Re: Looking for advice on what to upgrade to (or if I should). Birds/wildlife
ORGrown wrote:
Hi all,
My main focus is on bird photography, but also all wildlife, and of course some nature landscapes on the side since I'm out there anyways. I currently am shooting on an 80d with the sigma 100-400 contemporary (and the 18-35mm Art for landscapes). Every once and a while I get an awesome shot, but I'm finding that the autofocus is really a weak point for my setup. This became abundantly clear only last outing in which a snowy owl flew directly at me, and of the entire burst of pictures I only had 1 that was mostly in focus. I've also found that I'm just tossing tons of pictures that have missed a bit, even for perching birds. Admittedly I haven't got the lens calibrated yet, which may be part of the issue, but I'm wondering if I'd be better served by simply moving up to something newer, or focusing on improving what I have.
I've been eyeing something like the R7, largely influenced by the newer AF tech (bird eye detection) combined with a crop sensor. I'm wondering how much of this is just marketing, versus how much of an impact the new tech will actually improve things. If this is a situation where I just need to get better, I'm happy to hear that too! Or if there's a better ecosystem to move into for birds/BIF/wildlife.
To be clear, I do get some really nice shots that I'm happy with, but I'm only keeping maybe 3% of my total shots, and a lot of those are getting tossed for being out of focus.
For reference: I'm using AI servo, center point single point focus, BBF, lens stabilization on 1 for perching birds and 2 for flying. Generally trying to keep shutter speed around 1/2000 or higher for flyers.
Is it a skill issue? Should I just accept that I would see a marked improvement by jumping to an R7 and Canon glass? Should I bail out to a different ecosystem completely?
Thanks in advance for any input!
Without making specific camera recommendations, mirrorless in general offers massive AF accuracy and consistency improvements over DSLRs.
With regard to the 80D specifically, I had very limited experience with it and the 90D when testing it for sports use. I found it almost unusable due to excessive delay and AF inconsistency. At that time it was in comparison to the 1DXII. And that 1DXII was pretty much trounced for AF accuracy and consistency when I transitioned to the R6II, which sits at a much lower position in the Canon mirrorless lineup than the 1DXII did among DSLRs. For reference, the R6II had no trouble keeping up with most sports action at 40 fps.
Jan 28, 2026 at 01:17 PM
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