I have owned both the Canon R5 and recently the Sony a1. I like both, but i think there are compromises with each, especially in terms of wildlife/bird photography..... The R5 has significantly superior animal/bird eye af to the Sony in my experience.....its a big enough difference that i miss shots on the Sony , particularly those needing quick aquisition or as i call them 'grab shots'...but those images end up being some of my best. As an example, i have yet to find a Sony setting that locks and stays on squirrels at close quarters where the Canon just finds the eyes and stays on them. I know that sounds like a small issue, but i have sold quite a few of those types of images ...An example below is a grab shot of a pheasant fighting a squirrel. I just pointed the Canon in the right direction and the af locked onto the birds eye before i would ever have had the time to do that in the past....The Canon gets them, whilst the Sony does not.
The problem with the Canon is frame rate. At 20fps the canon misses out on those extra images compared to the Sony, when it does lock on, and lacks a little of the resolution....but for what it does, its just more reliable in the field in terms of af performance, at least close up action which is my style of photography.
If i could combine the Sony speed and resolution with the Canon af.... it would be the best camera for my needs till technology improves again.
Both af systems struggle keeping up with tracking very fast movement at close range in a fixed frame....the af point gets left behind...Once technology means they can track across the frame at super fast speed the game will have moved forward significantly.
The R3 may have a smaller MP count , but thats not the main factor in my view to creating interesting images..... pure resolution is not the main priority..... its the story within the image, which often in wildlife terms comes at unexpected moments.... If you can't latch on to the animal or birds eye in time, you have a wonderful out of focus moment in lovely high resolution...... I would rather have something in focus at the lower MP size.
So, the R3, if it moves the auto focus performance forward compared to the R5, which i think is currently the best, will be of great interest....as is 30fps.
Of course If on the other hand Sony really improved the AF on the a1 with firmware updates, and it moved in line with, or improved on Canon i would be very interested......
Its difficult right now because things are evolving quickly and who knows what the future holds for each manufacturer.
View attachment 23097View attachment 23098View attachment 23099