Sarah Caldwell Photography

Newer isn’t always better..

Now, don’t get me wrong. The mirrorless R6 does a lot of AWESOME stuff! BUT there is one major factor to why I think you should reconsider making the switch.

QUALITY OF YOUR IMAGES.

If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re feeling the pull to switch to mirrorless over DSLR, right? Well so did I.. but I didn’t do my research before making the investment and I now know things that would have made me hesitant to pull the trigger! SO PLEASE READ THIS + DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!

NOW I will say, there ARE lots of benefits to switching to mirrorless.

• The auto focusing mechanism is on point and fast
  • detecting eyes and faces to where you don’t have to guess if you’re focusing on someones face accurately or not
• It’s quiet
  • no loud shutter click like the DSLR
• It’s lightweight
  • no mirror mechanism (which adds weight) (hence the name “mirrorless” – bc theres no mirror)
• It features a screen that flips out and rotates
  • not available for the Canon 5d series
• It has a REAL TIME view of what your manual settings look like through your viewfinder / screen
  • allowing you to adjust so much faster and not having to guess if your settings will work

BUT.. THE QUALITY OF YOUR IMAGES IS LESS THAN THE OLDER CANON 5D BODIES..

Let’s compare the megapixels between some of the different bodies.

Canon 5d Mark ii : 21 megapixels (14 years on the market)

Canon 5d Mark iii : 22.3 megapixels (10 years on the market)

Canon 5d Mark IV : 30.4 megapixels (6 years on the market)

Canon R6 : 20 megapixels …..

T W E N T Y….

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME, I JUST SPENT $3,000 on a new camera that has LESS quality than the Canon 5d mark ii that’s been out for 14 years?!

SO! Just because the R6 is part of the “next generation” of Canon cameras, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a BETTER piece of equipment.

Now, like I mentioned earlier, the R6 offers TONS of great features!!! BUT if you’re wanting to switch to mirrorless, I would recommend saving up the extra thousand and investing in the R5 instead.

The R5 has 45 megapixels & can video in 8K

That’s worth it for me. 20 MP vs. 45 MP? No contest.

Below are 2 images to show the quality difference. On the left is an image taken with the R6 // on the right is an image taken with the R5

If you zoom in on the left image, you can see the edges of Natalie’s face, her eye makeup, and some of Jackson’s hair is a little “muddy”. Meaning the edges aren’t super sharp. The image is still stunning!! But if you look close enough you can see an obvious difference.

If you zoom in on the right image, you can see the hairs in Walt’s beard and parts of Alexis’ hair are SUPER SHARP. The quality is so clear compared to the other image. And the picture as a whole is so much cleaner and sharper.

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When I invested in the R6, I kept my Canon 5d Mark IV as my backup/number 2 camera for wedding days.

But once I started using the two together, I realized it was challenging trying to work with both cameras during a wedding day. The layout of the two are very different, and the overall color tone of the two are different. So my images didn’t look very consistent and I was having a difficult time focussing on the Mark IV because the techniques between the two are so different. So I started wishing I had 2 mirrorless cameras to use in tandem with each other.

But once I learned about the quality difference between the two, I was shocked. And I decided I COULDN’T get rid of my Mark IV and that if I wanted to get another mirrorless camera I was going to have to save up for the R5 versus another R6.

So that’s what I did! – I kept using the R6 as my main camera and only used the Mark IV if I needed to. And it was honestly just out of convenience.

I could manage the quality difference by putting a little extra sauce into my editing and making up for the lesser quality. And at the time that was worth it for me because of the features the R6 offers in the flip screen, the real time adjusting, and the auto focus capability.

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So now I have 3 camera bodies 😅 and I don’t think I’ll be getting rid of them anytime soon..

My R5 is my main camera. I use it for every project.

The R6 is my number 2 just because the images are more consistent with the R5 and I can easily focus on my subjects.

And my Mark IV is my go-to body to let my second shooters use on a wedding day. – Sometimes someone I’ll hire to second shoot for me hasn’t had the opportunity to upgrade their equipment yet, so me keeping the Mark IV for them to use let’s me have faith in the quality of the images, and not having to leave it to chance on if their equipment will be sufficient to help me shoot someone’s wedding day!

If I do ever get rid of any of them, it will most likely be the R6.

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I hope this was helpful to you and gives you some more insight before making a big investment!! – I’m going to include an article below of another comparison between the R5 and the R6, just incase you need more info!!

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