I "think" I'm finally ready to try an A1ii. I have been watching too many videos/reviews of the sony's, canon's, and leica's, that I'm going mad. Here is what I want very simply, a smaller camera that has the autofocus speed of my R3, a nice clean EVF (eyes aren't what they used to be) higher mp's so i feel like I can crop (in camera and in post) without losing too much detail, and some smaller lenses where my kids don't roll their eyes every time I go to take their picture with my R3 and 28-70 f/2. Kind of excited to try a new platform with Sony but have been a Canon shooter for over 20 years now, will I miss it? I think I'll post this in both sony forum and canon forum. I may still try the Leica Q3 43 but I think I'll always want the versatility of other lenses. What am I waiting for??
mattchu wrote:
I "think" I'm finally ready to try an A1ii. I have been watching too many videos/reviews of the sony's, canon's, and leica's, that I'm going mad. Here is what I want very simply, a smaller camera that has the autofocus speed of my R3, a nice clean EVF (eyes aren't what they used to be) higher mp's so i feel like I can crop (in camera and in post) without losing too much detail, and some smaller lenses where my kids don't roll their eyes every time I go to take their picture with my R3 and 28-70 f/2. Kind of excited to try a new platform with Sony but have been a Canon shooter for over 20 years now, will I miss it? I think I'll post this in both sony forum and canon forum. I may still try the Leica Q3 43 but I think I'll always want the versatility of other lenses. What am I waiting for??...Show more →
I’m with your kids cringing that “sad” dad with the huge R3 and stupidly massive 28-70 F-TWO!! Is embarrassing himself and the rest of the family playing “Look At Me Everybody”
Your poor kids.
Why can’t you just grab a snap with say a R100 and say RF 50/1.8…?
Ah, coz dad wants to play Big I Am.
Yep, Sad is the word.
The good news is that you’ve inadvertently probably put your kids off photography for life… they’ll always remember dad embarrassing them with his huge over OTT rig.
Feb 15, 2026 at 10:04 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
Canon's and Sony's lineup has gotten really similar in the last few years. The R5 II and the A1II are quite similar in a lot of ways. The A1II has a couple of advantages but they are small: 50mp vs. 45mp; 1/256th vs. 1/164th sensor scan speed. As usual small differences at the cutting edge lead to not small price differences.
With the new Canon VCM lenses, the lens lineups are a lot closer too. Canon does have an 85 f/1.2 and Sony has several third party lenses that are interesting (e.g., Sigma 135 f/1.4) and not available on Canon, but those lenses aren't the small ones you mentioned. If you go with the f/1.4 lenses and Sony GM vs. Canon VCM then you will end up with very similar lenses. If you want really small some of the Sony G lenses (the 24 f/2.8, 40 f/2.5, & 50 f/2.5) are very small and quite nice but with the obvious tradeoff of a slower aperture. I quite like, however, some of the Canon consumer lenses and especially their close focus capabilities. I think the Canon 24 f/1.8, 35 f/1.8, and 85 f/2 Macro lenses are very nice but the two sets of smallish lenses are not as similar as the GM and VCM lenses and you might have a preference for one over the other. For small lenses I am also a fan of the Sigma Contemporary series and especially the 35 f/2, 50 f/2, and 65 f/2 and these are only available for Sony and not Canon.
Canon does of course have a lot more legacy (i.e., EF mount) lenses that can be adapted than Sony (A mount lenses) but both have some gems that are worth considering at times.
I don't think you can go wrong either way. Good luck as you try out a new system or build your existing system in a different way.
One of the only interesting differences between the Sony and Canon is apparently some Youtube birders have agreed on one thing. The Canon has greater sensitivity to lock onto a small distant subject then the Sony. However the Sony apparently has superior ability to stay locked onto a subject when leaving a perch say with erratic movement. If neither of those are your cup of tea then indeed they are very close to say the least. The Canon is also a bit more sensitive in lower light as well. One of the things that swayed me towards the Canon was their customer service is FAR superior in many regards. But repair service and ease of reaching out and having a nice long conversation with Canon to deal with a possible problem or issue that needs solving. Good luck with that regarding Sony. Been there done that.
Unless you really want action photography, I find the Leica Q3 43 (minty used) a compelling option.
I don't see the point of owning both Canon, Sony, Nikon whatever... each system have their advantages and their gaps. I've jumped in between, and it is not really worth it at the end.
mattchu wrote:
Kind of excited to try a new...
What am I waiting for??
Those two phrases are all I need to know!
Get it!!!
I'm a firm believer in gear acquisition syndrome! I've had more than my fair share of fun playing with new gear! Logic isn't always the final arbiter in life.
(Warning my advice may be hazardous to your finances and marriage).
Pixelpuffin wrote:
I’m with your kids cringing that “sad” dad with the huge R3 and stupidly massive 28-70 F-TWO!! Is embarrassing himself and the rest of the family playing “Look At Me Everybody”
Your poor kids.
Why can’t you just grab a snap with say a R100 and say RF 50/1.8…?
Ah, coz dad wants to play Big I Am.
Yep, Sad is the word.
The good news is that you’ve inadvertently probably put your kids off photography for life… they’ll always remember dad embarrassing them with his huge over OTT rig.
Watching videos certainly would give you a desire to buy more things. But if you're excited to try it out, then why not? If you understand that there's going be a learning curve to figuring out how to operate the camera, and there are going to be things you like better and things that will be worse but all of them will get the job done.
For your use case, I'm wondering do you have a longer lens like the RF 135mm? It seems like that would help with, cropping, visibility, and possibly even appeal from your subjects. If you don't need to crop that will help image quality, but it's also going to help you see in your EVF because the subject will be bigger in the frame. The other thing is that the working distance is about double that of your 28 - 70mm, meaning you don't have point a big lens as close to their face as you would now.
All but one of these comments have been extremely helpful. I feel like i should give it a try, why not?! I haven't tried looked at the Nikon Z8, I guess I probably should! It's fun stuff. I certainly enjoy the research, but enjoy shooting more. My kids (mostly my son), are into phtography. I hope it continues and grows. I have enjoyed the hobby immensely! Thank you!
Pixelpuffin wrote:
The good news is that you’ve inadvertently probably put your kids off photography for life… they’ll always remember dad embarrassing them with his huge over OTT rig.
Certainly didn't work on my son, and he was born staring into a 1Ds3. Now he's a senior and is dragging my 28-70/2 and 100-300 everywhere.
Certainly look through the A1 II viewfinder before changing. The Sony people here can give the details, but I’ve read that many Sony cameras and this one in particular do reduce the viewfinder resolution under some common circumstances, and I’d be wanting to check that. I’d also caution against assuming a 0.9× viewfinder is going to be better than the lower-magnification one in the R3; I remember the sense of relief after I replaced my film-era OM-2 with the OM-4, which had a lower viewfinder magnification.
I doubt it’s relevant to you but the A1 II can only shoot lossless raws at 20fps compared to the R3’s 30fps. Higher than that and it applies lossy compression. Some Sony cameras also reduce(d) the bit depth at higher frame rates – I’m not up with that.
Consider just replacing the lens, e.g. by an 85mm f/1.4 VCM. And what are you doing for flash? The kind of flash suitable for the photography you do tends to be bulky. You could finesse that by changing to a compact with a leaf shutter, which syncs at all speeds so that the flash can be much smaller.
I stayed in the Canon domain not upgrading from the R5 and added a Leica Q3 43, a sweet little IQ powerhouse. After the latest firmware update, the Q3 43 has improved massively for quick portraits and the jpgs are lovely ooc.
tomba8tomba wrote:
Buy R5II an one of the smaller VCM lenses in addition.
Those VCM lenses are really great I must say; very light, great IQ and small. And the focus is very fast and spot on. Sounds like a good match for kids. I have the 85 and the 35; the last one needs more correction (auto profile in LR) but I don't mind that much. For kids, perhaps the 50 would be a great one too. Heard it's terrific; I have the heavier f/1.2 which I'll keep since I already have the other two.
Feb 16, 2026 at 04:20 AM
Steve Spencer Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On
melcat wrote:
Certainly look through the A1 II viewfinder before changing. The Sony people here can give the details, but I’ve read that many Sony cameras and this one in particular do reduce the viewfinder resolution under some common circumstances, and I’d be wanting to check that. I’d also caution against assuming a 0.9× viewfinder is going to be better than the lower-magnification one in the R3; I remember the sense of relief after I replaced my film-era OM-2 with the OM-4, which had a lower viewfinder magnification.
I doubt it’s relevant to you but the A1 II can only shoot lossless raws at 20fps compared to the R3’s 30fps. Higher than that and it applies lossy compression. Some Sony cameras also reduce(d) the bit depth at higher frame rates – I’m not up with that.
Consider just replacing the lens, e.g. by an 85mm f/1.4 VCM. And what are you doing for flash? The kind of flash suitable for the photography you do tends to be bulky. You could finesse that by changing to a compact with a leaf shutter, which syncs at all speeds so that the flash can be much smaller....Show more →
This is just my take but I think the viewfinder changing resolutions with Sony cameras is a minor at most issue. The native resolution of the A1 II is 9.4M dots. It does reduces to 5.8M dots during continuous AF at times, but that is the resolution of the Canon R5 II and it is plenty of resolution (for me in almost all cases anyway) and if the change in resolution bothers you (it doesn't me) then you can just set the camera to 5.8M dots and resolution doesn't change (or at least I never noticed that it did). So basically you have a camera with a higher resolution EVF, but it can maintain that higher resolution when not doing continuous AF or you can set the camera to the lower 5.8M dots and resolution doesn't change, but the viewfinder, to my eyes, is still great at 5.8M dots. Such matters are very personal, however, so shooting with the camera and checking out if it bothers you both set to high resolution (9.4M dots) and with the resolution changing with bursts of continuous AF and when set to standard resolution (5.8M dots) with no change in resolution. After using Sony cameras with that same EVF (Sony A1 and A7r V) it was a totally non-issue for me, but that is me and you might feel differently. Sony's lossy RAW is also really good and only in very rare edge cases (long narrow bands of pixels with bright exposure next to blacks) does it ever have issues.
There are in my estimation small advantages of each camera, but the R5 II and A1 II are remarkably similar. Advantages for the R5 II include that 30 fps in lossless RAW, being a slightly smaller camera, being able to use the Type B compact express cards that I think are better and cheaper than the Type A Sony uses, and the camera being considerable cheaper, . Advantages for the Sony include the tiny bump in resolution, the slightly faster sensor scan speed, and having a faster flash sync (the manual shutter syncs at 1/400 in the Sony and 1/250 in the Canon and the electronic shutter syncs at 1/250 in the Sony and 1/160 with the Canon). I am sure there are other small differences that I am missing and I didn't discuss video where there are small differences as well. For me the bottom line, however, is that all these differences are mostly small and these are very similar cameras. Of course for other people, some of these differences that I see as small might be quite important, so YMMV.
The R5II is my primary camera (with the R3 as a backup), but I test drove an A1 before purchasing the R3. So clearly I prefer Canon cameras. The biggest advantage of the A1 and A9 series Sony cameras, IMO, is that their buttons are much more customizable.
Consider the source, a Whining Troll that cries about anyone wanting to use newer gear than he uses. He is a great photographer because he does not use newer gear.
Maybe he should mind his own business and learn that anyone can buy and use whatever gear they want to for any reason THEY want.
It's fun stuff. I certainly enjoy the research, but enjoy shooting more. My kids (mostly my son), are into phtography. I hope it continues and grows. I have enjoyed the hobby immensely! Thank you!