Is The Sony a6700 Suitable For Wildlife?

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to travel to Walden, Colorado for a few days of wildlife photography. I took two camera bodies with me. The Nikon D850, with a full kit of lenses and the Sony a6700, which I picked up a couple of months ago, also with a full kit of lenses. These are two totally different cameras, but I can tell you that the Nikon D850 never left my bag.

The real test for the Sony 26 megapixel crop sensor mirrorless body was to find out if it could adequately photograph the typical wildlife I encounter in Northern Colorado.

My stalwart wildlife kit for several years now has been the Nikon D850 with the 24-70mm f/2.8 VR, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII and the 200-500mm f/5.6 VR. It gives me the focal range of 24-500mm with a 45 megapixel sensor. It’s a great setup that has served me very well in the past.

The Sony kit consisted of the Sony a6700 with the Sony E 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS Lens, the Sony E 70-350mm f/4.5-6.3 G OSS Lens and the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS Lens. The 18-135mm and the 70-350mm are both lenses designed for the crop sensor mirrorless bodies. The 200-600mm is a full frame sensor design. Adding the crop factor, my focal length range was 27mm – 900mm. On the Sony body, I was giving up a touch of wide angle coverage but extended my super-telephoto range out to 900mm.

Functionally, the Sony kit provided me with much more focal length range at the sacrifice of lens aperture, as none of the lenses I had would come close to f/2.8 provided by the Nikon DSLR lenses. I was a little concerned at first, as often times in the early morning hours, the light is low and I wasn’t sure if the Sony kit would be adequate in a reduced light environment.

As it turns out, it worked out fine.

My first stop was at Walden Reservoir to photograph a rookery of American White Pelicans.

The Pelicans were roosting on an island in the lake about 300 yards from my position on the shore. The mid-day sun wasn’t optimal, with harsh light coming from the left. From time to time, a pelican would leave the roost and fly in my general direction or fly across the lake to my right. It was a good opportunity to test how well the a6700 could track a bird in flight.

I began with the camera on a monopod, using the FE 200-600mm G OSS lens. The camera autofocus detection was set for birds.

I photographed the roosting birds on the island using the FE 200-600mm at 600mm (900mm effective.) I had the camera mounted on a monopod. At 300 yards distance with the lens zoomed out to it’s maximum reach, the images came out clear and sharp. This was an extreme distance and the a6700 exceeded my expectations on this shot.

Again, using a monopod on this photo. The a6700 was able to lock on to the bird and found the bird’s eye and continued to track the bird until I quit firing off shots. This was quite impressive. The focus is good and tracking was dead on at over 200 yards distance.

I ditched the monopod after a couple of failed attempts to photograph a pelican flying directly towards me. It was too difficult to elevate the camera and I found that shooting hand held was much more flexible, but also a bit more of a challenge to keep the bird in the viewfinder. Once I was able to frame the bird, it locked on and tracked very well but the 200-600mm lens is fairly heavy and what I was seeing in the viewfinder was quite shaky. The image stabilization of the camera/lens worked well though, you just don’t see it in the viewfinder. I had the lens set for mode 3, for erratic movement such as birds in flight. This bird came pretty close and was probably about 25 yards from me when I fired off this photo. Terrible light though. I won’t be framing this photo.

So, the a6700 does a pretty good job with birds in flight. A bit more of a challenge to hand hold a monster lens, but that’s not the camera’s fault. I don’t think I would have got better results using the Nikon D850 with the 200-500mm. The viewfinder on the DSLR is superior. I find the Sony a6700 autofocus and tracking to be superior to the Nikon DSLR. Each camera requires it’s own technique.

My next stop was in the wilderness East of Walden where I was looking for moose. One of my regular moose photography areas.

I quickly found a couple of nice bulls. I still had the Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS mounted on the a6700.

This bull moose was about 50 yards off to my left. Again, I made this photo with the camera on a monopod. I was able to work him for quite a while. He was never concerned with my presence. I found that I actually had to back up a bit using the 200-600mm lens on this guy. The framing was just too tight at the distance I was from him. Backing up isn’t a bad thing though, it actually gave me a little more safety distance from this dangerous animal. At ISO 2000, the noise levels of the image are quite manageable. Resolution is good and exposure was dead on. I set the camera to animal focus detection mode and it locked right in on the eye of the moose. None of my shots were out of focus. The bottom line, the a6700 is perfectly suitable for photographing moose. I would have done no better using the Nikon D850.

I decided to swap lenses on the camera after this encounter. I put the Sony E 70-350mm f/4.5-6.3 G OSS on the a6700 figuring it would work just fine and allow me to shoot hand held much more easily.

Moving on down the road, I approached two young mule deer bucks standing in the road. They moved off on to the hillside next to the road to my left.

Switching to the E 70-350mm proved to be a good idea. I was able to get this shot without having to leave the truck. The a6700 with this lens is quite light and flexible. I just locked in on the deer and photographed them with ease. If I had used the 200-600, it would have been impossible to get out of the truck and set up for a shot without chasing the deer off. This combo of camera/lens is actually more flexible than the Nikon D850 with the 200-500mm. My effective focal length is 105-525mm, which gives me a very good alternative to the heaver and more bulky DSLR setup. Again, the camera’s autofocus locked on to the eye of the deer and tracked them flawlessly as they moved across the hillside. Image sharpness and contrast is excellent. I never got an out of focus shot with this combo. At ISO 4000, image noise was minimal and it cleaned up to unnoticeable using DXO Photo Lab Prime noise reduction.

On my way out of moose habitat, I was driving past a mountain lake when I spotted a Bald Eagle flying towards me over the lake. The Eagle landed on top of a dead tree about 50 yards to my left. I still had the 70-350mm lens on the camera and it was a quick and easy task to zoom in and lock focus on the bird.

As you can see, the detail on the bird is excellent, even cropped to 9.6 megapixels. With the camera autofocus subject detection set for birds, the Sony a6700 locked right in on the Eagle’s eye. None of my photos were out of focus.

The bottom line. I gave the Sony a6700 a good workout on my typical wildlife subjects, mostly in muted light and the camera performed flawlessly every time I made a photo. Most of my shots were above ISO 1000 and the noise levels of the crop sensor body was very controlled and virtually non-existent. What struck me most about the camera was how light it was and how accurate the autofocus system was. It never occurred to me to break out the Nikon D850.

The last APS-C camera body I had was a Nikon D500 DSLR. For wildlife photography, the Sony a6700 is superior to the D500 in just about every regard.

To answer the question; Is the Sony a6700 suitable for wildlife? The answer is a resounding YES!

The Sony a6700 is an outstanding camera for wildlife photography. It doesn’t get a lot of attention, including on the normal camera review sites. Thom Hogan even claims the Nikon D500 is still the best APS-C camera, but I have to fervently disagree. I don’t think he’s spent much time with the Sony, and in general he doesn’t seem to talk much about the Sony Mirrorless cameras. I’ve been using the APS-C cameras side by side with full frame bodies for many years, and I’ve found the a6700 to be the best APS-C camera that’s been made by any manufacturer at any time before it was released in August of 2023. It also has a very solid video recording feature set and what little I’ve done testing video, the quality is there, again better than the Nikon D500 by a far cry.

I will be using this camera for a long time. It gets the job done.