera.  

Sony was the leader for tracking objects and eye autofocus up until the Canon R5 and R6 came out and is still really amazing.  The interface is really great, you can enable object tracking in any of the modes (wide, single point, small group).  I tend to use two modes most often.  Wide area for most situations allows the camera to pick up the subject and follow through the scene.  Often times the bird I want to shoot is being tracked before I get my eye to the viewfinder and most of the time it will not lose the subject.  When there is either a lot of branches between myself and the subject or when there are multiple subjects to choose from I tend to use the single point and either focus and recompose once the subject is tracking or move the point to where the subject is in anticipation of a bird taking off or the action starting or use single point with object tracking to get the initial focus.

For landscape I will use many of the different modes along with manual focus and peaking to help me get a better feel for my actual depth of field in front and behind the focal point.  This gives me a good idea if I need to do focus bracketing without having to look up charts.

The R5 has improved on the Sony capabilities in one major way for me.  The animal eye autofocus is not just usable, it is really quite amazing.  Up close, far away, in motion or in flight it just seems to work.  The only issue I have is that it only works in the wide mode (you can start with center point to acquire the subject or let the camera decide but you can’t use other modes like small group of points).  Most of the time this is not an issue since when there are a number of subjects you can switch eyes and subjects to focus on the animal you  want, but you are kind of limited when trying to acquire a subject that is back behind a bunch of branches.  In these cases I have to go back to single point but you lose object tracking and eye autofocus.  It will still work in terms of tracking what is under that focal point so I fall back to that when necessary.

I don’t do as much video as I do stills but from what I have tried both cameras seem to track moving birds and animals well in the simple conditions I have tried.

Although I know that the latest Sony A9 and A1 cameras are better and faster both the A7RIV and the R5 meet my needs and beat my expectations.  These cameras are just so much better than the DSLRs that I have used for so many years….going back to either my 5DS or the 1DIV seems like ancient technology after you have used these for a while.

Ergonomics

This section is highly subjective and relates to my person use cases.  Since I very often have very large lenses on the camera, the size of the camera has little effect for balance so I tend to prefer a small and light camera to help keep the overall weight down.  Both of these cameras are much lighter than the DSLRs that I used to carry around but both retain and even surpass those cameras in terms of usability.  With joysticks, multiple wheels for changing shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation and ISO I have everything I need in most cases for changing the general exposure settings while having my eye to the viewfinder.  Changing ISO is a little easier on the Sony since I have the button on the right side of the wheel set for it and can press and turn with my thumb quickly.  The Canon requires a different button to be set up for ISO unless you have the extra function ring on the adapters or lenses.  

I usually shoot nature in Manual mode with Auto ISO enabled (so not really manual).  With this setup I can change aperture and shutter speed to match the situation and allow the camera to ensure the exposure is correct faster than I can for the changing light conditions I find myself in, with birds in flight or animals moving in and out of the forest edge.  I use exposure compensation to adjust when the cameras exposure calculations get messed up by overall dark or light scenes.  I have found that the Sony cameras exposures are most often better (the subject I am interested in is well exposed) than the Canon but since they are both pretty consistent in how they expose for a scene it is easy to adjust.  This is another benefit of the mirrorless cameras in that I can see the exposure as I’m shooting and adjust on the fly rather than having to chimp after a set of shots and adjust exposure based on pictures I’ve already taken.

In the end both cameras feel good in my hands and I don’t have much trouble using them interchangeably since I have them set up similarly.  I don’t tend to need to use the menus in the field often and have most of the options I do change either on programmable buttons, the quick menus or the custom menus.   

Images

If detailed images are something you find you need, or you need to crop because you can never get a long enough lens then these two cameras will not disappoint.  Due to the higher number of pixels and the lack of an AA filter the Sony detail is slightly better depending on the lens you put in front of the camera.  If you can fill the sensor with your subject to the level that you do not need to crop the detail level are amazing in both even up to 6400 ISO.  When cropping on higher ISO images  I have found the fall off to be quicker on the Sony in terms of loss of detail but I can heavily crop images at ISO 1600 and keep good detail for printing with a little noise reduction applied in Lightroom.  Neither camera stands out as being much better than the other in these cases and both are amazing compared to the Canon 5DS that I was using before in these situations.

In reality, these cameras are so good it is difficult to find a significant difference in terms of quality of image.   I still find it amazing that I can have the high quality, high resolution images at 10fps with full tracking and a good buffer in any camera let alone having two cameras that can do so.

Lenses

For the lenses I currently use the most both systems have excellent options. I usually carry a 16-35 (or close equivalent) F/4, a 24-105 F/4 or 24-70 f/2.8, and a telephoto zoom (usually a 100-400 or 200-600). I had invested heavily into a Canon 500 F/4 which for the price is something I will likely keep for a long time and do not have the cash to purchase long white lenses regularly so it is unlikely I will add another big white or get an equivalent on the Sony side unless I can get some sort of great deal in exchange for the 500.

Sony FE mount currently has what I consider to be the best selection of lenses on the market with excellent Sony native glass, high quality 3rd party selections and many different lenses for video as well as photography from many companies. There are also adapters to many older mounts if you need or want to play with them.

Canon RF mount currently has a modest selection of lenses available. Many of these lenses are excellent but they are expensive (often even more so than Sony native glass). Adapting EF lenses works very well even with Sigma and Tamron EF glass. There are very few 3rd party lenses for RF mount itself and Canon has not been overly eager to allow more. This may change in the future but currently is very much an issue for those people who might not be able to afford what Canon currently has out there or may want a lens that Canon doesn’t offer.

Conclusions

Based on my comparisons (and the fact that I still use both cameras on a daily basis my conclusion for those looking for a camera to by currently would be: 

If you currently are invested in Sony, the A7RIV is a fantastic camera for both wildlife and landscapes.  It is not going to be as good as the A1, and if you have the money I would get the A7RV that has just come out.  I will not likely upgrade to the A7RV as the improvement are useful but not enough to make me want to shell out the money.  If I currently was to upgrade I would go for the A1 as the stacked sensor is next level in changing the game.

If you are currently invested in Canon DSLR, and don’t care about brands then it is a crap shoot for which to purchase.  Both cases you can use your EF lenses until you decide to get native ones.  Sony has the benefit of many 3rd party lenses that are nearly as good as native.

If you are currently invested in Canon mirrorless (RF) then the R5 is in my opinion the best camera they currently have and well worth upgrading.

If you are outside of the Canon and Sony world currently, I think I would tend to point people to Sony not necessarily because one camera is better than the other but because there are so few real differences the lenses are what I would make the decision based on.  Currently FE has the most lenses available from inexpensive to amazing pro glass and you have Sigma, Tamron, and a host of other 3rd parties that produce fantastic options.

Meet the new neighbors - a rundown of completely new to me nature in our first months in BC

A golden mantled ground squirrel near a mountain lake in the Okanagan region.

One of the best things about moving to new locations is that we get a whole new set of sights and sounds when it comes to animal and bird life.  After our short stay in the Niagara region to complete an 18 month contract in Buffalo we finally committed to our long term plan to get to the west end of North America.  

This has been a goal of ours to try to build out a way to make nature and landscape photography our semi-retirement plan.  The first stage was to get out here and find a location to purchase some land. We figured it would take a year or two of traveling around British Columbia before we would find that ideal location to be a base for photo trips and possibly a nature retreat.

Varied Thrush

Our first short stop was in the Nelson area of the Kootenays.  After a long cross-country drive, this was also the area that we started to find and photograph birds and animals that were new to us.  Hiking (or if necessary snow-shoeing ) along the rail trail above Nelson I found a couple of small birds flitting about in the trees. The first on a snowy day was the Varied Thrush followed by a pair of Pine Grosbeaks taking some mostly frozen fruit from the trees. 

This trail was also were I caught my first glimpse of a Northern Pygmy Owl, but it would take a trip to the college grounds in Castlegar to finally get a clear shot. 

Northern Pygmy Owl on a cold cloudy day near Castlegar, BC

Down along the lake in a creek bed I saw an American Dipper diving into a rocky stream and back out.  This is a bird I had seen on a few nature shows and it was just as interesting to watch in real life. Even in town amongst a bunch of loud Canada geese I found a single Greater White Fronted Goose.  

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After a month in the Kootenays, we headed toward the Okanagan Valley.  It soon became evident that this was not only a place for retirees to migrate too, but it was also a great location for birds of prey to spend the cold months.  Eagles, Hawks, Harriers, Owls, and Falcons could be found along the river and up on the edge of the cliffs.  Most of those birds I have seen before but the Peregrine Falcon was a first for me, and I was lucky to find where they were going to nest in the spring.

Peregrine falcon flying over the cliffs east of Osoyoos, BC

With the exception of a few Bighorn Sheep and Coyotes, at first we didn’t see anything new from the mammal side of the animal kingdom.  The first one that was new to me was a rather large rodent.  The Yellow-Bellied Marmot can be found along skree fields, in rocky areas and up in the mountain fields.  Another rodent-like mammal was a uniquely marked chipmunk that turned out to be a very cute Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel. 

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We did finally happen along a family of Mountain Goats on the highway up towards Kelowna one afternoon.  A very good excuse to stop along the side of the road and pull out a long lens.  I’m really hoping to get more chances to see these beautiful creatures in the fall.  

A pair of Mountain Goats just off the road north of Penticton, BC

With spring migration I started to see a lot of smaller birds that were also new to me. The list of new birds is pretty long but was interrupted when I went back to work, putting a hold on day outings.  On that list are Western and Mountain Bluebirds, Western Meadowlarks and Brewer’s Blackbirds up in the mountainous areas. Canyon Wren along the cliff edge and Clark’s Nutcracker in the wooded areas.  Say’s Phoebe, Yellow Headed Blackbirds, Yellow Breasted Chats, Spotted Sandpipers, a Cassin’s Finch, Bullock’s Oriole, a Red-Naped Sapsucker, Violet-green Swallows, Bohemian Waxwings, Black-billed Magpies, Willow Flycatcher, and a Bewick’s Wren by the creeks and lakes. 

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As for birds of prey,  one of my favorite subjects, I kept track of the pair of Peregrine Falcons nesting in the cliff face, a Golden Eagle, a good shot of a male Northern Harrier, and a number of different morphs of Red-Tailed Hawks.  

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As you can tell, in only a couple months with just a few hikes and weekend walks I have managed to find a wide assortment of animals and birds that were completely new to me, not to mention the plethora of nature that I have been able to shoot that may not be new but is always interesting to get to know better.

I’m still looking forward to getting some more interesting interaction shots.  Eagles and Osprey fishing, Bighorn sheep, elk, moose and deer in rut this fall.  Hopefully I can get some more bear shots, maybe even a grizzly.  The mammals that continue to be elusive but hope to capture in the next couple of years are bobcats, lynx, wolverines and badgers.  On the bird side I continue to look for some of the more rare owls in the neighborhood and maybe a woodpecker or two.  With this search, maybe we’ll even find that even more elusive piece of land to build on.

Wildlife sampler from the Kootenays

Extending from the last post that focused mostly on landscapes, let’s take a quick look at what we were able to see in the way of wildlife in the Kootenays on our short stay.  

I think the first thing we saw along the roadside was eagles, they hang around the river valleys year round and we were able to catch a few in the Slocan valley on some cloudy days.  There were 5 eagles all hanging around, the juveniles would often fly up to the adults making the adults decide it was time to go.  Below is a little slide show of a few of these eagles perched and in flight or taking off.

On the trails we saw a few birds that have stuck around for winter.  A new one for me was a varied thrush that was looking for food in the underbrush.  The light was horrible and the thrush wouldn’t stay still so I had to take this shot at 1/1000 s which brought my ISO up to 12800.  I’m still pretty impressed with the image quality at that high ISO especially since this is cropped down to around 5400x3600 from the original 61 Mega Pixels of the Sony A7RIV.  The shot was taken at 600mm and f/6.3.

Woodpeckers seemed plentiful around town in Nelson.  A pair of Pileated woodpeckers had been very busy removing a lot of the bark from an evergreen tree in the local park.  I’m never sure if they are doing more damage to the tree or actually helping it out by getting the grubs out of the tree.

Back on the rail trail we came across a small flock of pine grosbeaks feeding on small red berries on snow covered trees.  Both the Male and the female have some beautiful markings and colors.  

Another new bird for me was seen by chance as we walked through Kokanee creek provincial park.  I thought that I had seen a fish in the creek but was quite surprised to see a bird pop out of the water onto a rock.  I had seen these only on an Attenborough special before so this was quite a treat to watch them hunt in the shallows of a fast moving creek.  I managed to get a clear shot once one came up for a breather on a small rock.

Just in town there were things to see as well.  Pretty pine siskin were often in the trees and around feeders in town. 

A greater while fronted goose was keeping company with the Canada geese in the park in town.

Golden eye can be found in the lakes and rivers in the area.

Many of the birds above were new to me although they likely aren’t that hard to find in this area.  The one bird that I was really hoping to find to add to my list of owls in North America was the Northern Pygmy Owl.  For the first few weeks I had just glimpses of two in the woods above town.  A trip down to Castlegar and some trails near the local college got me the first good views of one sitting at the top of a tree.  I do hope that I will get more chances to see these little guys in better light and hopefully capture some in flights but for now this shot definitely made me happy.

Not a bad list of birds to find in winter before we took off to the Okanagan Valley.  Animals however were not as easy to find with only one Big Horned sheep seen in the east Kootenays.  With all the wildlife in the area, I’m sure it will be worth heading back to see the bears, cougars, elk, moose, and maybe even a wolverine if I’m lucky enough.  Those will have to wait for trips into the backcountry.  For now here is the one and only mammal from this tour.

Coming up next we explore the Okanagan valley while we continue to try to find a piece of land to build our next home.