R5 recommended gear questions

Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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Also, I like to protect my expensive lenses from dust/prints/scratches with the best clear filter you can get, and I prefer B+W XS Pro Nano ones. I also get that type in C-Polarizers if I want one of them. I don't think it's good to put an "ordinary / freebie" filter on a really extraordinary lens, but to each their own.

Some of us don't think it is good to put any kind of unnecessary "protective" filter on an extraordinary lens unless there's an actual environmental reason, such as wind-blown sand or salt-water spray or small bits of hot metal flying around in an industrial environment, that compels one to do so. To each their own. YMMV.
 
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usern4cr

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Sep 2, 2018
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Some of us don't think it is good to put any kind of unnecessary "protective" filter on an extraordinary lens unless there's an actual environmental reason, such as wind-blown sand or salt-water spray or small bits of hot metal flying around in an industrial environment, that compels one to do so. To each their own. YMMV.
I agree with your statement, and that's why I mentioned that it's what "I" like to do. I haven't been able to notice a difference with the XS PRO Nano filters I mentioned (which I think are best based on web research and my experience with them), although I haven't done any tests to prove it. It does give me confidence that I won't gunk up or damage my expensive outer lens, as I can always clean the protective filter, or replace it if needed (which I've never had to do yet). And if I really want the best view (say for making a big panorama to print on a wall) I always have the option to remove it just for that (which I've done a few times).

The one time I didn't buy a protective filter was for my new RF 800mm f11 lens, as that size in XS PRO Nano was just too expensive for me to justify for a lens that's not that (relatively) expensive to begin with.

Since I am new to the Canon FF system and getting some of their top RF lenses, maybe it would be a good idea for me to do a test of them with & without this protective filter and post the results. But I'll have to wait until my DXO post software can read the R5 raw files before I do that.
 
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SteveC

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Sep 3, 2019
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Some of us don't think it is good to put any kind of unnecessary "protective" filter on an extraordinary lens unless there's an actual environmental reason, such as wind-blown sand or salt-water spray or small bits of hot metal flying around in an industrial environment, that compels one to do so. To each their own. YMMV.

OK, now there's no need to discuss religion on a camera forum. That applies to both you and uern4cr. :D
 
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Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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yes the 24-70 2.8 IS RF was a no-brainer as a start.. though I was tempted by the 28-70 2.0... but wanted the IS and slightly wider shots.

yeah on the battery grip and performance.. heard that the R5 and even Sony's the shutter speed goes down if it's below 70%? I get trying to save batter life, but it should be a programmable choice.. I'd prefer to carry extra batteries and keep performing at full until drained. Must be something to the choice, but would be great if that could be done as a firmware fix as it seems to me that'd be a software programming choice. Hope it can mix,.. with OVF vs EVF on my 80D the 6Ns last well for me.. afraid the R5 will chew through, but hoping 2 on a battery grip (mixed) would get me through, hence hte question.

long term looming at the 500 with a 2x might be worth it given the 800 F11 seems to work well.. but for now I would stick to my sigma 150-600

It's not a software choice in order to conserve battery power.

As batteries discharge their voltage goes down. This is nothing new.

Some Nikons in the past would only give the advertised maximum frame rate with a grip and two enhanced batteries that had more power than the standard battery which shipped with the camera!

Canon, on the other hand, only draws power from one battery at a time when two are in the grip.

Put two freshly charged batteries with the counter chip reset to zero and play with it. Take a 10 shot burst and see how many frames each battery says it has been used to shoot. Now take ten single frames with a full release of the shutter button between each. The take ten frames while allowing metering to "time out" between shots. You might be surprised with the results of this little experiment.
 
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cornieleous

5D4 + R5
Jul 13, 2020
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So ... put the down payment for an R5 order.. purchased an RF 24-70 2.8 IS... while I wait, have questions on recommended gear from those who have one.

- EF adaptor.. native canon or one of the 'breakthrought' ones? thoughts? anyone have some?
- Is there a preferred CFExpress card? and paired SD card?
- Battery grip... thoughts? I have 3 Canon LP-E6N batteries and it will come with a LP-E6NH.. can battery grips use a mix?
- anything else I should consider buying when it arrives?

My take is:
Canon EF adapter with control ring. The few bucks saved doesn't inspire confidence to go third party on an adapter. I'd prefer to know my weather sealing is guaranteed, lens communication tested with tons of lenses, etc. The control ring can be anything from ISO, aperture, compensation. It is super useful. For 99 bucks you are adding a well placed control to any EF glass.

You do not need pricy cards unless you are shooting high bitrate video. I can shoot everything but 8K and 4K120 with the same Samsung 128GB SD cards I've been buying for a couple years. If you have the use case, any major brand with sufficient read/write speeds should work. I wouldn't go with people's brand suggestions, I would go with charts and bitrate calculations or Canon approved cards. The manual has some advice in this regard I believe.

Battery grip? Again what is your use case? If you don't want to carry a set of spare batteries or have a use where you don't have time to change, you might need one. I cannot stand them and never buy them. I don't plan on wasting money on LP-E6NH either. This is a place where Canon and other camera companies are truly evil: 70 dollars for a tiny battery? High quality battery banks with short circuit protection, etc. are cheaper. Have been shooting with half genuine Canon LP-E6N or LP-E6 for years, along with Wasabi or other made Japan made off brand equivalents. For serious work like night timelapse or motion control, I use large 12V battery banks, a voltage converter, and a dummy battery.

I see others mentioning filters and I must say- definitely don't use cheap or free ones if you bother. Also, screw on ones are annoying. I used to buy expensive screw on UV filters, ND, and CPL, until I realized circular filters are not flexible, are a pain and way over priced, vignette unless you buy low profile, vignette if stacked, and a lens hood will always work better at protection than a thin piece of glass anyway. Have had zero problems with scratches, damage, or keeping glass clean. Modernlenses are durable, and plus a lens cap should always be on when not shooting. I now use 100mm x 150mm filters with a Haida holder. Similar prices for good filter glass that is thicker, graduated filters are actually useful since they can be rotated and moved up or down for horizons or other positioning, and stacking them or installing CPL / ND is much easier. Using square filters means one set fits many lens sizes too, like 82mm/77mm and smaller. Much faster to remove a stack of filters with one button press than dorking with screw on filters in the cold or beach or wherever. If you buy the inexpensive holder ring for each lens, you can swap filters from one lens to the next in seconds without buying multiple sets.
 
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Michael Clark

Now we see through a glass, darkly...
Apr 5, 2016
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OK, now there's no need to discuss religion on a camera forum. That applies to both you and uern4cr. :D

If the OP is shooting bands in bars, the last thing he needs is a flat piece of glass in front of the lens that does absolutely nothing except cause ghosting of every bright light source in an otherwise dark frame.

Not a bar, but the value of a protective filter depends on shooting conditions, in terms of both environment and illumination.

This is from a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away with a Rebel XTi and an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (non-IS) that was absolutely horrible. It had a soft spot in the mid-frame directly left of center that was soft, even when other areas of the frame both further and closer to the camera than the part of the frame at that spot were sharper. But that's neither here nor there. What this image illustrates is what happens with flat filter in front of a lens when there are bright light sources in an otherwise dark frame.

C4kJh.jpg
 
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Pixel

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Sep 6, 2011
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The one time I owned an off-brand battery grip it was a disaster and complete waste of money. Wound up in the trash.
When it comes to something as crucial as POWER, I tend to leave that exclusively to Canon.
As for the off brand EF adaptor, I know the Canon brand are extremely hard to find so in a pinch sure why not but if I have a choice between the two, do I want the adaptor that was reverse engineered to function or the purpose built one by Canon?
Filters? Never.
 
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SteveC

R5
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Sep 3, 2019
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My take is:
Canon EF adapter with control ring. The few bucks saved doesn't inspire confidence to go third party on an adapter. I'd prefer to know my weather sealing is guaranteed, lens communication tested with tons of lenses, etc. The control ring can be anything from ISO, aperture, compensation. It is super useful. For 99 bucks you are adding a well placed control to any EF glass.

I'll agree with this. I was able to nab a couple of refurb control ring adapters about 6 months ago (I knew I'd be getting an RF camera sometime). I assigned it to aperture (seems intuitive to me) though most put ISO on the control ring, from what I've seen. [As a side note the EF to EF-M adapter (which is nothing but a passthrough, no control ring, no drop in filter) is $200 list which seems excessive to me. I bough a third party one, then eventually found canon brand on E-bay for much less.]

You do not need pricy cards unless you are shooting high bitrate video. I can shoot everything but 8K and 4K120 with the same Samsung 128GB SD cards I've been buying for a couple years. If you have the use case, any major brand with sufficient read/write speeds should work. I wouldn't go with people's brand suggestions, I would go with charts and bitrate calculations or Canon approved cards. The manual has some advice in this regard I believe.

I did splurge on a high speed SD II 128 gb card for my R5 (I can shoot ridiculously long bursts with it before the buffer finally fills up, telling me that the card is almost as fast as the camera is). I haven't bothered with CF-E yet. Part of me says if I'm going to delve into that I should get a card that will support everything the camera can do--but then I find myself either looking at buying a S*ny card or one that's half a terabyte, or one by a company that has earned the distrust of many (lexar)...so for now my R5 effectively has one card slot. I would have preferred two SD slots, but then the video wouldn't have been supported, so I can understand Canon's decision even if it inconveniences me slightly.

Battery grip? Again what is your use case? If you don't want to carry a set of spare batteries or have a use where you don't have time to change, you might need one. I cannot stand them and never buy them. I don't plan on wasting money on LP-E6NH either. This is a place where Canon and other camera companies are truly evil: 70 dollars for a tiny battery? High quality battery banks with short circuit protection, etc. are cheaper. Have been shooting with half genuine Canon LP-E6N or LP-E6 for years, along with Wasabi or other made Japan made off brand equivalents. For serious work like night timelapse or motion control, I use large 12V battery banks, a voltage converter, and a dummy battery.

Ironically the LP-E6NH is cheaper than the no-H battery. I did get two spares. If I ever decided to go on safari or something like that I'd think about something like a battery bank with a USB-C on it to run the camera off of. (Which I *think* is what you're talking about here--too ignorant to know for sure.)


I see others mentioning filters and I must say- definitely don't use cheap or free ones if you bother. Also, screw on ones are annoying. I used to buy expensive screw on UV filters, ND, and CPL, until I realized circular filters are not flexible, are a pain and way over priced, vignette unless you buy low profile, vignette if stacked, and a lens hood will always work better at protection than a thin piece of glass anyway. Have had zero problems with scratches, damage, or keeping glass clean. Modernlenses are durable, and plus a lens cap should always be on when not shooting. I now use 100mm x 150mm filters with a Haida holder. Similar prices for good filter glass that is thicker, graduated filters are actually useful since they can be rotated and moved up or down for horizons or other positioning, and stacking them or installing CPL / ND is much easier. Using square filters means one set fits many lens sizes too, like 82mm/77mm and smaller. Much faster to remove a stack of filters with one button press than dorking with screw on filters in the cold or beach or wherever. If you buy the inexpensive holder ring for each lens, you can swap filters from one lens to the next in seconds without buying multiple sets.

Now that's an interesting thought! That's like the concept of buying 55mm step up adapters for all EF-M lenses, leaving them on the lenses (getting bigger caps), then just buying ONE set of screw in filters (ND, CPL, UV [for minor protection against, as Michael Clark pointed out, dust, flying metal sparks, etc]) only it goes two better than that, because: graduated filters AND quick installation/removal. As I just bought a 15-35 and didn't buy one of the crappy filters the local brick and mortar pushes, and I expect to be getting a 24-105 lens soon, this is probably the right time to do this for my "big" EF and RF lenses.
 
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unfocused

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Not an R5 user (1dX III) but I heartily recommend ProGrade. I shoot video only rarely and don't need the super-expensive Cobalt cards. The regular ProGrade Gold are great and I've never had a problem with them. SanDisk is fine too, but generally more expensive. I won't use Lexar any more as I've had about four Lexar SD cards fail me in the last year. The company that bought the Lexar brand name just doesn't seem to have the quality control that the original company had (in my limited experience). ProGrade is run by Lexar exiles and seems to have maintained the quality control.
 
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snappy604

CR Pro
Jan 25, 2017
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It's not a software choice in order to conserve battery power.

As batteries discharge their voltage goes down. This is nothing new.

Some Nikons in the past would only give the advertised maximum frame rate with a grip and two enhanced batteries that had more power than the standard battery which shipped with the camera!

Canon, on the other hand, only draws power from one battery at a time when two are in the grip.

Put two freshly charged batteries with the counter chip reset to zero and play with it. Take a 10 shot burst and see how many frames each battery says it has been used to shoot. Now take ten single frames with a full release of the shutter button between each. The take ten frames while allowing metering to "time out" between shots. You might be surprised with the results of this little experiment.

thank you, thought it might have been a software choice to make the battery last longer.. not versed in that area and I'll admit it. What you indicated after had me a bit confused though, does it mean the battery grip doesn't sustain the higher FPS longer? if so it reduces my incentive to purchase it.. while some of the other functions are cool, one of my key drivers was to get the higher FPS for longer.
 
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snappy604

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Jan 25, 2017
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Not an R5 user (1dX III) but I heartily recommend ProGrade. I shoot video only rarely and don't need the super-expensive Cobalt cards. The regular ProGrade Gold are great and I've never had a problem with them. SanDisk is fine too, but generally more expensive. I won't use Lexar any more as I've had about four Lexar SD cards fail me in the last year. The company that bought the Lexar brand name just doesn't seem to have the quality control that the original company had (in my limited experience). ProGrade is run by Lexar exiles and seems to have maintained the quality control.


ok thanks, wondered about the gold since I don't intend to film much. I've had ok experiences with SanDisk, though a long time ago I had poor results. Lexar seemed over priced and heard similar things about quality control.. so I've avoided.
 
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FrenchFry

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Jun 14, 2020
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thank you, thought it might have been a software choice to make the battery last longer.. not versed in that area and I'll admit it. What you indicated after had me a bit confused though, does it mean the battery grip doesn't sustain the higher FPS longer? if so it reduces my incentive to purchase it.. while some of the other functions are cool, one of my key drivers was to get the higher FPS for longer.
I am also wondering about this. If one battery were depleted first, then the other, you would wind up with high FPS for a period of time, then lower FPS, then back to high when we get to the second battery, and back down to low...
It would be better if it kept you in the high FPS as long as possible using either battery until both batteries are less than 60%, then it could use them up sequentially.
 
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One thing I get for pretty much any camera I own is an L Bracket. So much easier to take photos on a tripod with one. It completely depends on what type of photography you do if you find it valuable I suppose. I love it for landscape and real estate photography.

I haven't received it yet but I preordered this L Bracket for my R5:

https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-l-bracket-for-canon-eos-r5-and-r6-2976.html

SmallRig usually makes pretty decent products so I'm not too worried about it's quality and the price is very decent.
 
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usern4cr

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One thing I get for pretty much any camera I own is an L Bracket. So much easier to take photos on a tripod with one. It completely depends on what type of photography you do if you find it valuable I suppose. I love it for landscape and real estate photography.

I haven't received it yet but I preordered this L Bracket for my R5:

https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-l-bracket-for-canon-eos-r5-and-r6-2976.html

SmallRig usually makes pretty decent products so I'm not too worried about it's quality and the price is very decent.
Yes! I already ordered that *very* one! It's due to arrive here any day now. It's great to have both anti-rotate R5 pins.
It's very good (that I've seen online so far) at a *very inexpensive* price for a removable L Arca-Swiss R5 base plate.
 
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snappy604

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Jan 25, 2017
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One thing I get for pretty much any camera I own is an L Bracket. So much easier to take photos on a tripod with one. It completely depends on what type of photography you do if you find it valuable I suppose. I love it for landscape and real estate photography.

I haven't received it yet but I preordered this L Bracket for my R5:

https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-l-bracket-for-canon-eos-r5-and-r6-2976.html

SmallRig usually makes pretty decent products so I'm not too worried about it's quality and the price is very decent.

cool.. funny I'd been toying with the idea of a bracket, most places seem Sony.

Now that I've ordered the R5 not sure what I'd use it for my style of photography. Mostly it was to attach things like a flash etc,...

anyways thanks for link, will keep it in mind.. whoa finally looked at the price, that's affordable! I may just..
 
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Nov 1, 2012
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Yes filters. The more expensive lenses I got, the less I used filters to protect them. Same goes for lens cap, I only use them for transport. When actually carrying camera, I don't use them. Or very rarely at most.

Grip. I cannot live without one. I've had one for 10+ years on every body. For 5D4 I thought the grip price was ridiculous and I didn't get one. After my first shoot without grip, I ordered the grip. Felt so strange and unbalanced without the grip. The added battery capacity is bonus, but not critical. I'll have spare batteries anyway.

Battery. I always carry more than I need. Running out of battery would be about as stupid as running out of card space. You buy some $5000-$10000 setup and then skimp on $50-$200 which ends up ruining a shoot. Not on my watch. I agree that the price is high. Mfg cost is probably <$10 so charging $79 is plenty margin. But that's how lot of industries work, they hook you in with something and then they reap the profits from the accessory sale. I work for Xbox. Try googling what's the sales profit for gaming consoles. That's also why they add the security items on those batteries to prevent/hinder using 3rd party batteries.

Cards. Same as battery, I always carry more than I need. Also, don't go cheap on cards. Problem 1: if they die on you, you lose the pics, at best you have to pay lot of money to recover, if even possible. Problem 2: write speed. Huge difference between cards. Mostly applies to sport shooting, but hitting buffer limit at the peak of the action is basically same as running out of card space. You might miss that awesome picture. Earlier I tested speed on various cards. I had various cheap-ish CF cards and I compared against Lexar 1066x CF. On 5D3, holding shutter down for 30 seconds the cheap cards took 30-40 pictures, Lexar took 137. Same test on 1DX, cheap cards 60-70, Lexar 171. So buy reliable cards/brands, with fast enough write speed.
 
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Nov 1, 2012
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One thing I get for pretty much any camera I own is an L Bracket. So much easier to take photos on a tripod with one. It completely depends on what type of photography you do if you find it valuable I suppose. I love it for landscape and real estate photography.

I haven't received it yet but I preordered this L Bracket for my R5:

https://www.smallrig.com/smallrig-l-bracket-for-canon-eos-r5-and-r6-2976.html

SmallRig usually makes pretty decent products so I'm not too worried about it's quality and the price is very decent.

Someone educate me what's the benefit of the L bracket? I never used one so I don't understand how/what that helps.
 
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usern4cr

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Someone educate me what's the benefit of the L bracket? I never used one so I don't understand how/what that helps.
The "L" is a 2nd Arca-Swiss base plate rail with a 90 degree bend that can be attached into (or removed from) the main camera arca-swiss base plate. Now you can turn the camera sideways into portrait mode and the L Arca-swiss plate is attached to the tripods Arca-swiss clamp.

So your camera goes on a tripod in normal landscape or now also portrait mode.
 
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