Are two cameras going to replace the Canon EOS R5? [CR]

[Michael Clark]

5d mk iv had 30 mp, the 5dr had 50 mp, also not that much of a difference...

Ok, then maybe 90MP? Or 100 MP? I thought they'd save the 100 MP barrier for a mkii version of the specialized camera.
Maybe the R5mkii will have 45-50mp...

The 5D Mark IV didn't hit the market until a year after the 5Ds and 5Ds R.

Canon did that for a reason.

22MP to 50MP enticed a lot more to buy the 50MP camera in the first year it was offered than 30MP to 50MP would have if the 5D Mark IV had been introduced before the 5Ds /R.

In the end they were almost giving away the 5Ds for less than $1,500 because they had so much existing stock on hand.

 

[Michael Clark]

I agree that landscape and product photography doesn't really require anything more than 5-10fps. In fact most of it will be done as single shots unless HDR is needed.

Or for real usable sensor shift. Or even sensor shift combined with HDR...

 

[Michael Clark]

Why would you need two sensors? We can already shoot small RAW, Full RAW, Crop, Non cropped, JPEG in very many sizes and 'quality settings'. I do not understand why a second sensor when these options are already available...?

None of the Digic X cameras have sRAW or mRAW (which aren't actually raw, either). Those are old news.

Now the choice is RAW or C-RAW. Both are full resolution. C-RAW is minimally lossy compressed, mostly at charge levels below the noise floor.

 

[Michael Clark]

Buy a R5 at the moment (in the US) with USD500 price reduction and bonus grip... sell the grip and voila! you are close to your target price
Don't forget not to change to video modes and it is a stills-only camera.
Of course, if you really don't want any video then the EVF/rear screen (besides the Q menu) is not for you as that is video off the sensor.

A few weeks ago Adorama was selling the R5 for $3,099 and throwing in a FREE Canon Grip.

 

[Michael Clark]

For me, 45mp is a sweet spot for both high mp for cropping and for high bit rate video with no horizontal crop for 8k and simple 4KHQ (divide by 2 each direction). A slightly higher sensor resolution for a spec sheet won't offset the negatives (speed/file size/cost of new sensor etc)

I get that there is a niche for very high resolution but it would need to be sufficiently higher than the R5 to warrant the jump

If the R5ii gets the newer processor from the R6ii with greater bandwidth ie faster frame rate and full 14bit images at 20fps/45mp, improves the heat management plus most of the other incremental improvements people have asked for then the R5ii will be the 5Div after the 5Diii.... incrementally better all round but no big bang features.

For some of us that shoot under flickering stadium and/or gym lights, the 5D Mark IV, which has flicker reduction, was a big bang difference from the 5D Mark III, which does not have it.

 

[Michael Clark]

The 1D III and R3 already can with the current Digic X so that does not seem to be the limitation.

Digic X isn't a single processor. It's an architecture. Kind of like each generation of Intel's or AMD's processor lines. The i9-13900 and the i5-13600 are both "Raptor Lake" processors.

 

[Michael Clark]

Hi Unfocused. It may be good, but full RAW is here to stay... Studio shooters, landscape shooters all want it..

Large format film is also here to stay, but that doesn't mean most photographers use it.

 

[Michael Clark]

Nice one. Kind of a troll comment tho. 5DS was a side model, not in the direct line of the 5 series. Even if it was, you'd be wrong coz it would had been followed by the 30MP 5d4, not the R5. 5DS is a branch of 5d3 with no predecessor and successor.

The 2015 5Ds had more in common with the 2016 5D Mark IV than it did the 2012 5D Mark III. (e.g. RGB+IR light meter, Flicker Reduction.)

Canon was smart to roll it out a year before the 30MP 5D Mark IV. If the 5Ds had been at the same time as the 5D Mark IV or later the more modest bump in resolution from 30MP to 50MP would have sold fewer than the bump from 22MP to 50MP did.

 

[Ozarker]

Digic X isn't a single processor. It's an architecture. Kind of like each generation of Intel's or AMD's processor lines. The i9-13900 and the i5-13600 are both "Raptor Lake" processors.

You really get stuck on that point, don't you?

 

[unfocused]

Hi Unfocused. It may be good, but full RAW is here to stay... Studio shooters, landscape shooters all want it..

Yes, of course full Raw isn’t going away. Many people will still want it even if there is no visible difference.

 

[Sporgon]

That’s a very good article from lens rentals that you linked to @Michael Clark specifically because of the AF improvements that Canon made to the EF lenses from 2012 (with the exception of the late 2010 EF 70-300L which appeared to have the same improvements), but the caveat is that you needed a 2012 or later body to make use of it. IIRC Roger concluded that with these combinations phase detect (through viewfinder) was virtually as accurate as contrast detect. (Live view at the time).
When Canon released updated versions of their pre 2010 lenses (70-200/2.8 IS for instance) people howled about the lenses being virtually identical to the previous ones, yet I bet the biggest improvement was phase detect AF when attached to a post 2012 body.
That’s why now when I need fast, accurate AF I stick with EF lenses introduced after 2011, with the exception of the fore mentioned 70-300L.

 

[Michael Clark]

You really get stuck on that point, don't you?

People are still stuck on talking about "THE Digic X processor", as if it's a single chip.

 

[Michael Clark]

That’s a very good article from lens rentals that you linked to @Michael Clark specifically because of the AF improvements that Canon made to the EF lenses from 2012 (with the exception of the late 2010 EF 70-300L which appeared to have the same improvements), but the caveat is that you needed a 2012 or later body to make use of it. IIRC Roger concluded that with these combinations phase detect (through viewfinder) was virtually as accurate as contrast detect. (Live view at the time).
When Canon released updated versions of their pre 2010 lenses (70-200/2.8 IS for instance) people howled about the lenses being virtually identical to the previous ones, yet I bet the biggest improvement was phase detect AF when attached to a post 2012 body.
That’s why now when I need fast, accurate AF I stick with EF lenses introduced after 2011, with the exception of the fore mentioned 70-300L.

The 2010 EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II also seems to be the first of the new wave. Roger specifically mentioned it in the article and said it was better than the older lenses, but not quite as much better as the ones that followed. So Canon must have used the 70-300L and the 70-200/2.8 IS II as the test beds for the newer system.

 

[neuroanatomist]

People are still stuck on talking about "THE Digic X processor", as if it's a single chip.

Is it not a single chip, in a given camera? Granted, prior models were equipped with dual Digic processors, but I'm not aware of any cameras with more than one Digic X (rumors about the R5II notwithstanding).

Looks like one chip to me:

Canon Technology Explainer: What is DIGIC?

 

[Ozarker]

People are still stuck on talking about "THE Digic X processor", as if it's a single chip.

Yeah, but he didn't say that. He said Digic X. Anyway, not so important to drill in.

 

[koenkooi]

Is it not a single chip, in a given camera? Granted, prior models were equipped with dual Digic processors, but I'm not aware of any cameras with more than one Digic X (rumors about the R5II notwithstanding).

Looks like one chip to me:
View attachment 209271

Canon Technology Explainer: What is DIGIC?

Strictly speaking, that’s a picture of the package, you can have multiple chips inside it.

 

[davidespinosa]

Is it not a single chip, in a given camera?

@Michael Clark is saying that the DIGIC X is an R5 is a different processor from the DIGIC X in an R50, even though they are both called DIGIC X. And similarly for the other camera models with DIGIC X processors.

 

[Jethro]

@Michael Clark is saying that the DIGIC X is an R5 is a different processor from the DIGIC X in an R50, even though they are both called DIGIC X. And similarly for the other camera models with DIGIC X processors.

That is indeed what he is saying (and has said previously in other discussions) - but the question is whether it is right or not. The link Neuro provides above includes the following:

How DIGIC has improved over the years​

2002	DIGIC	Achieved signal processing with just one processor chip
2004	DIGIC II	Faster, less noise
2006	DIGIC III	Higher resolution images; supports face detection
2008	DIGIC 4	Higher resolution images; faster; detects movement
2011	DIGIC 5	Better noise reduction; better white balance
2013	DIGIC 6	Video capability (Full HD/60p)
2016	DIGIC 7	Higher resolution images; more functionality (subject tracking, detection, image stabilisation
2018	DIGIC 8	Improved shooting functionality and video capability (4K)
2020	DIGIC X	Improved video capability (>4K); faster; supports deep learning algorithm

So, the various iterations are upgraded (in title terms) every 2-3 years. And the DIGIC X was introduced in 2020, so it's not an overly long time if it is a single chip. But nothing in the article, or anything else I've read, tells me that different iterations have been released under the collective name 'DIGIC X'. Maybe they have, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.

That's a different Q from whether there are multiple chips in a given body or not.

 

[koenkooi]

That is indeed what he is saying (and has said previously in other discussions) - but the question is whether it is right or not. The link Neuro provides above includes the following:

How DIGIC has improved over the years​

2002	DIGIC	Achieved signal processing with just one processor chip
2004	DIGIC II	Faster, less noise
2006	DIGIC III	Higher resolution images; supports face detection
2008	DIGIC 4	Higher resolution images; faster; detects movement
2011	DIGIC 5	Better noise reduction; better white balance
2013	DIGIC 6	Video capability (Full HD/60p)
2016	DIGIC 7	Higher resolution images; more functionality (subject tracking, detection, image stabilisation
2018	DIGIC 8	Improved shooting functionality and video capability (4K)
2020	DIGIC X	Improved video capability (>4K); faster; supports deep learning algorithm

So, the various iterations are upgraded (in title terms) every 2-3 years. And the DIGIC X was introduced in 2020, so it's not an overly long time if it is a single chip. But nothing in the article, or anything else I've read, tells me that different iterations have been released under the collective name 'DIGIC X'. Maybe they have, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.

That's a different Q from whether there are multiple chips in a given body or not.

At the introduction of the Digic X, Rudy Winston said in a showcase that starting with Digic X, variants will not be called differently. Last fall in a Canon podcast one of the product managers for Canon Europe said that a number of the R6II improvements are due to its Digic X variant being more power efficient and a bit later explicitly stated that there is indeed a difference between the Digic X in the R5R/6 and the ones in later releases. This was prompted by a question whether the fancy new R6II features would show up on a firmware update for the R5, which was answered with 'they can't be'.

I generally take the 'cannot' as a 'choose not to' when companies talk about not backporting improvements, but the R6II does have a much improved battery life, which makes the statements a bit more credible.
The downsampled video was directly mentioned, but number of other improvements were only strongly implied to be tied to better hardware, like the new 'auto' subject mode that works on both humans and animals.

Some acid, an electron microscope and a few cameras that can destructively tested should be able to clear up the mystery

 

[neuroanatomist]

@Michael Clark is saying that the DIGIC X is an R5 is a different processor from the DIGIC X in an R50, even though they are both called DIGIC X. And similarly for the other camera models with DIGIC X processors.

Yes, I’m well aware of both the fact that Digic X is an architecture and what he was saying. I was merely being pedantic, and if you’ve read a few of the posts from @Michael Clark you’ll know what pedantic looks like.