Scott Stoness
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 p.17 #11 · Official Canon EOS R5 Mark II Images & Specifications | |
Rudy Pohl wrote:
Hi Scott,
Thanks for taking the time to do this and for sharing your results here in the forum.
Your hands-on experience and your assessment of the new R5ii have raised enough red flags for me that I will definitely wait for the camera to actually come out and be rigorously tried, tested and evaluated by several critical reviewers before making any decisions. I'm very disappointed to read about the buffer being not much better than the R5. Duade Patton said essentially the same thing about the buffer.
Cheers,
Rudy
I looked at Duane Patton - its worth listening to. He does a good summary conclusion. Which I would summarise as:
Good video
Sensor - 45mpx is the same as R5. better and pretty close to the best in rolling shutter. He has a good graph. 3ms is mechanical which is my reference point. R5 was 16. It is now 6. For me though, the jury is out. 2/3 of my shooting is landscape. 1/3 is bears/wolves/moose. 45mpx is table stakes for landscape for cropping and printing large. AA is same and annoying to me after 10 years, not better than 5dsr but adequate. There is no data on dynamic range for stills. Rolling shutter is really big for BIF shooters but doesn't matter for me. So for Duade or action shooters - a big gain but for landscape or pokey action guys like me - it does not matter and we wait for dynamic range. I understand that it shoots 16bit clog2 - which is a big deal to video people.
A/F - better than the R5 for action. I agree. Being able to program a face and track is fantastic. It is better. He concluded that this is a big gain. I am a bit sceptical that I would call it big aside from sports / action shooters. For me landscape and pokey animals it is not much gains.
Buffer / Precapture - he concludes that pre capture and 30fps and a 25% bigger buffer is a big deal. I agree that pre capture is a big deal but it has to work to be useful. Eg I have the r8 which has precapture but it put them in a big proprietary movie file that could be extracted - I never used it because it was difficult to turn on/off and a pain to process (too many pictures, too hard to access, and too hard in processing flow). I tried to set a programmed toggle for precapture off/on and could not do it in my 5 minute try with it in my hands. I also looked over the manual after and could not find it as a program option. So assuming you cannot program it, you would likely leave it on - or put it in your personal menu, next to action features for fast action (precapture, fps, craw vs raw, your eye , animal eye tracking, ...). Assuming you are a BIF person, this will explode your number of shots (every one sequence is extra 15) causing culling extra work and really big cards. So without a pre-programmed toggle on/off for precapture, I will likely use it selectively.
Buffer - he concluded that 30fps is better and variable fps is great and I agree. He also concluded that the buffer was 25% bigger but the bunged up after full buffer was a worry. I had it in my hands with a sd card and it did get 25% more and it bunged up after 99 or so pictures. So marginally better but you will still have to be careful with buffer or you will miss your shot. My BIF moment is when my grizzly stands on its hind legs to look. It requires the buffer to be ready. The precacpture is not likely to be useful because of extra battery usage/heat and not easy toggle, so the buffer to be ready is a big deal. CFe requires 3s to clear. So, my gut says not much difference practically for me, but a big deal with a big pain in processing for BIF people.
I also was surprised in my short experimenting that 15fps did not get more frames than 30fps with the sd card (70-99 on raw) - but it could be that cfx will do better or that the pre production had issues, or I had set up issues that impacted (r5ii lets you limit to 1-99 shots. I set it to off (unlimited) but on a couple of times it hit 99 exactly so it could just be default at 99 (not unlimited) or an issue with pre production. Canon would not let me put in a really fast (delkin black 1400 sustained) in to test it.
The 14 bit electronic is also a big deal for me. It used to drop to 12. Although it does not matter much at above iso 800, it required more being aware and remembering to get off electronic for landscape at iso100. I took care of this though with c1 being landscape on tripod at efcs, c2 being landscape handheld in efcs, and c3 being electronic for wildlife. But not having to worry about 12 bit is a bonus.
Price: $4300 and selling R5 for $2100 means $2200 out of pocket. You will need 4 new batteries $320 to use the pre capture. You will need a much much bigger cfx for all the pre capture and 30fps. So Another $200. It will cost you some ancillary $100 in cage etc. You might be tempted to a $400 grip for cooling. So Realistically it's $3000 out of pocket. For video (clog2, 8k60, heat) and action (tracking a person, 30pfs), and BIF (precapture), this is tempting. For landscape and pokey me (bears, landscape) it's not yet compelling.
Body: He concludes video and power are on the wrong side for ergonomics. I am used to r8 which is similar. My observation is that the analog c1,c2 (one action) is better than the menu c1,c2, c3 (2 action press, flip). I am disappointed that they did not do something innovative, given the non analog- and add c4 or the ability to add c4,c5,c6 given that I am doing action, landscape and occasional video. In my hands it was so familiar because I have r8 and r5 that it feels like home. I liked the r8 menu over the r5 (newer and less mutual exclusive features) and the R5ii is improved to be closer to the r8. So it is better but marginally so.
I am still of the view that the $3000 out of pocket cost of upgrading from r5 to r5ii is compelling to video or action or BIF - but not for landscape or sometimes video or sometimes BIF people like me.
That said, my hands on with the r5 pre-production was with a r5 with a sd taped up so I could not use the cfx and I had 3 or 4 people waiting for me to finish. So the buffer might be better and cause me to really want it. [I put my name on the list for volunteering $3000 to Canon though for Aug 20. If you know me, I was negative on R5 over 5dsr 4 years ago and still bought r5 and have been largely happy because of the a/f, burst, buffer, [and iso performance !!!! with my bears], but I have not improved on my landscape. I also bought the r8 24mpx 450grams and heaps of RF lens 200-800 is fantastic for reach and size and weight and RF cheap 16,15-30,24-105, 24-50,100-400 are fantastic for travel and backpacking. I am already of the view that R5ii might need a firmware update for precapture, toggling precapture, toggling fps, buffer optimisation, sharp recognition in raw....
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But now I am home and thinking - unless the buffer is better why would I bother. I will flip flop for weeks. I was disappointed by the whole scene - not being able to test cfexpress - why would they not put the best cfexpress in it (SD - yuk). But there are so many differences between my current R5 which I have customised over 4 years and the new camera with new features that I could be wrong on all of the above.
