# Replacement: Eos R or 5D Mark IV again?



## daniela (Apr 20, 2019)

Hi Guys!

I had an backpack incident on Monday (silly, as I´m looking for an new one). The result is an heavily damaged 5DIV. It is not repairable (CPS).
I do not want to spend the money for an 1DXII as an successor might be coming in one year, so I will stay with the 5D class.

My question:
Would you go for an Eos R with the batterygrip, or stay with the 5DIV?

I own a lot of Canon glass, mostly using the 600LII+1.4III for birding and some primes around 16mm to 100mm for landscapes.

Does onyone have experience with the 600LII+1.4x on both bodies? How fast is the AF working? I read yesterday, the 5DIV is faster, but do not know if this is true.

Thank you a lot for advice
Daniela


----------



## Maximilian (Apr 20, 2019)

Hi daniela!

First of all sympathy for your damage.
Second maybe think about an insurance the next time if you don't have one already.

Now to your question and gear recommendation:
(disclaimer: I do not own the EOS R nor the 600LII, so I come from a general perspective, having a 5D3+100-400L2+TC)

Before you go in the EOS R direction try one out (rent) because the EVF is something different to the 5D4 OVF esp. when you're birding or do other action.
Regarding AF speed of the R what I've heard is that you don't feel performance loss with EF lenses. But I haven't seen much comparison with big whites.

The times are quite tricky as we do not know the Canon roadmap in detail. The EOS R is surely not at 5D4 level, esp. FPS.
An 5D4 equivalent R body is yet to come.

If I were in your position I'd tend to get a 5D4 again. and wait for a more pro R body.
But I'D also rent one to try out if I'd like the "new world" as well.

Good luck with your decission.

PS.:
Maybe take a closer look at this thread as well:




__





EOS R and 100-400 II


I'm renting the R for a week to check it out prior to considering buying it. It would be my first FF camera. I shoot wildlife and always use a crop for the distance factor because I can't handle the weight of the FF equipment for the places I want to go and the things I want to do, so that's...




www.canonrumors.com


----------



## Boudreaux&Thibodeaux (Apr 20, 2019)

Gotta say I'm really, really liking the size and weight of the R over my 5D3, which is basically (more or less) the size weight of the 5D4.

Question you have to ask, is can you use the EVF or are you too used to the OVF? I find the EVF great, in all but a few circumstances. It has some low light quirks (blooming to gain focus), long exposure quirks (blackout while dealing with L.E. noise reduction) and you may find that it turns itself off, aka no viewfinder, when you need it. There is a learning curve to the EVF, but... I find the brightness, information availability, being able to check shots just taken in the EVF... all a real plus.


----------



## Pooshoes (Apr 21, 2019)

Short and sweet: I swapped my 5D IV for an EOS R and couldn't be happier. 

You might like the slightly faster firing rate of the 5DIV better, but maybe a 7DII or used 1dxII would be better for birding all round. IQ between both 5DIV and EOS R is the same. Focusing is better for me on the Eos R. Size of EOS R wins for me, and finally the new RF glass is amazing. All the best!


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 21, 2019)

Since you have some really big lenses, stick with a 5D MK IV. when you put it in live view, its very similar to a R, except for the EVF. I have both a R and a 5D Mark !V. I would not want to use my R with a big white myself. It would function, but it is a step down from the 5D MK IV.


----------



## deleteme (Apr 21, 2019)

daniela said:


> Hi Guys!
> 
> I had an backpack incident on Monday (silly, as I´m looking for an new one). The result is an heavily damaged 5DIV. It is not repairable (CPS).
> I do not want to spend the money for an 1DXII as an successor might be coming in one year, so I will stay with the 5D class.
> ...


Most replies here laud the R. I don't disagree but as an owner of a mk4 and an R I would not choose the R for the sort of work you are doing.
The EVF is brilliant in open shade and indoors. It sucks in bright sun.
The AF is great but I have no idea how well it works with the 600. I presume just fine. The FW update should help tracking AF also.
But in the end EVFs (and I have tried a bunch of brands) just suck in bright sun. Period. No measure of fanboyism will overcome the fact that the strength of the OVF in a DSLR is just the correct tool for what you are doing.
I am not a fan of the touchscreen centric controls. If you are hanging the camera around your neck you WILL change settings. I have made endless adjustments to the controls but I still get the random shift to Auto ISO. As a manual shooter I cannot stand Auto for anything.

EVFs will get better but they have a huge hill to climb to remotely approach the OVF in bright environments.

I love the sharp AF of my R and lighter weight. I love the RF 24-105 for its sharpness (miles better than the v1 and 2). I also like the silence of Silent Shutter. I usethe Rt for its strengths and my mk4 for all the rest.


----------



## Viggo (Apr 22, 2019)

The EVF will work quite a better with RF lenses for action compare to EF glass though.

I switch from the 1dx2 to the R and I have a better hit rate even with 1/3 of the FPS.. I LOVE that camera


----------



## londonxt (Apr 22, 2019)

I went 5D Mk III > R instead of the Mk IV. The size and more the weight of SLRs was starting to reduce my enjoyment (purely a hobby for me) as I tend to walk around a lot.

Some Cautions before going EOS R

* Weight, the body is still fairly weighty (maybe a good thing as it feels solid) and of course most of the weight is in a good lens so you have to balance expectations there, Ive combined it with a native 35mm and a 50mm 1.8 with adapter instead of L level lenses for max weight reduction. For me the size is the greatest benefit as it can be stowed away in a small bag and feels less conspicous swung around the neck, I feel like a normal person who happens to have a camera on them. I will likely invest in a native L lens in future though as I miss the quality while the 24-105 RF seemed like a good weight for its performance, the other two L lenses that have been released are very weighty and negate any weight benefit. I actually think the R body has a better build than the 5d MK III even though it doesnt have the same level of weather sealing.

* Battery life, this was a big shock here, you don't get anywhere near the battery life as the DSLR, my battery ran out after a few hours in the first run, I had to turn on the default power "economy" mode to get a day use out of it. Bought a second battery to give me confidence of a days use and at times I had to use the 2nd battery especially at dusk. So this will be a nightmare if you do any longer wilderness travelling. There is the battery grip but that starts to defeat the object of the smaller body size. Using economy mode means there is a lag once the EVF powers down after x minutes before it comes on again after pressing the shutter halfway. Frustrating for street photography or capturing a fleeting moment. With max power setting and turning off auto power down you can get a good repsonse from the EVF at any point in time but then the batteries will drain after a few hours and the camera gets quite hot with the sensor on all the time, so you need to balance the settings depending on your shooting style. I find the power management on these mirrorless things far more involved than it should be in an ideal world. Batteries are clearly the bottleneck these days.

* EVF Very clear and detailed, however I find it impossible to say trace a distant bird flying across a landscape scene and press the photo at the desired timing. You can set the EVF to update more often for smoother animation but this will consume more power. Nice responsive AF and the EVF can overlay more information so it has advantages compared to mirror that balance out the cons. Although the mirror is still the king in terms of power consumption and scene representation.

* AF Took me a bit of time to get used to but I now find using the back touch screen to move the focus point decent (still not as good as Eye controlled AF on my EOS 3 sigh). Sadly if you turn off the back screen to save power (ie stow it away) then you cant use it for AF point selection. A joystick would have been more ideal in this case as the joypad is too slow with so many AF points.

* Single card slot, for me this was a non-issue but maybe this could be an issue for some.


----------



## deleteme (Apr 22, 2019)

If you are carrying a 600mm f4 the weight of the body is almost irrelevant.


----------



## Boudreaux&Thibodeaux (Apr 22, 2019)

Normalnorm said:


> The EVF is brilliant in open shade and indoors. It sucks in bright sun.
> 
> The AF is great but I have no idea how well it works with the 600. I presume just fine. EVFs will get better but they have a huge hill to climb to remotely approach the OVF in bright environments.


Normalnorm, I beg to differ respectfully. First day using the R, was on brilliantly bright Main Street in Daytona. I shot well over 1000 frames all with the EVF. Most of those were moving motorcycles. Had the camera less than 24 hours at that point. Foolish? Ehhh.... I have experience, and trust my abilities (maybe too much). 
The EOS R has some peculiarities, and I gotta say I was misled by some popular online reviews for it, such as "just set ECO mode to ON, because it doesn't effect anything". Well that was total BS, and I just found the fixes I needed. The other peculiarity, and yes its in the manual, but not stated well enough (in a typical Canon minimalist way), that you need to adjust the display screen and EVF separately, and, you can only adjust the EVF with your eye at the viewfinder. I had to set it one notch brighter for that setting. It was plenty bright too... hardly a cloud in the sky and I spent a long 10 hours out on Main Street. And "exposure simulation ON" can also darken the viewfinder considerably, if, your exposure is way off. That is, out of bounds of available combinations of aperture, shutter and ISO. 

So, I'm here to say, the EVF was brilliant, clear, and very pleasant to use in bright Florida sun, shooting with the sun over my shoulder, then directly overhead, then with the sun to side as afternoon progressed. I had to turn the EVF down for night time shots, and "normal" worked well for that. That's another peculiarity.... the C1, C2, C3 modes remember the EVF settings (and most every setting there is), so they're not independent of those functions. Just something to get used to.

As far as long lenses.... I had difficulty with my old 300mm/4 L (non-is) that turned out to be the filter! But, gotta say, I sent out and got a 300mm/4 L IS and it works just fine with my very old first gen 1.4x, with some speed reduction due to the extender. The EF 24-105/4 L (first gen) was snappy, and focused perfectly on everything if I did my part and got it started on the bike I wanted to track. 

I'm wondering how the EVF sucks in bright light for you. Maybe there's a fix?


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 23, 2019)

I have big issues with the EVF of my R in bright light, I have difficulty seeing it, even at full brightness. I was going to put a better eye cup on it until I discovered that it was designed differently.


----------



## Boudreaux&Thibodeaux (Apr 23, 2019)

Must be brighter sunlight where you are than where I am in Florida? I can't see the rear display in daylight, but the EVF? Easy peasy to see, in my locations, with my eyes. Then again, I'm a glasses wearer, maybe that has something to do with it. And, ya gotta set the EVF brightness with your eye at the EVF or it wont set. And exposure simulation is "ON" (dunnot if that effects it or not in bright light. Will say that if you crank down the exposure manually by more than about 3 stops past what the meter thinks it should be, and simulation is on, the finder does get a bit dim, but still usable. Can't think of a reason to do that in a bright place though, usually you want to open up a bit, to compensate for being a bit underexposed from glare or backlight or ratio of really light in respect to mid or dark tones. Whatever....


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 23, 2019)

I also wear glasses, so I took them off and tried it without, it was a little better, but light leaking in around edges of the viewfinder was the issue. Then I compared it with my 5D MK IV to see if it was a issue for both. There is definitely a difference in peoples vision and how sensitive they are to stray light rays. My eyes are very slow to adjust to bright light, but with a standard optical viewfinder its less of a problem but for me, its still a issue. I have a optional eyepiece for my 5D MK IV that helps when wearing glasses. I don't think that Spokane is brighter than Florida, I'm glad it isn't. I do use the camera outdoors with the EVF, but compaired to my 5D MK IV, there is no contest. 

I do know how to adjust viewfinder brightness, it took a little reading the manual, but I figured it out last fall when I got the camera the first week it came out. In spite of the viewfinder issue, I use my R as a general purpose all around camera, but I love the MK IV too.


----------



## Kit Lens Jockey (Apr 23, 2019)

I think everyone has covered things pretty well, except that I would say that just renting an R will not give you long enough to get used to the EVF. It took me months of using the EVF for it to finally feel normal to me. It felt very strange for quite a while, but I stuck with the R because I feel like it gives better AF accuracy at wide apertures than the 5D4. It was not until several months in that I finally really felt at home using the EVF.

So, if you're trying to figure out if an EVF works for you, I would not make the decision just based on a week or two of rental, because if you've been shooting for a long time, a week or two of use is probably not enough time to get used to the EVF. It's a big change, but I found that it does feel natural after a while.


----------



## deleteme (Apr 25, 2019)

Boudreaux&Thibodeaux said:


> Normalnorm, I beg to differ respectfully. First day using the R, was on brilliantly bright Main Street in Daytona. I shot well over 1000 frames all with the EVF. Most of those were moving motorcycles. Had the camera less than 24 hours at that point. Foolish? Ehhh.... I have experience, and trust my abilities (maybe too much).
> The EOS R has some peculiarities, and I gotta say I was misled by some popular online reviews for it, such as "just set ECO mode to ON, because it doesn't effect anything". Well that was total BS, and I just found the fixes I needed. The other peculiarity, and yes its in the manual, but not stated well enough (in a typical Canon minimalist way), that you need to adjust the display screen and EVF separately, and, you can only adjust the EVF with your eye at the viewfinder. I had to set it one notch brighter for that setting. It was plenty bright too... hardly a cloud in the sky and I spent a long 10 hours out on Main Street. And "exposure simulation ON" can also darken the viewfinder considerably, if, your exposure is way off. That is, out of bounds of available combinations of aperture, shutter and ISO.
> 
> So, I'm here to say, the EVF was brilliant, clear, and very pleasant to use in bright Florida sun, shooting with the sun over my shoulder, then directly overhead, then with the sun to side as afternoon progressed. I had to turn the EVF down for night time shots, and "normal" worked well for that. That's another peculiarity.... the C1, C2, C3 modes remember the EVF settings (and most every setting there is), so they're not independent of those functions. Just something to get used to.
> ...


I will take a look at the EVF adjustment. Thanks.
I live in Palm Springs and shoot a lot in the desert sun so this is an issue. Yesterday I had an architectural shoot in Joshua Tree and the EVF was OK-ish as long as I shaded the eyecup. However where it really hurts is in views where large areas of the scene are in shade and details where elements that may detract from the image are unseen.
Thanks again for that info.


----------



## Boudreaux&Thibodeaux (Apr 25, 2019)

I have not found a setting yet that is not "remembered" in the C1, C2, C3 stored configurations. This was initially a pain in the butt until I figured out what was going on. Issue was, I had not yet found a simple way to change the Picture Style, so I stored them in C1 through C3. Yes, I was shooting JPG + RAW and could have applied any style later, but I don't like a lot of extra work to do so for say... 1000 or 1500 images. So, I'd just switch between C1 and C2, drop into C3 occasionally. I did not expect the display modes to be "exclusive" to the C1--C3 settings. With an OVF, you just don't even consider that sort of thing (what's to consider?). With an EVF, you need to. Drove me nuts until I figured that out, so day 2 shooting was a bit less fiddly. If I had figured out the "auto power off" was killing the viewfinder _and_ causing long restart delays, and corrected that to my liking, the shoot would have been down right boring. 

I'm starting to sound like a fanboy, but its just a tool. A nice tool, but just a means to make the ends easier to achieve.


----------



## justaCanonuser (Jul 10, 2019)

Daniela, if you still read this thread (I hit it quite delayed): did you go for an EOS R or for a 5D IV again? I guess you are a birder, and shooting a lot of wildlife myself, I would still prefer the 5D IV over the R for that purpose. Size and weight of the camera really doesn't matter if you carry a huge tele lens.


----------



## Ah-Keong (Jul 11, 2019)

For birding, I would get a 7D mk 2 and wait for the "1DX mk 3"


----------



## Hector1970 (Jul 11, 2019)

I think you'd find the 7DII a step down from the 5D IV in terms of image quality. 
I use it for sport and it works very well with the big primes but I just find if its not ISO 400 or less I get disappointed with the results.
For what you are describing you use if for I think a new 5D IV would be best.
Yes a 1DX II may be replace in the next 12 months. It's still a fine camera though and it will last a long time. 
I'm sure a new 1DX III will be even better but it might be marginal in terms of image quality.
The EOS R is a fine camera but I think we are still waiting for a mirrorless better than the 5DIV.

I empathize with your loss. It's an awful feeling. I've had this happen to me to a 70-200mm lens. It's not a nice noise to hear. It can so easily happen. My main accidents have been with the Swiss Arca mount. I could have sworn the camera was firmly attached on both occasions but it wasn't. Falling off seemed to be in slow motion. A long noooooooooooo! before it crashed off the ground. I'm paranoid about it now but it happened again two weeks ago at the Giants Causeway but the camera hit mud between rocks rather than all the granite rocks that are there, it was a spectacularly lucky landing. Such a sense of relief. It's not a pretty sight seeing the inside of a lens or camera. I've had a Norwegian wind take a whole tripod over too. A spectacular crash with broken filters flying and a lens at a strange angle to the camera . I was still able to take some photos pushing the lens back into place for a few seconds.
It still better to be out taking photographs than having them inside and debating specs or sharpness on online forums.
It sounds like you are determined to get back out there taking your photos. Make sure you post some in the forums with whatever new camera you get.


----------



## AlanF (Jul 11, 2019)

Neuro has written that he cannot lock focus with the R for birds in flight, so maybe the R is not for you. I like the 7DII for bird photography but I prefer the 5DIV or better still for me the 5DSR. Both, in my experience, have more reliable AF than the 7DII and I find the FF field of view better for tracking or locating birds though others think that the larger image in the 7DII finder and AF is advantageous.


----------



## daniela (Jul 13, 2019)

Hi Guys!
Thanks for all replies!!!! 
To get some feeling, I joined an Canon workshop and shot two days with an Eos R. Quite different usage to my RIPped 5D Mark IV. 
In direct comparison to the 5D Mark IV, the AF of the R is faster, but it was harder to follow the birds. And the Eos R´s AF worked better with directly approaching birds and fast moving animals.
But the OVF was still more eye-friendly than the EVF. In changing light situations (sky vs. trees and ground), the EVF strained a lot more my eyes.
And I realized, that there are noticeable variations between the Eos R´s that were on the workshop to use. The body is just €2000, so no pro-body.

So actually, I bought an refurbished 5D Mark IV for just 1/3rd of the normal costs.


----------



## justaCanonuser (Jul 19, 2019)

Ah-Keong said:


> For birding, I would get a 7D mk 2 and wait for the "1DX mk 3"


Sorry for the late reply... I use a 7D2 and my old 5D3 for birding if I can get a bit closer. Despite its relatively slow fps rate the 5D3's good AF system provides more in-focus shots than the 7D2 when it gets to action (BIF). So I tend to upgrade to a 5D4 when my 5D3 dies (has already 150.000 shutter actuations, but still works).


----------



## justaCanonuser (Jul 19, 2019)

AlanF said:


> I like the 7DII for bird photography but I prefer the 5DIV or better still for me the 5DSR. Both, in my experience, have more reliable AF than the 7DII and I find the FF field of view better for tracking or locating birds though others think that the larger image in the 7DII finder and AF is advantageous.


Same experience with my 7D2 in comparison with my old 5D3 which provides a much more reliable AF when I shoot fast flying birds.


----------



## Act444 (Jul 20, 2019)

I'd like to 3rd the experience with the 7D vs. the 5D AF. I found the latter to be notably more consistent especially in sport settings. 

I wanted to like the 7D (and its successor the 7D2), but ultimately it left me wanting, so I used it less and less until I eventually parted ways with it.


----------

