EOS R manuals spotted? Predelivery planning

[hmatthes]

Ordered mine from B&H at 12:01...
I generally start my usage planning while awaiting delivery. Hope that is a short wait!
Has anyone discovered a pre-release PDF of the EOS R manuals?

 

[MayaTlab]

Eager to know as well.

There are a number of bits of informations I'm missing about this camera (bit depth in continuous drive or silent mode, liveview feed in between frames in continuous mode or not, etc.).

 

[Kit Lens Jockey]

I think I saw in one of the hands on previews that there is no viewfinder blackout during continuous shooting. I think it was that afro guy's preview. Go watch that one to be sure.

 

[fentiger]

I've checked on Canon uk web site for pdf manuals, and not there yet.
Guess they won't until the camera starts shipping or thereabouts.

 

[zim]

I think I saw in one of the hands on previews that there is no viewfinder blackout during continuous shooting. I think it was that afro guy's preview. Go watch that one to be sure.

correct
the evf on this camera sounds like it's excellent

 

[MayaTlab]

I think I saw in one of the hands on previews that there is no viewfinder blackout during continuous shooting. I think it was that afro guy's preview. Go watch that one to be sure.

I saw that video. If what's happening at the 6:40 mark is any indication, then yep, there is very much a blackout. So much so that there's just no liveview feed at all during the entire burst. It's disguised by the fact that the R shows you a slideshow of the previous shot that's been taken during the burst. So the EVF never goes black, but it doesn't show you in real time what's happening either. Just like the Ms, basically. With mirrorless cameras, no EVF blackout doesn't necessarily mean that there's no interruption of the real-time liveview feed.

This video shows what a real blackout free, real time liveview mirrorless cameras looks like (see the little blue squares in the corners ? That's the camera taking photos) :
No other mirrorless camera today can match that, but most are able to show a degree of liveview in between frames in continuous drive, a bit like a regular OVF. If the R was able to do so, it would be a much welcome first for Canon.

I hope that I'm wrong on that and that real-life experience or other settings may improve the situation, but I take the rather pessimistic view that there's a strong chance that we'll be dealing with no liveview feed in between frames and 12bit files in continuous mode. Since that's never mentioned in spec lists, that's why I'm quite eager to read the manual .

 

[Kit Lens Jockey]

Did you edit your previous post? I thought initially you were asking about literal viewfinder blackout, as in, the viewfinder going black, which it doesn't seem to.

I agree that it would be nice for there to be actual, continual view through the viewfinder the whole time the camera was taking photos, but I don't see how what it does do would be that detrimental to your shooting. I mean, come on, complete viewfinder blackout has been present since the dawn of SLRs, and all of a sudden it's now a big deal that this camera doesn't keep a seamless, continual feed going the entire time that it's shooting?

If the viewfinder blackout that photographers have worked through for decades is really keeping you from taking good photos, I really don't think that that one thing being resolved will help you that much. This just feels like some serious splitting hairs to me. Would a continual live view during burst shooting be nice? Yes. Should it really have a material effect on your ability to take good photos? Eh, not really.

 

[MayaTlab]

Did you edit your previous post?

Nope.

Would a continual live view during burst shooting be nice? Yes. Should it really have a material effect on your ability to take good photos? Eh, not really.

I probably didn't explain well enough what the Canon Ms (and from the looks of it the R as well), or older mirrorless cameras, do. Forget about blackout, think "liveview" instead. With these, there simply is no liveview whatsoever when taking a burst.

What does that mean ? With a DSLR, when you see something through the viewfinder, it's obviously in real time. What you see is what's happening at the same moment that you see it. Most current mirrorless cameras are able to mimic this OVF behaviour by shoving a few liveview frames in between shots in the EVF feed. Of course, being mirrorless cameras, you get a slight delay, a few milliseconds in general (let's say 25ms). What the Ms do is that they don't give you a liveview feed at all during burst but instead show you the last shot taken : what you see during the burst isn't what is happening at the same time. It's the shot you just took, let's say, 150 milliseconds ago. See the problem here ? If you're following an eratic subject framing is made much more difficult. You're always a step behind.

 

[MayaTlab]

Manual available here : http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/3/0300032123/01/eosr-ug-en.pdf

 

[hmatthes]

Thank you!

 

[Kit Lens Jockey]

There's an interesting bit in the manual regarding the view during continuous shooting on page 149. I can't seem to copy it out of the pdf to paste here though. Seems like the operation of the display during continuous shooting is configurable between two settings.

 

[MayaTlab]

There's an interesting bit in the manual regarding the view during continuous shooting on page 149. I can't seem to copy it out of the pdf to paste here though. Seems like the operation of the display during continuous shooting is configurable between two settings.

Well spotted ! So it seems that there could be a way to get some degree of liveview feed at 5 fps, albeit in a way that seems to come with enough caveats that Canon has disabled it by default...

 

[Kit Lens Jockey]

Well, perhaps they recognized the merits of handling the view during burst shooting either way, so they're letting the user choose. I can see some people who may prefer having no actual blackout and just essentially a fast slideshow of the photos they just took, and then I could see people who may prefer having the full-on live view of what's happening, even if it causes some flickering and/or blackout. I'm not sure that one is really any better than the other. They're both somewhat imperfect.

Obviously a seamless live stream of what's happening the whole time burst shooting is taking place would probably be the best, but in lieu of that, it seems that Canon is giving users a choice, and I'm all for more customizability in how we want the camera to function.

 

[MayaTlab]

This isn't how I understand it. I don't think that this setting necessarily has a blackout as it's mentioned that it "switches between your shot and the live image", so it seems to mix the slideshow approach with the liveview feed.
My feeling is that the way they've found to produce a live feed in continuous shooting at 5 fps isn't quite as polished as they'd like it to be.
It's quite annoying that such important operational aspects of a mirrorless cameras are never well explained by camera manufacturers and so little cared about by most reviewers.

 

[Kit Lens Jockey]

I'm also very happy to see that my favorite autofocus fine tuning adjustment made it into this camera, "lens drive when AF impossible." Otherwise known as "only leave this on if you want your lens to hunt around aimlessly when focusing in low light." Gonna be turning this off as soon as I get the camera.