R5 arrived... First impressions for stills

[MinoltaSRT101]

Great write up and photos. Swallows are my holy grail of shooting BIF. I received my R5 but not the adapter so I have not been able to test shooting with my 100-400.
But I do have a question. I assume you had tracking turned on. Is there a way to select a subject and then begin tracking or is all up to the software? I notice I can turn tracking on and off with the joystick but I can't seem to make it start following a subject I pick. This may be user error or me reading the manual wrong but it seems to indicate you can pick a subject and then start tracking. What are your thoughts. FYI I only have a wide angle RF lens so it been limiting my wildlife test.

Speaking of Swallows, I was trying to shoot some Tree Swallows yesterday. Over the previous few days I was shooting birds like herons, ducks and geese that fly fairly straight. Locking on and tracking was incredible with essentially no viewfinder lag. Swallows were difficult to lock onto and much more difficult to track. I have to say, viewfinder lag did rear it's head a bit while trying to follow these swooping, darting, speed demons! I suspect I may be able to change the autofocus case or some parameters to improve tracking of birds that move like Swallows. Unfortunately it was starting to get dark and I didn't want to spend the time to change the AF case.

While I think with eye tracking af, I think there are ways to move the focus between detected subjects, but I'm not sure that works at typical BIF distances. If you find a way to make it work, please let us know.

 

[tomislavmoze]

Love my R5 it can replace my 1dx, 5dmk4 and R easily in every aspect.
The AF is out of this world and I have a perfect camera for my Red Bull stuff and for my Advertising stuff.
For photography I think this is the best all-around cameras so far. It is so good that I7m rethinking about buying R6 and just getting another R5
The only thing I could not get to work is setting up HEIF files instead of JPG for back up, has anybody managed to do so?

 

[Staz]

Speaking of Swallows, I was trying to shoot some Tree Swallows yesterday. Over the previous few days I was shooting birds like herons, ducks and geese that fly fairly straight. Locking on and tracking was incredible with essentially no viewfinder lag. Swallows were difficult to lock onto and much more difficult to track. I have to say, viewfinder lag did rear it's head a bit while trying to follow these swooping, darting, speed demons! I suspect I may be able to change the autofocus case or some parameters to improve tracking of birds that move like Swallows. Unfortunately it was starting to get dark and I didn't want to spend the time to change the AF case.

While I think with eye tracking af, I think there are ways to move the focus between detected subjects, but I'm not sure that works at typical BIF distances. If you find a way to make it work, please let us know.

I'm a bit disheartened to hear of EVF lag although given the subject it's probably the toughest test the AF and EVF will be subjected to. How bad was it assuming you can quantify it?

 

[MinoltaSRT101]

I'm a bit disheartened to hear of EVF lag although given the subject it's probably the toughest test the AF and EVF will be subjected to. How bad was it assuming you can quantify it?

It is not an optical viewfinder, but tracking the swallows on approach it might as well be. If you shoot a few frames you can follow them pretty well. I noticed that when I was shooting a burst the viewfinder would fall behind a little bit. That wasn't a problem for me with herons, ducks and geese in flight because I maintained my panning speed and could track them fine. Since Swallows aren't following as predictable a path, I'd tend to lose them 10 or 12 frames in. I was shooting a Tamron 150-600 at between 400 & 600mm. My guess is lag would be reduced even more with an EF or (especially) RF lens.

 

[tomislavmoze]

It is not an optical viewfinder, but tracking the swallows on approach it might as well be. If you shoot a few frames you can follow them pretty well. I noticed that when I was shooting a burst the viewfinder would fall behind a little bit. That wasn't a problem for me with herons, ducks and geese in flight because I maintained my panning speed and could track them fine. Since Swallows aren't following as predictable a path, I'd tend to lose them 10 or 12 frames in. I was shooting a Tamron 150-600 at between 400 & 600mm. My guess is lag would be reduced even more with an EF or (especially) RF lens.

Did you turned of the overheat control in the video settings ? It can influence the quality of EVF in the photo mode, at least that happened to me.

 

[BeenThere]

Thanks for the first impressions, jealous you got one let lone two but then you pulled the trigger immediately so well done

Re IBIS and 8 stops, I came across this article looking for something else

Earth’s Rotation Limits IBIS Performance to 6.3 Stops

In 2016, Olympus Camera made some buzz in the photo world when they claimed that their new camera was capable of an impressive 6.5 stops of stabilization and that the limiting factor was in fact th…

thecentercolumn.com

So have Canon, like Olympus and Panasonic now taken into account earth’s rotation or is it just the CIPA tests are not quite as good. 6.3 stops is still amazing I hasten to add....

Would have to input latitude and a compass pointing direction for a correction to earth rotation.

 

[Staz]

It is not an optical viewfinder, but tracking the swallows on approach it might as well be. If you shoot a few frames you can follow them pretty well. I noticed that when I was shooting a burst the viewfinder would fall behind a little bit. That wasn't a problem for me with herons, ducks and geese in flight because I maintained my panning speed and could track them fine. Since Swallows aren't following as predictable a path, I'd tend to lose them 10 or 12 frames in. I was shooting a Tamron 150-600 at between 400 & 600mm. My guess is lag would be reduced even more with an EF or (especially) RF lens.

Thanks for the reply Minolta. Much appreciated.

 

[Staz]

Did you turned of the overheat control in the video settings ? It can influence the quality of EVF in the photo mode, at least that happened to me.

An interesting observation.

 

[BeenThere]

It was a well advised up sell. Normally I hate It when salespeople try to do that but in this case I believe their advice was good.

But you can use the EF-RF filter adapter and the new breakthrough filters with the EF lens, and it is a sharp lens that is great for landscapes. Using the NDs with long exposures interest me.

 

[privatebydesign]

But you can use the EF-RF filter adapter and the new breakthrough filters with the EF lens, and it is a sharp lens that is great for landscapes. Using the NDs with long exposures interest me.

Personally, as I have said a couple of other times, I am very interested in using the EF-RF filter adapter, but really for lenses that are difficult to front filter. I think each persons needs will depend a lot on what lenses and bodies they have, I see running an RF and EF for some time so will be very reluctant to purchase RF lenses, but for people migrating or buying into RF completely the decision isn't as clear cut. Certainly the RF lenses have received nothing but praise (apart from the prices) and there is no doubt for a complete RF workflow getting RF lenses makes more sense in the long run. The RF 15-35 f2.8 tests out 'better' than the EF 16-35 2.8 and the RF has IS and an extra bit on the wide end.

 

[MinoltaSRT101]

Did you turned of the overheat control in the video settings ? It can influence the quality of EVF in the photo mode, at least that happened to me.

I haven't touched any of the video settings (video isn't my thing), but I'll give that a shot, thanks! I've got to say that when I first got the EOD R and tried to use it for action shooting I found the lag terrible and I would revert to my 5DIII. I find the lag on the R5 to be extremely minimal and can't imagine that I'll be picking up my 5DIII or EOS R for any reason.

 

[tomislavmoze]

I haven't touched any of the video settings (video isn't my thing), but I'll give that a shot, thanks! I've got to say that when I first got the EOD R and tried to use it for action shooting I found the lag terrible and I would revert to my 5DIII. I find the lag on the R5 to be extremely minimal and can't imagine that I'll be picking up my 5DIII or EOS R for any reason.

It seams that it influences all the modes. Regarding the camera, tyeah it is finally one camera to do all the photo work without wishing for more. Ok there is 1dxmk3 with 16 frames but i guess there are not that many use case scenarios for that especially with 45mpx camera Without that I need an extra room just for the hard drives

 

[Stu_bert]

Love my R5 it can replace my 1dx, 5dmk4 and R easily in every aspect.
The AF is out of this world and I have a perfect camera for my Red Bull stuff and for my Advertising stuff.
For photography I think this is the best all-around cameras so far. It is so good that I7m rethinking about buying R6 and just getting another R5
The only thing I could not get to work is setting up HEIF files instead of JPG for back up, has anybody managed to do so?

Check out cameralabs / Gordon Laing review and he shows how to do heif

 

[Viggo]

What are the limitations for stills using SD cards? Anything else than smaller buffer?

 

[BeenThere]

What are the limitations for stills using SD cards? Anything else than smaller buffer?

Why would the buffer size change? It would fill faster because of slower write speeds. If you are not firing off long bursts, save some coin by buying slower SD cards

 

[H. Jones]

For those still concerned about battery life--I just got back from covering a well-involved structure fire this morning with the R5. About ~2900 shots on a 60% charged LP-E6NH battery before I had to swap out, after I had already used that battery in a two-hour portrait session before the fire.. Not bad at all.

Worked out to about ~150 gigabytes of photos.

I was concerned about covering fast action with the R5, but tonight it really sold me on the R5's capabilities. No difficulties at all with the camera, it was honestly a total breeze and the EVF saved my butt on some tough eposures. I definitely walked away with a lot more properly exposed images on the R5 than on the 1D X Mark II, just because it can be hard to balance so many vastly different light level in those situations. With night fires, you have an incredibly bright light source from the flames mixed with incredibly dark surroundings, which made my ISO vary all the way from ISO 400 to ISO 25,600 at times.

All in all, I can now safely say that the R5 has totally proven itself to me as an incredible photojournalism camera. It also helped greatly that I was shooting with both the 1DX2 and R5, instead of previously using the 5D3 on a secondary body. That on its own made a huge difference in the images, as previously the 5D3 had almost no ability to recover shadows when put against a bright lightsource like a fire.

 

[Act444]

Thanks for reporting your hands-on experience in the field with the camera.

My remaining issue would be the MILC’s lack of cross-type/ultra sensitive AF points. How well can it track a moving subject in low light - say, an ice skater in dim show lighting, especially when the costumes are plain. Even the 5D4 can be spotty at times here (challenging conditions for even the best of AF systems), but it’s at least consistent and decisive when the subject isn’t moving too much (relative to the camera). I’ve read reviews where the R5 refused to focus on anything with only vertical lines (such as a interior door in a house). Maybe this ability is being saved for the 1R?

 

[Viggo]

Why would the buffer size change? It would fill faster because of slower write speeds. If you are not firing off long bursts, save some coin by buying slower SD cards

The buffer won’t clear as fast making the camera stutter. Not the best wording perhaps.

 

[SteveC]

The buffer won’t clear as fast making the camera stutter. Not the best wording perhaps.

It goes from "big enough" to "not big enough" even though it hasn't changed actual size.

 

[digigal]

I recently reported having problems with crashes of my R5 requiring that I turn it off to unfreeze occasionally but most times requiring that I remove the battery to get it to start again. I found it was not the battery since I tried different batteries including the new R5 one. I used several different Lexar SD XC II V60 150 mb cards and it still occurred. I went to SF yesterday and was photographing a group of terns at Crissie Field and windsurfers on the Bay and had 3-4 crashes and noticed that it seemed to happen while the card was still writing to the buffer and I was changing a setting to go on to the next picture. Today I switched to the CF Express card and downloaded from my camera directly to my computer using the EOS Utilities (my reader won't arrive until the end of the month). Using the electronic shutter and high speed shooting my pictures were even sharper than before and the camera performed even better than with the SD card I was using. I ripped off 260 shots in less than a couple of minutes without even a hesitation from the camera or crash, so it now appears to be related to the slowness of getting the info off the SD card I was using. My only problem with the electronic shutter is that I can't tell if or how many shots I've taken. The blinking rim is so subtle when you are concentrating on the minute features of a bird, it's no help. I wish there was so audible click you could enable. I think I'm going to have to stick with CF Express to get the best out of this camera. I'll post pictures later. The bathing songbirds were crispy sharp to 3x magnification! And they were shot through my bedroom window
Catherine