More features coming to Canon EOS R5 in future firmware [CR2]

[unfocused]

I don’t expect anything other than bug fixes from firmare updates. Anything else is a bonus. I bought the R5 for the features it had when I bought it. If they fine tune some things I’m happy. If they add more, well then I figure that will just mean an even better R5 II next year.

 

[mpmark]

I frankly don’t care that they don’t add anymore to this camera, it seems some will never be pleased, as a wildlife photographer using the EF 500II adapted to the R5, it smashes every photo I take with it outta the park even up to 12800iso. All in focus on the eye, I’m good thx

 

[Martin0815]

the most useful one would be pre-shutter release buffer
then AF

Exactly, this is what I expected, in particular as the R6 II got a pre-shooting feature (Raw burst mode) and improved autofocus to cover additional subjects.
As we now have IBIS high-resolution, which actually works well for completely static subjects (and camera) in JPG, to me the next step is to use only 1 of the 9 images for areas with motion (e.g. leaves or branches in the wind) and to add RAW, even if these features would be offline using DPP software.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Hate to say this, but this sounds more like the R1 than the R5ii.
I wouldn’t expect to see a stacked sensor.
If you look at the current line up, there is a pattern leading up to the R1
R6 - low res cmos sensor
R5 - high res cmos sensor
R3 - low res stacked sensor
R1 - high res stacked sensor??

I am still hoping for an R5 S.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

I don't think it's quite as straightforward as that. Canon puts out teasers before new cameras are launched, so it's logical to assume that they also "leak" tidbits of information about firmware upgrades. Their purpose in doing so would be to generate excitement and publicity. Obviously, a whole mass of *additional* stuff gets added by the rumour-spreading fraternity, based on wish-lists and general expectations. But rumours, I believe, often start life as deliberate leaks.

Purple monkey dishwasher

 

[Czardoom]

I don't think it's quite as straightforward as that. Canon puts out teasers before new cameras are launched, so it's logical to assume that they also "leak" tidbits of information about firmware upgrades. Their purpose in doing so would be to generate excitement and publicity. Obviously, a whole mass of *additional* stuff gets added by the rumour-spreading fraternity, based on wish-lists and general expectations. But rumours, I believe, often start life as deliberate leaks.

Neither of us has any idea. My opinion is that is is totally unlikely and we have absolutely no evidence that Canon has ever done this. Cosidering all the bad publicity that occurs when rumors are not fullfilled, if Canon wants to intentionally leak info, it will be totally 100% accurate. If they did ever did leak info anonymously, certainly vy now they would no how incredibly stupid this would be in the age of the internet.

 

[Bonich]

Good news to use all the sold R5s for Beta tests targeting the R5II

 

[Birdshooter]

the most useful one would be pre-shutter release buffer
then AF

What? it's a camera, and autofocus is the number one priority. Who cares about pre burst if the autofocus is not up to snuff? weird or what.

 

[David - Sydney]

Since Canon have been putting a lot of effort into the R5 firmware I'm thinking the R5 II would still be a while away yet. Adding these new features to an existing model could be a good real world test to fix any bugs and make them better for the R5 II. A genuine question I have is which hardware upgrades would a R5 II have over the original to make it worthwhile upgrading?

On the HW side...
The biggest change could be a newer version in the Digic X family. Potentially lower power consumption/more efficient including a higher bandwidth (ES 20fps @ 14 bit).
Similarly, a thermal review of heat spreaders etc within the body.

Full sized HDMI port supporting version 2.1 for external recording of 8k/4k120 as well as external USB-C recording

Fancy AF-on button would be nice but I think it will be reserved for the R1/R3.

Fancy hotshoe (and fix the underlying rigidity issue in the R5).

Multi-tilt/swivel LCD is unlikely but would be warmly received for new buyers.
I remember how many people supported Canon's decision not to include a flippy screen to maximise ruggedness but it almost seems quaint to look back at it now.

 

[David - Sydney]

All those in my post above, plus:
new more powerful battery

Given that the power capacity of the LP-E6NH battery and Sony's NP-FZ100 battery are within 10% of each other, the real issue is for the rest of the system CPU/IBIS/CFe cards etc to be more efficient. This is the key issue between Sony and Canon wrt CIPA as far as I can see.

More capacity is always welcome though

 

[David - Sydney]

There are many things, mostly software based, that can be added to make photography easier and better Most of these already exist in non-Canon bodies:

• Allow going ip to 14-bit in ES, at the expense of rolling shutter

Can you clarify how 14bit relates to rolling shutter?

The issue we discovered was that the current Digic X in R5/R3 has approximately the same max bandwidth that seems to constrain data bitrates.
R5 45mp @12fps @14 bit is the same as 20fps @12 bit is the same as R3 24mp @ 30fps @14bit

If a newer version of the processor has greater bandwidth then I believe that 14bit @20fps electronic shutter on the R5 will be possible with the same sensor.

 

[koenkooi]

On the HW side...
The biggest change could be a newer version in the Digic X family. Potentially lower power consumption/more efficient including a higher bandwidth (ES 20fps @ 14 bit).
Similarly, a thermal review of heat spreaders etc within the body. [...]

The Digic X variant in the R6II/R8 seems a lot more power efficient than the one in the R5/R6, in one of their podcasts they said that the 4k60 oversampled video was added because of the better efficiency. A hypothetical R5II that only changes the Digic X to a newer variant and gets up to date firmware would already be a big improvement over the current R5: better battery life, 8k60 with AF, longer record times and more.

The bad news is that, so far, all Digic X variants seem to top out around 900MP/second at 12-bit or 750MP/second at 14-bit. I suspect Canon is saving improvements in that area for the R1 and keeps the current models at the same speed to get better battery life.

For the people saying "you want more than 40fps on your R8!?!?! With SD cards?!?!?", I would say: yes, the more fps it has, the faster it completes focus stacks. And 14-bit would be bonus for that as well.

 

[arthur@haeberli-fo]

of course there will be \'new\' feature\'s in a \'Update\' ... in contrast to something called \'bug fixes\' ..
The question stay\'s: Who are they listening to for wishes, bad behaving of some existing features..
and soemthing that maybe not even needs to have s SW change in the Cameras:
\'Why in the world can we not configure a Canon Camera with a desktop app???????\'

 

[koenkooi]

Can you clarify how 14bit relates to rolling shutter?

The issue we discovered was that the current Digic X in R5/R3 has approximately the same max bandwidth that seems to constrain data bitrates.
R5 45mp @12fps @14 bit is the same as 20fps @12 bit is the same as R3 24mp @ 30fps @14bit

If a newer version of the processor has greater bandwidth then I believe that 14bit @20fps electronic shutter on the R5 will be possible with the same sensor.

The AD converters take exponentially more time to sample each additional bit, so sampling 14 bits takes (handwaving a bit here, I don't know the exact exponent) 4 times longer than sampling 12 bits. Which would make the rolling shutter 4 times worse as well. Some of the recent non-stacked Sony cameras have 14-bit readout for ES and consequently horrendous rolling shutter artefacts.

At uni we were taught that every additional bit is a doubling of the sampling time, but that's 20 years ago, I hope AD converter designers have been clever and reduced it in that timespan

 

[subratasenn]

Looks like new firmware is coming to R5 C too. That’s what Canon Japan seems to have teased.

 

[fr34k]

OK folks, if you could choose just two "feature updates" what would you want?

a) Internal focus composition
b) HDR-PQ not disabling ES - this is such a hassle every time

choosing only two out of dozens of things is really hard. Separating tracking from the AF field, customisable Q-Menu, more button customisation possibilities, false colour, histogram and level during video recording, waveform, more tracking options (e. g. insects), pre-buffer, breathing compensation, there are just soooooo many things, variable burst speeds, precision HF reduction (e.g. 1/1043.6 shutter speed), and soooooo much more detail improvements

EDIT: addendum: custom WB in video just like in photo mode, the display of the focal length in the display (i.e. R3 style interface), the R7‘s overheating style gauge, face/tracking only AF in video (if it looses the subject it does nothing until it regains tracking)

 

[tiggy@mac.com]

I doubt the R5ii will be released spring if 2024. The R1 is supposed to be released for the 2024 olympics. Because of all the marketing hype and a healthy sales strategy, you wouldn’t want to hurt your sales by superseding a new product with an even better product. I think they would release the R1 first since there is a user base waiting for it, especially for the olympics, then maybe in the fall of 2024 once the R1 hype has plateaued would it make more sense to release the R5ii with trickled down R1 features, or spring of 2025. Especially since the R5 is still a viable camera today and they’re still pushing more firmware upgrades.

There is a strange, irrational assumption among us rumor mongers that an R1 camera would move the 1 series into a higher resolution class. I see no reason this would be true.

This also means that an R5 II and an R1 would not directly compete if launched at the same time. In 2012, they revved the 5D and 1D at the same time. But don't take this observation as an optimistic assessment. It isn't.

I think this R5 firmware upgrading business smells like a 7D-Mark-II-scale product delay. I hope I'm wrong, but the time they specced these new software upgrades was likely in early 2022 at the latest. You can read that in one of a few ways:
1) The R52 is delayed, but they have a lot of firmware goodies from that project, some of which can exploit the old hardware, so they're stopgapping the market with an upgrade. Upshot: delay and firmware upgrade.
2) Canon realized late that their original R1 (called the R3 today) was problematically behind the new Sony and Nikon flagships, particularly in resolution. The combination of the new Nikon with a superior selection of actually-newly-designed and cheaper superteles was particularly painful. They rebranded the camera to the R3 and re-specced their next R1 effort upward and outward (~2026). Because the 1 won't ever be a high-res body, they hope a re-specced R5 Mark II will fill that gap roughly between then and that R1 release.* Upshot: delay and firmware upgrade.
3) Canon is putting finishing touches on an R5 Mark II, and just feels generous with redundant firmware upgraded development. World peace imminent. An outbreak of rainbows and unicorns infests earth, solving hunger with overproduction of pink cotton candy. I eat my hat. Upshot: New R5 rev in 2024.

 

[TonyG]

There is a strange, irrational assumption among us rumor mongers that an R1 camera would move the 1 series into a higher resolution class. I see no reason this would be true.

This also means that an R5 II and an R1 would not directly compete if launched at the same time. In 2012, they revved the 5D and 1D at the same time. But don't take this observation as an optimistic assessment. It isn't.

I think this R5 firmware upgrading business smells like a 7D-Mark-II-scale product delay. I hope I'm wrong, but the time they specced these new software upgrades was likely in early 2022 at the latest. You can read that in one of a few ways:
1) The R52 is delayed, but they have a lot of firmware goodies from that project, some of which can exploit the old hardware, so they're stopgapping the market with an upgrade. Upshot: delay and firmware upgrade.
2) Canon realized late that their original R1 (called the R3 today) was problematically behind the new Sony and Nikon flagships, particularly in resolution. The combination of the new Nikon with a superior selection of actually-newly-designed and cheaper superteles was particularly painful. They rebranded the camera to the R3 and re-specced their next R1 effort upward and outward (~2026). Because the 1 won't ever be a high-res body, they hope a re-specced R5 Mark II will fill that gap roughly between then and that R1 release.* Upshot: delay and firmware upgrade.
3) Canon is putting finishing touches on an R5 Mark II, and just feels generous with redundant firmware upgraded development. World peace imminent. An outbreak of rainbows and unicorns infests earth, solving hunger with overproduction of pink cotton candy. I eat my hat. Upshot: New R5 rev in 2024.

It could be the case, I am only speculating.

The R1/R3 theory could be the case.
I personally think the pattern to the line up makes sense.
R6 - Low MP
R5 - High MP
R3 - Low MP Stacked
R1 - High MP Stacked

I wouldn't expect the R1 to have the rumored 100MP sensor, I would think it would be similar to the R5, 45-50 MPish.
It gives you a nice model line up I think, and the decisions are can you afford or do you need stacked compared to normal.
I would think the 100MP model would be something like an R5s variant because it will have other limitations due to the pixel size, like shooting speed and such.

Sony has something similar right now,
A7iv - Low MP
A7Rv - High MP
A9ii - Low MP Stacked
A1 - High MP Stacked

 

[tiggy@mac.com]

There are many things, mostly software based, that can be added to make photography easier and better Most of these already exist in non-Canon bodies:

• ...
• ...
• When the buffer is full, slow down to a consistent fps, not pause-and-burst

When I was reviewing CFexpress cards, I found that the cards were the prime determinant of the "cadence" of the shots. In order to get a consistent fps - which would be nice - you'd have to do it by making it slower than the potential maximum. Essentially, you'd have to give up fps for consistency. Some cards were much better than others. I think the card firmware and its interactions with Canon's firmware is pretty volatile. The cadences actually shifted, mostly for the better, after canon made some firmware upgrades about a year in to the R5's product life. They helped a few card vendors who were experiencing some delays or glitches, which was very unusual for Canon. Because Canon's implementation of the CFexpress standard was essentially the first mass market use of it, they wound up being the primary party adapting to the card vendors' diversity of approaches.

Incidentally, testing shows that the real throughput of the average good card allows infinite 10 fps for Canon R5 RAWs. That ain't bad for bufferless, forever performance. This does mean, though that if you upped the R5 Mark II to 30 FPS, the buffer would seem pretty small. If you doubled it, your buffer would seem to last 2 seconds, and it would take about 4 to clear. That would be consistent with today's buffer of about 2.25 seconds of shooting and taking 2 seconds to clear. As I've noted before, I think the R3 and the R5 have about the same buffer in terms of hard memory. The R3's buffer seems bigger just because it's throwing off smaller files.

 

[neuroanatomist]

There is a strange, irrational assumption among us rumor mongers that an R1 camera would move the 1 series into a higher resolution class. I see no reason this would be true.

Agreed.

As I stated a few pages back:

For the most part, people on this forum hoping for a high MP R1 are not the people who will buying and using it. It’s the latter group that Canon has listened to, not the former.

People often suggest that Canon should do X, Y and Z because Sony has done it that way. Those who do should look at history – so far, Canon has generally gone their own way as far as their MILC lineup, not followed the path forged by Sony. "Canon was 'late' getting into mirrorless." "Canon was 'late' getting into FF mirrorless." Sony is way ahead, has higher MP bodies, everyone is switching to Sony."

Last year, Canon became the #1 MILC brand in Japan. Why should Canon start copying Sony now, when clearly their own strategy is so successful?