For a good 6 months or so we have been spoon fed little niblets of information on Canon’s proper entry into the mirrorless market. Sure we have 2 mirrorless cameras as a stop gap, but for anyone who already had significant investment in the 5D series level cameras the EOS R and RP left many of us wanting.
Currently I have a Canon 5DS and Salwa (WanderingPhocus) has a 5DIII. They have both been great cameras and we both have a long history with Canon. Many lenses from 8 mm out to 500mm, primes and zooms. Since Salwa’s 5DIII started acting up during servo AF, she has taken over my 5DS and I am now using my Sony gear exclusively. This has meant that I haven’t used my 500 f/4 much and have been really looking forward to a replacement that was a worthy upgrade.
On the 9th of July Canon had their big official announcement with the new EOS R5 and EOS R6, along with a bunch of other new stuff. I have been sifting through all the announcements and previews from Canon ambassadors since the announcement, piecing together what I can to determine if this is a camera for people who are primarily photographers. Let’s do a quick walk through of what is coming and when.
The EOS R5
Let’s start with the one I have been thinking will be my next camera. The Canon EOS R5 is a 45 MPixel camera that can shoot at 12 frames per second with the mechanical shutter and 20 fps electronic shutter. It has dual card slots (CFExpress and SD), a buffer for around 90 raw shots and dual pixel auto focus covering the entire sensor that is the latest from Canon. Not a lot of details have come out about using the camera so far except from people who are paid by Canon as ambassadors. Their reviews are gushing, of course, and they are making things look pretty amazing but really these are more adverts than reviews.
From a replacement for the 5DS, the spec seem pretty much what I was hoping for. Similar resolution and faster shutter and better buffer. We shall see how the autofocus works once it gets in the hands of more reviewers soon. I can’t wait to see how it stands up to the Sony A7RIV from a stills photography point of view. These specs alone are pretty much enough for me to make this my next Canon camera.
The EOS R5 ( USD $3899, CAD $4 billion) is suppose to start shipping at the beginning of August. While this is great, I am a bit surprised that Canon hasn’t allowed more independent reviews of the camera as it pretty much must be finalized and shipping now to be available in 3 weeks. This alone has me waiting instead of preordering a camera I have been hoping would come out for a couple of years. Canon usually puts out a camera that is underwhelming but stable and usable…except for when they came out with the 5D2 which was exciting and perfectly usable.
What about the other camera?
The second camera, the EOS R6 (USD $2499, CAD $still too much plus more tax) is a very interesting camera. It seems almost like a cross between the Canon 6DII and the 7DII. It has the speed and resolution of the 7D type cameras at 20 MP, but loses that 1.6 crop that some nature photographers enjoy. It has a body similar to the 6D II, not quite as resilient as the 5 series with a few things left out but at a price point that is more likely to entice a good number of photographers. Speed wise this camera loses nothing to the R5 with the same 12 and 20 fps and the same tracking autofocus system at least from the specs. The resolution though is interesting. The current 6DII is 28 MP and the 5DIV is 30, this is a significant drop back down to a bit less resolution than the 5DIII. This could be very good news for low light shooting as the sensor is rumored to be the same as that in the 1DIII. For me, now that I have both resolution and speed in the Sony A7RIV it is difficult to go back to the lower resolutions. This is mostly due to the fact that I am most often distance challenged when shooting birds and animals. Cropping is my friend, since I can not often get as close as I would prefer to my subject without either having it spook or change its behavior. For landscape work, I just like more resolution. This may not be a factor for many other photographers, and I suspect this camera will sell well as long as it is more responsive than the current EOS R and RP.
The EOS R6 will have 2 SD card slots. I would imagine this will be completely sufficient from a photography point of view and significantly cheaper as CFExpress may not come down in price for a few years yet.
ViewFinder and LCD screen
The viewfinders have 5.x MP resolution in the R5 and 3.6MP in the R6 with up to 120Hz refresh rates. Not much has been said about blackout time while shooting so we will need to wait for those independent reviews again. It is highly likely that the viewfinder in the R5 is the same one in the A7RIV. If so, and if implemented similarly it will be excellent to use in real life. The lower resolution of the R6 is expected but still will likely be better than the current Sony A7III (which is rather horrible but still usable) and likely on par with the A7RIII which was also very usable.
The LCD panels are the latest of the '“pull out to the side” style from Canon. With touch screen and useful variable angle tilt this will be pretty fantastic for those of us who would love to be able to get those different perspective shots. I almost never shoot birds or animals without my eye to the view finder but often have the camera in very awkward positions when doing landscapes…sometimes just inches above the water or way above my head.
A new Image File option
One of the new things that may be interesting to some photographers is the inclusion of HEIC files. These are what I’m hoping will be the replacements for JPEGs on the Net within the next year or two. HEIC files can be a higher bit depth lossy compression file (up to 16bit). Their adoption on the web is limited at the moment but for those times you need to shoot with something that has much smaller file sizes this is another great option while still having some leeway to edit the shots and retain the integrity of the image. Looks like Canon will include support for 10 bit HEIC which should be better than 8 bit JPEG while still about the same size.
Shooting speed
Let’s get back to the shooting speed. 12 fps with a mechanical shutter is pretty amazing and is in the realm of past 1D cameras. This is one of the things I have been looking for in a Canon camera for years - relatively high resolution and high fps with a reasonable buffer. I’m hoping that the CFExpress card will clear that buffer quickly as well. This is a huge step-up for Canon and looks to have gotten ahead of Sony as well. I’m very happy with the 10 fps and 61 MP of the Sony A7RIV and look forward to getting to use the same capabilities on my big white Canon lenses. The silent shutter is going to be the bigger unknown. On the Sony A7RIV the silent shutter is great for getting shots of a bird that might spook but motion in shots can have some really odd results. The Sony A9 series takes the data off the sensor quickly enough that it is relatively close to a global shutter. This is not the case with the A7 series and I haven’t seen any details for the Canon yet but suspect it will be similar to the A7RIV (I would love to be wrong on this). This is not unexpected, but is something you need to be aware of when shooting anything moving, especially anything rotating within the frame. For the same reason, anyone shooting in artificial lighting may also see issues as the light changes within the exposure of the image. This can result in banding as the read out of the sensor often skips lines as it progresses through.
Speaking of artificial light, I haven’t yet heard much about flash sync or whether it can be used with the electronic shutter. Since the max shutter speed is the same for this camera at 1/8000s in both electronic and mechanical shutter being able to shoot at really high shutter speeds with a high speed sync is not an option.
IBIS
Now this is a new one for Canon. They have stated over and over again that lens based image stabilization was better than sensor based. Finally they are coming to the game and they are making claims to have better stabilization than anyone out there with an estimated 8 stops. The one downside so far came from a site I read that stated EF lens stabilization would not communicate with the sensor based stabilization. This did not mean they would work at the same time, but would not necessarily be as good as with an RF lens. I will wait to see the reviews to see if this means that they lose a stop and still work amazingly well or if that means we might see issues when using both together. Worst case is that we turn off one and get the same image stabilization we had before which was pretty good for stills anyways.
Lenses and EF lens compatibility
Canon RF lenses have been highly rated so far, the canon ambassadors are gushing about the new 100-500 F/4.5-7.1 and as an owner of the current 100-400 I expect it will be pretty great. I do find it interesting that many people who thought the Sony 200-600 at F/6.3 was unusable except at high noon are now accepting of these slower lenses when they come from Canon. I have found the 200-600 to be fantastic for birds in flight and expect the new Canon to be equally great. If the EF lenses work well enough on the new R series cameras, I may hold off on getting any white lenses as the ones I have (70-300L, 100-400IIL and 500IIL) are fantastically sharp. Where I’m likely to venture is in the wider angle lenses as my 17-40L is getting a little long in the tooth and Salwa pretty much lives with the 16-35 f/4 when hiking and traveling.
I think I will cover the other lens announcements in a separate post as some are really new concepts.
There seems to be some language from Canon stating that the best performance will come with RF lenses, the question is going to be how good will the autofocus tracking and IBIS be with EF lenses. Since there aren’t going to be any big whites on the RF side of the world for a while I’m hoping that Canon has ensured that the performance will be good. From what I have seen, autofocus in live view mode on the 1DXIII with EF lenses is up to the task so I still have pretty high expectations.
Dual Pixel II - autofocus enhancements
This is the big question for me. Dual Pixel autofocus is pretty good for video but I really want to see how the improvements are with subject tracking for stills. The Sony A7III and A7RIV are really just so good that when I go back to my current Canon cameras I now feel like I’m missing something. My expectations are high, with face detect, eye autofocus and animal eye focus I’m really hoping that these cameras can meet my current expectations. It did take Sony a long time to get to the level they are now, many iterations with some pain along the way. Canon skipped much of that by not having a horse in the mirrorless race, now we see if they can catch up or even pull ahead within just 2 product cycles. The EOS R really didn’t match up in that sense, although there were many other reasons I didn’t find it worth picking up.
Button Layout - Touch Screen
Canon tried some interesting things with the EOS R in terms of button layout and ergonomics. Compared to the 5D series I never felt like the EOS R felt natural in my hands and getting things done felt more difficult switching between the 5D and EOS R than it was switching between 5D and A7 series. For what I regularly use on the back of a camera, the changes Canon made for the EOS R5 (and R6) bring everything back to where I like to have them. The joystick I find to be the most useful, as I find using the screen a pain when the camera is up to my eye. I also find that I change settings on the camera by accident continuously with the touch screen. It is a great tool for when you have the camera on a tripod but I really like to have the buttons available for that control as a second option. Bringing back the scroll wheel is also great although now that I have gotten used to the scroll wheel on the Sonys with the four corners as buttons I think I would have liked Canon to add that for some extra buttons on the back. Still, I can at least use the camera as I would have with the 5D easily with this layout. Back to the touch screen. I may complain about it but as long as I can turn it on and off when I want to it is still the best implementation of a touch screen I have seen on a camera. Sony needs to learn from this.
image from apotelyt.com
The top of the R5 is going to be the harder part for me, but in the end it will just mean learning a new way of doing things. I do wish the video record button was on the back like the Sony and would love to have the AF On button bigger like the Sony but in the end these are small things that will become normal with usage.
Battery life
First estimates seem low even with the new battery announced. The good news is that the new battery is backwards compatible with current Canon batteries and chargers that we have a good number of here at home. We shall see if Canon is being conservative with battery usage estimates or if we are going to be in a similar situation as we were with the second generation and prior Sony Cameras before they moved to the new and much better battery.
Video
This has been where most of the excitement has been over the last few months. We do shoot a bit of video, and are trying to do more as we continue to evaluate how to tell the Phocus stories. The specs looks fabulous, and the limitations that have now been circulating concerning heat will affect many video people but for the most part are not going to make or break our decision to buy these cameras. Sure, 4K at 120 fps would be really nice for some nature action slowed down, and I would love to experiment with grabbing frames from 8K footage (using it with a high shutter speed instead of twice the frame rate) to see what you can achieve. It would still be the most capable video camera we have so no complaints if it works to spec.
What to do, where to find more info
Currently it is hard to draw many conclusions other than that I’m ready to put money down unless early reviews show some major issues or flaws. Would love to get one in my hands to compare to the A7RIV but I imagine I will have to wait like everyone else. Would be fun to have it for fall migration, let’s hope it lives up to the hype.
Much of the information I have gotten is found at CanonRumors.com, a great site with a pretty good (at least most of the time) group of users and topics in the comment sections. DPReview.com is another great resource to see previews, reviews, and great videos by Chris and Jordan. Some other good resources and often just interesting videos can be found on YouTube with people like Tony and Chelsea Northrup, Jared Polin, and Max Yureyev. For a great video using the R5 from a Canadian Canon Ambassador take a look at Peter McKinnon’s channel.