R5 recommended gear questions

snappy604

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Jan 25, 2017
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The "L" is a 2nd Arca-Swiss base plate rail with a 90 degree bend that can be attached into (or removed from) the main camera arca-swiss base plate. Now you can turn the camera sideways into portrait mode and the L Arca-swiss plate is attached to the tripods Arca-swiss clamp.

So your camera goes on a tripod in normal landscape or now also portrait mode.

my tripod is not arca capable? (manfroto).. never used it.. does that site sell an adapter cheap? what's the advantage.. heard many people talk about it, but haven't seen one in use
 
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Nov 1, 2012
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The "L" is a 2nd Arca-Swiss base plate rail with a 90 degree bend that can be attached into (or removed from) the main camera arca-swiss base plate. Now you can turn the camera sideways into portrait mode and the L Arca-swiss plate is attached to the tripods Arca-swiss clamp.

So your camera goes on a tripod in normal landscape or now also portrait mode.

Wouldn't my tripod head tilt 90 degrees faster than taking the camera off and re-attach?
 
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usern4cr

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Sep 2, 2018
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my tripod is not arca capable? (manfroto).. never used it.. does that site sell an adapter cheap? what's the advantage.. heard many people talk about it, but haven't seen one in use
I don't know about your tripod. Arca-swiss is the most common quick connect/disconnect style of clamp for tripods & camera to be quickly joined. It's all I use. You don't have to have that on your tripod *if* you put another head of some sort (eg. for rotating and/or leveling) that does have an arca-swiss clamp on top of it (for your camera to mount to).

I use a Leofoto Ranger LS-284CEX which is light weight, strong with an integrated leveling head and inexpensive. That has a 1/4 or 3/8" screw top to hold the head of your choice.
 
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usern4cr

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Wouldn't my tripod head tilt 90 degrees faster than taking the camera off and re-attach?
Yes, if that's OK with you. I don't like it because the center of gravity shifts dangerously to the side of the tripod which can fall over if you're not careful. Also, I can do panoramas with a pano-head on top of the tripod (which has a thin integrated leveling part) and keeping the camera straight above the tripod rotation axis allows near-perfect panos left-right to be done (and perfect ones if you add a simple nodal rail with perpendicular arca-swicc clamp between the head clamp and the camera, so you can back the camera up appropriately).
 
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Michael Clark

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Apr 5, 2016
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thank you, thought it might have been a software choice to make the battery last longer.. not versed in that area and I'll admit it. What you indicated after had me a bit confused though, does it mean the battery grip doesn't sustain the higher FPS longer? if so it reduces my incentive to purchase it.. while some of the other functions are cool, one of my key drivers was to get the higher FPS for longer.

The camera switches back and forth from one battery to the other when there is a "pause in the action", so to speak. So with two batteries, you should get twice as many frames before both batteries drain down to the same level as a single battery would drain down to on its own. At least that's how it works with Canon's upper end DSLRs. I'm not sure how the constant need for the sensor to be energized when the camera is active will affect that with the mirrorless models. That's why I recommended you experiment with a specific camera and grip.

The thing to keep in mind is that each camera model (and even, conceivably, firmware version) can do this differently. But in general, Canon has designed past models to maintain the advertised "max" framerate over more of the life of the battery than a few other notorious examples, such as the Nikon D850. I guess that one could, perhaps, see it as a firmware limitation.

With only the supplied battery, either in the camera's body or in the grip, the D850's max frame rate is 7 fps. Only with an MB-D18 battery grip ($400) and an upgraded Nikon EN-EL18b battery ($150) - The D850 is supplied with an EN-EL15a battery - sufficiently charged does the Nikon bump that up to 9 fps. To maintain that for very long per burst one must also use an XQD card that can write at around 400-440 MB/s. When the D850 and D500 came out in 2017, most Nikon owners had no XQD cards because no previous Nikon cameras other than the D4 and D5 series had used them and the cards fast enough were running $250-400 (64GB-120/128GB) at that time. So it cost an extra almost $800-1,000 over the cost of the camera to go from 7 fps to 9 fps with that camera.

The other thing to keep in mind is that there are many variables that will ultimately influence max frame rate and buffer depth. Any Tv below x-sync will slow the camera down. So will any aperture narrower than wide open. Using flicker reduction to time the release of the shutter with the peak of artificial lighting, which is well worth the tradeoff, in my opinion, will slow the camera a bit. Would you rather get 11 frames with only 2-3 that are usable due to inconsistent color and brightness from one side of the frame to the other or 10 frames with 9 or 10 that are usable? Any ISO setting other than the "base" ISO, any extra in camera processing such as noise reduction, lens correction, etc. also slow down the frame rate.
 
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Michael Clark

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I am also wondering about this. If one battery were depleted first, then the other, you would wind up with high FPS for a period of time, then lower FPS, then back to high when we get to the second battery, and back down to low...
It would be better if it kept you in the high FPS as long as possible using either battery until both batteries are less than 60%, then it could use them up sequentially.

It doesn't use one all the way up before switching. It will alternate back and forth when there are "breaks in the action", so to speak. A 20 frame burst will all run off one battery. But then the next burst will probably run off the other battery. What it does not do is run both in parallel (other than for an instant when it switches, I suppose) or stack them in series. If you have two fresh batteries in the grip and shoot 500 frames over a couple of hours, each battery will have roughly 250 shots showing on its count.
 
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Michael Clark

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One thing I get for pretty much any camera I own is an L Bracket. So much easier to take photos on a tripod with one. It completely depends on what type of photography you do if you find it valuable I suppose. I love it for landscape and real estate photography.

I haven't received it yet but I preordered this L Bracket for my R5:

https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-l-bracket-for-canon-eos-r5-and-r6-2976.html

SmallRig usually makes pretty decent products so I'm not too worried about it's quality and the price is very decent.

I find that most of my tripod work tends to be with lenses having a tripod collar. I also shoot "portrait" handheld a lot with the vertical controls (my right shoulder is worn out and I have limited range of movement in it). L-brackets can get in the way of using the vertical controls. So for me, an L-bracket isn't near as useful. Again, YMMV.
 
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Michael Clark

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my tripod is not arca capable? (manfroto).. never used it.. does that site sell an adapter cheap? what's the advantage.. heard many people talk about it, but haven't seen one in use

Manfrotto now makes plates that are compatible with both Arca-Swiss style and QR/RC2 (200-PL) receivers called the 200-PL Pro. But you would still need an intermediary plate to use an Arca-Swiss type L-Bracket on a Manfrotto RC2 base. Some, but certainly not all, L-brackets have 1/4"-16 threads to allow attaching a quick release plate of choice to each side of the bracket. You could attach a standard 200-PL plate to such a bracket to use with a Manfrotto receiver on your tripod's head. That's assuming your Manfrotto head has an RC2 receiver on it. It is by far the most common Manfrotto quick release system, but far from the only one. There's also RC4 (410PL), RC5 (501PL, 503PL), RC0 (hexagonal), Q6, 357, 384 (dovetail), 785, etc.

Keep in mind that while most Arca-Swiss type plates are compatible with most Arca-Swiss type clamps that are the same width, there is no industry standard for such plates and clamps and one can sometimes run across a plate from one maker that won't fit a clamp from another maker very well, if at all. It mostly has to do with the exact shape/angle of the beveling in the dovetail on the side at the bottom of the plate. And there are various widths as well, though 1.5" (38.1mm) is most common in the U.S. but 35mm is more common in Europe. Some varieties of each will work with some varieties of the other, while some will not.
 
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Michael Clark

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FrenchFry

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It doesn't use one all the way up before switching. It will alternate back and forth when there are "breaks in the action", so to speak. A 20 frame burst will all run off one battery. But then the next burst will probably run off the other battery. What it does not do is run both in parallel (other than for an instant when it switches, I suppose) or stack them in series. If you have two fresh batteries in the grip and shoot 500 frames over a couple of hours, each battery will have roughly 250 shots showing on its count.
Are you sure?
I am unable to test due to not owning the grip yet and my R5 being in Canon's possessed repair.

But I read in a DPReview thread this evening that the batteries are used up sequentially in the R5 grip. This user shot until their frame rate decreased, switched the position of the two batteries, and then regained the highest frame rate.
 
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If you have two fresh batteries in the grip and shoot 500 frames over a couple of hours, each battery will have roughly 250 shots showing on its count.

I would actually prefer option that you can choose to run one battery first down to ~10% and then switch on the other one. That way I could better manage batteries during long events.

So e.g. I start with batteries A and B. After 500 shots A is down to 10% and it switches to using B (maybe notify somewhere in screen about this). Then at some convenient break at events I could pop out A, slap it in charger and add C in that slot. Then 500 pics later B is at 10% and camera switches to battery C. Again at some point I can now drop B to charge and put A back in.

Should be easy to make SW option to do that, since they already support selecting one at a time.

Although (thinking with my limited power knowledge), I would design the system to physically mate both batteries so they would always work in parallel. That would minimize current per battery, thus minimize losses and heat. If you yank higher currents from each battery at a time, it'll both heat it up more and also incur more losses on the traces (loss is linear with current draw). So it makes sense to always split the current between the batteries.

So the numbers acting like mentioned above, might be just technical eenie meenie miney mo counting and not actual usage. Since it swaps the battery between bursts, would be easy to try. Set JPEG and shoot >1000 burst on large/fast card so it doesn't fill the buffer. After the burst, pop out the batteries and measure voltage. If one of them is clearly reduced, then it did actually only use one. If they both are at same level, then it was using both even when reports one.

And bit more crazy thoughts, they should actually put the 2 in series. Some lenses seem to benefit from higher voltage to provide faster AF, and higher voltage = less current, which means less trace losses. Win-win. Only problem I see is that the device would operate differently depending on how many batteries you insert, but sounds like Nikon already went that route.
 
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SteveC

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Sep 3, 2019
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Although (thinking with my limited power knowledge), I would design the system to physically mate both batteries so they would always work in parallel. That would minimize current per battery, thus minimize losses and heat. If you yank higher currents from each battery at a time, it'll both heat it up more and also incur more losses on the traces (loss is linear with current draw). So it makes sense to always split the current between the batteries.

You'd want to use diodes to prevent one battery's current from flowing to the other if the voltages ever got dissimilar; this is a solved problem with battery banks in solar homes, though...easy to do.

So the numbers acting like mentioned above, might be just technical eenie meenie miney mo counting and not actual usage. Since it swaps the battery between bursts, would be easy to try. Set JPEG and shoot >1000 burst on large/fast card so it doesn't fill the buffer. After the burst, pop out the batteries and measure voltage. If one of them is clearly reduced, then it did actually only use one. If they both are at same level, then it was using both even when reports one.

And bit more crazy thoughts, they should actually put the 2 in series. Some lenses seem to benefit from higher voltage to provide faster AF, and higher voltage = less current, which means less trace losses. Win-win. Only problem I see is that the device would operate differently depending on how many batteries you insert, but sounds like Nikon already went that route.

Series??? Hell NO. In parallel, one battery can take over if the other battery dies or malfunctions. In series, each one is a single point of failure and you double the chances of a failure of the battery bank as a whole.
 
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Well I work at GHz range so DC is black magic to me....

But for the series item, assuming there's proper switching already (with diodes?) the camera should be able to drop back to normal single battery usage if one battery goes bad. The control logic powering should be taken from both batteries before the combined trace for series, so then even if one dies suddenly the battery switching circuit still has normal power and can switch from series to single use.
 
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SteveC

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Sep 3, 2019
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Well I work at GHz range so DC is black magic to me....

But for the series item, assuming there's proper switching already (with diodes?) the camera should be able to drop back to normal single battery usage if one battery goes bad. The control logic powering should be taken from both batteries before the combined trace for series, so then even if one dies suddenly the battery switching circuit still has normal power and can switch from series to single use.

OK, I suppose...but that would necessarily involve going back to the lower voltage. Which means the camera would have to be designed to work off two different voltages, and that would negate the point of going to the higher voltage in the first place. Leave it in parallel, it's simpler and supplies enough voltage (and if it doesn't, your scheme for handling a single battery failure in series won't work either).
 
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Bdbtoys

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Jul 16, 2020
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Dang it... now you made me want to get an L-Bracket too w/ that link.
L-Plates are the very first thing I buy for every camera I get. It depends how much tripod work you do with a camera and I'll often take mine off, for a wedding or event for example, or even just the L part off for traveling where I don't think I'll use the tripod much and value the space and weight saving more. But when I need it nothing else works close to as well.

I've got several Small Rig items and highly recommend them and the fact their R5 plate has the anti rotation pins means it will be the one I get when I get my R5.

L1.jpg

L2.jpg
 
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usern4cr

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Sep 2, 2018
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Dang it... now you made me want to get an L-Bracket too w/ that link.
I just got my SmallRig R5 L plate and it works really great! If you have to swing your back LCD out to the side while the L is installed you get a surprising wide range of twist up & down since the opening that the LCD moves into is beveled on both ends to increase the range of twist (a nice touch!). It feels very solid on my R5 and it has the "small screwdriver" attached at the bottom via magnet so you don't need any other tools. It also has threaded holes at various places just in case you want to attach other stuff (another nice touch). Also has a little bar you can use to attach a Peak Design quick connect thingy for your camera strap, which makes the camera balance better while you walk.
 
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Bdbtoys

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I just got my SmallRig R5 L plate and it works really great! If you have to swing your back LCD out to the side while the L is installed you get a surprising wide range of twist up & down since the opening that the LCD moves into is beveled on both ends to increase the range of twist (a nice touch!). It feels very solid on my R5 and it has the "small screwdriver" attached at the bottom via magnet so you don't need any other tools. It also has threaded holes at various places just in case you want to attach other stuff (another nice touch). Also has a little bar you can use to attach a Peak Design quick connect thingy for your camera strap, which makes the camera balance better while you walk.

SOLD! ...now to play the waiting game...
 
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