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

[David - Sydney]

Well I'd sure hope Canon can one up what will be a 3.5 year old camera when the R5II finally ships. But what will happen in Nov 2024 when the A1II comes out? 50MP @ 60FPS with flawless pre-capture implementation and who knows what other goodies Sony will have cooked up by then?

I think that you mis-remember that then R5 was revolutionary when released! Nothing else could do what it does - and indeed the A1 still cannot record 8K30 raw even at 1.5x the R5's price before all the discounting and currently 2.2x the price!
The main difference is the battery life which is not due to the battery capacity but the internal power usage of the chipsets etc so hopefully the R5ii will be more power efficient.

Indeed, who knows what Sony will release and when but making an assumption based on distant rumours is foolish. The R5ii spec sheet hasn't appeared yet let alone anything for the A1ii

The R5II will have to sell at a significant discount to the A1II if it is going to only match the A1 in most of the fundamental features.

The R5ii will be different to the A1 (and A1ii) - not least of which is the size/ memory cards. The biggest difference is the price so to say that they are playing in the same market segmentation is a reach. Can you honestly say that USD3900 is equivalent to USD6500 release price?

1. It is extremely rare for a new user to decide between (almost) flag ship systems.
2. It is rare for users to have multiple systems but it happens for some use cases.
3. It is expensive to switch between systems. Users love to tell everyone when they switch to justify their choice of system but they don't disclose how much it cost them.

What your subsequent posts have shown is that you (and a small number of others including some in this forum) are in the 2nd category and have sufficient disposal income to support those choices. That would be a small % vs most R5 owners (including myself).
My point is that Canon would not be trying to convince your segment that the R5ii has to beat the A1 feature set at 60% of the cost.
Your opinions would not be relevant for Canon in this case.

 

[David - Sydney]

it's not if the sensor is actively cooled. the difference you get in noise and the ability to move the ISO higher with less noise will counter the 1EV difference you'll get in the lens performance.

there is a reason why every astro camera is actively cooled.

here's an d810 that went through cooling mods and the difference. I'm not saying we'll see these kind of differences, but the difference between a sensor that can stay cool is far far far more of an advantage than you think it is for astrophotography / astrolandscape.

while you won't be doing 450 second exposures, on a mirrorless time is cumulative when you have it on and the EVF / LCD is showing a live display. so 20 minutes into your shooting on a non cooled sensor, you'll have data such as shown below.

Generally, cooled sensors are only for deep sky and not astrolandscape usage based on 450s exposures.
You would need an expensive EQ mount to track accurately for this exposure time.
Every deep-sky astro camera tends to be cooled and cannot be used for anything else. ZWO make a few including mono versions and can certainly cost more than a R5.

Doing 120s exposures on a basic tracker didn't show a lot of noise on my R5... or at least not significant enough that Topaz couldn't do an excellent job with
Easy to turn off the EVF/rear screen to reduce heat sources and hopefully people shooting very long exposures would do this. The R5 automatically turns off the LCD whilst the shutter is open and unless your face is in the viewfinder, the EVF shouldn't be on. In any case, the brightness of the rear screen would be at minimum for night work in dark skies.

Given that the D810 came out in 2014, I wonder whether improvements in sensor technology would reduce the need for cooling for "normal" astro usage.
I think that this is the mod that Richard was referring to. Note that the image sensor is moved forward and the ability to use narrow band filters is added. This may be impossible with mirrorless with smaller register (flange focal distance)
CentralDS also did one in 2018 for the D850 but nothing over the last 6 years.
http://www.centralds.net/cam/?cat=46

 

[Aussie shooter]

I find the 'AI features geared towards wildlife and sports photography ' interesting but also troubling. One of the cornerstones of wildlife photography is its integrity. If AI is being done to an image in camera than that integrity is gone. Hopefully it is just in the recognition side of things and not computational imaging.

 

[David - Sydney]

I find the 'AI features geared towards wildlife and sports photography ' interesting but also troubling. One of the cornerstones of wildlife photography is its integrity. If AI is being done to an image in camera than that integrity is gone. Hopefully it is just in the recognition side of things and not computational imaging.

users aren't happy with the "made using AI" designation when they have just used PS genIA object removal vs clone or content aware fill. Same issue with Topaz AI denoise.
The line will be hotly debated for post processing but machine learning for AI subject acquisition/tracking has been great and widely understood.

It is unclear how genAI would be used in-body ie without cloud access or even if it wanted. Choosing to transfer the image to a phone and then remove objects is one thing but doing it in-body seems a feature that few would use.

An option for something like Topaz for noise reduction in-body jpg files could be an application
Baked-in noise reduction in raw files has been somewhat controversial in tech forums but not elsewhere.

 

[koenkooi]

I find the 'AI features geared towards wildlife and sports photography ' interesting but also troubling. […]

I took that as “autofocus and metering now understands that dark birds against a bright sky need a different exposure”, not “the camera added an AI generated lion to spice up your boring safari picture”.

I can also imagine that the camera would be able to detect posture and will increase the fps when, for example, a kestrel starts diving or a cheetah starts jumping.

 

[Gendra]

Hopefully it is just in the recognition side of things and not computational imaging.

I'm pretty confident that there will be no AI image generation in the camera. In contrary, I think the new models will support things like C2PA to prove your images aren't AI generated.

I can also imagine that the camera would be able to detect posture and will increase the fps when, for example, a kestrel starts diving or a cheetah starts jumping.

Well when combining that with precapture maybe the camera can even start taking pictures by itself when it detects some action.
Maybe AI will not make the cameras obsolete like some have feared, but only the photographer behind it

 

[koenkooi]

[...] Well when combining that with precapture maybe the camera can even start taking pictures by itself when it detects some action.
Maybe AI will not make the cameras obsolete like some have feared, but only the photographer behind it

I would love to see something like Nikons autocapture being added to all Canon bodies: https://onlinemanual.nikonimglib.com/z9/en/adding_photo_auto_capture_343.html

During the warmer months I set up a camera trap almost every day to catch the 'wildlife' in my garden. Not needing an external detection setup would open up a lot of possibilities! And being able to use flash with ES would be nice to have as well, one night a snail parked itself in between the IR gate, in the morning all batteries were empty, all cards were full and my R5 mechanical shutter had an additional 5000 actuations.

But pictures like this keep me going:

https://flic.kr/p/2nJJRg2

 

[Michael Clark]

But presumably it was only occasionally successful, which is one reason that shot became so well known (obviously the composition and subject matter are probably much more important)? We wouldn't know about all the failed ones, like we don't see all the shots people delete now.

Neil Leifer, who shot that frame of Ali standing over Liston, didn't miss. His "occasionally successful" shots, as you put it, were in the pages of Sports Illustrated practically every week from the late 1950s until he left SI to go to work for TIME magazine in 1978.

 

[Michael Clark]

And i'm sure all of them would be appreciative of the technology that helps reduce the luck factor. Even with 20fps and a huge memory card, you really have to be paying attention so skill, of course, is still a part of the requirement regardless,

Not as appreciative as one might think. The technology has removed a lot of the skill requirement, which means almost anyone willing to learn a little can get a lot of the shots only a rare few could get before. That's why images that once paid $500 per use are now paying less than $5 per use. Those few who could get the shots when they paid $500 are not happy that the market is now flooded with enough such shots that the market value has dropped by 99%.

 

[EOS 4 Life]

Not as appreciative as one might think. The technology has removed a lot of the skill requirement, which means almost anyone willing to learn a little can get a lot of the shots only a rare few could get before. That's why images that once paid $500 per use are now paying less than $5 per use. Those few who could get the shots when they paid $500 are not happy that the market is now flooded with enough such shots that the market value has dropped by 99%.

This is very true.
On the bright side, there is the ability to produce and the demand for a lot more usable images.
News went from daily and weekly to up to the minute.
On the dark side, there are more photographers struggling to earn a living.

 

[Michael Clark]

that was the post sale option but not long afterwards, Canon permanently increased the price and included Clog in all future production

I don't think they did that here in the U.S. It's still $100 price difference at B&H.

 

[Michael Clark]

I find the 'AI features geared towards wildlife and sports photography ' interesting but also troubling. One of the cornerstones of wildlife photography is its integrity. If AI is being done to an image in camera than that integrity is gone. Hopefully it is just in the recognition side of things and not computational imaging.

All color digital photos are computational imaging. Since the three colors in Bayer masks are not the same three colors emitted by our RGB monitors, every pixel of a color digital image has the value of all three colors - R, G, & B - synthesized. Sharpening/contrast adjustment is synthesis. Applying logarithmic light curves is synthesis. So is just about everything else we do to convert raw linear monochromatic luminance values to RGB images.

 

[David - Sydney]

I find the 'AI features geared towards wildlife and sports photography ' interesting but also troubling. One of the cornerstones of wildlife photography is its integrity. If AI is being done to an image in camera than that integrity is gone. Hopefully it is just in the recognition side of things and not computational imaging.

DJI just announced an update for their app where "AI" will analyse your video, pick the clips, add music etc. An interesting option for those not wanting to spend the time editing their footage. I guess that it is the same for Apple etc taking your photos/memories etc into clips for sharing.

https://dronedj.com/2024/05/29/dji-fly-app-ai-update/

 

[czesiek]

meanwhile I'm still waiting for a replacement of my 5Ds. 60-70mpx would do the trick perfectly and my TS-E collection pushes me back from switching to GFX.

 

[uPhotic]

PetaPixel released a video on the new sigma 1.8 zoom lens and showed redacted as the camera used to shoot it. While this could mean any camera, as Jared Polin's video on the same lens said filmed with RF lenses not R5 as it usually does, I would suspect they are using the R5II. It could be the R1 but I doubt they would have them testing it as it won't release for a few months. The footage in petapixel's video looked very nice too. It could also be a new sony or nikon (new Z6?)

 

[amorse]

PetaPixel released a video on the new sigma 1.8 zoom lens and showed redacted as the camera used to shoot it. While this could mean any camera, as Jared Polin's video on the same lens said filmed with RF lenses not R5 as it usually does, I would suspect they are using the R5II. It could be the R1 but I doubt they would have them testing it as it won't release for a few months. The footage in petapixel's video looked very nice too. It could also be a new sony or nikon (new Z6?)

That's an interesting observation! I can't think of why either of those personalities would depart from typical behaviour unless to prevent disclosing a something new they're using.

I love when people start picking up on the littlest changes in behaviours of traditional reviewers leading up to things like this. Maybe you're right!

 

[SpecInspector]

Where is this "pros only need low resolution" mantra coming from? In an age of 5k, 6k, and even 8k displays what are these "pros" shooting for, Cell phone displays? Might as well turn the sensors 90 degrees so they can shoot portrait with their 24Mpixel flagshit cameras without having to contort their "pro" hands.

 

[frankchn]

Where is this "pros only need low resolution" mantra coming from? In an age of 5k, 6k, and even 8k displays what are these "pros" shooting for, Cell phone displays? Might as well turn the sensors 90 degrees so they can shoot portrait with their 24Mpixel flagshit cameras without having to contort their "pro" hands.

How many pixels are in a 6K display?

 

[Gendra]

PetaPixel released a video on the new sigma 1.8 zoom lens and showed redacted as the camera used to shoot it. While this could mean any camera, as Jared Polin's video on the same lens said filmed with RF lenses not R5 as it usually does, I would suspect they are using the R5II.

At least from Jared Polin I've seen the "filmed with RF lenses" on few videos in the last time going back at least 3 weeks, so I think it is highly unlikely that this was shot with an R5II.

Regarding the PetaPixel video: Well if I would guess, I would suspect rather the Panasonic GH7 then a new Canon camera.

 

[neuroanatomist]

Where is this "pros only need low resolution" mantra coming from? In an age of 5k, 6k, and even 8k displays what are these "pros" shooting for, Cell phone displays? Might as well turn the sensors 90 degrees so they can shoot portrait with their 24Mpixel flagshit cameras without having to contort their "pro" hands.

Welcome to CR forums. It's evident from your "Flagshit camera" statement that you're really adding value here already. Feel free to leave, and don't let the virtual door hit you on your head on the way out, troll. And yes, I swapped head for ass in that phrase because I suspect yours are interchangeable as far as intellect goes.