Vehicle AF and more coming to the Canon EOS R5 and Canon EOS R6 in December firmware update

[usern4cr]

Makes sense. But then, I have to ask about your statement that ‘you can bracket a lot of things’. Other than exposure, and more recently focus, what can you bracket automatically?

FWIW, I’ve done plenty of aperture bracketing when doing lens test. A dial clicked in one direction, the other dial clicked in the opposite direction, shoot, repeat.

There is currently exposure bracketing, focus bracketing, and white balance bracketing (the need for that one mystifies me).

It would be useful to also have aperture bracketing, speed bracketing, and ISO bracketing. Then you would have the ability to bracket all of the main controls of photography if you wanted to. And for the record, the focus bracketing should allow you to bracket around (+ AND -) your current focus setting (such as eye AF) when the exposure button is pressed.

I have to manually do aperture bracketing now. It is one of the most important things I do. I just want the ability of the camera to do it for me, just like a lot of other great camera features that have been added.

 

[usern4cr]

Not enough people are requesting the option yet. Exactly what advantage is gained by lower FPS using electronic shutter? I have yet to encounter a situation that I need it.

The advantage is that some people (like me) don't want to have thousands of images to wade through in post when using (continuous shooting) full electronic shutter. If I can have the option to slow it down to 10 or 5 (or whatever I feel like) then I can be happy to get a tolerable number of images and not too many images to wade through in post.

As it is, I find 20 FPS to be far too many for me to wade through in post. I set it instead to electronic first curtain and the slowest FPS setting for it and I'm happy. But I'd like that ability to choose FPS in full electronic shutter for the times I want to shoot silently.

And I have seen a very large number of people requesting user FPS setting in (continuous shooting) full electronic shutter mode. If Canon can't care to respond to that many users, then it's on them (and not us).

 

[neuroanatomist]

There is currently exposure bracketing, focus bracketing, and white balance bracketing (the need for that one mystifies me).

It would be useful to also have aperture bracketing, speed bracketing, and ISO bracketing. Then you would have the ability to bracket the main controls of photography if you wanted to. And for the record, the focus bracketing should allow you to bracket around (+ AND -) your current focus setting when the exposure button is pressed.

I have to manually do aperture bracketing now. It is one of the most important things I do. I just want the ability of the camera to do it for me, just like a lot of other great camera features that have been added.

WB bracketing, thanks. I forgot that one (likely because I also fail to see the utility, since I shoot RAW).

What is the use case for aperture bracketing? Can you shoot tethered for it, and if so I wonder if Reikan FoCal’s aperture sharpness test could be co-opted for that (probably not as it may require their focus target, just thinking with my keyboard).

 

[jam05]

I was hoping for a lower FPS option when using the electronic shutter - maybe next time?

Actually the 20 FPS in electronic shutter mode is the Maximum Continuous shutter speed when holding down the shutter. It is not the minimum. From 1-20. You know this of course. Not sure that holding it less is difficult. How many people hold down the shutter button until it stops?

 

[jam05]

The advantage is that some people (like me) don't want to have thousands of images to wade through in post when using full electronic shutter. If I can have the option to slow it down to 10 or 5 (or whatever I feel like) then I can be happy to get a tolerable number of images and not too many images to wade through in post.

As it is, I find 20 FPS to be far too many for me to wade through in post. I set it instead to electronic first curtain and the slowest FPS setting for it and I'm happy. But I'd like that ability to choose FPS in full electronic shutter for the times I want to shoot silently.

And I have seen a very large number of people requesting user FPS setting in full electronic shutter mode. If Canon can't care to respond to that many users, then it's on them (and not us).

You may have seen a few people posting on the internet. And most concerned with the video mode. But NOT requesting your concern in Canon Customer Support. Thats where it counts. 20 FPS is the Max shutter speed in continuous. Not the minimum. You wont have many photos if you simply released that shutter button. Its very simple to do. Muscle memory. Train yourself not to hold it down so long or take it out of continuous. Not hard to do. You do not have to squeeze off 20fps in continuous. Simple not the case. You can squeeze off 1-20 FPS. Its not an entry level camera. Its Easy Peasy to squeeze 1 - 3 frames once you get used to doing it. Just because your auto speedometer has maximum of 180mph doesnt mean you have to hold your foot down. Same principle.

 

[usern4cr]

WB bracketing, thanks. I forgot that one (likely because I also fail to see the utility, since I shoot RAW).

What is the use case for aperture bracketing? Can you shoot tethered for it, and if so I wonder if Reikan FoCal’s aperture sharpness test could be co-opted for that (probably not as it may require their focus target, just thinking with my keyboard).

I also shoot only RAW, and I also set the WB to a fixed value (5000 I think) so that I don't have to worry about what it was in post (I can re-set it in post if it looks off), and also so that it doesn't change when I do panoramas or other bracketing shots. So bracketed WB is useless to me, too, but I'd rather they have bracketing options I don't use, than NOT to have bracketing options I really need to use.

My main use for aperture bracketing is to control big background blur amounts vs either sufficient depth of main subject DOF or fast enough exposure to eliminate subject motion blur. I like to bracket aperture from wide open to a few stopped down values of various steps and then pick the best shot in post. Having the aperture auto-bracket with user settings would take all of these shots at almost the exact same time, which I can't do now since I have to stop and change a dial and reshoot for each shot.

 

[usern4cr]

You may have seen a few people posting on the internet. But NOT requesting in Canon Customer Support. Thats where it counts. 20 FPS is the Max shutter speed in continuous. Not the minimum. You wont have many photos is you simply released that shutter button. It very simple to do. Muscle memory. Train yourself not to hold it down so long or take it out of continuous. Not hard to do.

20 FPS is the ONLY setting for (continuous shooting) full electronic shutter mode on the R5 (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I am fully able to hold the shutter for long or short times when I want to. When I have a great view of a subject and want to hold the shutter down for a long duration in hopes of them doing something great, I hold it down. When I want to take a single picture I hold and release quick just fine, so that's not the issue. I just want to control the FPS rate when holding it down - simple.

 

[davo]

That depends on the flash setup. Sure, if you’re using a single flash on the camera for fill then you set the camera exposure for ambient. But with many of my shoots, all the light is from strobes (4-5 of them), including background. With that setup (low ISO, narrow aperture, shutter of 1/200 or slower), ‘ambient’ is essentially black.

I use manual flash and camera settings. What I do to get exposure simulation of ambient with flash being used is I have the four small hotshoe terminals taped over so only the main large firing pin makes contact with my flash trigger. Now I see the ambient results on the camera as I adjust settings and my flashes still fire how I adjust them from my trigger.

 

[SereneSpeed]

I use manual flash and camera settings. What I do to get exposure simulation of ambient with flash being used is I have the four small hotshoe terminals taped over so only the main large firing pin makes contact with my flash trigger. Now I see the ambient results on the camera as I adjust settings and my flashes still fire how I adjust them from my trigger.

If you do that, you won’t have HSS, eTTL, etc...

I reported this ‘feature’ as a bug to Canon, shortly after getting my EOS R.

Taping the contacts made me nervous. I could see adhesive getting into the hotshoe, so I didn’t go that route.

I cut a thin piece of plastic to the size of the hotshoe (that clear, tough to open without a blade kind of plastic, that nearly all small electronics are packed in). Then I punched a hole in the centre for the single centre pin. That works (ish) for manual only flash or triggering. But it’s a tight fit and again, I was afraid I’d damage the hotshoe. So now I use a male/female hotshoe pass through adapter meant for connecting a PC Sync cable. It only has a single pin and therefore exposure simulation works, but again, it disables HSS, which is a tool I use often.

I switch between that method and just turning off the transmitter to set the base exposure, then turning it back on. But the whole process adds unnecessary time and fumbling. And, as a result, I’ve missed peak poses and expressions from my clients.

I can’t see any logic for forcing the exposure simulation off, once a multi pin flash/controller is in the hotshoe and frankly, I don’t understand why more pros haven’t complained. WYSIWYG is in the top features of mirrorless for me. Right there with an histogram in the viewfinder and eye tracking AF...

*end of rant*

 

[David - Sydney]

20 FPS is the ONLY setting for full electron shutter mode on the R5 (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I am fully able to hold the shutter for long or short times when I want to. When I have a great view of a subject and want to hold the shutter down for a long duration in hopes of them doing something great, I hold it down. When I want to take a single picture I hold and release quick just fine, so that's not the issue. I just want to control the FPS rate when holding it down - simple.

Perhaps selecting a shutter speed slower than 1/20s?
A slow memory card slow it down after the buffer is full
Less than 50% battery (impacts the max mechanical shutter speed - maybe not the eshutter).
The manual is full of asterisks for not being able to the full fps

 

[stevelee]

"Vehicle AF" is very, very big for me (like 50K pictures/y big). Amazing to have as an update. Can't wait to try it out. Would have bought a new camera just for this function (if it works). Now I just need a large MPIX 5Rs and a 300mm f/2.8 and I could not wish for more.

Explain vehicle AF to me and why you would find it useful. Right off, I have never had trouble focusing on a car, so I can’t imagine what this might do.

 

[koenkooi]

[..] What is the use case for aperture bracketing? Can you shoot tethered for it, and if so I wonder if Reikan FoCal’s aperture sharpness test could be co-opted for that (probably not as it may require their focus target, just thinking with my keyboard).

For me, aperture bracketing would be useful for natural light macro in the field: You sneak up on something, take the "I saw this!" shot, then start with the better composed shots, stopping down every shot till you are satisfied or the thing scurries away.
In M+auto ISO it's easy enough to do, just turn a single dial. But it grates a bit after using focus-stacking all morning

 

[-pekr-]

I may be mis-reading your comment here.. but think what you want is in the Auto Focus (pink) menu, page 5. Initial Servo AF pt for you can set the initial point for face detect.

26:31

I basically put square in middle, and then click to focus on the face/bird and then move to compose as the subject moves.. it tracks.

That's in fact the only useable mode for us. The old school servo mode, or a default mode without any square disabled, should be hidden as an option, or reworked. And that was my point, that you have to resort to special setting to have actually usable system. For us, of course. Never was patient enough to learn / experience BBF for example, but some clean-up in modes would be nice.

Also - when I select some object and track it, and some face appears in the scene, and I still hold the shutter half-pressed, I hate when it jumps to the face, even if I did not instruct it to. Will have to tweak the settings further and we use option 2 already, which means, it should stick to the subject.

 

[SnowMiku]

I never needed such a dinosaur of then gone DSLR area while using modern mirrorless cameras.

In my life a focus point does not represent anything needed for perfect exposure, nothing!

AF Spot metering would be very useful for birds, just set the AF point on the bird then get proper exposure without needing to use exposure compensation. Sometimes the background such as a sky is too bright for the bird so the camera will expose for the background and you need to increase the exposure. Any feature that would save time even if it's only just a second could be the difference of getting the shot or not.

 

[koenkooi]

AF Spot metering would be very useful for birds, just set the AF point on the bird then get proper exposure without needing to use exposure compensation. Sometimes the background such as a sky is too bright for the bird so the camera will expose for the background and you need to increase the exposure. Any feature that would save time even if it's only just a second could be the difference of getting the shot or not.

I strongly suspect Canon will present something like "Metering with AI Machine Learning" to better handle birds, planes and Superman, and keep the af-linked-spot-metering in the 1-series. The R3 fell victim to the "IT'S NOT A 1 SERIES FLAGSHIP" screaming Canon PR does and also lacks that feature.

 

[Kit.]

Spot metering is great for various instances. There's a reason it's survived all of these years. And even more so, I've found a lot of use for it in video work. Especially when recording scenes with an intense light in one spot that I want to specifcally meter for. It works incredibly well for that. Or under certain lighting setups while photographing people with an intense difference in lighting conditions and I want to only expose for a specific point instead of the camera trying to guess where I'm exposing. I don't know, seems to work the best for me.

Ideally, AI-tracked metering area and AI-tracked autofocus area should be different. For spot metering, one would want an area with minimal local contrast, while for focusing, high-contrast areas are better suited.

 

[Otara]

Not enough people are requesting the option yet. Exactly what advantage is gained by lower FPS using electronic shutter? I have yet to encounter a situation that I need it.

Because the major advantage or need can be silence rather than wanting to take a lot of pictures. I suspect its more annoying when its not a mode you use too often, because if you switch from say single shot to silent, you're suddenly taking a ton of unnecessary shots if you're still in the same mindset.

 

[Rzrsharp]

Great news to a R5 user!
R5 is more difficult to point the lens at the BIF more than I did it on my 5D MK IV, meanwhile the birds are easily flying out of the EVF and get lost even thougj R5 has a higher keep rate than 5D MK IV.

 

[Otara]

You may have seen a few people posting on the internet. And most concerned with the video mode. But NOT requesting your concern in Canon Customer Support. Thats where it counts. 20 FPS is the Max shutter speed in continuous. Not the minimum. You wont have many photos if you simply released that shutter button. Its very simple to do. Muscle memory. Train yourself not to hold it down so long or take it out of continuous. Not hard to do. You do not have to squeeze off 20fps in continuous. Simple not the case. You can squeeze off 1-20 FPS. Its not an entry level camera. Its Easy Peasy to squeeze 1 - 3 frames once you get used to doing it. Just because your auto speedometer has maximum of 180mph doesnt mean you have to hold your foot down. Same principle.

If I was culling and had ~600 instead of 200 picture's to cull as a regular thing, that would get old.

Id rather just have the machine do the speed limiting rather than waste time learning something thats just a normal feature in other shooting modes. Luckily most of the time I dont need full silence and its just easier to use the other modes, as you can also avoid the other minor issues that go with full electronic.

 

[Viggo]

That depends on the flash setup. Sure, if you’re using a single flash on the camera for fill then you set the camera exposure for ambient. But with many of my shoots, all the light is from strobes (4-5 of them), including background. With that setup (low ISO, narrow aperture, shutter of 1/200 or slower), ‘ambient’ is essentially black.

And with exp.sim off, you can see the ambient anyway