DPReview: Review of the Canon EOS R5

[Jack Douglas]

Two user reports so far. Which may be nothing, or may be something. But given the conditions I sometimes shoot in, there's no way I'm dropping $4k until I know for sure that it's nothing.



I understand I can't shoot video clips with it if it's in thermal protection from stills shooting or from an earlier video clip. Again, the problem is not the record time limits. The problem is the recovery.



You better check my posting history here before throwing around nonsense like that.

If I were you I'd be thinking/expressing much the same. I being me in a different scenario, there is nothing so far to dampen my enthusiasm and furthermore I do see a huge overreaction on various fronts that has nothing to do with reality. I certainly agree that cool down times are very important for some people's usage and I'm sure Canon is well aware now, if not before. I'm really not sure if there is much they can do about that - I don't have the expertise even if I had the full details.

Jack

 

[WhatDoesMStandsFor]

Which I get, but those content creators aren’t trying to do it on a R5 are they? Film makers won’t be using a Canon or a Sony unless it’s because the camera is cheap enough to be disposable? Won’t they use the Sony professional range and the Canon Cine, or Red or whatever other range they use?

I’m just trying to understand in my own mind the concern about the higher end video modes for content creators thinking of using an r5 or a Sony where their target market doesn’t have a 4K screen. My limited view says they’re creating internet content, on vimeo, on YT where ever. That doesn’t detract from how good the content is, but if you’re unlikely to watch that content on a 4K device, then how important is all these high end video modes right now?

They can start doing it with the R5 or the A7sIII as well, there's not a single problem in doing that. Even the R6 or the Nikon Z5 can be thrown into the mix. It all depends on your demands for your customers.

If you think of a content creator on Youtube, per example, you can consider that his audience would be his clients. In that sense, he would need to deliver a content that his audience are willing to watch, either it being tech review, comedy sketches or short films.

If you are an athlete and wants to start a mtb channel, you may be better suited by using a GoPro and showing you riding trails instead of using a hybrid/cinema camera and stopping to talk a little bit about the trail. Alternatively, if you wanted to showcase yours skills riding these trails, you'll probably need to hire some professionals to handle external shots and put up a comprehensive video for the audience. From a one man operation it becomes a full size crew and the camera gear used, in exchange, also changes.

Last year I've helped a Youtube creator to fix his lightning issues. He uses a M50 in 4K to produce most of his content - Yes, the M50, a camera two years old that shoots cropped 4K without DPAF - and it works fines for him and his public. At the same time, I've also got to know another Youtuber which used to shoot everything on a stills cameras and recently moved to a cinema camera because he's starting to work on bigger projects and doesn't want to deal with the limitations that hybrid cameras offers. And this second guys doesn't even use Canon - he used to shoot on a A7III and purchased a FS5II.

Different people = different needs.

 

[scyrene]

Assuming stills are OK, it has gone from a "must have this year" purchase to a "meh, maybe skip it" purchase. Strip the video features down to LQ 4k30 (the reliable mode) and it's over $4,000 (gotta count the expensive memory cards) for IBIS, faster fps, eye AF, more DR, and about 2/3 stop better high ISO. That's not a bad list, but there's nothing on that list worth $4k to me. Nothing that crosses the line from "makes life a little easier" to "really changes the quality of my work." I would rather spend the money on trips, glass, etc.

Genuine question, would the higher res video modes having fewer restrictions have 'really changed the quality' of your work? You've been a voice of reason on these forums for a long time, I'm just a bit surprised by your hyperbole on this thread.

 

[Go Wild]

I got my baby! First of all handling this camera is awesome!! I made some clips in 4k HQ, 4k HDR and 4k 120fps. Viewing in the screen of the camera I was amazed by how great footage is! Ohhh and the IBIS, my god! What a dream!! I was used to the IBIS of the A7r3 and I can tell you is day to night difference!!! So far.....I am REALLY HAPPY!!!!!

 

[unfocused]

(1) Blaming the Marketing department (and the people who approved the campaign) is the right thing to do. Not the right thing is to condemn "Canon" (whoever that may be) for straight out lying...
...Engineers are horrified about the campaign but cannot discuss anything nor change the mind of Marketing.

I get tired of this "engineers are perfect" B.S.

The marketing department does not do anything without the express approval of senior management, which is going to include engineers and designers.

Perhaps you are not familiar with a well-run company. But, Canon is a well-run company and in such companies all marketing campaigns are reviewed by the senior management to be sure it is correct. The engineering and design team is represented in the review process. The legal department will also review everything the marketing department produces to assure that they aren't making claims that will later become actionable items.

"Engineering" is not blameless in all this. Burying an asterisk in a document like it was a notice in "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" is not adequate disclosure. They should not have designed a product that has the kinds of limitations that the R5 has and they certainly should not have misled the marketing department about those limitations. Canon is a very engineering-centric company, with senior management often coming up through the ranks of design and engineering. They are not just some group of geeky misfits along for the ride and at the mercy of everyone else.

 

[David_E]

Fer chrissake, if you want a video camera, buy a video camera, and do stop annoying us with your whining. My R5 performs beautifully, blew me away with its focus tracking of the eye and head of a hummingbird with a 600mm lens.

 

[BeenThere]

Really? Where is that? I've never seen an 8K display for sale here in the UK. Mainstream tv is still HD, and I find streaming anything much above HD prohibitively slow/file sizes are too large (but I expect it's easier in major cities now).

OK, OK. I am speaking of U.S. market.

 

[Stu_bert]

First kid, 4 years ago: EOS M in the go-bag for the hospital delivery. Second kid, 1.5 years ago: iPhone in trouser pocket.



Having Disney+ is so much less effort for entertaining toddlers than swapping disks in and out of the player. It also makes it a lot easier to say "OK, you can watch the let-it-go scene on my phone" and only that scene instead of going "I've gone through this much trouble and disk menus that they can watch half the movie"
So strangely enough streaming cuts down on screen time for the little ones here instead of making it worse (as it does for me).

Thanks again.

I dont know whether to conclude the impact on high end video recording on the R5 is that significant....

I guess at the end of the day, if people want 4k60p or above and suppliers can provide it, then that a sale for them. Just seems that there is a lot of passion for something which I still don't perceive many end (target) consumers of that content will appreciate.

 

[Deleted member 384473]

And now it seems most of the criticism has moved, it isn’t the camera it is the marketing! Let’s destroy the product because our sensibilities are disturbed by some marketing....

I have always said it was the marketing. But go off. If it was marketed differently, it would be a lot more quiet.

 

[Besisika]

Trimming your armchair psychoanalysis to explain the actual "why" in simple terms...

If Olympus released a new body tomorrow with these problems I wouldn't care at all. I'm not in m43 and never will be. The people "whining" are doing so because they love Canon and wanted to see a top tier R body to put their EF and RF glass on. I want to throw $4k at Canon for the ultimate hybrid FF mirrorless. But Canon stumbled on a fairly significant point. Again, it's not the record time limits, it's the heat buildup shooting stills + recovery. All the exciting video modes are worthless if you can't depend on them turning on. Can't even predict if/when they'll turn on.

So it's back to the waiting game with Canon. I'm frustrated but probably will wait because I love my 5Ds and EF glass. OTOH I won't be buying RF glass, and there's no "lock in" with me because of that. And some people just won't wait any longer.

You would have to be blind to miss the pent up market pressure from professional and advanced amateur Canon users.

It is OK to morn, but for how long? It begins to sound like a broken record. Don't you think? Unless you intend to do something about it. Since you are doing the complain, come up with a suggestion to Canon, then move on. You don't say anything new, you repeat what other 200 guys before you, and you do it over and over again. Not personally you, of course, but some people (I never paid attention to the names).
I think Canon heard it already, if they listen, and will do something about it, if they care. Time to move on, and wait for whatever they or other company will do to fix it.

 

[Stu_bert]

IMHO street, events, night/astro I would choose R6, landscape I would choose R5.



There are reports of overheating on the R6 video too, I wouldn't like to choose between them on that. In practice you won't get any better high ISO performance on the lower res sensor.

Tbh while it's very hard to give advice as to what someone else should buy, if you have the budget, get the R5. If not, the R6 will be fine for most purposes.

Suggest you either go the route of hiring both for a weekend, or take the plunge on one and if you have a dealer which accepts returns then go that route...

Or wait for comparative reviews of the subjects that you like to take - I think it is too early - maybe towards the end of August we will start to see such comparisons...

 

[Jack Douglas]

I got my baby! First of all handling this camera is awesome!! I made some clips in 4k HQ, 4k HDR and 4k 120fps. Viewing in the screen of the camera I was amazed by how great footage is! Ohhh and the IBIS, my god! What a dream!! I was used to the IBIS of the A7r3 and I can tell you is day to night difference!!! So far.....I am REALLY HAPPY!!!!!

Well, you better stop being happy and absorb all the critical information presented in this thread. How can you possibly be happy! Must have extremely low expectations!!

Jack

 

[Stu_bert]

Genuine question, would the higher res video modes having fewer restrictions have 'really changed the quality' of your work? You've been a voice of reason on these forums for a long time, I'm just a bit surprised by your hyperbole on this thread.

Plus, is your use of high end video for you personally or for you commercially.

 

[dtaylor]

Genuine question, would the higher res video modes having fewer restrictions have 'really changed the quality' of your work?

On the video side: absolutely. On the stills side: my main body is a 5Ds and while the R5 sensor improves upon some aspects of IQ, overall it wouldn't make a difference in my prints. (The DR would make life easier, but not change the quality of my work because I shoot/blend two frames where needed.)

That's not a knock against the R5 on stills. From the samples I've seen they are gorgeous. They have the crisp, fine detail that's characteristic of high resolution 35mm and mid resolution MF. If you're a stills only shooter the R5 is a big upgrade from, say, a 5D3, just on sensor IQ alone. Now add IBIS, 12fps, advanced AF, etc.

You've been a voice of reason on these forums for a long time, I'm just a bit surprised by your hyperbole on this thread.

I'm frustrated. I've held off on purchasing a more video capable body hoping that Canon would nail it with the R5. They've come so close. Absent the thermal issues this is an amazing camera across the board.

I don't want another brand for video. I want to be on FF Canon. So much so that if the R6 did not have the same thermal issues I would add an R6 for video despite "only" having 20mp for stills. The 1DX3 sensor is solid and it would still be a good 2nd stills camera. Canon has come so close to knocking it out of the park with these two bodies. It's painful to see them miss on something like this.

Again I'll reiterate: if you're stills only...and if there are no stills thermal issues (and there may not be, we've only got two reports so far, both could be batteries or out of spec bodies)...the R5 knocks it out of the park. Easy upgrade choice from earlier 5 series models and the R. Also from the 5Ds/sR depending on the value you place on IBIS, DR, fps, and subject tracking AF. I place value on those things, just not quite $4k at this time.

I don't hate the camera or think it's a lemon. I hate that there's one serious flaw that will lead to me adding some other brand + adapters and waiting for Canon's next release.

Or maybe I should thank Canon. Maybe I would kick myself if I bought an R5 only to see Canon release an 83-100mp R5s (R3?) early next year

 

[twoheadedboy]

The comments about non-HQ 4k on the R5 vs. "regular" 4k on the R6 intrigued me. Has anyone done an analysis comparing the quality between the two qualitatively?

I have an R5, and am still inclined to use non-HQ because it lacks the heat limitations, which is more relevant to my use (and still better than FHD by a country mile). But it would be interesting to know which one is truly putting out better video when comparing them directly.

 

[Deleted member 384473]

+++ Also, there’s nothing in user manual about overheating if you really want to get nit picky. Lol.

A.M.: page 902 E5 user manual:
* 8K movie recording (RAW, DCI, UHD) has restrictions on possible recording time due to the camera
internal temperature rise. Max possible recording time is approx. 20 min. (at room temperature).
* 4K 60 p movie copped recording has restrictions on possible recording time due to the camera internal
temperature rise. Max possible recording time is approx. 25 min. (at room temperature).

And then page 375:


Red [ ] internal temperature warning icon
If the camera’s internal temperature increases due to prolonged movie recording or under a high ambient temperature, a red [ ] icon will appear.
The red [ ] icon indicates that movie recording will soon be terminated automatically. If this happens, you will not be able to record again until the camera’s internal temperature decreases, so turn off the power and let the camera cool down a while. Note that the time until movie recording stops automatically when the red [ ] icon is displayed varies depending on shooting conditions. Recording a movie at a high temperature for a prolonged period will cause the red
[ ] icon to appear earlier. When you are not recording, always turn off the camera.

[ ] icon
[ ] may be displayed if repeated movie recording or extended use of Live View display increases the camera’s internal temperature. Turn off the camera or take other measures when [ ] is displayed, and wait until the camera cools down. The camera will turn off automatically if you continue recording while [ ] is displayed. The camera may also turn off automatically if you continue using Live View display while [ ] is displayed.

I hope you can appreciate Canon delivering a potential overheating statement in a plain English.

Fair, I see it and I admit I missed it. I thought it was only listed on their specs under video shooting a few days after people questioned them on it. The user manual did take a month to release though and to play devils advocate, I would bet that most user manuals have an overheat warning as such found on 375... So that’s null to me. 902 is the best I’ve seen in the user manual for overheating and it doesn’t seem to indicate that it also overheats in 4KHQ? Listen, the user manual could literally say “don’t buy this camera if you’re a video shooter, buy a cine” but they still marketed it as a revolutionary video camera and that’s my thing. It can’t be if it’s unusable after just a few minutes (usability is subjective as discussed in earlier comments). Appreciate you though! And I would never outright bash or be rude to anyone on this forum for their opinion instead I just disagree. These are purely opinions that I stand by until I use the camera myself and then I either stand corrected on its usability or I send it back. And for all stills photographers, I’ve said it once and again, I hope you fall in love with it. I’ll be jealous of the eye tracking if I don’t.

 

[Deleted member 384473]

Well, you better stop being happy and absorb all the critical information presented in this thread. How can you possibly be happy! Must have extremely low expectations!!

Jack

The perfect camera for someone might be different for someone else. I’m glad they’re happy and I hope it ends up being as close to perfect experience as possible.

 

[twoheadedboy]

Once again for those in the back of the class: the problem is not the record time limits. Those are actually decent. The problem is heat retention. Just turning the camera on eats into the record time limits. Shooting stills can drop them to zero. And even if you get the full time from a cold start, you then have to wait hours for recovery. And this is true for over sampled 4k30, not just for 4k120 or 8k.

Several competitors have over sampled 4k30 without this problem. I don't know why it becomes a religious/political issue to just admit Canon got the thermals wrong in this design. If you don't care about video then great, the R5 is an amazing stills camera. Love it, enjoy it. It's still frustrating to see Canon have a potential game-winning home run that stumbles on something that would have been so minor to fix in early development.

I have not seen anything conclusive showing that "having the camera on reduces record time". There have been a couple forum posters, but not a single reviewer that has demonstrated this that I've been able to find. It's certainly not been my experience to-date.

Also, I'm not sure what part of your background gives you the expertise in consumer products/engineering to suggest it would have been "minor to fix" this. We know "why" this is happening, and it's the fact that it's the sealed design of a 5D-class body and small size (combined with everything else that's generating more heat). By my estimation, solving this problem would require fundamental changes to the camera's design one way or another.

 

[RayValdez360]

I have not seen anything conclusive showing that "having the camera on reduces record time". There have been a couple forum posters, but not a single reviewer that has demonstrated this that I've been able to find. It's certainly not been my experience to-date.

Also, I'm not sure what part of your background gives you the expertise in consumer products/engineering to suggest it would have been "minor to fix" this. We know "why" this is happening, and it's the fact that it's the sealed design of a 5D-class body and small size (combined with everything else that's generating more heat). By my estimation, solving this problem would require fundamental changes to the camera's design one way or another.

the camera generates heats if it is turned on and active. thats just common sense.

 

[Deleted member 384473]

I have not seen anything conclusive showing that "having the camera on reduces record time". There have been a couple forum posters, but not a single reviewer that has demonstrated this that I've been able to find. It's certainly not been my experience to-date.

Also, I'm not sure what part of your background gives you the expertise in consumer products/engineering to suggest it would have been "minor to fix" this. We know "why" this is happening, and it's the fact that it's the sealed design of a 5D-class body and small size (combined with everything else that's generating more heat). By my estimation, solving this problem would require fundamental changes to the camera's design one way or another.

Canon EOS R5/R6 ProAV TV <- This link, time stamp 55:20.

Also, Mehdia was the only saving grace for pure honesty from Canon on overheating I saw in the very early days of pre-orders.