R5 recommended gear questions

[snappy604]

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.

bingo! noticed in certain conditions filters were creating artifacts, hence laying off them, it seems to create reflections likely due to the light bouncing off one piece of glass onto the other. Other times I'd notice odd softness in low light.

 

[snappy604]

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.

interesting options and can see why you'd use battery banks in certain situations, but want something that retains its water resistance and doesn't require external things to set up/carry. I have to watch for flying beer cans from time to time (while amusing it has occurred several times at punk shows)..

I had some pretty bad experience with non-brand batteries for my camera.. even though I bought them from B&H.. the canon ones are expensive, but so far super reliable. . that and they threw a E6N free with my new lens.. so now I have 3 E6Ns given I had two for my 80d... haha and 2 more E6s from my 7D (probably won't bother with those).

I don't intend to do serious video (at least in the beginning) so yeah may start with a more affordable card at the beginning.. I can always upgrade later.

 

[snappy604]

Manfrotto now makes plates that are compatible with both Arca-Swiss style and QR/RC2 (200-PL) receivers called the 200-PL Pro. But you would still need an intermediary plate to use an Arca-Swiss type L-Bracket on a Manfrotto RC2 base. Some, but certainly not all, L-brackets have 1/4"-16 threads to allow attaching a quick release plate of choice to each side of the bracket. You could attach a standard 200-PL plate to such a bracket to use with a Manfrotto receiver on your tripod's head. That's assuming your Manfrotto head has an RC2 receiver on it. It is by far the most common Manfrotto quick release system, but far from the only one. There's also RC4 (410PL), RC5 (501PL, 503PL), RC0 (hexagonal), Q6, 357, 384 (dovetail), 785, etc.

Keep in mind that while most Arca-Swiss type plates are compatible with most Arca-Swiss type clamps that are the same width, there is no industry standard for such plates and clamps and one can sometimes run across a plate from one maker that won't fit a clamp from another maker very well, if at all. It mostly has to do with the exact shape/angle of the beveling in the dovetail on the side at the bottom of the plate. And there are various widths as well, though 1.5" (38.1mm) is most common in the U.S. but 35mm is more common in Europe. Some varieties of each will work with some varieties of the other, while some will not.

interesting, you'd think it'd be consistant.. thanks for the warning on the variance on Arca-Swiss clamps. I do hear so much on them I was curious. But no need to jump at this time to another tripod standard.

 

[snappy604]

L-Plates are the very first thing I buy for every camera I get. It depends how much tripod work you do with a camera and I'll often take mine off, for a wedding or event for example, or even just the L part off for traveling where I don't think I'll use the tripod much and value the space and weight saving more. But when I need it nothing else works close to as well.

I've got several Small Rig items and highly recommend them and the fact their R5 plate has the anti rotation pins means it will be the one I get when I get my R5.

neat.. but what about this vs a cage? seems like you could mount more on a cage? like a nice handle for video work from time to time.

 

[Bdbtoys]

neat.. but what about this vs a cage? seems like you could mount more on a cage? like a nice handle for video work from time to time.

Disclaimer... I'm new to L-Brackets and never used a cage so you won't get an expert advise from me.

The SmallRig L-Bracket that that usern4cr recommended... fills an immediate need. If I use a tripod, I'm usually mounting the plate on my camera anyways while I use the camera. However, flipping the camera 90 degrees for portrait orientation mode by using the ball of the tripod mount is janky and I worry about the stability every time I need to do it. What's worse is one of my new lens weight exceeds what I used on the tripod before... to the point I am sure it will have stability issues if I even think about going portrait mode. This mount is minimal and doesn't appear to get in the way of function (I like the c shape on the side for the screen tilt). I briefly looked at the cages, but they were overkill for what I was trying to achieve... actually... I didn't even see a cage w/ an Arca mount on the side on first glance form fitted to the R5 (I admit, I saw it was overkill right away and didn't look too hard). Part of the reason the cage is overkill for me is, is I do very little video shooting, so I have little need to attach items to it from more than 2 sides (bottom/side).

 

[privatebydesign]

neat.. but what about this vs a cage? seems like you could mount more on a cage? like a nice handle for video work from time to time.

An L-Plate is very photo-centric, a cage very video-centric. I don’t know of a cage for the R5 that facilitates vertical mounting though I have seen some others are starting to for vertical video.

But the core functionality is essentially different, L-Plates are great for tripod mounted photography, cages are excellent for building out a video rig with handles, rails, monitors and microphones and the like.

 

[koenkooi]

bingo! noticed in certain conditions filters were creating artifacts, hence laying off them, it seems to create reflections likely due to the light bouncing off one piece of glass onto the other. Other times I'd notice odd softness in low light.

This is why I love using the filter RF-EF adapter with my MP-E65mm. The flash heads are so far forward that front filters create too many artefacts. So I hope an RF version of the MP-E will accept the same rear filters as the adapter

 

[L-Prosciutto]

I just got my SmallRig R5 L plate and it works really great! If you have to swing your back LCD out to the side while the L is installed you get a surprising wide range of twist up & down since the opening that the LCD moves into is beveled on both ends to increase the range of twist (a nice touch!). It feels very solid on my R5 and it has the "small screwdriver" attached at the bottom via magnet so you don't need any other tools. It also has threaded holes at various places just in case you want to attach other stuff (another nice touch). Also has a little bar you can use to attach a Peak Design quick connect thingy for your camera strap, which makes the camera balance better while you walk.

Nice! Just received my L-Bracket as well. It's very nice quality and you can tell they put a lot of thought into it.

 

[snappy604]

Nice! Just received my L-Bracket as well. It's very nice quality and you can tell they put a lot of thought into it.

oh I see.. the Arca mount is integrated into the rail... was wondering where the tripod went when you flipped it 90 degrees... however for me using manfrotto that won't help. Looks slick and congrats on your R5

 

[snappy604]

This is why I love using the filter RF-EF adapter with my MP-E65mm. The flash heads are so far forward that front filters create too many artefacts. So I hope an RF version of the MP-E will accept the same rear filters as the adapter

correct, hence asking about that other non-canon solution "breakthrough filters" that seemed to offer way more choices of filter drop ins... but no answers. I get the concerns on water leakage, but unlikely to use on rainy days.

 

[snappy604]

Just wanted to say a big thanks to those of you who've taken the time to reply here. Learned quite a bit in a short amount of time. Hope others have found this discussion useful too.

 

[Michael Clark]

I would actually prefer option that you can choose to run one battery first down to ~10% and then switch on the other one. That way I could better manage batteries during long events.

So e.g. I start with batteries A and B. After 500 shots A is down to 10% and it switches to using B (maybe notify somewhere in screen about this). Then at some convenient break at events I could pop out A, slap it in charger and add C in that slot. Then 500 pics later B is at 10% and camera switches to battery C. Again at some point I can now drop B to charge and put A back in.

Should be easy to make SW option to do that, since they already support selecting one at a time.

Although (thinking with my limited power knowledge), I would design the system to physically mate both batteries so they would always work in parallel. That would minimize current per battery, thus minimize losses and heat. If you yank higher currents from each battery at a time, it'll both heat it up more and also incur more losses on the traces (loss is linear with current draw). So it makes sense to always split the current between the batteries.

So the numbers acting like mentioned above, might be just technical eenie meenie miney mo counting and not actual usage. Since it swaps the battery between bursts, would be easy to try. Set JPEG and shoot >1000 burst on large/fast card so it doesn't fill the buffer. After the burst, pop out the batteries and measure voltage. If one of them is clearly reduced, then it did actually only use one. If they both are at same level, then it was using both even when reports one.

And bit more crazy thoughts, they should actually put the 2 in series. Some lenses seem to benefit from higher voltage to provide faster AF, and higher voltage = less current, which means less trace losses. Win-win. Only problem I see is that the device would operate differently depending on how many batteries you insert, but sounds like Nikon already went that route.

You can kind of do that anyway, at least with my ancient EOS DSLRs up to the 5D Mark IV.

When both batteries get down to about, say, 60% then use a break in the action to put a fresh battery in one slot. The camera will continue to alternate between each battery. When your older battery is down to about 10-15% your newer one should still be at around 50-55% and you can use another break in the action to swap out the second battery.

I tend to go ahead and swap out both when they get close to 30% or so on the rare occasions when they get that low. I shot anywhere from about 2,200 frames to almost 3,000 frames on my 7D Mark II most football Fridays, including the pep rally and other pregame festivities - back when we had those before the Rona - before the actual game started. I usually finished the evening with about 35-40% remaining in both original batteries still in the grip. Letting them go all the way down to 10% is harder on the batteries and will reduce the number of recharge cycles before they wear out.

 

[Michael Clark]

Are you sure?
I am unable to test due to not owning the grip yet and my R5 being in Canon's possessed repair.

But I read in a DPReview thread this evening that the batteries are used up sequentially in the R5 grip. This user shot until their frame rate decreased, switched the position of the two batteries, and then regained the highest frame rate.

I'm sure about my "ancient" EOS DSLRs including the 5D Mark IV. I have no EOS R system cameras to test.