Firmware: Canon EOS R5 v1.2.0

[mccasi]

@YuengLinger, It appears that according to dpreview and other bogs, C-RAW indeed produce a smaller file size without difference on image quality BUT in critical conditions like low light, standard raw can retain better details and if you have to retain some details on a very dard scene, standard raw perform better. As I use the R5 also to make night photography (ie. star trails, milky way, etc.), a smaller raw file size was indeed better as I make panoramic night sky images with exposure bracketing and stiching together many very large files can truly kill my computer processor and take ages to build a full panoramic image...

Photon shot noise makes a bigger difference than C-RAW vs. RAW ... if you compare to RAW files with another on 400% and ISO 52000 they look as different as another C-RAW. Also C-RAW doesn't eat stars.
Sure for astro you want lossless, but personally I still use C-RAW and enjoy 45% reduction in size taking my 1000 subs.
Picking the right ISO that is ideal to avoid dark current noise (1250-1600 for R5) is tons more important.

Also your wish makes no sense. Sure the R6 has more photos per pixel, but more pixels more than make up for it. Just watch Tony's video on noise comparison between the two. R6 is strictly worse for low light if you would downsample 45mp to 20mp. If your request is to automatically downsample 45mp to 20mp and call it M-RAW or whatever, well it's not "raw" anymore per se, best you can do is to retain dynamic range.

 

[home_slice]

Well, not what we hoped for but some small improvements. The auto screen brightening was much needed for one. In addition to 120 FPS at 1080 P, and c-log, I hope they make it so the sensor is protected when you remove a lens. When you turn the camera off, those blinds close to protect the sensor. I wish that happened when the camera was on and you remove the lens. I know the instruction manual says to turn the camera off before removing a lens but why not just cover the sensor when there isn’t a lens attached? You’d have to override this feature if using vintage lenses if the camera can’t detect them but it would be a nice option and probably save some sensors.

 

[sanj]

I do not see this as 'big'!

 

[Aregal]

Not necessarily – depends on if they were planning to introduce it in the first place, as well as if can be implemented with current camera's hardware. It's a software thing after all.

The 5D4 log update was a software update too. Knowing that the newer Canon logs are Canon’s bread and butter with the DR benefits of Canon Log 2 and “Goldilocks” happy-medium of Canon Log 3, I don’t see Canon freely giving this up via an online firmware update. I honestly thing it will be a paid update.

That being said, I DO hope I’m 100% wrong and they release Log 2 and 3 for free.

Having been with Canon for all these years, I would be surprised if they did; but they also released 8K 12-bit raw in the R5 and everyone lost their minds.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Picking the right ISO that is ideal to avoid own dark current noise (1250-1600 for R5) is tons more important.

I had an impression (from my own tests) that the R5 is ISO-invariant from ISO 400, or very close to ISO-invariant. photonstophotos also show that.

 

[VegasCameraGuy]

It will have all the latest updates.

But I think the notes say you should have 1.1.1 before doing the update.
You should check to make sure. They do have the previous versions in case you need them.

According to the notes with the update, previous updates are included in the new update.

 

[JaimeAndresPhoto1]

I would NOT call this a "BIG" firmware update. This shouldn't have even been a 1.2, but rather a 1.1.2. These are all low-level fixes that should have come with the camera. I will update my camera in hopes to see the minor improvements, but I hardly see it worth updating till we get CLog3, 1080p 120fps, and/or RAW Lite. I'd love to see a real update before Xmas!

 

[Mark M]

The problem with FX6 is no audio on a gimbal (because all ports are on the handle)

Apparently it does have a built in mic on the body itself so you can still get scratch audio even without the handle.

 

[[email protected]]

That is probably the BEST news of today!
Have you tried it?

I have tried it, and it works great (as a very simplistic intervalometer, at least).

I also note that the cameras now work better with certain CFexpress cards. I'm not sure if this happened in the 1.1.1 or the 1.2 upgrade, but the Angelbird cards now have less of a startup delay. Interestingly, the first time you startup with one of those cards, it will do the 4-second delay, like it did before, but after that, turning the camera off and on produces only the normal, very short delay; although it will be a couple seconds longer before the viewfinder interface elements are superimposed on the sensor image. In other words, you can start shooting pretty much immediately, but your focus point, etc., will show up only after perhaps 2-3 seconds. I'm fine with that, so long as I can start spraying when an emergency calls for it.

I suspect the firmware allows whatever information was being polled during the earlier delay to be cached and reused from non-volatile memory, until you switch cards.

 

[mccasi]

I had an impression (from my own tests) that the R5 is ISO-invariant from ISO 400, or very close to ISO-invariant. photonstophotos also show that.

Indeed I also refer to https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_e.htm
Yes the R5 is almost iso invariant from 400 onwards, when the 2nd native ISO kicks in, but there is a sweet spot in the 1250 to 1600 range to my reading.

 

[Viggo]

Well, not what we hoped for but some small improvements. The auto screen brightening was much needed for one. In addition to 120 FPS at 1080 P, and c-log, I hope they make it so the sensor is protected when you remove a lens. When you turn the camera off, those blinds close to protect the sensor. I wish that happened when the camera was on and you remove the lens. I know the instruction manual says to turn the camera off before removing a lens but why not just cover the sensor when there isn’t a lens attached? You’d have to override this feature if using vintage lenses if the camera can’t detect them but it would be a nice option and probably save some sensors.

There’s a few reasons you shouldn’t pull lenses when the camera is powered on. That’s why they do not enable the function you describe.

 

[RayValdez360]

I don't think C70 is in the same market as FX6 even though the price is close.
Plus FX6 output RAW over 12G-SDI which C70 doesn't even have...

its the same market. People that want a small cinema camera in the 4 digit range. it just has more production features while canon made theirs compact and left out features so it wouldnt interfere with some the sales of it's big brothers.

 

[Stanly]

Apparently it does have a built in mic on the body itself so you can still get scratch audio even without the handle.

Yep, but you will still need another solution for audio, even if you just want to record lay with Rode Go.

 

[VegasCameraGuy]

Indeed I also refer to https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/RN_e.htm
Yes the R5 is almost iso invariant from 400 onwards, when the 2nd native ISO kicks in, but there is a sweet spot in the 1250 to 1600 range to my reading.

However, if you look at their Dynamic Range charts it shows that the DR falls off above ISO 100. https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm#Canon EOS R5,Canon EOS R5(ES),Canon EOS R5(HS)

 

[puffo25]

@mccasi, thanks for your remarks. In essence you are saying that even for astro photography the quality of the Canon R5 is as good (if not better) than the R6 or even the Sony A7S3 ? I think it is safe to shoot in most conditions @ not more than 1600 ISO astro images, taking into consideration also that I use RF F/2,8 lenses in most cases and so they are quite bright and I have a very robust tripod to hold well long exposures...
So if all considerations are correct, according to your considerations I should shoot C-RAW without worry much about image quality and grain/noise in low light, as long as I keep good exposure balance, correct?

Photon shot noise makes a bigger difference than C-RAW vs. RAW ... if you compare to RAW files with another on 400% and ISO 52000 they look as different as another C-RAW. Also C-RAW doesn't eat stars.
Sure for astro you want lossless, but personally I still use C-RAW and enjoy 45% reduction in size taking my 1000 subs.
Picking the right ISO that is ideal to avoid dark current noise (1250-1600 for R5) is tons more important.

Also your wish makes no sense. Sure the R6 has more photos per pixel, but more pixels more than make up for it. Just watch Tony's video on noise comparison between the two. R6 is strictly worse for low light if you would downsample 45mp to 20mp. If your request is to automatically downsample 45mp to 20mp and call it M-RAW or whatever, well it's not "raw" anymore per se, best you can do is to retain dynamic range.

 

[deleteme]

@YuengLinger, It appears that according to dpreview and other bogs, C-RAW indeed produce a smaller file size without difference on image quality BUT in critical conditions like low light, standard raw can retain better details and if you have to retain some details on a very dard scene, standard raw perform better. As I use the R5 also to make night photography (ie. star trails, milky way, etc.), a smaller raw file size was indeed better as I make panoramic night sky images with exposure bracketing and stiching together many very large files can truly kill my computer processor and take ages to build a full panoramic image...

I think you are getting re-acquainted with the "no free lunch" principles.

 

[deleteme]

I installed it and am happy. I shoot stills only so the video centric "improvements" or lack thereof do not affect me.
I think it is useful to temper our expectations as to SW and FW performance on what is an enormously complicated and feature laden device.
I can only imagine the number of teams working on all the various components of the feature set that the public demands.
The fact that they actually are debugging the FW is a relief as I have Mac desktop computers with architectural missteps that have never been addressed by Apple.
Fuji is the pioneer in the field of introducing more capability via FW updates and thus increasing the value of the initial investment.
This is a two edged sword in that now people expect the upgrades but are also now "certain" of crippled cameras that will be upgraded later or, perversely, never.

 

[Rocksthaman]

I installed it and am happy. I shoot stills only so the video centric "improvements" or lack thereof do not affect me.
I think it is useful to temper our expectations as to SW and FW performance on what is an enormously complicated and feature laden device.
I can only imagine the number of teams working on all the various components of the feature set that the public demands.
The fact that they actually are debugging the FW is a relief as I have Mac desktop computers with architectural missteps that have never been addressed by Apple.
Fuji is the pioneer in the field of introducing more capability via FW updates and thus increasing the value of the initial investment.
This is a two edged sword in that now people expect the upgrades but are also now "certain" of crippled cameras that will be upgraded later or, perversely, never.

Stop making excuses. Ya don’t work for canon. This update is low on actual updates and should have been in the camera to start.

A half baked product should cost half baked money if that is the expectation. It’s not. Sony does it too on somethings but there is a basic offering that is in almost all cameras. Record limit, log profiles, 120, all things that probably easier to add if it was already added to most cameras.

Also, the “I only shoot photo” shtick is getting really old too. Canon is well aware the R5 is a hybrid camera and marketed it that way. I have no problem waiting but can we stop acting like this camera is as not meant to shoot video because it is.

 

[Rocksthaman]

Apparently it does have a built in mic on the body itself so you can still get scratch audio even without the handle.

After review, there is a 3.5 jack on the body underneath. Weird placement, but it’s there.

 

[Mark M]

After review, there is a 3.5 jack on the body underneath. Weird placement, but it’s there.

No, I don't think it's that. I think there's an actual mic, like on the R5. In the specs it says:

Built-in Microphone Omni-directional monoral electret condenser microphone (body) (x1), Stereo electret condenser microphone (handle) (x1)