The two Canon mirrorless bodies announced earlier this year caused quite a splash in most areas of the industry. One genre of photography which can really test a camera is astrophotography, so one photographer takes them out into the desert to shoot the stars and compare their results.

If you’ve ever shot astrophotography you’ll know, it can be taxing on the camera. Not only are you battling noise in the inevitable dark areas of your image, you’re doing so while constantly pushing the ISO so that you can speed up your shutter and avoid star trails. It is a balancing act which takes experience, trial and error, and a little science to master, but the camera body you’re using plays a large part too. If a camera’s ISO performance is limited, images will quickly become unusable. That’s without considering banding, fringing, hot pixels, and more.

Now you might think that comparing the Canon R5 with the R6 is a little redundant given the big price difference, and then even bigger difference in megapixels. However, that’s not always the case. In this video, Brent Hall — a talented and experienced astrophotographer — takes both bodies out into the desert to shoot the stars and see which performs the best at high ISO and overall.

From what I can see, the R6 is certainly a powerful camera for astrophotography and could do a real job. That said, the R5 does very well, though I may be concerned a little about the overheating issues that have been fiercely debated as continuous shooting of long exposure can cause a lot of heat.

Which of the two bodies do you think is the best for astrophotography?