Gordon Laing from CameraLabs gives his first reviews of the new Canon gear, including the EOS R3
- Thread starter Canon Rumors Guy
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Btw Kai Wong issued another video about hot Canon gear recently 
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To be serious: this shows again that the Canon isn't a conservative camera maker, as many say today. In their history they always came up with radically new designs and ideas, some of which worked well, others look a bit funny today.
:To be serious: this shows again that the Canon isn't a conservative camera maker, as many say today. In their history they always came up with radically new designs and ideas, some of which worked well, others look a bit funny today.
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That's one of the few things which always annoy me about Canon, Nikon and Sony offer this very useful feat also in their prosumer level cameras since many years. If you prefer a smaller camera body in Canon's eco system, you are always forced to manual exposure comp with off-center af points. This can be really annoying if you shoot wildlife action in difficult light settings.
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That's true, the EOS 3's metering system makes it technically the best film camera I personally ever used (and still use), in particular it is the perfect camera for slide film (which needs accurate metering).
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exactly what came to my mind. For stills it's no problem, if you frame first, look then at the object you want in focus and then push the button (that's how you did it with the EOS 3 or 5, e.g.). With video, you need to frame w/o moving your eye away from that object, which could be sometimes a bit difficult... at least, you have to train this if you use eye AF, I guess.
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Yes, it's very important is to hear the *opinions* and *experiences* of working photographers who have used the gear extensively for their own specialist subjects, so prospective purchasers can relate to how suitable the gear might be for them, and learn about operational quirks.
But it's clearly impossible for *any* reviewer who has only had a few hours with a camera to provide much more than a run down of specifications and a visual guide to the controls and basic operation.
At *this* stage, when the product has just been announced, what people want is exactly what Gordon provides - a calm, sane and pretty thorough tour of the camera. I find his approach hugely refreshing when compared to 95% of the influencers and narcissists who communicate virtually nothing and are only interested in attracting hordes of sheep-like "followers". So I feel you are being a bit hard on Gordon.
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I think this may be the first time I've heard anyone say that the R5/6 focus system is worse than the 1DXIII, let alone 1DXII. I did read one comment that said for swimming, the R5s machine learning wasn't quite as good as the 1DXIII (sometimes choosing the water and not the face). But that was it. Curious to know what other users think.
The tracked subject can be 'locked' on by holding the shutter button at the half-press. So you can line it up, half press, then recompose and shoot, without changing the AF point. This allows you to look and anticipate, without constantly changing the focus point. I watched a lot of videos yetsterday, but I'm pretty sure the DPreview one was what explained this. You can feel free to double check my recollection.
-Brian
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unfocused
Photos/Photo Book Reviews: www.thecuriouseye.com
He said, in some situations, and my experience mirrors that. Others of a more technical mind can explain it better than I can, but there are situations when the R5 seems to go wildly out of focus and is unable to locate a subject.
From what I have read, it has something to do with how the R5 acquires the initial focusing point vs. how a DSLR selects the initial area to focus. I've experienced it primarily with small birds in trees. With a DSLR, I see the bird, initiate autofocus and the camera gets me in the right vicinity, allowing me to quickly refine the focus by zeroing in on the bird. With an R5 I have had a number of experiences where I spot a bird, begin the autofocus and the camera selects a focus point that is far to the back or front of the bird and I have completely lost the bird, which flies off before I can find it again.
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I keep a visual record of body/paint repairs I do on my restorations. I had wet sanded and cut through the topcoat to the primer and as you can imagine there was the topcoat (black) with a finely feather edged grey primer within it. Because of the shape , I guess, the R5 refused to focus until I went to portrait orientation. I never had any such issues with the 1DX2. Of course, I also have birds in branches AF issues on occasion but I am not griping, just being forthright about the small step backward, occasionally. I'm thrilled with the R5.
Jack
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Only when they've had competition forcing them to, though. When Canon put out their first R and FL cameras (and the Canonet fixed lens rangefinders) they were a big deal because they were undercutting everyone else by a huge margin, which as a company then-new to making camera bodies, they needed to be. By the time they progressed to the FD branding they were no longer the new kids on the block and Canon spiked their prices up despite many of the first FD bodies and lenses simply being FL products renamed. When Canon got auto exposure into a mass-produced consumer body they did so because by that point Nikon and Olympus had both caught up producing cheaper bodies and wider varieties of lenses to match Canon. When Canon started getting autofocus into the mass market they did so because Nikon, Pentax and Olympus had caught up to put autoexposure in every camera. When Canon made the first Rebel digital cameras they did it as cheaply and as quickly as possible, as word had gotten out Nikon had a design for a sub-$1000 digital camera and Canon simply didn't want to be beaten to market; the cameras themselves sucked, but Canon were at least driven.
Now jump forward to the last few years of DSLRs and all the drive totally went aweay, much like the start of the FD branding. Canon absolutely did become "conservative", though I feel a better term would be "complacent". Canon coasted for a long time on the fact they had the largest distribution, thus the largest market share by default, and from about 2010 onward every new product Canon put out was very incremental in updates over the previous versions and it became an open secret that they were intentionally making the lower- and mid-range cameras less capable than was possible so they would have less pressure to push the high-end gear further.
We're seeing innovation and effort from Canon again now only because there's competition once again. They've finally acknowledged Sony as a competitor, so as much as they've dragged their feet about it, Canon and Nikon have both reluctantly moved to mirrorless and are having to try harder. But just because competition has forced their hand does not mean they are in any way leading the charge. Canon has spent the last decade+ trying to coast as lazily as possible, and that should not be forgotten just because they've now revived some of their 1960s rangefinder designs in digital form, or because someone on YouTube picked up a previous oddity. RF is good so far, but it wouldn't exist at all if Canon had had their way. If Sony hadn't pushed mirrorless so hard, we'd still only be seeing EF products from Canon. Canon are, on their own, lazy and greedy; they only try when someone else forces them to.
Which is why it's meaningless and not a "review". A "review" requires experience; reading the spec sheet out loud is not a "review".
If someone wants that they can get it in a quarter of the time by going to the manufacturer's own website. Again, it's not a "review". At most it's a walkthrough, and even that is being generous considering he continues to roll these videos out before it's physically possible for him to have actually inspected any of the results in any meaningful way and most of his dialogue is just repeating Canon's own PR.
Saying "there's nothing to do so it's okay he's doing nothing but presenting it like something" isn't the justification you think it is.
And yes, this does go for every other outlet and channel that rushes to dump out similarly vapid "reviews", too. Gordon certainly isn't the only offender and it should not be taken as a criticism only of himself. The majority of the media industry around new product releases is terrible in this fashion.
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Given I do not know what your AF initiation "ritual" includes I can only state what I do in the described type situation that has almost eliminated wildly missed focus. If I have a bird in a bush or tree with a lot of competing branches and stuff I initiate AF with Spot AF to get either the bird or a branch near the bird in focus. I never initiate AF with say eye-detect or any zone type AF method. If my initial attempt at AF lock on the subject missed a bit and hit a near branch, I refine to the bird from there, again using Spot. Once I have the bird in focus using Spot, I switch to eye-detect. If eye-detect does not get the bird, head of the bird, or eye of the bird, I go immediately back to Spot and it is then up to me to keep that Spot on the bird. I use back button AF and I have the 3 back buttons all set to initiate a different AF method. So, I can switch from Spot to eye-detect back to Spot as quickly as my thumb can switch buttons.
Again, you may already employ this type of procedure and still be having issues with wildly missed AF, but in case you are not, I decided to reply. Feel free to ignore any or all of this. Cheers.
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unfocused
Photos/Photo Book Reviews: www.thecuriouseye.com
Actually, I really appreciate your suggestion.
I think one of the challenges I've had is that with DSLRs, (And understand that I mainly shoot sports and shoot birds for recreation) I have usually used one of two expanded autofocus selections as a starting point. It has worked well with DSLRs and sports because you have a better chance of grabbing focus on the subject while spot is just too small to catch many players as they move around the court or field (at least that's my experience).
With the R5 I have the set the * button to eye-detect, which works very well once I acquire initial focus using back button autofocus with the autofocus button. But it's that initial focus that I find challenging. I will try using spot instead of an expanded point. That sounds like a great idea. Thank you.
Edit: I just re-read your post. You mention using a third button. Which one are you referring to (The autofocus point selection button?) and if you re-map that button, how do you select your autofocus points if you want to switch to a zone or expanded point? Or, are do you mean pressing the multi-controller?
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It lines up with what I've experienced with the 1D X III, R5 and R6.
The very nature of how mirrorless focuses vs SLRs means that, until there is a significant breakthrough which likely won't be for a few generations, the autofocus of the very best SLRs will remain better for tracking subjects in complicated 3D situations with a lot of depth in the frame, assuming the body and lenses are calibrated together correctly, and the lens has an aperture big enough to take advantage of the SLR's many dual-cross-type focus points. The other end of this is that mirrorless is of course much more accurate when focusing on 2D scenes and don't require lenses and bodies to be calibrated together. Dual pixel focusing helps mirrorless a bit, but it's not enough of an increase in depth (not even a millimeter) to help if the camera has totally missed the subject to begin with.
Without going into the full breakdown, the quickest and simplest way I'd describe it (which I'm sure will make some of the more pedantic techbros here irate) is that SLRs 'see' in 3D while mirrorless 'sees' in 2D. The more complex depth—the 'more 3D'—you have in the frame the more the advantage goes to SLRs, and vice-versa.
It's going to be a long time before mirrorless becomes the more common design for professional sports and wildlife shooters. Sports and wildlife aren't the 2D subjects that mirrorless accels at. I'm loving mirrorless for portraits, any studio work really, and the occasional slower insect on my walks, but when it comes to hectic action crisscrossing all over the place, whether that's a person in a team sport or one animal in a herd, the Canon 1D X III and Nikon D500 and D6 are still my top picks.
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6400 eur in finland. Nope sound like 6099 is the tax free price…
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