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The guys at Lensrentals.com have started their teardown of the Canon EOS R5. This teardown focuses on the camera design choices by Canon. I have been told that a further article about the thermal performance of the camera will come a little bit later.

Lensrentals.com is also offering 15% off all orders that arrive before October 2, 2020, with the coupon code SEPT15 during checkout.

The original ‘Uncle Roger' breaks it down as only he can.

By Roger Cicala

Published September 8, 2020

Let’s get one thing out of the way in the first sentence. If you’re here to understand the mysteries of thermal flow in the R5 I can tell you everything I know without opening the camera up: It’s small, it’s weather-sealed, and photo-body cameras have limited ability to get heat out of the camera.

I am NOT a thermal engineer. I believe that it’s better to know nothing than to know what ain’t so. So I will not be engaging in speculation about the camera’s thermal performance. I will take it apart, comment on what I know about, show you some fun pictures.

I always speculate some, but I’ll try to be clear ‘this is what I know’ and ‘this is what I speculate’. For example, 2 years ago we tore down the first EOS R. I showed that there was a big empty space in the camera, about the size of an IBIS unit. That was what I knew. Then I speculated that Canon would NOT put IBIS in their mirrorless cameras because they were so into lens IS.

Just giving you an example of how much trust to put in my speculations. Or anyone else’s for that matter.

So Let’s Take Stuff Apart!

The camera looks pretty much like the other Canon cameras with the battery door off. That’s the connector for the WFT-R10 wireless transmitter, which is kind of cool: It functions as a 2-battery grip, plus provides ethernet as well as wireless connectivity. You can connect up to 10 cameras to a server. This is not something I’m interested in myself, the onboard wireless is all I need.

But it seems a cool, albeit expensive, option for high-powered professional-type people.

The battery door itself gives us our first pleasant surprise. In every camera, the battery door is a weak area for leakage. There’s usually some weather-resistant gaskets around the edge, which the R5 has. In addition, the entire flat surface is soft gasket material in addition to the raised gaskets around the edges and hinge area.