For me, one of the highlights of the Covid era was switching to a mirrorless camera system. Sony users have appreciated the benefits of mirrorless focusing for some time, but it took a while for Canon and Nikon to catch up. Canon’s initial R-series offerings lacked animal-eye focus and were a bit slow for top-end bird photography, but that changed with the release of the R5 and R6 bodies (see African Birdlife 9(3): 56‒60).
Then came Canon’s R3, its first probody format mirrorless camera that featured even faster and more flexible focusing options (African Birdlife 10(6): 60‒63). But all this innovation came at a price – literally. At R100 000, the R3 costs the same as Canon’s top professional SLR body and even the R6 at R50 000 is out of the price range of most birders.
In addition, for the many birders who loved their Canon 7D SLR for the extra reach they got from the crop sensor, the move to mirrorless required them to finally switch to a full-frame sensor. This meant either getting used to smaller birds in the image or buying a longer lens. Canon helped by offering its budget RF 600mm and 800mm f11 lenses (African Birdlife 9(3): 61), but the fixed aperture is challenging to use in low-light conditions.
Fortunately, Canon had a plan. It released the R7, which features most of the advanced focus features of the R3 with a higher resolution 1.6x crop sensor for little more than half the price of the R6. Canon has even included a converter worth more than R2000 that allows you to use EF lenses on the mirrorless R- series bodies. Sounds too good to be true? I couldn’t wait to find out.
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EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Keith Barnes, co-author of the new Field Guide to Birds of Greater Southern Africa, chats about the long-neglected birding regions just north of the Kunene and Zambezi, getting back to watching birds and the vulture that changed his life.
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CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
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WATER IS LIFE. As wildlife photographer Greg du Toit knows better than most.
winter wanderer
as summer becomes a memory in the south, the skies are a little quieter as the migrants have returned to the warming north. But one bird endemic to the southern African region takes its own little winter journey.
when perfect isn't enough
Egg signatures and forgeries in the cuckoo-drongo arms race
Southern SIGHTINGS
The late summer period naturally started quietening down after the midsummer excitement, but there were still some classy rarities on offer for birders all over the subregion. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.
flood impact on wetland birds
One of the features of a warming planet is increasingly erratic rainfall; years of drought followed by devastating floods. Fortunately, many waterbirds are pre-adapted to cope with such extremes, especially in southern Africa where they have evolved to exploit episodic rainfall events in semi-arid and arid regions. But how do waterbirds respond to floods in areas where rainfall - and access to water - is more predictable? Peter Ryan explores the consequences of recent floods on the birds of the Western Cape's Olifants River valley.
a star is born
It’s every producer’s dream to plan a wildlife television series and pick the right characters before filming.
