R5 arrived... First impressions for stills

[[email protected]]

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

 

[MinoltaSRT101]

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.

 

[SteveC]

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?)

 

[MinoltaSRT101]

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.

 

[digigal]

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

 

[digigal]

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

 

[Chris.Chapterten]

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
View attachment 191813
Crop

View attachment 191813View attachment 191815

Amazing detail

 

[Bdbtoys]

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?

 

[MinoltaSRT101]

What memory cards are you using?

Delkin 64gb cfexpress card

 

[[email protected]]

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

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?

 

[digigal]

What memory cards are you using?

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

 

[digigal]

When I had this ha


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?

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

 

[wyotex43n]

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!)View attachment 191780View attachment 191781
View attachment 191782

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.

 

[scyrene]

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....

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?

 

[koenkooi]

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.

 

[digigal]

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

 

[wyotex43n]

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.

 

[wyotex43n]

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.

 

[Bdbtoys]

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.

 

[Stu_bert]

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...