Canon EOS R1 Field Report from Antarctica: A Wildlife Photographer’s Perspective

[mmmm]

The problem with the 'review' was that he basically just recited specs. He didn't explain how the R1 performed better than an R3 or a 1DX3, or how it took shots that those cameras couldn't. None of the subjects looked particularly challenging to focus, but did the R1 grab and hold better? What benefit was there in spending $12,000 to upgrade? None of this was discussed.

It's like a car review that gushes about tactile interfaces and MPG and acceleration times, but never says whether the car handles better than its predecessor.

Yes, the photos are lovely but that margely comes down to the lenses and technique.

Is it supposed to be a review? I don’t think so. It’s just someone’s experiences with the R1.

Weird to bash someone simply saying what their experiences with the body are. Not to your liking? Move on and read something that says what you like.

Don’t rip into some guy just saying what their experiences are! That’s just rude.

 

[Ozarker]

Great photos. Great review.
If I had $15,000 to drop on a super-tele or two, I'd probably think 24mp is enough, too.

Unfortunately, that's never happening. Neither is an R1.

 

[Ozarker]

And why does the bottom half of the penguins fade to white?

It's a conspiracy only photographers who've photographed penguins in windy, snowy conditions close to the ground are privy too. If you have to ask, you're not ready for it.

 

[SvO2]

There’s this thing called a buffer, and the higher the MP count the faster it fills.

Shooting at 20 fps in C-RAW, the R5II can go for 240 shots / 12 seconds, the R1 can just keep going (reported as 2000+ shots). That’s at ISO 100, and if you’re shooting subjects that benefit from 20+ fps, you’re probably using action-stopping shutter speeds and thus higher ISOs. At ISO 6400 and 20 fps, the R5II gets you 6.4 s before the buffer fills, the R1 goes for 75 s.

To me, that’s a big downside to higher MP. YMMV.

You are welcome to believe 24 MP is insufficient in the current era. Canon disagrees. So does Sony (a9 III, for example).

You are also welcome to believe that you know more about the camera industry and the needs of photographers than Canon or Sony. But you might want to consider that expressing that belief will make you look silly (to put it mildly).

RAM is cheap. Canon could easily implement a larger buffer for the higher res camera.

Reading comprehension problems anyone? I’m not the one ascribing motives to other people’s choices. That’s you, bub.

You are quite literally doing that in every post you make. I know you like hearing yourself speak and putting down others, so keep at it. But you’re not fooling anyone into believing you’re somehow speaking objective fact. I guarantee you’d be singing Canon’s praises no matter what they did instead of just evaluating the camera for what it is - inferior to the competition.

 

[scyrene]

I guarantee you’d be singing Canon’s praises no matter what they did

You can quote some of this praise, presumably? If it exists?

 

[neuroanatomist]

RAM is cheap. Canon could easily implement a larger buffer for the higher res camera.

Yes, they could. But I’m talking about the capabilities of cameras that are available, not cameras that exist only in your mind.

You are quite literally doing that in every post you make. I know you like hearing yourself speak and putting down others, so keep at it. But you’re not fooling anyone into believing you’re somehow speaking objective fact.

Oh? Care to provide examples?

I describe an objective downside to higher MP, and you reply with tangential, inaccurate crap. Too bad you couldn’t come up with a substantive response. Better luck next time.

I guarantee you’d be singing Canon’s praises no matter what they did instead of just evaluating the camera for what it is - inferior to the competition.

You’re welcome to that opinion, even if it’s is inconsistent with reality. I’ve already posted some things I don’t like about the R1, just based on specs and the manual. I’ve posted several criticisms of Canon over the years. Once I’ve had some experience with the R1, I may have more praise and/or criticism to offer.

I disagree that the R1 is inferior to the competition (whatever that means, as flagships go, they are quite different products), but that’s my own opinion.

 

[neuroanatomist]

You can quote some of this praise, presumably? If it exists?

Lol. People who live in their own reality can’t be bothered with trifles like substantiating what they claim (cf. Flat Earthers).

 

[koenkooi]

RAM is cheap. Canon could easily implement a larger buffer for the higher res camera.
[…]

The LPDDR used is not as cheap as consumer RAM, but more importantly, RAM is very power hungry and not easy to do power management on.
Having said that, I suspect that isn’t the only deciding factor, keeping the total cost down while just hitting the targets is likely more important than the power budget.

And for this generation specifically, Canon could also implement CFe4.0 properly instead of capping the throughput at 500mbyte/s. Having more RAM is nice, but at some point you need to write it to the card

 

[roby17269]

What shall I say?
Fantastic pictures and video, great review by a highly talented user...
This should be a mandatory viewing/reading for all the "only 24MP"keyboard warriors.

Why though? Nothing he writes would convince me I should settle for 24mp.
I find his argument to be fairly non-existent.

 

[Jethro]

Why though? Nothing he writes would convince me I should settle for 24mp.
I find his argument to be fairly non-existent.

Non-existent? He's a long-term pro wildlife photographer who says that he has never needed more than 24MP to produce output (for sale), and would find anything bigger to be a storage issue. These views seem to be consistent among a lot of pro-photographers.

Why, BTW, do you think anyone is trying to 'convince' you to 'settle' for 24MP? Use any type of camera you like. But recognise that different people have different uses and preferences.

 

[Sporgon]

No. You are not.

But per usual, photographers will continue to use the tools available to them to make great photos.

Others will get lost in specs.

As a counter to all this, there are people out there using the 5D “classic”, 5DII, 6D I, etc, talking about how they render better that current sensors.

It’s a big interesting world.

As someone who has used these cameras in recent times I can’t really agree with him. I think it mainly comes down to the mp (and processing of course). If you want a modern rendition of the original 5D then try the Sony a7s. A modern rendition of the 6D try the R6.

 

[roby17269]

Non-existent? He's a long-term pro wildlife photographer who says that he has never needed more than 24MP to produce output (for sale), and would find anything bigger to be a storage issue. These views seem to be consistent among a lot of pro-photographers.

Right. His argument is essentially “24 mp is good for me” nothing more nothing less. Fair enough. Still not good enough for me myself and I.

Just to be clear, I love the images he has shared, but they do not support his arguments IMHO.

He shoots static subjects at low ISO and heaps superlatives on detail and DR. At low ISO higher res would result in higher details (which he seems to conveniently forget). And we know now from the other article that the R1 has a DR in line with other current cameras, which would all have been capable to capture the same images, just at higher resolution.
I shoot a few thousands images when I travel (not professionally), and at home my computer can deal with the 45mp files of my R5 no problem. Things have improved with storage and processing to the point where some concerns on file size are disproportionate.
And the argument about having to upgrade computers to deal with bigger files (or more files if you do pre-capture all the time) is as strong as saying that you should not need cropping because there are 600 f/4 lenses out there. So you can spend on a big exotic but not on a decent computer? If you need to send images immediately during a sport event fine, but for the images that he has shared, why?

And I am sorry…. As good as MF files? No. Just no. And I do indeed use MF regularly for my fashion hobby.

Why, BTW, do you think anyone is trying to 'convince' you to 'settle' for 24MP? Use any type of camera you like. But recognise that different people have different uses and preferences.

Because some here are? Not necessarily the OP. But I was replying to @Del Paso to say that if this was to be the end of all discussion about 24mp, it’s a miss for me.
I do not care. I use my R5 and my IQ180. I wish Canon had done a R1 with at least 45mp. But hey, they haven’t listened to me when I was begging for a 35 1.2 either…

 

[frankchn]

And the argument about having to upgrade computers to deal with bigger files (or more files if you do pre-capture all the time) is as strong as saying that you should not need cropping because there are 600 f/4 lenses out there.

Yeah I always found that argument not to hold water. We are talking about $4000 - $6000 cameras (before spending even more $$ for exotic superteles) here. A $3000 MacBook Pro or the PC equivalent will handle 100 MP Fuji GFX files just fine, never mind R5 sized files.

 

[koenkooi]

Yeah I always found that argument not to hold water. We are talking about $4000 - $6000 cameras (before spending even more $$ for exotic superteles) here. A $3000 MacBook Pro or the PC equivalent will handle 100 MP Fuji GFX files just fine, never mind R5 sized files.

Any apple silicon mac with 16gb ram and active cooling will handle those, which can be found new for less than $1000. I have used an M1 air for my R5 images the past years and that works fine till it starts throttling. So get one with a fan

Having said that, transferring the files can get annoying, especially if the wrong usb-c cable forces the reader to usb2 speeds

 

[docsmith]

As someone who has used these cameras in recent times I can’t really agree with him. I think it mainly comes down to the mp (and processing of course). If you want a modern rendition of the original 5D then try the Sony a7s. A modern rendition of the 6D try the R6.

Of course, that is fine as my point was more that there are a lot of different opinions out there about what people like/want/need. So, you too have an opinion.

I have noticed slight changes going from body to body. I do think that there is variation within Canon's lineup. Just going to DXOmark's data, you can look at color response and see how it changes from sensor to sensor. For example, the original 5D vs the R5. Most recently, the R1 as processed in LRc I am seeing a green caste that I am processing to remove that I have never had to deal with before. I haven't tested to see if it is software or hardware yet.

 

[Sporgon]

Most recently, the R1 as processed in LRc I am seeing a green caste that I am processing to remove that I have never had to deal with before. I haven't tested to see if it is software or hardware yet.

Canon does seems to flit between alternate (very slight) magenta and green tint. IIRC the 5D had a slight green bias, then the II was more magenta, the III green again, the S magenta, the IV green !

 

[vikingar]

Any apple silicon mac with 16gb ram and active cooling will handle those, which can be found new for less than $1000. I have used an M1 air for my R5 images the past years and that works fine till it starts throttling. So get one with a fan

Having said that, transferring the files can get annoying, especially if the wrong usb-c cable forces the reader to usb2 speeds

The base M1 Mac Mini 8GB can handle R5 raws. I know because I use one, cost was ~500$.

No active cooling either, working off an external 4TB USB-C SSD (~300$), as the Mac only has 256GB internal storage.

After years if getting top-spec MBPs I finally got fed up with Apple's price gouging and said why not try the lowest-spec M1 there is. I'm actually surprised how well it works, and the only time I get "out of memory" errors is when using content-aware fill on large areas in PS.

 

[neuroanatomist]

The base M1 Mac Mini 8GB can handle R5 raws. I know because I use one, cost was ~500$.

No active cooling either, working off an external 4TB USB-C SSD (~300$), as the Mac only has 256GB internal storage.

After years if getting top-spec MBPs I finally got fed up with Apple's price gouging and said why not try the lowest-spec M1 there is. I'm actually surprised how well it works, and the only time I get "out of memory" errors is when using content-aware fill on large areas in PS.

I’ll stick with high-spec MBPs, thanks. Since I prefer the larger display, I actually can’t get a low-spec one. Exporting RAWs from DxO with DeepPrime XD NR on my top-spec 2019 Intel i9 took 30 s per image with the fans roaring. On my new M4 Pro it’s a couple of seconds each with a quick blip of the performance cores, and the fans stay off.

 

[koenkooi]

I’ll stick with high-spec MBPs, thanks. Since I prefer the larger display, I actually can’t get a low-spec one. Exporting RAWs from DxO with DeepPrime XD NR on my top-spec 2019 Intel i9 took 30 s per image with the fans roaring. On my new M4 Pro it’s a couple of seconds each with a quick blip of the performance cores, and the fans stay off.

I haven't checked with the latest DxO PR4 update, but DeepPrime variants are supposed to run on the Neural Engine, which is the same speed on CPU model in its generation. So the blips you're seeing on the P-cores are likely all the other operations. So for workloads that are mostly denoising, there won't be a big differences between the Mx, Mx Pro and Mx Max. Especially when using PureRAW, that exports images sequentially, PhotoLab allows for parallel processing, that is where you'll start to see a huge difference between the CPU models.

 

[koenkooi]

The base M1 Mac Mini 8GB can handle R5 raws. I know because I use one, cost was ~500$.

No active cooling either, working off an external 4TB USB-C SSD (~300$), as the Mac only has 256GB internal storage.

All my photos and a subset of videos are on an external 4TB SSD as well, it's great to be able to move them between systems. Doing the culling and rough editing during the vacation using the M1 Air and after returning home, do the rest of a massively more powerful desktop.

After years if getting top-spec MBPs I finally got fed up with Apple's price gouging and said why not try the lowest-spec M1 there is. I'm actually surprised how well it works, and the only time I get "out of memory" errors is when using content-aware fill on large areas in PS.

I hear you on the upgrade pricing and ladder! I had to buy a personal MBP recently for the first time in 15 years, the upgrade pricing for RAM and SSD is very cynical!
I'm happy that I don't need to spend on internal SSD, but I do need the extra RAM for non-photo stuff