# R5 arrived... First impressions for stills



## [email protected] (Jul 30, 2020)

A fox appeared out my window as I was unboxing the first R5. A good omen, perhaps. 

General impression:
This is a once-in-10-years milestone camera when all these improvements coming together. Extremely happy with it. Sure I'll find some bugaboos, but so far so good. There are some 1D series features in here (voice notes), but at least one left out (AF spot metering).

Quick first impressions:
1) Rolling shutter is amazingly well controlled. Need more proper testing, but first impression makes it seem like my A9 II. Really unexpectedly good. Whipping the camera back and forth at 840mm on vertical grass at 80 yards while shooting at 1,000th of a second showed the same rolling shutter using mechanical as electronic shutter, which is to say that it was limited by shutter speed, rather than readout.
2) Ergonomic improvements from R/RP much more than I'd expected. There are lots of little thoughtful things.
3) Goofing around counting FPS I took 3203 shots so far, and my old lp-e6n battery I used is now 37 percent charged still. The lp-e6nh that they sent with the camera was low on arrival, so it's still charging. My sense is that this is draining faster than a dslr, but not crazily so. Typically when doing 10 fps+, you get much higher number of exposures per battery, but this is still pretty good.
4) Perhaps because I'm using the old style battery, I can get 12 fps on mechanical shutter, but only about 15 fps on electronic. I think when I put the proper battery in, it'll go up to 20 on electronic shutter.
5) [Note: this is revised due to original test having been done on faulty card] After redoing the frames per second tests on two different R5's, here's the rough gist when using RAW format (JPEG goes forever):
a) Mechanical shutter does 12 fps for 13-16 seconds before starting to stutter with the buffer unloading. Low was 150 frames before the buffer kicked in, high was 191 using a faster card.
b) E-shutter does 20 fps for a little less than 3 seconds before buffer kicks in, and then it stutters at an average frame rate of just over 10 fps.
6) Touchscreen focus point selection is lightning fast. The R and RP were sludgy, I felt, relative to the M series, although the M series was subject to lag too - a slightly different phenomenon. Neither afflict the R5. It's super zippy and a joy to use. So much so that I now realize I haven't even tried the joystick yet .
7) Image quality with the resolution is way better than I expected. I thought it would be more akin to the 5d4 /R sensor. The additional resolution is great, but there is more improvement than just that resolution would suggest. I feel the noise levels are reduced per same ISO, but of course we'll need real testing. Just an informed feeling at this point. Wouldn't be surprised if there is a stop improvement, as has been suggested by early reviewers.
8) Tracking is noticeably improved, even from the R tracking after the most recent firmware update. It is on par with my A9 II and A7r4; and the animal eye tracking is probably quite a bit better.
9) Not a video guy, so I haven't even ventured over there.
10) Tried out the IBIS (forgot to test it earlier). I am getting consistently sharp shots with my 600mm f/4 with 1.4x EF TC for an effective 840mm focal length at 1/15th second when viewing 1:1 pixels on a monopod. At 1/8th of a second I'm getting 1/4th shots in perfect focus at 1:1 pixel viewing. This is way better than I got with earlier cameras, and especially good given the 1.5x megapickles versus the R. I'm guessing this is a real-world 6 stops of IS with the lens+IBIS combination. I feel my limitation is now only subject movement.
11) Non-animal, non-person tracking is improved. This, I felt, was a weakness in the R, even after the recent firmware update, relative to the Sony version. I feel it is better a picking an inanimate object and keeping hold of it in tracking, where previously the Canon version of tracking would be a bit slippy on non-living targets.
12) After having taken about 1500 shots within 5 minutes, the camera wasn't even slightly warm. Removed the memory card and felt, and it was slightly warm, but couldn't feel any other component retaining much heat. This tells me that intense stills taking isn't going to do anything to cause a heat problem. Shooting at 82 degrees in sun.
13) I cannot see much viewfinder lag, but I haven't had opportunity to fully test on birds in flight, etc. When using panning to try to introduce viewfinder lag, I'm unsuccessful.
14) Startup time is super fast. Can flick camera on and start shooting in <1 second. Quite a bit less it seems. Faster than I'd be able to raise camera to eye.
15) Just got the 600mm f/11. Surprisingly nice image quality. Oddly won't let me take an exposure longer than .5 seconds as I'm trying to test out the IS+IBIS. Probably doing something hinky that I'll figure out later. IS seems to be 5-6 stops. 800mm still on way.
16) Putting the 1.4 RF teleconverter on the 600 was very surprising. F/16 images were very sharp at 840mm. Tomorrow will make direct comparisons with the EF 600 f/4 + EF 1.4x TC III. The f/4 will be better, of course, but not as much as you'd think. These f/11 lenses aren't as nuts as people thought.
17) I can confirm that the RF 1.4x teleconverter does NOT work with the EF/RF converters, so you must use the EF teleconverters with EF lenses.
18) High ISO (50k) is usable without much cropping. I do think this is about a stop better. Must do real tests, but gut tests look pretty impressive.
19) For kicks, tried the RF 85 f1.2 to verify that a camera can have 8 stops of IS. Wow, it can. The weird thing is that the 85 doesn't have lens IS, so it's not even combining the two (although the RF protocol does provide accelerometer data back from lens to body that is used in IBIS calcs).
20) As per usual, certain things that you select in settings will have effects on your frame rate. These sometimes aren't intuitive. I found I had 9fps in mechanical shutter for some reason until I reset my communications settings, which I'd been futzing with. That gave me back 12 fps. Someone should build a chart of this stuff once we figure it all out.


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## mangobutter (Jul 30, 2020)

Yeah from what I've seen (not just read) the noise performance of the R5 is really really excellent. Better than even the R6 and noticeably better too. Which is strange due to the resolution difference. Congrats!


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## mangobutter (Jul 30, 2020)

Also I think the mods should consolidate the new R5 threads.. i imagine there'll be a lot of them.


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## Joules (Jul 30, 2020)

Thanks a lot for sharing and the insights into the buffer clearance behavior! I wish you good fun with your new gear!


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## Joules (Jul 30, 2020)

mangobutter said:


> Yeah from what I've seen (not just read) the noise performance of the R5 is really really excellent. Better than even the R6 and noticeably better too. Which is strange due to the resolution difference. Congrats!


Not sure what you are basing that on. To me, it looks like the R5 and R6 are identical if properly compared at the same magnification 
But both are slightly better than the R / 5D IV and much better than the 6D II:






Studio shot comparison: Digital Photography Review


Expert news, reviews and videos of the latest digital cameras, lenses, accessories, and phones. Get answers to your questions in our photography forums.




www.dpreview.com


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## zim (Jul 30, 2020)

Well the truth is I'm just so jealous of everyone that's got a new R5 right now 
Thanks to all for first impressions wish I was there with you!


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## Viggo (Jul 30, 2020)

Thanks so much for sharing, really cool  

loads of details we just don’t get from the Explorers of light, lol.


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## [email protected] (Jul 30, 2020)

You're very welcome. I've been frustrated some of these obvious questions hadn't been answered by reviewers. 

Upshot: It's a keeper. 

Other note: Ordered one from B&H and one from Adorama, 10 minutes apart, a few minutes after the orders were available. Both came within the same 1/2 hour here in Vermont.


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## SteveC (Jul 30, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> You're very welcome. I've been frustrated some of these obvious questions hadn't been answered by reviewers.
> 
> Upshot: It's a keeper.
> 
> Other note: Ordered one from B&H and one from Adorama, 10 minutes apart, a few minutes after the orders were available. Both came within the same 1/2 hour here in Vermont.



Oh now there's some one-upmanship. A number of us have one R5, at just about the earliest possible time, so now someone has to tell us he has TWO of them!


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## AlanF (Jul 30, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> You're very welcome. I've been frustrated some of these obvious questions hadn't been answered by reviewers.
> 
> Upshot: It's a keeper.
> 
> Other note: Ordered one from B&H and one from Adorama, 10 minutes apart, a few minutes after the orders were available. Both came within the same 1/2 hour here in Vermont.


Are you keeping both?


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## [email protected] (Jul 30, 2020)

AlanF said:


> Are you keeping both?



Yep. Sold 4 (Sony) bodies to buy these two.


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## Jethro (Jul 30, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> You're very welcome. I've been frustrated some of these obvious questions hadn't been answered by reviewers.
> 
> Upshot: It's a keeper.
> 
> Other note: Ordered one from B&H and one from Adorama, 10 minutes apart, a few minutes after the orders were available. Both came within the same 1/2 hour here in Vermont.


You've got two - no wonder there's a world shortage for the rest of us!


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## Jethro (Jul 30, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> 12) After having taken about 1500 shots within 5 minutes, the camera wasn't even slightly warm. Removed the memory card and felt, and it was slightly warm, but couldn't feel any other component retaining much heat. This tells me that intense stills taking isn't going to do anything to cause a heat problem. Shooting at 82 degrees in sun.


Had to smile at that! Thanks for the great review, and for taking time out from your obvious enjoyment of your new acquisition(s).


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## Act444 (Jul 30, 2020)

When it rains it pours. Thanks for such a detailed preview right out of the gate.


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## Bert63 (Jul 31, 2020)

Green. Congrats and thanks for taking the time!


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## Chris.Chapterten (Jul 31, 2020)

Thanks for this! If you have the time, I am very curious as to how the camera renders skin tones in the 'neutral' picture profile. Some of the early R5 images I've seen seem to have a slight magenta cast to them, and I'm just hoping that is a picture profile difference and not 'baked in' to the files... thanks!


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## SteveC (Jul 31, 2020)

Not sure where to put this, but I've made an interesting discovery.

The R5 is supposed to put you in 1.6 crop mode automatically when an EF-S lens is attached.

It _does not do this_ when a Tamron APS-C lens is attached. You can take photos with the huge amount of vignetting (or whatever you want to call it) including dark areas outside of the image circle. (Of course, you can _manually_ go to 1.6 crop mode, too.) It's rather interesting!


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## Jethro (Jul 31, 2020)

SteveC said:


> Not sure where to put this, but I've made an interesting discovery.
> 
> The R5 is supposed to put you in 1.6 crop mode automatically when an EF-S lens is attached.
> 
> It _does not do this_ when a Tamron APS-C lens is attached. You can take photos with the huge amount of vignetting (or whatever you want to call it) including dark areas outside of the image circle. (Of course, you can _manually_ go to 1.6 crop mode, too.) It's rather interesting!


Ah, this is a problem with certain 3rd party lenses on the EOS R as well. You can try turning all the lens aberration correction settings off - this seems to work in some cases. I had problems with a full frame 3rd party EF mount lens as well.


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## zonefocus (Jul 31, 2020)

I have had the camera for about 2 hours. I agree with OP, this is the 5D Mirrorless stills camera I have been waiting for. It is early days though,,, Here is what I can report and I hope it adds value. I hope it is ok to post onto this thread...

1/ start up and shut down times are lightning quick. I would have no issues flipping this camera on and off if I needed to conserve battery with no worry I would miss a shot becuase by the time the cam gets to my eye it is on.
2/ I am using my old 6D LP6 battery and it is still going after excessive chimping and menu diving. I do have it on out of the box settings ie lower evf, auto shutoff after a minute. Normal warming that you get with every mirrorless camera I have tried (been mirrorless for 6 years now).
3/ EF 70-200 IS v1 crops in the focus points
4/ EF 35mm f2 non is does the same (that combo is so light!)
5/ EF-24-70 v2 is focusing like a rocket and I would be happy to hang on to this for a good while
6/ The ef to rf focus ring adaptor implementation to hold shutter half way down and then turn ring to EV comp is just wonderful to use - really great ergos
7/ Overall ergonomics is EVERYTHING I hoped it would be and what I have been waiting for. I have been through fuji and sony mirrorless and this is by far the most comfortable out of the box mirrorless camera, and more comfortable in my hands than my 5Dmkiii. Only the D700 grip gives me the same feels.
8/ see attached reference jpg image - The above mentioned 70-200 at 185mm, f/2.8, 1/160 ISO 12800, AWB. IBIS is real!! https://www.zonefocus.net/galleryr5
9/ AU/NZ Lucky strap is beautiful


My new LP6H whatever batteries are still charging and then Im out shooting!


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## SteveC (Jul 31, 2020)

Jethro said:


> Ah, this is a problem with certain 3rd party lenses on the EOS R as well. You can try turning all the lens aberration correction settings off - this seems to work in some cases. I had problems with a full frame 3rd party EF mount lens as well.



Actually, I don't view it as a problem; it's an interesting effect. Sure, 99% of the time I'll want to go to crop mode. Maybe in an ideal universe Canon would switch to crop mode automatically (which they do, for their lenses), but let you leave it if you want to (which they don't, for their lenses).

To be honest, I don't anticipate using crop lenses on this camera, unless there's some _other_ feature of the R5 I just _have_ to have (e.g., IBIS, screamingly fast autofocus). I can get better resolution in crop mode on my M50 or M6-II.


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## zonefocus (Jul 31, 2020)

Update. Went out for about a 2.5 hr walk this afternoon with the R5. Temp was 15°C temp here in Sydney on a brand-new battery. Did regular shooting and have fired off about 400 odd shots using continuous focus. Out of the box power settings. Nothing to note regarding body heat for stills and certainly normal for mirrorless camera. Battery got to about 50% with tons of chimping and diving into menus. 

I would say for this style of shooting I will need 2 batteries for a whole day of street photography. Battery life feels much better than my xt2 was but not quite as good as my Sony 7iii was. Definitely acceptable first outing. Will see what more strenuous shooting brings. Handling is a dream, focus is fast and the whole camera is super responsive. As you would expect from a pro body, sure. animal eye detect and human eye detect are on par with what I experienced in my sony days. Slightly different implementation so need to RTFM.

ill say it again, if you wanted a mirrorless 5D, then this is it. Pity about the marketing fail on the video side. Much like the Eos R, once the hype dies down, people will realise this things full potential. I think it is a milestone stills camera for Canon. im in my honeymoon period still of course.


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## [email protected] (Jul 31, 2020)

As per some requests, I took the camera hooked up to the 600mm f/4 II to take pictures of a boy and puppy running back and forth, to gauge lag in the viewfinder. Forgot to set it to jpg, so the raws are converting now, but will post a couple later.

The upshot: I couldn't find lag. Was difficult to keep a jinking 7-year-old in the frame at close distances, but not because of the viewfinder. 

Also caught a broadwing hawk up in the air, but it was way too high to be a real test of BIF. 

I did get a close BIF shot (birddog in flight). The thing that I was keen to look out for was whether there was creep between the subject and the side of the frame relative to what I saw in the viewfinder. Lag, and especially growing lag, would see the subject grow close or closer to the frame edge, as I'd be pointing the camera in not quite the correct direction. I could find neither. 

OTHER NOTES:

* I DID find a bug, where once the camera froze. Had to take the battery out and put it back in. Not sure what did that, or how common it would be. I've taken >5,000 shots now and this has happened once. Interested to see if others have that experience though. 

* I got the W10 grip in. It seems pretty solid. One thing I'm very happy about: it has a sealed port for a dummy battery cord. Big deal for me. Didn't realize it would. 

* It is SO nice to have a high frame rate, high MP Canon for once. It's quite clear to me that - despite the positioning - this camera was built for us stills guys.


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## Act444 (Jul 31, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> * I DID find a bug, where once the camera froze. Had to take the battery out and put it back in. Not sure what did that, or how common it would be. I've taken >5,000 shots now and this has happened once. Interested to see if others have that experience though.



That happened to me with my RP as well. Oddly enough, it has not happened since (admittedly the camera hasn’t been used a whole lot since then).


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## Staz (Jul 31, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> A fox appeared out my window as I was unboxing the first R5. A good omen, perhaps.
> 
> General impression:
> This is a once-in-10-years milestone camera when all these improvements coming together. Extremely happy with it. Sure I'll find some bugaboos, but so far so good. There are some 1D series features in here (voice notes), but at least one left out (AF spot metering).
> ...


I'll be really interested to know how you get on with BIF as I've the mk2 600 f4 and mk3 1.4x. EVF lag has always made me uncomfortable. Thanks for a comprehensive initial view Tiggy.


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## AlanF (Jul 31, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> As per some requests, I took the camera hooked up to the 600mm f/4 II to take pictures of a boy and puppy running back and forth, to gauge lag in the viewfinder. Forgot to set it to jpg, so the raws are converting now, but will post a couple later.
> 
> The upshot: I couldn't find lag. Was difficult to keep a jinking 7-year-old in the frame at close distances, but not because of the viewfinder.
> 
> ...


I have never come across a birddog, apart from an Everly Brothers song. What do they look like?


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## Stu_bert (Aug 1, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> A fox appeared out my window as I was unboxing the first R5. A good omen, perhaps.
> 
> General impression:
> This is a once-in-10-years milestone camera when all these improvements coming together. Extremely happy with it. Sure I'll find some bugaboos, but so far so good. There are some 1D series features in here (voice notes), but at least one left out (AF spot metering).
> ...



Thanks for the first impressions, jealous you got one let lone two but then you pulled the trigger immediately so well done

Re IBIS and 8 stops, I came across this article looking for something else









Earth’s Rotation Limits IBIS Performance to 6.3 Stops


In 2016, Olympus Camera made some buzz in the photo world when they claimed that their new camera was capable of an impressive 6.5 stops of stabilization and that the limiting factor was in fact th…




thecentercolumn.com





So have Canon, like Olympus and Panasonic now taken into account earth’s rotation or is it just the CIPA tests are not quite as good. 6.3 stops is still amazing I hasten to add....


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## Stu_bert (Aug 1, 2020)

SteveC said:


> Actually, I don't view it as a problem; it's an interesting effect. Sure, 99% of the time I'll want to go to crop mode. Maybe in an ideal universe Canon would switch to crop mode automatically (which they do, for their lenses), but let you leave it if you want to (which they don't, for their lenses).
> 
> To be honest, I don't anticipate using crop lenses on this camera, unless there's some _other_ feature of the R5 I just _have_ to have (e.g., IBIS, screamingly fast autofocus). I can get better resolution in crop mode on my M50 or M6-II.


I would guess once Tamron update the firmware, this will go away. I would assume it’s cause the r5 can’t get the right response from the Tamron and doesn’t know it is an ef-s lens


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## dlee13 (Aug 1, 2020)

Can we get a mod to remove this thread?

It's making me have some serious G.A.S.....


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## SteveC (Aug 1, 2020)

dlee13 said:


> Can we get a mod to remove this thread?
> 
> It's making me have some serious G.A.S.....



My credit card is much more likely to burst into flames than my camera is. I just bought the RF 15-35mm f/2.8 L on top of buying the camera! (Salesman upsold me from the EF 16-35 4.0.)


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## privatebydesign (Aug 1, 2020)

SteveC said:


> My credit card is much more likely to burst into flames than my camera is. I just bought the RF 15-35mm f/2.8 L on top of buying the camera! (Salesman upsold me from the EF 16-35 4.0.)


It was a well advised up sell. Normally I hate It when salespeople try to do that but in this case I believe their advice was good.


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## SteveC (Aug 1, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> It was a well advised up sell. Normally I hate It when salespeople try to do that but in this case I believe their advice was good.



He's pretty reliable, to be honest. It helps when you actually have a pretty good product to sell. I--who despise the usual salesman as lower than whale shit (and you know what elevation that assumes)--could sell a good product with a clear conscience. Turn around and tell me to sell crap, and I quit, so by some people's reckoning I would be a bad salesman they don't want to hire.

The other alternative, of course was the EF 16-35 f/2.8 L, which I would have been tempted to get (after all, I could adapt it to work on ALL of my cameras and it's slightly cheaper) but I was told both of the EF lenses were considerably less sharp in the corners. But already looking at $2K-ish, it's worth 300 bucks to get it right, and I do have other wide angle lenses for my M cameras (even if not as good, they have a less challenging job given the crop factor).


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## [email protected] (Aug 1, 2020)

AlanF said:


> I have never come across a birddog, apart from an Everly Brothers song. What do they look like?







This is type of birddog, the brittany (the best sort of birddog, and don't believe ANYTHING a setter or pointer person tells you).

Perhaps more interestingly to the forum, this is one image of about 20 in a series, all of which were in focus, taken with the R5 during my lag testing. I couldn't find any lag. I was very frustrated by the R and RP in this regard - and even slightly by my A9 II. I believe we'll find that when people do the more numeric testing, the R5 will stand out as better than any of them.


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## [email protected] (Aug 1, 2020)

Staz said:


> I'll be really interested to know how you get on with BIF as I've the mk2 600 f4 and mk3 1.4x. EVF lag has always made me uncomfortable. Thanks for a comprehensive initial view Tiggy.



I hauled my 600 f/4 II, along with the 1.4 III teleconverter for 4 miles yesterday, but didn't really find much in the way of bird opportunity. I had my 800mm DO arrive today, so I'm probably not going to get an opportunity to fool with the 600 f/4 for at least a day. I can tell you that my rough sense of things is that the AF is just as good as with the dslrs, and the tracking is much better. I do need to do a real-world test, though. My experience with the R5 and the 600 EF lens is too anecdotal to really draw a proper conclusion yet.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 1, 2020)

AlanF said:


> I have never come across a birddog, apart from an Everly Brothers song. What do they look like?


Bird dog (often also called gun dogs) isn't a specific breed it encompasses many breeds that are specifically trained for bird hunters. Depending on the type of bird and your hunting location many different breeds of dog can be trained/used/called a 'bird dog'. They are invariably high energy single minded dogs that hunt by smell rather than sight as downed birds are often very difficult to locate.

Here is my springier spaniel, who had been trained as a true bird dog by her 'real' owner, my father-in-law.

@tiggy, looks like brothers from another mother!




P.S. Unwittingly I think my photo and tiggy's photo demonstrate another of my bug bears, sharpness as a measure of a photograph is often overrated!


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## Jonathan Thill (Aug 1, 2020)

Will add my Mini Review to this thread.

Went out this morning for a typical scouting and shooting session and I have to say I am 100% certain for the type of shooting I do the heat will *NEVER EVER *be an issue.

Went to Westminster Abby in Mission BC, they have gardens and an open church that I have never been in(I was fearful for the lightning damage to the roof as I stepped foot inside but I guess I must be about even on the scale atm)

I took a few shots inside


ISO 1600 15mm f2.8


ISO 1600 15mm F2.8 1/800

Shot of the Garden and the Church


ISO 100 35mm F2.8 1/2000

I shot some short 8K clips and some short 4K cropped clips and did not overheat. I used the camera like I always do and it was perfect for me. On a typical day I can shoot 200 - 1000 photos and 30 or 40 short video clips over 12 hours if I am scouting. If I know where I am going and have a shot in mind I take a lot fewer. When I scout I take photos and maybe a shot video then shut my camera off and walk/drive/ride to the next location I want to check out. 

I am very very pleased, my only complaint is my workflow in Lightroom is "busted" without CR3 from the R5 being compatible (only matter of time) and editing 8K is crazy. I think I am going to transcode all 8K clips in the future.

Computer is I7-8700K Overlocked to 4.4 64gigs of ram all drives are NVMe and I am running a GTX 1080. I edit in Premiere Pro 2020.


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 2, 2020)

I went out to shoot birds with my new R5 this afternoon. I used my Tamron 70-200 G2. I just have to say WOW!!! I have never had good luck shooting birds in the past with either the 5DIII or the EOS R. The tracking was crazy good, even when the birds were pretty far away. Just based on magnifying the images on the screen, it looks like I got great, sharp images of ducks & geese in flight and some great blue herons on the ground. I'm not sure when I'll have time to process these images, but I'm looking forward to it!


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## digigal (Aug 2, 2020)

My new R5 is the most amazing camera I have ever owned. However, it has somewhat put me in a depressed mood: my general success in the past at being a moderately accomplished bird and wildlife photographer enough to be recognized in international contests was due to my persistence, now, due to this camera EVERYONE will be a bird and wildlife photographer because all you have to do is point the camera at the animal/bird and it recognizes it, focuses on it and takes the picture! Totally blew me away. Even a swallow that zoomed by me yesterday--bam! it focused on it, and took a very min out of focus but otherwise picture of the bullet-shaped swallow rocketing by! Generally, very little was going on at the marsh, so I tried photographing mainly little twitter birds perched far away to see what it would do and, by George, it would go right to them and lock focus on their body or head (they were so small that the smallest sensor point covered their whole head). On chimping every feather was sharp even those little feathers around the eye. It's almost like shooting fish in a barrel now--there's almost no reason to miss a bird in flight now. I hand hold so this is a God send to me. Also, my 100-400 II is so much snappier in obtaining focus with the R5 than it was with my 7DM2, and the R5's ability to maintain focus is amazing. I would purposely move the camera around after I had locked on one of those little sparrows on a twig and the focus stayed glued on the bird. When I was photographing an egret fishing with some surrounding mallards, the focus point occasionally jumped to a mallard when the egret was moving around but if I pumped the focus button it went right back to the egret. I spent yesterday letting the camera do all the selection on what to choose to focus on and at the end of the day I was not a all frustrated--it picked just what I wanted in each scene--one with some deer running across a field, etc. It's amazing, and almost depressing at the same time, it's so good! This is really the first time I've ever used auto tracking for my focusing. Wow; just wow. Only glitch, I did have it freeze 1 time and just turned it off and back on again and off we went. I was using an old 7DM2 battery that doesn't hold a charge well and still got over 600 pictures. I was using the High mechanical shutter speed for the SD card. 
Catherine

Some sample--not earth shattering but the auto focus did all the work and selected these birds. All were handheld at 400mm. Speed was 750, 500, and 1000 for the swallow (probably would have been sharper if I'd been at a faster speed but wasn't expecting to photograph that!)


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## zim (Aug 2, 2020)

Wow!


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## Joules (Aug 2, 2020)

digigal said:


> my general success in the past at being a moderately accomplished bird and wildlife photographer enough to be recognized in international contests was due to my persistence, now, due to this camera EVERYONE will be a bird and wildlife photographer because all you have to do is point the camera at the animal/bird and it recognizes it, focuses on it and takes the picture!


In my eyes, the AF living up to the AUTO part of its name is a good thing. That's from the perspective of a hobbyist. If I can get more keepers while concentrating more on the creative aspects and enjoy the observation of the nature, that's a big plus.

But I get what you mean. When I first discovered the bird threads here, I did enjoy them for the pictures only. After trying my hand at the subject matter myself, the appreciation grew due to knowing what it takes to get great images like that. And I don't think that all it takes is the ability to keep the center AF point on the bird, there's still a large component on the photographer that contributes to great wildlife pictures. But from the reports it seems the R5 is truly a game changer for some aspects of photography.


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## digigal (Aug 3, 2020)

More fine tuning my buttons today—it’s going to take a while for muscle memory to kick in. Had some little twitter birds come to bathe our water feature so photographed them and R5 was just dynamite at grabbing them. 100% crops are tack sharp and can still keep going up to 400% and still sharp, sharp, sharp! Will post some crops when they finish making the circuit through PhotoMechanics to DPP to LR (maybe in a week!!), ha! I had my camera freeze once yesterday and had to turn it off and restart without a problem—wasn’t hot or anything. Today it froze again and this time had to remove the battery to get it to restart. I have noticed a few other people mention that as well. Guess we need to start a thread on that to see how many people are having that issue. Only glitch so far.
Catherine


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## [email protected] (Aug 3, 2020)

digigal said:


> More fine tuning my buttons today—it’s going to take a while for muscle memory to kick in. Had some little twitter birds come to bathe our water feature so photographed them and R5 was just dynamite at grabbing them. 100% crops are tack sharp and can still keep going up to 400% and still sharp, sharp, sharp! Will post some crops when they finish making the circuit through PhotoMechanics to DPP to LR (maybe in a week!!), ha! I had my camera freeze once yesterday and had to turn it off and restart without a problem—wasn’t hot or anything. Today it froze again and this time had to remove the battery to get it to restart. I have noticed a few other people mention that as well. Guess we need to start a thread on that to see how many people are having that issue. Only glitch so far.
> Catherine



I think I was the one who mentioned the freeze, and then another fellow chimed with an experience about the RP, not the R5. But you may have seen someone else elsewhere mention it. -tig


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 3, 2020)

digigal said:


> More fine tuning my buttons today—it’s going to take a while for muscle memory to kick in. Had some little twitter birds come to bathe our water feature so photographed them and R5 was just dynamite at grabbing them. 100% crops are tack sharp and can still keep going up to 400% and still sharp, sharp, sharp! Will post some crops when they finish making the circuit through PhotoMechanics to DPP to LR (maybe in a week!!), ha! I had my camera freeze once yesterday and had to turn it off and restart without a problem—wasn’t hot or anything. Today it froze again and this time had to remove the battery to get it to restart. I have noticed a few other people mention that as well. Guess we need to start a thread on that to see how many people are having that issue. Only glitch so far.
> Catherine


Yes, my R5 froze yesterday too. I had shot hundreds of photos with the new battery. Then within 20 shots of a fully charged old battery and it froze. I shut the camera off and removed the battery and it came right back with no further issues. I shot hundreds more today with the new battery with no freezing.


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## SteveC (Aug 3, 2020)

MinoltaSRT101 said:


> Yes, my R5 froze yesterday too. I had shot hundreds of photos with the new battery. Then within 20 shots of a fully charged old battery and it froze. I shut the camera off and removed the battery and it came right back with no further issues. I shot hundreds more today with the new battery with no freezing.



If I read you right, it might have something to do with the old battery. (Which makes me scratch my head, why should the batter matter? Unless it's delivering the wrong voltage?)


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 3, 2020)

SteveC said:


> If I read you right, it might have something to do with the old battery. (Which makes me scratch my head, why should the batter matter? Unless it's delivering the wrong voltage?)


I have no idea if the old style battery had anything to do with the freeze. I just figured I'd mention it because it was so soon after I changed out the battery. Could easily be totally unrelated.


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## digigal (Aug 3, 2020)

SteveC said:


> If I read you right, it might have something to do with the old battery. (Which makes me scratch my head, why should the batter matter? Unless it's delivering the wrong voltage?)


Yesterday was old battery when it froze; today it froze with the new R5 battery, so not that.
Catherine


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## digigal (Aug 3, 2020)

Some samples from today: all at 400 mm handheld
Reduced size full frame picture and below it a 100% crop
Actually I've got multiple examples just like this and I'm not going to clutter up the thread with them but the R5 performed beautifully on tiny birds that I almost never photograph so I have great hopes for the things I usually do!
Catherine
We're off to Alaska to photograph some bears in about 10 days--not going to be an ideal location but more just to get out and have an opportunity to do some photography so will have more "real world-ish" things to report after that.
#1


Crop


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## Chris.Chapterten (Aug 3, 2020)

digigal said:


> Some samples from today: all at 400 mm handheld
> Reduced size full frame picture and below it a 100% crop
> Actually I've got multiple examples just like this and I'm not going to clutter up the thread with them but the R5 performed beautifully on tiny birds that I almost never photograph so I have great hopes for the things I usually do!
> Catherine
> ...


Amazing detail


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## Bdbtoys (Aug 3, 2020)

digigal said:


> Yesterday was old battery when it froze; today it froze with the new R5 battery, so not that.
> Catherine



What memory cards are you using?


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 3, 2020)

Bdbtoys said:


> What memory cards are you using?


Delkin 64gb cfexpress card


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## [email protected] (Aug 3, 2020)

SteveC said:


> If I read you right, it might have something to do with the old battery. (Which makes me scratch my head, why should the batter matter? Unless it's delivering the wrong voltage?)



When I had this ha


MinoltaSRT101 said:


> Delkin 64gb cfexpress card



Interestingly, I was using Delkin 512gb cf express. 

Subsequent to that, the card got wiggy, wouldn't mount on my computer. Would be fine in two different R5 cameras, but the computer just wanted to format it as a new drive. Have a request for an return to B&H.

Digigal, what's your CF Express brand?


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## digigal (Aug 3, 2020)

Bdbtoys said:


> What memory cards are you using?


I was using a Lexar 64 GB SD XC II v60 150 MB/s


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## digigal (Aug 3, 2020)

[email protected] said:


> When I had this ha
> 
> 
> Interestingly, I was using Delkin 512gb cf express.
> ...


I haven't used my CF Express card yet because my reader is still backordered at B&H so I'm still using the SD card ( a 64 GB Lexar SD XC II V60 150 mb/s) and shooting on Hi Mechanical Sutter Speed but only doing a few shots at a time rather than a prolonged burst which is my normal shooting pattern. I'm really testing out this camera for how I normally shoot, not for the extremes it can do--I have a friend who is busy doing that with his and I'll take his word for it!  
Catherine


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## wyotex43n (Aug 3, 2020)

digigal said:


> My new R5 is the most amazing camera I have ever owned. However, it has somewhat put me in a depressed mood: my general success in the past at being a moderately accomplished bird and wildlife photographer enough to be recognized in international contests was due to my persistence, now, due to this camera EVERYONE will be a bird and wildlife photographer because all you have to do is point the camera at the animal/bird and it recognizes it, focuses on it and takes the picture! Totally blew me away. Even a swallow that zoomed by me yesterday--bam! it focused on it, and took a very min out of focus but otherwise picture of the bullet-shaped swallow rocketing by! Generally, very little was going on at the marsh, so I tried photographing mainly little twitter birds perched far away to see what it would do and, by George, it would go right to them and lock focus on their body or head (they were so small that the smallest sensor point covered their whole head). On chimping every feather was sharp even those little feathers around the eye. It's almost like shooting fish in a barrel now--there's almost no reason to miss a bird in flight now. I hand hold so this is a God send to me. Also, my 100-400 II is so much snappier in obtaining focus with the R5 than it was with my 7DM2, and the R5's ability to maintain focus is amazing. I would purposely move the camera around after I had locked on one of those little sparrows on a twig and the focus stayed glued on the bird. When I was photographing an egret fishing with some surrounding mallards, the focus point occasionally jumped to a mallard when the egret was moving around but if I pumped the focus button it went right back to the egret. I spent yesterday letting the camera do all the selection on what to choose to focus on and at the end of the day I was not a all frustrated--it picked just what I wanted in each scene--one with some deer running across a field, etc. It's amazing, and almost depressing at the same time, it's so good! This is really the first time I've ever used auto tracking for my focusing. Wow; just wow. Only glitch, I did have it freeze 1 time and just turned it off and back on again and off we went. I was using an old 7DM2 battery that doesn't hold a charge well and still got over 600 pictures. I was using the High mechanical shutter speed for the SD card.
> Catherine
> 
> Some sample--not earth shattering but the auto focus did all the work and selected these birds. All were handheld at 400mm. Speed was 750, 500, and 1000 for the swallow (probably would have been sharper if I'd been at a faster speed but wasn't expecting to photograph that!)
> ...


Great write up and photos. Swallows are my holy grail of shooting BIF. I received my R5 but not the adapter so I have not been able to test shooting with my 100-400. 
But I do have a question. I assume you had tracking turned on. Is there a way to select a subject and then begin tracking or is all up to the software? I notice I can turn tracking on and off with the joystick but I can't seem to make it start following a subject I pick. This may be user error or me reading the manual wrong but it seems to indicate you can pick a subject and then start tracking. What are your thoughts. FYI I only have a wide angle RF lens so it been limiting my wildlife test.


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## scyrene (Aug 3, 2020)

Stu_bert said:


> Re IBIS and 8 stops, I came across this article looking for something else
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I had wondered about this when the rumour of 8 stops emerged. But although it seemed to come from a source who knew what they were talking about, it sounded fishy. But perhaps it's true and Canon has just built it into their calculations - or maybe it's because of the two accelerometers working in tandem that it can be cancelled out?


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## koenkooi (Aug 3, 2020)

wyotex43n said:


> Great write up and photos. Swallows are my holy grail of shooting BIF. I received my R5 but not the adapter so I have not been able to test shooting with my 100-400.
> But I do have a question. I assume you had tracking turned on. Is there a way to select a subject and then begin tracking or is all up to the software? I notice I can turn tracking on and off with the joystick but I can't seem to make it start following a subject I pick. This may be user error or me reading the manual wrong but it seems to indicate you can pick a subject and then start tracking. What are your thoughts. FYI I only have a wide angle RF lens so it been limiting my wildlife test.


That sounds like the ‘initial af point for tracking’ setting, it’s one of the custom function settings.


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## digigal (Aug 3, 2020)

wyotex43n said:


> Great write up and photos. Swallows are my holy grail of shooting BIF. I received my R5 but not the adapter so I have not been able to test shooting with my 100-400.
> But I do have a question. I assume you had tracking turned on. Is there a way to select a subject and then begin tracking or is all up to the software? I notice I can turn tracking on and off with the joystick but I can't seem to make it start following a subject I pick. This may be user error or me reading the manual wrong but it seems to indicate you can pick a subject and then start tracking. What are your thoughts. FYI I only have a wide angle RF lens so it been limiting my wildlife test.


Yes. You have the autotrackiing have the full range of the sensor/viewfinder to pick people/animal eyes--whatever you have it set on or you can set up boundaries to restrict the auto tracking ie to just an area in the center of the frame, a horizontal band across the lower part of the picture, etc and you can move these boundaries around depending on what you are shooting and where your subject is likely to be.
Catherine


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## wyotex43n (Aug 3, 2020)

koenkooi said:


> That sounds like the ‘initial af point for tracking’ setting, it’s one of the custom function settings.


Thank you. I had some combinations set that prevented it from working properly.


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## wyotex43n (Aug 3, 2020)

digigal said:


> Yes. You have the autotrackiing have the full range of the sensor/viewfinder to pick people/animal eyes--whatever you have it set on or you can set up boundaries to restrict the auto tracking ie to just an area in the center of the frame, a horizontal band across the lower part of the picture, etc and you can move these boundaries around depending on what you are shooting and where your subject is likely to be.
> Catherine


Thanks. As I mentioned to the other person I had some combinations set up that did not work.


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## Bdbtoys (Aug 4, 2020)

digigal said:


> I haven't used my CF Express card yet because my reader is still backordered at B&H so I'm still using the SD card ( a 64 GB Lexar SD XC II V60 150 mb/s) and shooting on Hi Mechanical Sutter Speed but only doing a few shots at a time rather than a prolonged burst which is my normal shooting pattern. I'm really testing out this camera for how I normally shoot, not for the extremes it can do--I have a friend who is busy doing that with his and I'll take his word for it!
> Catherine



Your camera can work like a reader... just offload via USB or WiFi. Good readers appear to be in short supply right now, so that's what I will do... well, at least that's the plan when I get the camera to put things on it.


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## Stu_bert (Aug 4, 2020)

scyrene said:


> I had wondered about this when the rumour of 8 stops emerged. But although it seemed to come from a source who knew what they were talking about, it sounded fishy. But perhaps it's true and Canon has just built it into their calculations - or maybe it's because of the two accelerometers working in tandem that it can be cancelled out?


Yeah, none of the sites mention it that I've seen. And if Olympus originally agreed that the rotation limits it, then you might expect the bigger review sites to be aware. I guess CIPA testing somehow "ignores it" and the manufacturers don't care if it makes their products look better...


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 6, 2020)

wyotex43n said:


> Great write up and photos. Swallows are my holy grail of shooting BIF. I received my R5 but not the adapter so I have not been able to test shooting with my 100-400.
> But I do have a question. I assume you had tracking turned on. Is there a way to select a subject and then begin tracking or is all up to the software? I notice I can turn tracking on and off with the joystick but I can't seem to make it start following a subject I pick. This may be user error or me reading the manual wrong but it seems to indicate you can pick a subject and then start tracking. What are your thoughts. FYI I only have a wide angle RF lens so it been limiting my wildlife test.


Speaking of Swallows, I was trying to shoot some Tree Swallows yesterday. Over the previous few days I was shooting birds like herons, ducks and geese that fly fairly straight. Locking on and tracking was incredible with essentially no viewfinder lag. Swallows were difficult to lock onto and much more difficult to track. I have to say, viewfinder lag did rear it's head a bit while trying to follow these swooping, darting, speed demons! I suspect I may be able to change the autofocus case or some parameters to improve tracking of birds that move like Swallows. Unfortunately it was starting to get dark and I didn't want to spend the time to change the AF case.

While I think with eye tracking af, I think there are ways to move the focus between detected subjects, but I'm not sure that works at typical BIF distances. If you find a way to make it work, please let us know.


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## tomislavmoze (Aug 6, 2020)

Love my R5 it can replace my 1dx, 5dmk4 and R easily in every aspect. 
The AF is out of this world and I have a perfect camera for my Red Bull stuff and for my Advertising stuff. 
For photography I think this is the best all-around cameras so far. It is so good that I7m rethinking about buying R6 and just getting another R5 
The only thing I could not get to work is setting up HEIF files instead of JPG for back up, has anybody managed to do so?


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## Staz (Aug 6, 2020)

MinoltaSRT101 said:


> Speaking of Swallows, I was trying to shoot some Tree Swallows yesterday. Over the previous few days I was shooting birds like herons, ducks and geese that fly fairly straight. Locking on and tracking was incredible with essentially no viewfinder lag. Swallows were difficult to lock onto and much more difficult to track. I have to say, viewfinder lag did rear it's head a bit while trying to follow these swooping, darting, speed demons! I suspect I may be able to change the autofocus case or some parameters to improve tracking of birds that move like Swallows. Unfortunately it was starting to get dark and I didn't want to spend the time to change the AF case.
> 
> While I think with eye tracking af, I think there are ways to move the focus between detected subjects, but I'm not sure that works at typical BIF distances. If you find a way to make it work, please let us know.


I'm a bit disheartened to hear of EVF lag although given the subject it's probably the toughest test the AF and EVF will be subjected to. How bad was it assuming you can quantify it?


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 6, 2020)

Staz said:


> I'm a bit disheartened to hear of EVF lag although given the subject it's probably the toughest test the AF and EVF will be subjected to. How bad was it assuming you can quantify it?


It is not an optical viewfinder, but tracking the swallows on approach it might as well be. If you shoot a few frames you can follow them pretty well. I noticed that when I was shooting a burst the viewfinder would fall behind a little bit. That wasn't a problem for me with herons, ducks and geese in flight because I maintained my panning speed and could track them fine. Since Swallows aren't following as predictable a path, I'd tend to lose them 10 or 12 frames in. I was shooting a Tamron 150-600 at between 400 & 600mm. My guess is lag would be reduced even more with an EF or (especially) RF lens.


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## tomislavmoze (Aug 6, 2020)

MinoltaSRT101 said:


> It is not an optical viewfinder, but tracking the swallows on approach it might as well be. If you shoot a few frames you can follow them pretty well. I noticed that when I was shooting a burst the viewfinder would fall behind a little bit. That wasn't a problem for me with herons, ducks and geese in flight because I maintained my panning speed and could track them fine. Since Swallows aren't following as predictable a path, I'd tend to lose them 10 or 12 frames in. I was shooting a Tamron 150-600 at between 400 & 600mm. My guess is lag would be reduced even more with an EF or (especially) RF lens.


Did you turned of the overheat control in the video settings ? It can influence the quality of EVF in the photo mode, at least that happened to me.


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## BeenThere (Aug 6, 2020)

Stu_bert said:


> Thanks for the first impressions, jealous you got one let lone two but then you pulled the trigger immediately so well done
> 
> Re IBIS and 8 stops, I came across this article looking for something else
> 
> ...


Would have to input latitude and a compass pointing direction for a correction to earth rotation.


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## Staz (Aug 6, 2020)

MinoltaSRT101 said:


> It is not an optical viewfinder, but tracking the swallows on approach it might as well be. If you shoot a few frames you can follow them pretty well. I noticed that when I was shooting a burst the viewfinder would fall behind a little bit. That wasn't a problem for me with herons, ducks and geese in flight because I maintained my panning speed and could track them fine. Since Swallows aren't following as predictable a path, I'd tend to lose them 10 or 12 frames in. I was shooting a Tamron 150-600 at between 400 & 600mm. My guess is lag would be reduced even more with an EF or (especially) RF lens.


Thanks for the reply Minolta. Much appreciated.


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## Staz (Aug 6, 2020)

tomislavmoze said:


> Did you turned of the overheat control in the video settings ? It can influence the quality of EVF in the photo mode, at least that happened to me.


An interesting observation.


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## BeenThere (Aug 6, 2020)

privatebydesign said:


> It was a well advised up sell. Normally I hate It when salespeople try to do that but in this case I believe their advice was good.


But you can use the EF-RF filter adapter and the new breakthrough filters with the EF lens, and it is a sharp lens that is great for landscapes. Using the NDs with long exposures interest me.


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## privatebydesign (Aug 6, 2020)

BeenThere said:


> But you can use the EF-RF filter adapter and the new breakthrough filters with the EF lens, and it is a sharp lens that is great for landscapes. Using the NDs with long exposures interest me.


Personally, as I have said a couple of other times, I am very interested in using the EF-RF filter adapter, but really for lenses that are difficult to front filter. I think each persons needs will depend a lot on what lenses and bodies they have, I see running an RF and EF for some time so will be very reluctant to purchase RF lenses, but for people migrating or buying into RF completely the decision isn't as clear cut. Certainly the RF lenses have received nothing but praise (apart from the prices) and there is no doubt for a complete RF workflow getting RF lenses makes more sense in the long run. The RF 15-35 f2.8 tests out 'better' than the EF 16-35 2.8 and the RF has IS and an extra bit on the wide end.


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 6, 2020)

tomislavmoze said:


> Did you turned of the overheat control in the video settings ? It can influence the quality of EVF in the photo mode, at least that happened to me.


I haven't touched any of the video settings (video isn't my thing), but I'll give that a shot, thanks! I've got to say that when I first got the EOD R and tried to use it for action shooting I found the lag terrible and I would revert to my 5DIII. I find the lag on the R5 to be extremely minimal and can't imagine that I'll be picking up my 5DIII or EOS R for any reason.


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## tomislavmoze (Aug 6, 2020)

MinoltaSRT101 said:


> I haven't touched any of the video settings (video isn't my thing), but I'll give that a shot, thanks! I've got to say that when I first got the EOD R and tried to use it for action shooting I found the lag terrible and I would revert to my 5DIII. I find the lag on the R5 to be extremely minimal and can't imagine that I'll be picking up my 5DIII or EOS R for any reason.


It seams that it influences all the modes. Regarding the camera, tyeah it is finally one camera to do all the photo work without wishing for more. Ok there is 1dxmk3 with 16 frames but i guess there are not that many use case scenarios for that especially with 45mpx camera  Without that I need an extra room just for the hard drives


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## Stu_bert (Aug 6, 2020)

tomislavmoze said:


> Love my R5 it can replace my 1dx, 5dmk4 and R easily in every aspect.
> The AF is out of this world and I have a perfect camera for my Red Bull stuff and for my Advertising stuff.
> For photography I think this is the best all-around cameras so far. It is so good that I7m rethinking about buying R6 and just getting another R5
> The only thing I could not get to work is setting up HEIF files instead of JPG for back up, has anybody managed to do so?


Check out cameralabs / Gordon Laing review and he shows how to do heif


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## Viggo (Aug 6, 2020)

What are the limitations for stills using SD cards? Anything else than smaller buffer?


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## BeenThere (Aug 6, 2020)

Viggo said:


> What are the limitations for stills using SD cards? Anything else than smaller buffer?


Why would the buffer size change? It would fill faster because of slower write speeds. If you are not firing off long bursts, save some coin by buying slower SD cards


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## H. Jones (Aug 6, 2020)

For those still concerned about battery life--I just got back from covering a well-involved structure fire this morning with the R5. About ~2900 shots on a 60% charged LP-E6NH battery before I had to swap out, after I had already used that battery in a two-hour portrait session before the fire.. Not bad at all. 

Worked out to about ~150 gigabytes of photos.

I was concerned about covering fast action with the R5, but tonight it really sold me on the R5's capabilities. No difficulties at all with the camera, it was honestly a total breeze and the EVF saved my butt on some tough eposures. I definitely walked away with a lot more properly exposed images on the R5 than on the 1D X Mark II, just because it can be hard to balance so many vastly different light level in those situations. With night fires, you have an incredibly bright light source from the flames mixed with incredibly dark surroundings, which made my ISO vary all the way from ISO 400 to ISO 25,600 at times.

All in all, I can now safely say that the R5 has totally proven itself to me as an incredible photojournalism camera. It also helped greatly that I was shooting with both the 1DX2 and R5, instead of previously using the 5D3 on a secondary body. That on its own made a huge difference in the images, as previously the 5D3 had almost no ability to recover shadows when put against a bright lightsource like a fire.


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## Act444 (Aug 6, 2020)

Thanks for reporting your hands-on experience in the field with the camera.

My remaining issue would be the MILC’s lack of cross-type/ultra sensitive AF points. How well can it track a moving subject in low light - say, an ice skater in dim show lighting, especially when the costumes are plain. Even the 5D4 can be spotty at times here (challenging conditions for even the best of AF systems), but it’s at least consistent and decisive when the subject isn’t moving too much (relative to the camera). I’ve read reviews where the R5 refused to focus on anything with only vertical lines (such as a interior door in a house). Maybe this ability is being saved for the 1R?


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## Viggo (Aug 6, 2020)

BeenThere said:


> Why would the buffer size change? It would fill faster because of slower write speeds. If you are not firing off long bursts, save some coin by buying slower SD cards


The buffer won’t clear as fast making the camera stutter. Not the best wording perhaps.


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## SteveC (Aug 6, 2020)

Viggo said:


> The buffer won’t clear as fast making the camera stutter. Not the best wording perhaps.



It goes from "big enough" to "not big enough" even though it hasn't changed _actual_ size.


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## digigal (Aug 7, 2020)

I recently reported having problems with crashes of my R5 requiring that I turn it off to unfreeze occasionally but most times requiring that I remove the battery to get it to start again. I found it was not the battery since I tried different batteries including the new R5 one. I used several different Lexar SD XC II V60 150 mb cards and it still occurred. I went to SF yesterday and was photographing a group of terns at Crissie Field and windsurfers on the Bay and had 3-4 crashes and noticed that it seemed to happen while the card was still writing to the buffer and I was changing a setting to go on to the next picture. Today I switched to the CF Express card and downloaded from my camera directly to my computer using the EOS Utilities (my reader won't arrive until the end of the month). Using the electronic shutter and high speed shooting my pictures were even sharper than before and the camera performed even better than with the SD card I was using. I ripped off 260 shots in less than a couple of minutes without even a hesitation from the camera or crash, so it now appears to be related to the slowness of getting the info off the SD card I was using. My only problem with the electronic shutter is that I can't tell if or how many shots I've taken. The blinking rim is so subtle when you are concentrating on the minute features of a bird, it's no help. I wish there was so audible click you could enable. I think I'm going to have to stick with CF Express to get the best out of this camera. I'll post pictures later. The bathing songbirds were crispy sharp to 3x magnification! And they were shot through my bedroom window
Catherine


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## xps (Aug 7, 2020)

Canon did a good job with stills in the R5.
- Af performance is outstanding on BIF! (5DIV-more than the half of all shots are not "eye-sharp", about 50% on the Sony A7RIV, and almost all are sharp on the R5. I took 2200 shots in the last two days, mostly on BIF. And damned!... I do not know thich one to delete, becouse they are all sharp at the eye. 
Also it has lesser noise than the Sony 7RIV at the same ISO. 
With the 70-200RF it is a pleasure to shoot my great-grand-children at skating and biking. All shots are sharp. Wow.


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## Staz (Aug 7, 2020)

xps said:


> Canon did a good job with stills in the R5.
> - Af performance is outstanding on BIF! (5DIV-more than the half of all shots are not "eye-sharp", about 50% on the Sony A7RIV, and almost all are sharp on the R5. I took 2200 shots in the last two days, mostly on BIF. And damned!... I do not know thich one to delete, becouse they are all sharp at the eye.
> Also it has lesser noise than the Sony 7RIV at the same ISO.
> With the 70-200RF it is a pleasure to shoot my great-grand-children at skating and biking. All shots are sharp. Wow.


That's good to know as BIF will be my main use for the R5. What lens/extenders did you use xps?


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## xps (Aug 8, 2020)

Staz said:


> That's good to know as BIF will be my main use for the R5. What lens/extenders did you use xps?


RF 70-200, EF 100-400 II, EF 600 4 II & 1.4x


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## Staz (Aug 8, 2020)

xps said:


> RF 70-200, EF 100-400 II, EF 600 4 II & 1.4x


That covers 2 of my lens and my extender combo so thanks xps.


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## edoorn (Aug 8, 2020)

Just a side question here; has anyone received delivery of their R5 very recently, say the past week? So after initial release date?


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## xps (Aug 8, 2020)

Staz said:


> That covers 2 of my lens and my extender combo so thanks xps.


My 100-400II with 1.4x extender does not work properly on the R5. It works well without the extender. And the 600 II is very slow with the AF if i use the 2x extender. - Maybe this is just a non optimal adjustment.
With my old 400 2.8 L IS AF is just manually possible. But it is ablmost 20 years old.


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## xps (Aug 8, 2020)

edoorn said:


> Just a side question here; has anyone received delivery of their R5 very recently, say the past week? So after initial release date?


In Germany it is luck if you fetch an R5. I´ve preordered the lens back in February (without knowing specs e.g. or the name ), so I received it this week. The shop where I buy my Cameras in Munich only got a handfull of the new bodies.


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## Staz (Aug 9, 2020)

xps said:


> My 100-400II with 1.4x extender does not work properly on the R5. It works well without the extender. And the 600 II is very slow with the AF if i use the 2x extender. - Maybe this is just a non optimal adjustment.
> With my old 400 2.8 L IS AF is just manually possible. But it is ablmost 20 years old.


My 5D4 af slows down when my 2x mk3 is on my 600 f4 mk2. My 1.4x I hardly notice a difference tbh. Hopefully my R5 will perform ok with the 1.4x and 600 mk2 combination.


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## HenryL (Aug 9, 2020)

xps said:


> My 100-400II with 1.4x extender does not work properly on the R5. It works well without the extender. And the 600 II is very slow with the AF if i use the 2x extender. - Maybe this is just a non optimal adjustment.
> With my old 400 2.8 L IS AF is just manually possible. But it is ablmost 20 years old.


I have no issues with the 100-400 II + 1.4x III on the R5. what sort of issue are you experiencing with that combo?


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## MinoltaSRT101 (Aug 10, 2020)

xps said:


> Canon did a good job with stills in the R5.
> - Af performance is outstanding on BIF! (5DIV-more than the half of all shots are not "eye-sharp", about 50% on the Sony A7RIV, and almost all are sharp on the R5. I took 2200 shots in the last two days, mostly on BIF. And damned!... I do not know thich one to delete, becouse they are all sharp at the eye.
> Also it has lesser noise than the Sony 7RIV at the same ISO.
> With the 70-200RF it is a pleasure to shoot my great-grand-children at skating and biking. All shots are sharp. Wow.


Can you share more details? I'm interested in how close you are to the birds in flight, exactly what your AF settings are, etc. Thanks!


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## [email protected] (Aug 10, 2020)

I haven't had much BIF since getting the camera, but I've been doing a lot of high-velocity, spastic kid shots from very close range. The angle of view movement in many of these cases is greater than that of a bird moving across the frame. I am now coming to expect that all shots outside of 5 feet from the camera will be in focus on the eye when using eye tracking. I was never one for eye tracking - even on the Sony A9II - but I'm a believer now. 

I think the limiting factor is more the lenses now. I see this with the 600mm f/11. Its focus isn't speedy. So when tracking a kid running toward me, it'll get it in focus for a couple shots, then fall behind, then jump back into focus, and then fall behind again, etc. The RF 70-200 and all the other L lenses are zippy enough that it just works. Not 15 minutes ago, I took a series of my little girl learning to bike on the lawn. She was coming at me as fast as her little legs could push her (not very fast at all), but the camera kept focus as she passed me until she was within 2-3 feet away, and I was panning rapidly. 

Yesterday I was photographing a leopard frog on a log looking away from me. Was surprised to see the little blue square indicating it had found an eye - even when I had the camera set to look for people. 

The settings were: tracking; eye tracking on; people; H+; all the various silly file modifying "features" like DLO turned off.

Also, of note: sensor read is too fast for jello effect to show up. It's exactly these close passes where I'd expect to see it.


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