EOS R5 II Captures Epic Whitetail Buck Fight, Shenandoah National Park

In this meeting of the minds, the two bucks were not seeing eye to eye, and it was an all-out brawl. There was blood, saliva, breath steam, and dust. The raging battle of the bucks lasted for over 8 minutes. I was blessed with a ring-side seat, and over 1,900 images were the spoils of this war.

The Canon EOS R5 Mark II gets the credit for this shot. For evaluation and comparison purposes, I was switching between the R5 II and the EOS R1, and the R5 II happened to be in the hand this morning. That was an optimal choice for this event. The animals' pushing and rotating changed distance rapidly and frequently, and they were sometimes far enough away to warrant cropping, and the R5 II's higher resolution provides more pixels on subject.

The RF 400mm F2.8 L IS USM Lens was another integral piece of the kit. The f/2.8 aperture was critical for the dim early AM lighting, and this lens's ability to blur the background was also important at the framing distance required to keep the two animals in the frame.

A larger version of this image is available here.