The Canon EOS R5 Mark II – We have now seen it

[AlanF]

In honor of almost two years of reading Canon R5ii rumors, 18 years as a Canon customer, I have now been using my Z8 for a week... happy as can be... taking breathtaking photographs...yes a learning curve that is fun and challenging... not looking back... Should have moved on in 2023. Best to all!

A competent photographer can take breathtaking photographs with just about every camera.

 

[AlanF]

Z8 is a great camera.

We'll still respect you, it's not as you went to Sony.

Who are "We"?

 

[Richard CN]

Who are "We"?

shhhh trying to make him feel better about his obviously misguided life choices.

 

[YuengLinger]

I'm using the R5 this season, and it really slows down the workflow due to file size. I get some limited value on maybe 20% of those images for cropping, but still 45mp is too much. The 20mp of the R6 was plenty enough. R3 would be great, and I may side-grade (from a MP standpoint) the R6 i still have up to that when the R1 comes out and prices hopefully drop. Keep the R5 for wildlife and landscapes.

Brian

Neither my older laptop nor fairly new desktop struggles with R5 file sizes. If you are only keeping 50 out of 3000, which is very reasonable, seems you'd be deleting so many that storage space is not an issue either.

And there's CRAW. IQ compromises seem slight and reasonable.

Is your bottleneck at the Detail batch processing stage? Or someplace else? Sincerely curious.

 

[Austintatious]

uhm... getting upset about a camera that hasn't been announced yet? boohoo



Rear LCD, incorrect. Top screen, maybe but the R5 is muuuuuuuch nicer to look at IMO.



As above, we haven't got any pics of the camera yet. The chunky cooling system is an addon grip. The R5ii body will be similar to the current one.


Correct. It had a 30min limit before stopping

I’ve held both in my hands. The amount you can view on the back LCD with the 6D screen is larger. I went to the store and tested it in video mode.

And with the 6D it wouldn’t stop recording, it would just tell you the file was split in two.

 

[RunAndGun]

The no-sound-in-slomo still feels strange to me. I know that it will sound distorted in slowmo mode, but sometimes I want to use that footage at normal speeds (e.g. my kids riding their bikes) and having sound would make that possible. (This is totally not due to me forgetting to turn off slowmo mode)

This is a feature that I’ve wanted for a while, as well, because of the possibilities that it opens up. I work in TV and production and pretty much none of our cameras do this. I own numerous broadcast and “cine” cameras, including two Arri’s. Collectively these cameras cost more more than a nice house, but not a single one records audio when over-cranking(shooting slow-mo). BUT a ~$1K iPhone has been able to do it for north of a decade.

 

[snapshot]

shhhh trying to make him feel better about his obviously misguided life choices.

Z8 / Z9 looks like a great camera. but, for me, no where near great enough for me to replace my lens collection when I already have an R5.
The closest I ever got to changing systems was when the A9 came out and the best I could have was the 5D4. Back then, Sony's lens collection was not that great and the talk surrounding metabones adapters was about how autofocus worked better with in the native system. If A9 vs 5D4 couldn't flip me, Z8 vs R5 has no chance.

 

[dirtyvu]

 

[rbielefeld]

Because it’s the only actual body in Canon’s lineup that lines up with an a1/Z9? I don’t know how that’s such an absurd comparison, the a1 is already three years old and it’s probably going to see a discount sooner rather than later. Same thing with the Z9 which is $1k less (or the Z8 which is $500 less than the rumored R5 Mark II MSRP). I’m less concerned about how this will stack up against those cameras though and more so with how it’ll stack up with the next versions of those cameras when they’re probably released in the near future.

You’re right about the ergonomics, I’ve owned an a9 and an a9 II and sold both because I preferred shooting with the R3 (my R5 has collected dust after suffering lockups at the worst possible times across every firmware version Canon’s provided). The R3 has the best ergonomics of any camera I’ve shot with, I’d just like to have slightly faster bursts for certain situations and a bit more resolution because 24MP does break down if you have no choice but to crop.

I have shot the Canon R5 and R3 since they were available and also have the a1 and Z9, which I have done a lot of work with as well. I shoot birds, mostly birds in flight, and I just don't see what all the consternation is about. They are all great cameras, and at this stage in camera and lens development/capabilities, we are just nitpicking as they are all capable of capturing great images in the most demanding shooting scenarios. For me Canon provides the best combination of reliability, usability, and performance, so it is the system I use the most. Any new advances that come with the R5II and R1 I will see as icing on an already very tasty cake. Pick your poison as far as system goes and let's all go out and make great images with tools that I think most of us would never have dreamed possible when we were shooting slide film all those years ago.

 

[Emyr Evans]

I have shot the Canon R5 and R3 since they were available and also have the a1 and Z9, which I have done a lot of work with as well. I shoot birds, mostly birds in flight, and I just don't see what all the consternation is about. They are all great cameras, and at this stage in camera and lens development/capabilities, we are just nitpicking as they are all capable of capturing great images in the most demanding shooting scenarios. For me Canon provides the best combination of reliability, usability, and performance, so it is the system I use the most. Any new advances that come with the R5II and R1 I will see as icing on an already very tasty cake. Pick your poison as far as system goes and let's all go out and make great images with tools that I think most of us would never have dreamed possible when we were shooting slide film all those years ago.

100% agree. I also use mulit-brand equipment but mostly Canon. Resplendent image, btw

 

[rbielefeld]

100% agree. I also use mulit-brand equipment but mostly Canon. Resplendent image, btw

Thanks much for the kind words about the Quetzel image.

 

[definedphotography]

I’ve held both in my hands. The amount you can view on the back LCD with the 6D screen is larger. I went to the store and tested it in video mode.

Field of view and LCD size are 2 different things. The R5 screen is only slightly bigger (3" vs 3.2"), but has twice the number of pixels

 

[amorse]

They seemed to be targeting the same market to me. All my friends who shoot birds with Canon use an R5, all my friends that shoot birds with Sony shoot A1 and now my friends who shoot Nikon have either Z8 or Z9 but most are trending to Z8 now that it is out.

I think the uses for the cameras have a lot of overlap, but given the price differences they do seem to have different consumers/budgets in mind. I mean, technically one could say both the R6 and R3 are cameras designed to capture fast action, but the purchasers for each may be pretty different based on the cost and needs of the user. It seems to me that both Sony and Nikon have placed their "do it all" camera at the top of the lineup in terms of price/features, where Canon's equivalent in the R5 is one (soon to be two, or so it would seem) steps down from that price point/feature set. I think the bottom line is Canon's segmentation in it's lineup doesn't exactly match what we see from Nikon or Sony, for better or worse, and as a result there may be overlap in uses at different price points, though (and maybe I'm biased here) I don't believe Canon ever really intends to release a camera to compete directly with something else by wildly undercutting it. It's always seemed to me that Canon wants to get as much as they believe the market will bear for a body/niche. With that in mind, I think if Canon really felt the best competitor to the A1 was the R5, they would be priced comparably. Maybe Canon's thought is the R1 will be that competitor? Who knows, but to me, even though the R5 has overlap in uses with higher-end bodies, they don't seem targeted at the same pool of buyers from my perspective.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Who knows, but to me, even though the R5 has overlap in uses with higher-end bodies, they don't seem targeted at the same pool of buyers from my perspective.

I think that makes sense. Why did Sony move to MILC then concentrate on FF MILC before anyone else? Why has Nikon released several very nice “mid-range” long lenses (mid-range being relative for $3-4K lenses)? Because going toe-to-toe with a market-dominating competitor is often not the best choice.

 

[AlanF]

I have shot the Canon R5 and R3 since they were available and also have the a1 and Z9, which I have done a lot of work with as well. I shoot birds, mostly birds in flight, and I just don't see what all the consternation is about. They are all great cameras, and at this stage in camera and lens development/capabilities, we are just nitpicking as they are all capable of capturing great images in the most demanding shooting scenarios. For me Canon provides the best combination of reliability, usability, and performance, so it is the system I use the most. Any new advances that come with the R5II and R1 I will see as icing on an already very tasty cake. Pick your poison as far as system goes and let's all go out and make great images with tools that I think most of us would never have dreamed possible when we were shooting slide film all those years ago.

Good to read a balanced view and not brand warfare.

 

[Tony5787]

I have shot the Canon R5 and R3 since they were available and also have the a1 and Z9, which I have done a lot of work with as well. I shoot birds, mostly birds in flight, and I just don't see what all the consternation is about. They are all great cameras, and at this stage in camera and lens development/capabilities, we are just nitpicking as they are all capable of capturing great images in the most demanding shooting scenarios. For me Canon provides the best combination of reliability, usability, and performance, so it is the system I use the most. Any new advances that come with the R5II and R1 I will see as icing on an already very tasty cake. Pick your poison as far as system goes and let's all go out and make great images with tools that I think most of us would never have dreamed possible when we were shooting slide film all those years ago.

I’ve shot with both since their respective releases as well and they’re both great cameras for sure, the R3 is so far my favorite camera I’ve ever shot with. The R5 has locked up on me too many times in once-in-a-lifetime situations for me to feel like I can rely on it as a primary body. The R3 has yet to lock up on me though and the only things that I’ve wanted from it at times were a bit more resolution and higher frame rates for things like Barn Swallows in flight where decisive moment is just so difficult to capture even at 30fps. There’s a very specific shot that I’ve been trying to get now for three years and after well over 100k shots taken of them, I’ve gotten very close a few times but it’s always just before or just after the moment I’m looking to capture. I’ve seen some pretty solid shots from the a9 III though so maybe the R1 will be the camera for me after all, in the meantime the R3 is still a blast to shoot with and hopefully I’ll finally get lucky this spring with the swallows.

 

[clearwaterphotog]

Serious question: I'm not an astro photographer. I understand wide angle for Milky Way shots, or Aurora Borealis. Other than that, I can't think of another. Are the wide angle lenses attached to a telescope sometimes? I guess I've assumed that's for a zoom, but now I'm guessing wide angle might be used that way also?

I guess if the optics in the telescope aren't as good as the camera lens, then it doesn't matter whose lens is used.

No, a wide angle lens for astro is specifically just for wide shots. You can get some very cool compositions of earth and sky when you go 24mm or wider. If you want to go deeper, you put a T-adapter on your camera to insert or thread it directly to a telescope focuser which makes the telescope the primary optic, but then you certainly need a tracking mount which changes the experience entirely. Astrophotography is a wide field (ha ha) and there are many different types of shots worth taking. However, ultrawide lenses at relatively short exposures (under 30s) mean you don't need a tracking mount, so they make it possible to take stunning astro photos while traveling, hiking, etc. As someone who goes on multiple trips a year to dark backcountry skies, I'd love something like a 14/1.4, or the rumored 14-20/2. The latter would be a pretty crazy lens if Canon actually managed to control coma, vignetting, and CA.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

The latter would be a pretty crazy lens if Canon actually managed to control coma, vignetting, and CA.

If such a lens is released, I expect it'll need software corrections.
CA is usually easily correctable, coma isn't. But vignetting is the worst. Say in RF 15-35 it's about 5 stops at f2.8. That can be corrected but it creates huge noise in the corners.
So I'd watch the reviews on vignetting for this lens (again when/if it's released).

 

[koenkooi]

If such a lens is released, I expect it'll need software corrections.
CA is usually easily correctable, coma isn't. But vignetting is the worst. Say in RF 15-35 it's about 5 stops at f2.8. That can be corrected but it creates huge noise in the corners.
So I'd watch the reviews on vignetting for this lens (again when/if it's released).

I wonder which company will be the first to add an option to use generative AI to fix LoCA.

 

[rbielefeld]

I’ve shot with both since their respective releases as well and they’re both great cameras for sure, the R3 is so far my favorite camera I’ve ever shot with. The R5 has locked up on me too many times in once-in-a-lifetime situations for me to feel like I can rely on it as a primary body. The R3 has yet to lock up on me though and the only things that I’ve wanted from it at times were a bit more resolution and higher frame rates for things like Barn Swallows in flight where decisive moment is just so difficult to capture even at 30fps. There’s a very specific shot that I’ve been trying to get now for three years and after well over 100k shots taken of them, I’ve gotten very close a few times but it’s always just before or just after the moment I’m looking to capture. I’ve seen some pretty solid shots from the a9 III though so maybe the R1 will be the camera for me after all, in the meantime the R3 is still a blast to shoot with and hopefully I’ll finally get lucky this spring with the swallows.

The R5 lock up issues where pretty pervasive early on with the camera from my experience. A lot of my clients with this problem sent their R5s back to Canon and had new motherboards installed and that seemed to solve the issue for many of them. I am sure you probably did this and are still having issues, and that is not acceptable in my mind. A camera should be dependable and Canon is usually very much so. Regarding the R3, I agree. The most fun camera I have ever shot.