Camera Ergonomics: Photographing birds in Tasmania with the Canon EOS R7 and RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1 L lens

Pied Oystercatchers

The Canon RF100-500mm f4.5-7.1 L IS USM is one of the best and sharpest tele zooms we can buy but 500mm on a full frame body is a bit short for most birds even when they are close.

For a recent trip to Tasmania I mounted the 100-500L onto an EOS R7 crop sensor body. This has a 1.6x crop factor giving a full frame equivalent focal length of 800mm which is a more useful focal length for birds.

Overall I rate the combination very satisfactory and more versatile than the alternative of a full frame body with the 1.4x extender.

Image quality is good, croppability is good, autofocus with subject /eye detection is good, handling and ergonomics are good. None of these performance parameters is perfect but I think the old adage applies here: perfect is the enemy of good.

I hand hold with this body/lens combination which does not require a tripod or gimbal.

I use Electronic shutter, Servo Focus and H (not H+) Drive mode even when the bird is mostly still (not flying). This combination seems to produce best results from the animal/eye recognition system.

Some of my photos are made at a considerable distance from the bird making huge crops necessary. I rate the results from this satisfactory for bird identification and sharing on the internet. They won’t win any prizes though.

I use CRAW capture and process in Adobe Camera Raw. Most images benefit from Adobe Denoise AI via the Enhance tab. I then upsize some of the smaller files in Photoshop using [Preserve Details 2.0]. This sequence works decently well although the more extreme crops are something of a rescue mission.

I do not have Topaz Gigapixel yet. If Adobe does not offer an equivalent soon, I may have to get it. I have never gotten good results from Adobe Super-Resolution.

Here are some of the photos: