EB-1 wrote:
I'm going to cold weather soon for the first time in my life really. I don't know what to do, maybe one of each R5, R5 II, a7rV and hope something works? There was one FW for the R5 II that supposedly had a negative impact on the AF, so I'm a bit leery about it.
EBH
R5 works great in the snow, I can confirm that. I haven't tested R5II yet, but others say it sucks in the cold. As for firmware, I'm still rocking 1.0.2 on my R5II's as I see no reason to upgrade yet.
The only thing on that list of interest is if the stability has in any way been improved. Haven't had any issues. The things it's added I don't bother with.
Stability can mean anything, including the battery or not. Since Canon never officially made a statement that the R5 II's cold weather performance sucks, it's difficult to know if they care or if they will fix it quietly.
In January I will have to use the latest FW regardless but that will not be in very cold weather where the battery would be an issue. So far I have not had any R5 II issues with temperatures near freezing. I'm concerned about 5°F/-15°C. I've been told to store the LP-E6P in my body, but that it's really the R5 II camera that has problems.
EB-1 wrote:
I'm going to cold weather soon for the first time in my life really. I don't know what to do, maybe one of each R5, R5 II, a7rV and hope something works? There was one FW for the R5 II that supposedly had a negative impact on the AF, so I'm a bit leery about it.
EBH
Last time in Yellowstone in winter was with R5. No problem but I'm not really sure what the minimum temperature was since I've never had battery problems in winter going all the way back to the Ftb. Therefore, I wasn't really paying attention to how cold it got.. I too am faced with this problem. I've photographed in Yellowstone at -20F etc with cold soaked EF equipment outside all day. Had to sit at the gate once waiting for it to warm up so park service would allow us in at West Yellowstone and -30F at Cooke City. Most of the reports about cold with R5II seem to be +20F hockey games not real cold by my definition. I bought a two battery grip which reportedly helps and plan to take an R5 as backup. I did external batteries once with a T-90 which was awkward and unnecessary so the idea of a big lithium battery connected with a usb C cord is not very attractive. Bunch of extra batteries I guess. This will be in snow coaches not snowmobiles so equipment will not be as cold soaked and -20F is usually first light not all day. Tundra Buggies in Churchill not a big of cold stress as you photography from inside and have limited time on rear platform etc. Not experienced -0F there or Antarctica. Not sure if that helps but I've got the same problem you do. As a nature photographer, between "who cares" updates, lens envy for things not available from canon, canon's lock out ot 3rd parties etc, I'm really thinking it may be time to move to Sony (can't believe I said that) or Nikon. I did have a Nikonos once and a Sony (with a terrible menu) once so.............
EB-1 wrote:
Stability can mean anything, including the battery or not. Since Canon never officially made a statement that the R5 II's cold weather performance sucks, it's difficult to know if they care or if they will fix it quietly.
In January I will have to use the latest FW regardless but that will not be in very cold weather where the battery would be an issue. So far I have not had any R5 II issues with temperatures near freezing. I'm concerned about 5°F/-15°C. I've been told to store the LP-E6P in my body, but that it's really the R5 II camera that has problems.
What I've read leads me to believe it is the camera not the battery.
You may want to strap/rubber band a couple of chemical hand warmers to the camera.
I thought the cold weather issue had been fixed, but it popped up again for me recently. I was shooting in the low 30's and my R5M2 flat wouldnt work. I was trying to run a 30sec interval, and could get exactly two frames before it flashed dead battery. I had to take out the battery, hold it in my pocket for a minute or two, then reinsert. It would show fully charged... For one minute before it died again. I cycled through 3 batteries and each one was the same. Meanwhile my R5M1 set up,on a tripod right next to it never missed a beat... So disappointed.
I emailed CPS about it and they said the camera was only rated to 32 degrees so below that temperature it shouldn't be expected to function. Great, that's reassuring.
Cduff406 wrote:
I thought the cold weather issue had been fixed, but it popped up again for me recently. I was shooting in the low 30's and my R5M2 flat wouldnt work. I was trying to run a 30sec interval, and could get exactly two frames before it flashed dead battery. I had to take out the battery, hold it in my pocket for a minute or two, then reinsert. It would show fully charged... For one minute before it died again. I cycled through 3 batteries and each one was the same. Meanwhile my R5M1 set up,on a tripod right next to it never missed a beat... So disappointed.
I emailed CPS about it and they said the camera was only rated to 32 degrees so below that temperature it shouldn't be expected to function. Great, that's reassuring. ...Show more →
Of course low 30's is not really that cold. Makes me feel Canon does not care about us and it is time to move to another system. Thanks for the information.
I'm not sure who CPS is and what they can tell you. It may just be they are reading the specs and don't have any engineering data. Most likely Canon is aware of the problem and really has no good solution other than redesign the camera and/or battery pack. That means waiting for the MK III.
If someone at CPS tells you the camera isn't rated for use below freezing, they're just repeating the specs Canon has published that are probably intended to cover these very situations where there is performance inconsistency, so that they can point to that statement in order to walk away from the problem without admitting there is a performance problem. Therefore absolving themselves of the related liability this would entail if they actually did specify a certain degree of performance in below freezing conditions.
In the previous R5II battery performance thread it was implied by some that they are not experiencing the problem in truly cold conditions. This suggests there might be copy to copy variation.
A guy I shoot hockey tournaments with and who has had an R5II for about a year says he gets about 2000 frames shooting in arenas, which are cold but not usually below freezing (other than the ice surface).
I still think the R5II sucks batteries dry faster than it should in all sorts of conditions. For longer events, or full day shooting, I'm still powering the camera from 45W+ PD capable USB bricks. I had been using huge 72Wh and 100Wh units but more recently added a couple small INIU P50-E1 36Wh units capable of 45W. Over the weekend I shot about 7500 frames at a hockey tournament and fully depleted one and the second was down to ~30%, spanning about 9 hours of constant shooting with a lot of image review and in-camera deletion. So that's about 60Wh. I believe the LPE6P is 16Wh, so that's about 3.75 batteries for that many images. Or about 2000 images per 16Wh. But it wasn't all that cold in the rinks, so perhaps not a proper test of low temperature performance.
Having used the full 1DX range and the R3 for quite a few years, I think its time Canon ditched these small batteries in mirrorless bodies in favour of the larger LP-E19 versions.
Given the increased electronics in these bodies, the smaller batteries just aren't capable of powering the cameras over long durations or indeed low temperature conditions.
I have the R5 mkii with battery grip, and its so frustrating to have to carry additional batteries when on a photo assignment for a full days sports action. I could easily shoot with the R3 on one battery for a full day whilst the R5 mkii requires at least one change, if not two changes of batteries, in the grip. I have the R5 Mkii set up with similar framerate to the R3, with similar power saving settings and subject tracking etc and it still eats batteries. Might as well have AAA batteries in it for all the length of time it can operate.
In what mode is the R5 II hot, 8K video in the Kalahari? I've used about 6 of them and for stills they are not running too hot in cool or room temp environments. If it is 35°C out then it will show the white bars in the EVF after heavy use, but none ever shut down on me. I've shot 5000 frames per hour RAW on multiple occasions.
It was just part of the normal batteries that shipped the first week of release August 19, 2024. I think the LP-E6P were made in May of that year.
I cannot post at FM anymore and my websites are all gone. If I could, I'd show you a photo of the back of the camera screen.
It really depends on how things are configured. For example, e-shutter rather than EFCS. RAW, CRAW or jpeg. Also, high volume events/shoots tend to mean very limited, or no in-camera image review.
I still don't trust the R5II to do that many images on a battery but recent experiences with the R1 have yielded about 10k images per battery down to around 30% state of charge. And the R1 can also get a bit warm, though I agree with another comment that the R5II can get quite warm/hot.
For example, last summer I covered convocation ceremonies where grads crossed the stage at roughly 10 second intervals for 1.5 hours. I'd shoot maybe 5 images of each and it was pretty much non-stop. This stage is under 60K Watts of tungsten lighting (they still haven't converted to LEDs) and gets pretty warm, and the camera temperature warning indicator got up into the high range (though still not near shut down level). The top/prism area of the camera was very warm, as was the grip to a lesser degree.
rscheffler wrote:
I still think the R5II sucks batteries dry faster than it should in all sorts of conditions. For longer events, or full day shooting, I'm still powering the camera from 45W+ PD capable USB bricks. I had been using huge 72Wh and 100Wh units but more recently added a couple small INIU P50-E1 36Wh units capable of 45W. Over the weekend I shot about 7500 frames at a hockey tournament and fully depleted one and the second was down to ~30%, spanning about 9 hours of constant shooting with a lot of image review and in-camera deletion. So that's about 60Wh. I believe the LPE6P is 16Wh, so that's about 3.75 batteries for that many images. Or about 2000 images per 16Wh. But it wasn't all that cold in the rinks, so perhaps not a proper test of low temperature performance....Show more →
Does an external pack guarantee that the R5 II will not shut down at the same low temperatures it does with just the LP-E6P?
I'm not entirely sure, but when I was in very cold hockey rinks last winter powering the R5II via USB, the internal battery SOC level never dropped from full. If I didn't use the USB pack, SOC of the in-camera batteries would drop very quickly.
rscheffler wrote:
If someone at CPS tells you the camera isn't rated for use below freezing, they're just repeating the specs Canon has published that are probably intended to cover these very situations where there is performance inconsistency, so that they can point to that statement in order to walk away from the problem without admitting there is a performance problem. Therefore absolving themselves of the related liability this would entail if they actually did specify a certain degree of performance in below freezing conditions.
In the previous R5II battery performance thread it was implied by some that they are not experiencing the problem in truly cold conditions. This suggests there might be copy to copy variation.
A guy I shoot hockey tournaments with and who has had an R5II for about a year says he gets about 2000 frames shooting in arenas, which are cold but not usually below freezing (other than the ice surface).
I still think the R5II sucks batteries dry faster than it should in all sorts of conditions. For longer events, or full day shooting, I'm still powering the camera from 45W+ PD capable USB bricks. I had been using huge 72Wh and 100Wh units but more recently added a couple small INIU P50-E1 36Wh units capable of 45W. Over the weekend I shot about 7500 frames at a hockey tournament and fully depleted one and the second was down to ~30%, spanning about 9 hours of constant shooting with a lot of image review and in-camera deletion. So that's about 60Wh. I believe the LPE6P is 16Wh, so that's about 3.75 batteries for that many images. Or about 2000 images per 16Wh. But it wasn't all that cold in the rinks, so perhaps not a proper test of low temperature performance....Show more →
How are you connecting the PD to the camera? Do you use something that can breakaway.
I've used about 6 of them and for stills they are not running too hot in cool or room temp environments. If it is 35°C out then it will show the white bars in the EVF after heavy use, but none ever shut down on me. I've shot 5000 frames per hour RAW on multiple occasions.