Rare beauty: photographing the elusive Iberian lynx with the Canon EOS R7

When weeks of careful planning produce a photo opportunity that lasts just a few minutes, literally every second counts – even more so when the subject is one of the planet's most endangered animals.

That's the situation British wildlife photographer Dani Connor faced when tracking Iberian lynx in Spain's Sierra de Andújar Natural Park. Fortunately, she was equipped with the Canon EOS R7, a light and versatile EOS R System camera that can shoot at up to 30fps with animal tracking autofocus and outstanding in-body Image Stabilisation (IBIS).

Dani had caught a glimpse of a lynx on just two occasions over several days on the shoot, so turned to photographing some of the other wildlife she was there in the park to capture. "I was photographing a buzzard from a hide set up for birds of prey, and the lynx just appeared," she says. "I had no idea where he came from, as I was concentrating on the buzzard. Less than four minutes later, he was gone."

Faced with such a brief window with the elusive cat, Dani needed to work fast. It was the perfect moment to test the EOS R7's intelligent autofocus and rapid, silent shooting.

Walking around with a camera is how it all began for Dani. She took up photography at the age of 14 when she started borrowing her father's DSLR to take pictures of the family dog on walks in the forest near their home in Wimbledon, Greater London. This led to her noticing the nature around her, and she became fascinated with it – so much so that she went on to complete a degree in zoology.

Pursuing her interests in both nature and photography, Dani went to Sweden in March 2020 to work as a volunteer with wildlife photographer Conny Lundström. She'd planned to stay for just a month, but the Covid-19 pandemic kept her there in lockdown. Over the months that followed, she formed a connection with a family of orphaned red squirrel kits, for which she began leaving food after finding their mother dead by the road. A 15-second video she made of one of the young squirrels eating seeds, capturing the animal's rarely-heard squeaks, went viral on Twitter with more than 16 million views.

Today Dani says she's not sure whether to describe herself as a wildlife photographer or a social media creator. She explains that her mission is to engage people who don't necessarily go out and see wildlife, particularly young people, which is why she is focusing on platforms such as TikTok.

Ahead of her brief encounter with the male lynx, Dani had two cameras set up in the hide. One was fitted with the Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM lens and the other was paired with her EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM via a Mount Adapter EF-EOS R. "It doesn't matter how much you prepare yourself, there's still a moment of panic when an animal appears," she laughs. "So, I quickly made some adjustments to the settings and then just started shooting."

The EOS R7 can record full-resolution RAW files in continuous bursts of up to 30fps – and it can do so in total silence, thanks to its electronic shutter. "Naturally, the silent aspect can be really important for wildlife photography," says Dani. On this shoot, she adds, it was particularly helpful when photographing buzzards, which were frightened by noises.

The EOS R7's Dual Pixel CMOS AF II was able to track the animals even at high continuous shooting speed. It's driven by the same Deep Learning AI technology that's proved so effective in the Canon EOS R3, EOS R5 and EOS R6. The camera can rapidly detect and track animals and birds in a scene, and lock on to their eyes where these are visible.

The EOS R7 also brings innovative new features to the EOS R System range. One that Dani found particularly useful is the RAW burst option. This saves a sequence of images captured at 30fps in a single file, from which individual frames can be extracted and saved as full-resolution RAW files later. A big advantage here is that pre-shooting can be enabled for these bursts. Half-press the shutter release, and the EOS R7 starts capturing images and buffering them. Then, when you fully press the shutter button, the camera will save the images in the buffer at that moment – up to half a second's worth of shots – to the memory card.

The EOS R7 has in-body Image Stabilisation (IBIS) that works in tandem with the optical stabilisation in RF IS lenses to deliver up to 8-stops of stabilisation, depending on the lens used. Dani was shooting with a number of RF lenses, including the Canon RF 800mm F11 IS STM, and found the IS very effective. "It was incredible when I was photographing a golden eagle flying," she says. "Even though I was handholding a heavy lens and tracking the bird, I was still getting stable shots."

Dani also used the RF-S 18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM – a perfect partner for the EOS R7, packing a versatile range of focal lengths into a lightweight zoom. "It's super-light, and I was amazed by the IS performance of the lens and camera together," she says. "I was getting shots of the landscape as we were driving, shooting from a moving car, and even though we were driving on bumpy roads, the image was smooth."

In addition, Dani used the RF-S 18-150MM F3.5-6.3 IS STM for capturing landscapes in the park. "The EOS R7 has a Panoramic shot option, where you move the camera while pressing the shutter release, and then the images are automatically stitched together," she explains. The camera's in-body IS can also stabilise the image during panoramic shooting, even when a non-IS lens is used.

Dani also found the image stabilisation invaluable when shooting video on the move. During video recording, the EOS R7 offers coordinated control of Movie Digital IS, the camera's IBIS, and the optical IS of an RF lens, combining the physical movement of the lens, the sensor and digital correction – each method can counteract and correct different types of camera shake.

Dani appreciated the dial for switching between movie and photo mode on the top of the camera. "Having the ability to switch quickly between photo and video is really important to me as a content creator," she explains, "because I want to share the whole story. Animals rarely do things twice, and I like to capture their behaviours with both photo and video." What's more, the fact that the EOS R7 has no 30-minute individual clip limit when recording video meant she could shoot for longer and avoid missing any action.

Dani made use of the three custom modes available on the EOS R7 so she could switch between different 4K video setups on the fly. She set one to 4K UHD at 50fps, and another to 4K UHD Crop. "It gives more reach but retains its 4K resolution," Dani explains, "and it's incredible." For the third custom slot, she used 4K UHD Fine, which delivers extremely high-quality 4K movies from 7K oversampling. "It gives such a nice image," she says.

"I also tried the Full HD at 100fps to film birds preening and shaking their feathers, and it gave a lovely slow-motion result."

Video continues to be an important aspect of Dani's work, and she has set herself a goal to create more conservation-focused films over the next 12 months. "I'm spending two months in Baja California in Mexico, where I hope to be following a female conservation group. They've been able to empower young women to study marine biology, and I want to create a film about them and how they're conserving the mobula ray. I'll also be shooting wildlife in the sea for the first time. Shooting underwater will present a whole new world to me."

Hear more about the impressive capabilities of the EOS R7 and the EOS R10 in this episode of Canon's Shutter Stories podcast:

Dani shares some of her techniques and advice for aspiring professional wildlife photographers.

"Being able to find animals, especially quite elusive creatures, is the most important and most difficult aspect of wildlife photography. So it pays to follow a guide or an expert in their field. For this shoot, I had a guide, José Luis, who has lived in the region his entire life. He is an expert in lynx, so he knew their territories and where certain individuals were likely to be."

Even with José’s help, Dani’s encounters with the elusive Iberian lynx were fleeting, so having the EOS R7 helped her to make the most of the chances, thanks to features including a RAW burst mode of up to 30fps, in-body image stabilisation, intelligent autofocus and an APS-C sensor that effectively extended her lenses’ reach by 1.6x.

"Share your personality and the work you do to get your wildlife photos. Behind-the-scenes photos or vlogs really help to engage your audience in your work. It strengthens the story you are trying to tell, and often with wildlife photography, actually being with the animal only happens for a few minutes, so sharing the process really helps keep people interested.

"With the EOS R7 I can change the AF tracking priority to People when I start vlogging," Dani adds. "For example, I was getting ready to photograph an otter, so I set up my second EOS R7 on a tripod so that it was pointing at me. I could then press Record, and even if I moved around, I could trust that the camera was going to continuously track me."

"Field craft is obviously very important," Dani says. "Understanding an animal's ecology, behaviour and anatomy can be crucial for wildlife photography. Some animals have sensitive hearing, for example, while some have a heightened sense of smell. Understanding how an animal senses the world can really help you to get your shots."

Camera features such as the EOS R7’s silent shooting are invaluable here. "Sometimes you can make a bit of noise while you're in a hide. On this shoot, the lynx didn't really care, but the buzzards could be a bit nervous. Being able to take photos silently meant that they stayed comfortable."

"My first big success was a film I created about baby red squirrels, titled The Squirrels & Me. In the UK [where I’m from], red squirrels are not doing that well because of grey squirrels, but in Sweden [where I lived at the time], they're everywhere and very accessible. So, I picked what a lot of people might assume is an easy subject, but I focused solely on them and recorded a series of unique moments as a result. The film I made about my adventures has gained over one million views, and that helped to open doors to work with organisations and companies."