Beautiful captures, but I'm seeing a surprising amount of noise/grain for ISO 200. Is this related to electronic shutter? 1.6 crop? Something else?
Also, what is the advantage of using the crop mode? Couldn't we achieve the same crop in post if desired?
Thanks!
For a start, cropping in makes the pixel-level noise more visible. 1.6x + additional cropping in post means these are pretty heavy crops, I'm more than happy with the noise considering that, and my trip wasn't for photography or else I would have brought my 100-400 + 1.4x to take these images uncropped.
The advantage of the crop mode is that it throws away the rest of the data, which makes the files only 17 megapixels and a lot less data that I wouldn't be using anyway. 1.6x crop mode also gives you an endless buffer in raw in all modes, which makes it easier to shoot as many long 20FPS bursts as you want for as many seconds as you want. Since the files are only 17 megapixels, they're also only like 18 megabyte raw files, which gives me like 4000+ images on a 128gb card, vs roughly 2000 images full res at 45 mp.
The 1.6x crop also makes the subjects bigger in the viewfinder, which makes it easier to focus in general and easier for the camera to track focus on a smaller subject.
I mainly prefer it when I already know I'm going to have to crop in, like with small birds or other faraway subjects, especially considering how much space it saves on the cards. I'd rather have 4000 cropped images with room to space than shoot 2000 full res and be wasting so much space for data I don't need. The crop mode is still 5033 pixels, so I haven't been bothered by having to crop in additionally on top of that when the end result is just mainly for social media, that resolution is very close to my 1DX Mark II anyway/
I have crop mode mapped to a button on the back, so it's incredibly easy to swap between full frame and crop if a subject gets closer. It's honestly one of my favorite parts of the R5, because I feel like I have a great 5D-level full frame camera as well as a high-end 7D crop camera when I need that extra reach.