Camera Upgrade from Canon 70D

[AlexLee05]

I am looking to upgrade my camera from the Canon 70D, I am mainly using a Sigma 150-600mm with it.

I initially looked at a Canon R7 but I have heard some other people saying they aren't particularly happy with it but haven't really got much more info than that. The main thing I'm looking to improve are the FPS and image noise, as I mainly do low level photography.

Anyone have experience with a Canon R7 also paired with a Sigma 150-600mm? Or is there another camera I should consider (Only familiar with canon but willing to take any brand suggestions)

[Nighthawke]

If you change brand your Sigma won't fit. Might be stating the obvious but just in case.

Do you want to stay cropped or go full frame?

[skippyscage]

an easy upgrade would be the 90D if you want to keep the lens, which was very good

[AlexLee05]

If you change brand your Sigma won't fit. Might be stating the obvious but just in case.

Do you want to stay cropped or go full frame?

Yeah I was looking at Canon because of that, will need a converter if I go for a mirrorless as well.

[AlexLee05]

an easy upgrade would be the 90D if you want to keep the lens, which was very good

I am more inclined to mirrorless as it seems to be the future, even if that's requires the converter

[Nighthawke]

Yes you will. A lot of Canon R range users continue with their existing EF lenses, me included. I traded my 150-600 for an Ef 100-400 II before switching to mirrorless so can't comment on the Sigma/R combo.

[Wyvern]

Canon have now decided to allow Sigma, and Tamron, to produce lens but only for the RF mount. As yet nothing announced in the 150-600mm range.

[xkekeith]

Taken with a Canon R7 and the RF/EF lens adapter with a EF 100-400mm MK II plus 1.4 Mk III extender.
Hand held at 1/500 and ISO 800.

Roe Deer by Keith Heywood, on Flickr

The R series of mirrorless cameras with EF lenses work very well.

[Black Mike]

an easy upgrade would be the 90D if you want to keep the lens, which was very good

I am more inclined to mirrorless as it seems to be the future, even if that's requires the converter

Hopefully your 150-600 is the C or S model in which case you can use the Sigma USB dock to update the lens firmware if there are any quirks when using an R body.

Some older Sigma lenses are not compatible with the new mirorrless models certainly on Nikon anyway so quite probably the same with Canon. The USB dock is easily sourced secondhand or new and also allows tweaking of AF settings and custom settings as well as firmware updates.

There isn't a huge selection of decent APS-C bodies as most manufacturers focused on full frame initially. Don't forget that modern post processing software provides excellent noise reduction for images, Lightroom more so for RAW images with the new AI Denoise feature. Topaz and others offer decent image enhancement now.

Mike

[Nighthawke]

I've read of quite a few people using Sigmas on R series with no problems and producing great results.

[AlexLee05]

Thank you all, certainly looks like an R7 is a fantastic choice so I'll go that

[Andy_99]

Late to the party here but I went 70d-7d2-R7

The R7 works perfectly with most EF lenses with just a couple of Caveats 1) Use a genuine canon EF-RF adapter (there's 3 available, I've heard of others on various forums who've had issues with 3rd party adapters. 2) This may be the elephant in the room here, a number of users have reported focus pulsing issues on the R7 when used with the Sigma 150-600 even after firmware updates. IIRC there has been an article from Sigma acknowledging the issue & saying it can't be resolved. A mate of mine had this combo his keeper rate for bird photography went through the floor.

The R7 is a massive step up from the 7d2 so will be even bigger from the 70d but...... I'm really pleased with mine, yes it has a couple of quirks but learn to work around them and you'll get great results.

[MCMLXXII]

Thank you all, certainly looks like an R7 is a fantastic choice so I'll go that

Hi Alex, just wondering if you made the upgrade to the R7? If so how are you finding it?

I'm currently in the same boat, looking to upgrade from a 7D MKII with the Sigma 150-600C.

Have the R7 with the adapter in my basket ready

Neil

[AlexLee05]

Thank you all, certainly looks like an R7 is a fantastic choice so I'll go that

Hi Alex, just wondering if you made the upgrade to the R7? If so how are you finding it?

I'm currently in the same boat, looking to upgrade from a 7D MKII with the Sigma 150-600C.

Have the R7 with the adapter in my basket ready

Neil

The biggest challenge was figuring out all the focusing systems. Going from a camera that just focuses on whatever you point it at to one with all the smart features and pages and pages of settings just about auto focus was quite a learning curve and required lots of youtube videos to understand. Annoyingly there's not really any videos for aviation photography so bird photography was closest I could get.

I found my keep rate has increased quite drastically, it still loses focus sometimes but I'd say about 60% of shots are sharp. The autofocus is not super quick but good enough and I'm sure there is still more settings I could change to improve it, I'd imagine it would be quicker when using an RF lens.

The only real downside I would say is how small the actual camera body is, it lacks the little screen on the top and has a few less buttons. I guess it's good for portability when using a small lens but with a 600mm attached it doesn't really change anything. Also the battery life is worse, on the 70D I could not charge it for weeks but as this now has a electronic viewfinder and brighter higher quality screen the battery is still perfectly fine but just not as good.

Here is some example pics I've got recently:
7L9A0801-Enhanced-NR by Alex Lee, on Flickr
7L9A0304-Enhanced-NR by Alex Lee, on Flickr
7L9A0256-Enhanced-NR-2 by Alex Lee, on Flickr

[MCMLXXII]

The biggest challenge was figuring out all the focusing systems. Going from a camera that just focuses on whatever you point it at to one with all the smart features and pages and pages of settings just about auto focus was quite a learning curve and required lots of youtube videos to understand. Annoyingly there's not really any videos for aviation photography so bird photography was closest I could get.

I found my keep rate has increased quite drastically, it still loses focus sometimes but I'd say about 60% of shots are sharp. The autofocus is not super quick but good enough and I'm sure there is still more settings I could change to improve it, I'd imagine it would be quicker when using an RF lens.

The only real downside I would say is how small the actual camera body is, it lacks the little screen on the top and has a few less buttons. I guess it's good for portability when using a small lens but with a 600mm attached it doesn't really change anything. Also the battery life is worse, on the 70D I could not charge it for weeks but as this now has a electronic viewfinder and brighter higher quality screen the battery is still perfectly fine but just not as good.

Thanks for the pics Alex, Iv'e gone ahead and hit the buy now button.
Now to sell my 7DMk2 to recoup some of that cash.

Neil

[MCMLXXII]

The biggest challenge was figuring out all the focusing systems. Going from a camera that just focuses on whatever you point it at to one with all the smart features and pages and pages of settings just about auto focus was quite a learning curve and required lots of youtube videos to understand. Annoyingly there's not really any videos for aviation photography so bird photography was closest I could get.

Hi Alex,

My R7 arrived today
I've been doing a lot of reading and YouTube since ordering and understand that birds in flight settings are the way to go. The problem is there's many videos from different people, did one videos settings stand out and work better than any of the others?

Neil

[AlexLee05]

The biggest challenge was figuring out all the focusing systems. Going from a camera that just focuses on whatever you point it at to one with all the smart features and pages and pages of settings just about auto focus was quite a learning curve and required lots of youtube videos to understand. Annoyingly there's not really any videos for aviation photography so bird photography was closest I could get.

Hi Alex,

My R7 arrived today
I've been doing a lot of reading and YouTube since ordering and understand that birds in flight settings are the way to go. The problem is there's many videos from different people, did one videos settings stand out and work better than any of the others?

Neil

I've just used trial and error to find stuff, I'm still switching focusing modes to figure out the best one for different scenarios

[blacksplat]

I also use the Canon 70D/Sigma 150-600 combo so it is useful to see people saying that the Sigma works well on the R7.

[Andy_99]

I used the settings put up by Wild Alaska on Youtube as my initial baseline. I've also found that using Animal detection instead of Vehicle detection seems to work best for aircraft.

[FERG]

Taken with a Canon R7 and the RF/EF lens adapter with a EF 100-400mm MK II plus 1.4 Mk III extender.
Hand held at 1/500 and ISO 800.

Roe Deer by Keith Heywood, on Flickr

The R series of mirrorless cameras with EF lenses work very well.

Nice shot ! Can you share which AF methods are you using - looks like spot AF rather than animal eye tracking with all that foliage around ? Thanks