Prior to these I used a different style that only swiveled and found that eventually with enough disconnects something in the connector would break and therefore no longer transfer power to the camera. Another problem, given these are magnetic, is fine bits of ferric 'sand' eventually 'clog' the connector end and can prevent the 'nib' from seating properly, which in turn can prevent power transfer to the camera. This sand gets picked up by the connector when it drags along the ground after an inadvertent disconnect. The magnets are quite strong for their size and it's really difficult to remove the sand once it's stuck to the magnet.
For the last while I've put the INIU PD batteries in a small sling across my torso and run a 1m (3') cable from it to the camera. It's generally fine but does disconnect from time to time. That's not really all that critical as the camera will instantly switch to the internal battery. I recently rigged up a clamp to hold the battery on the camera's hot shoe, with the battery connected to the camera via a 6" cable, still with the magnetic breakaway connector at the camera end. This eliminates having a cable running from my torso to the camera and frequent disconnects in hectic situations, but does add weight to the camera and potentially some stress on the hot shoe. A downside is exposure to the elements. Another option would be to mount the battery clamp/holder to a camera cage or rig it to connect to an Arca Swiss plate on the base, etc. For the time being the hot shoe position may work the best for me as I don't use flash at sports events and it doesn't interfere with the use of a vertical grip.
Powering the camera from an external USB battery is obviously not ideal but also hasn't been as inconvenient as I thought it might be. This solution was spurred from the cold performance issues I experienced with the camera last winter, but I've continued to use this configuration throughout the summer, particularly for longer duration events so that I generally don't need to think about or even change batteries in the middle of hectic events.
Along the lines of what someone commented earlier, I would welcome a vertical grip accessory that accepts the LP-E19 battery for the R1, R3, 1DX series as an alternative power source to the LP-E6 series. I don't know how much it's the cameras vs. the batteries, but as mentioned earlier, I've shot 10K and more images on a single LP-E19 in the R1 and seem to be lucky to maybe get 2K images on an LP-E6P in the R5II. Given I can shoot over 10K images in a game, that's potentially a lot of battery swaps (at least every quarter) and battery management that use of the USB battery generally eliminates.
To be honest I am not going to update the firmware until I am ready to change systems or am ready for a new camera.
I don't trust Canon, they could, and probably would do a designed degrading of the camera and old EF lens duo for future sales in future updates.
Mine does just fine now. For static birding, and bird in flight when light permits.
To be perfectly honest and knowing how easy it would be to implement a slow degrigration in AF , Image quality etc with a time based function, or really any thing they wanted. I would not be surprised if it was not imbedded at release.
rscheffler wrote:
Yes. On Amazon you can find all sorts of breakaway magnetic USB-C connectors. I have tried a few different ones and have settled on the kind that swivels and rotates. For example, these: https://www.amazon.com/USB-Magnetic-Adapter-240W-2Pack/dp/B0FPQ8KTB4
Prior to these I used a different style that only swiveled and found that eventually with enough disconnects something in the connector would break and therefore no longer transfer power to the camera. Another problem, given these are magnetic, is fine bits of ferric 'sand' eventually 'clog' the connector end and can prevent the 'nib' from seating properly, which in turn can prevent power transfer to the camera. This sand gets picked up by the connector when it drags along the ground after an inadvertent disconnect. The magnets are quite strong for their size and it's really difficult to remove the sand once it's stuck to the magnet.
For the last while I've put the INIU PD batteries in a small sling across my torso and run a 1m (3') cable from it to the camera. It's generally fine but does disconnect from time to time. That's not really all that critical as the camera will instantly switch to the internal battery. I recently rigged up a clamp to hold the battery on the camera's hot shoe, with the battery connected to the camera via a 6" cable, still with the magnetic breakaway connector at the camera end. This eliminates having a cable running from my torso to the camera and frequent disconnects in hectic situations, but does add weight to the camera and potentially some stress on the hot shoe. A downside is exposure to the elements. Another option would be to mount the battery clamp/holder to a camera cage or rig it to connect to an Arca Swiss plate on the base, etc. For the time being the hot shoe position may work the best for me as I don't use flash at sports events and it doesn't interfere with the use of a vertical grip.
Powering the camera from an external USB battery is obviously not ideal but also hasn't been as inconvenient as I thought it might be. This solution was spurred from the cold performance issues I experienced with the camera last winter, but I've continued to use this configuration throughout the summer, particularly for longer duration events so that I generally don't need to think about or even change batteries in the middle of hectic events.
Along the lines of what someone commented earlier, I would welcome a vertical grip accessory that accepts the LP-E19 battery for the R1, R3, 1DX series as an alternative power source to the LP-E6 series. I don't know how much it's the cameras vs. the batteries, but as mentioned earlier, I've shot 10K and more images on a single LP-E19 in the R1 and seem to be lucky to maybe get 2K images on an LP-E6P in the R5II. Given I can shoot over 10K images in a game, that's potentially a lot of battery swaps (at least every quarter) and battery management that use of the USB battery generally eliminates....Show more →
how do you attache the battery to the hot shoe? I need to be able to run this off a tripod with a 600mm f4
If you need to have attachment to the hot shoe, you can glue a hot shoe cover to a small power bank. I attach it to the tripod instead with enough slack in the cable to allow for camera movement.
gkinard1952 wrote:
To be honest I am not going to update the firmware until I am ready to change systems or am ready for a new camera.
I don't trust Canon, they could, and probably would do a designed degrading of the camera and old EF lens duo for future sales in future updates.
Mine does just fine now. For static birding, and bird in flight when light permits.
To be perfectly honest and knowing how easy it would be to implement a slow degrigration in AF , Image quality etc with a time based function, or really any thing they wanted. I would not be surprised if it was not imbedded at release.
They did me dirty with the final 5DM4 update. They added changes which failed to recognize battery levels of any 3rd party batteries when I had been using them successfully for 3 years.
Anyone who says you can’t shoot in the cold hasn’t used the camera. In general I find the battery performence of the R5/r5 mkII’s to be inferior to my old eos 5r/5rs setup, but that’s just in general - not just cold weather shooting. With the R5/r5 mkII there’s seems to be more battery drainage if the batteries are left in the camera and you don’t even use the camera for 2 weeks, than with the DSLR’s.
Bu as far as cold weather performance goes I shot in -26C (-35c with the windchill for 2 hrs and had at least 10 to 15 shots that were 10-35 second exposures and 2 or 3 shots that were over 2 min exposures, along with 50-60 normal exposures.
My fingers gave out before the batteries - got 3rd degree frostbite! So while didn’t get 2000 frames on a single battery, I did shoot for a couple of hours from dawn to about an 1.5 hrs after Sunrise, including long exposures in the bulb settings, while mainly lying on a frozen lake the year the R5 mkII was released.
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 →
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 →
This last Saturday I had mine out on a 7 mile hike in the coldest weather so far, just at freezing for about 3 hours. Left with 2 fully charged batteries in the grip. Sunday morning I went to do the firmware update and my batteries were at 45% and 47% with 94/96 shots per, according to the camera. I couldn't believe it. But you're right, mine will drain half a battery in a week of sitting, powered down. I pull them now when its not going to be used. The 1DX3 could sit 6 months take 2000 shots and still have 80% battery .
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.
Methodical wrote:
Curious. What types of problems do the R5ii experience in cold weather and what is considered cold weather when it comes to making the R5ii unhappy?
I shot a game with it mounted to the camera's hot shoe, combined with the 100-300 and 1.4x TC. It worked, but the weight of the battery attached via the hotshoe was enough to make the combo top heavy and want to tip/rotate whenever the tripod collar was loosened enough, which was most of the time while I was using it on a monopod. That meant while shooting I had to counteract its desire to rotate. It wasn't a big deal but it was still a bit annoying. I think next game I will mount it to the bottom of the camera, with a cold shoe attached to an L-bracket baseplate. Hopefully with the weight below the camera it will keep it from wanting to tip/rotate given I'm mostly shooting horizontal images at these games.
For a 600 on a tripod, there would be other mounting options, such as directly on the tripod or attached to the foot of the 600 if your Arca plate is long enough to mount something else to it. But that would mean a longer cable run than mounting somewhere on the camera.
gkinard1952 wrote:
To be honest I am not going to update the firmware until I am ready to change systems or am ready for a new camera.
I don't trust Canon, they could, and probably would do a designed degrading of the camera and old EF lens duo for future sales in future updates.
Mine does just fine now. For static birding, and bird in flight when light permits.
To be perfectly honest and knowing how easy it would be to implement a slow degrigration in AF , Image quality etc with a time based function, or really any thing they wanted. I would not be surprised if it was not imbedded at release.
goalerjones wrote:
They did me dirty with the final 5DM4 update. They added changes which failed to recognize battery levels of any 3rd party batteries when I had been using them successfully for 3 years.
Too late for the R5II. Already from the initial firmware, the camera will not work with third party LP-E6NH batteries. The camera throws an error code and won't operate. Meanwhile those batteries work fine with my R6II, even on current firmware and using the BG-R20 grip that was released with the R5II.
Additionally, as you may know, certain R5II features are only available with the LP-E6P battery.
khurram1 wrote:
Anyone who says you can’t shoot in the cold hasn’t used the camera.
You can shoot in the cold with it, but it might not be for long. The frustrating thing about this issue is that some R5II users appear not to have this problem while others do. So far no one has been able to explain why that is.
In my case, it *might* have been partially due to using the older BG-R10 grip instead of the BG-R20. I seem to recall reading some Canon documentation recently that implied that the older style grip might be a factor contributing to poorer battery performance.
I sold the trip for my R5, and now don’t use a grip with either camera - but than I don’t shoot sports anymore.. I’d rather keep the extra battery earn in my inside jacket pocket for landscape shooting.
But to be clear, battery life with the EOS 5r/rs > R5 > R5 mk II
I shot a game with it mounted to the camera's hot shoe, combined with the 100-300 and 1.4x TC. It worked, but the weight of the battery attached via the hotshoe was enough to make the combo top heavy and want to tip/rotate whenever the tripod collar was loosened enough, which was most of the time while I was using it on a monopod. That meant while shooting I had to counteract its desire to rotate. It wasn't a big deal but it was still a bit annoying. I think next game I will mount it to the bottom of the camera, with a cold shoe attached to an L-bracket baseplate. Hopefully with the weight below the camera it will keep it from wanting to tip/rotate given I'm mostly shooting horizontal images at these games.
For a 600 on a tripod, there would be other mounting options, such as directly on the tripod or attached to the foot of the 600 if your Arca plate is long enough to mount something else to it. But that would mean a longer cable run than mounting somewhere on the camera.
Don't forget to wear your tinfoil hat, too!
Too late for the R5II. Already from the initial firmware, the camera will not work with third party LP-E6NH batteries. The camera throws an error code and won't operate. Meanwhile those batteries work fine with my R6II, even on current firmware and using the BG-R20 grip that was released with the R5II.
Additionally, as you may know, certain R5II features are only available with the LP-E6P battery.
You can shoot in the cold with it, but it might not be for long. The frustrating thing about this issue is that some R5II users appear not to have this problem while others do. So far no one has been able to explain why that is.
In my case, it *might* have been partially due to using the older BG-R10 grip instead of the BG-R20. I seem to recall reading some Canon documentation recently that implied that the older style grip might be a factor contributing to poorer battery performance. ...Show more →
rscheffler wrote:
You can shoot in the cold with it, but it might not be for long. The frustrating thing about this issue is that some R5II users appear not to have this problem while others do. So far no one has been able to explain why that is. ...Show more →
Sincere question: What´s cold for you? Canada should be around as cold as Finland, just to understand the problem if I take my R52 for a cold day spin.
I have not used the R5II in extreme cold, like -30 ˚C and lower. The R5II I used from the end of 2024 until a couple months ago would drain the batteries in the grip very quickly in even moderate and comfortalbe temperatures. I'm not sure if it was the camera or that I was using the old BG-R10 grip for the R5/6/6II instead of the new BG-R20 grip. Most of the time I also used LP-E6NH batteries instead of the new 'P'. So there were a few variables at play that might have affected battery performance.
That said, a couple days ago I got a brand new R5II and just used it for a snowy football game where the temperature was at around the freezing point. I used the camera without the grip (I also got the BG-R20 but decided to try it without first) with the 100-300 and 1.4x TC. On average I got about 7000ish frames per LP-E6P battery (down to 15-25% SOC). The camera was set to 30 fps e-shutter and I used pre-capture a fair amount, too. The camera had fw 1.0.3 installed and I updated it to 1.1.1.
Obviously this was not really cold conditions, but it's pretty much the opposite of what I expereinced with the previous R5II, which was a very early release copy. I'm cautiously optimistic that I may be able to stop using an external USB power bank for most of my uses for the camera.
At 5*F you will see extremely diminished battery life. 32*F is not much of a problem, I've shot all day in those temps with performance much closer to R5. I'm just moving back to the R5 for sub 10*F days. The R5II is nearly worthless in those temps for any serious shooting.
This will be my first winter with the R5ii - thinking I need to get a warmer cover for it after reading all this lol. I did notice pretty poor battery life in the 20's. But in a couple weeks it will be regularly below zero and Snowy Owl season.
If we're doing firmware wishes, in addition to the above I'd like the viewfinder/rear display option like in the R1 where taking the camera away from your eye only turns on the rear display if you press a button, like the menu or image review.
I don't like the auto switch between rear display and EVF as I find there's always a slight lag, so I have the camera set to manually switch between the two with the press of a button. This is OK, but the R1's implementation is nicer as I don't need to manually switch between the EVF and rear display and then press the menu button or image review button. It's a small thing for sure, but one of those quality of life things, I guess.
Another feature I would like is full frame RAW/CRAW at lower resolutions, like what Leica has implemented with the M11, etc. There the options IIRC are 60, 38 and 18MP. There are a lot of things I cover for which 45MP is overkill and just a waste of storage. But I much prefer the R5II over my 6-series bodies, so always want to shoot with it. It would be great to have RAW flexibility at 30 or 24MP, or whatever size is a clean interpolation down within that range.
And lastly, a single button press option to switch to a preferred crop mode, such as APS-C. Currently I can access it quickly via the Q button and a single dial click turn. But a single button press to enable/disable would be faster.
Are you using the R5II? If so, you can program the DOF preview button (or whatever that button on the body next to the lens is called, you can reach it with the finger on your shutter hand) to switch back and forth between crop modes. That's how mine is set up, on push goes to crop, push again and back to full.
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