R5- Longer term thoughts

[HDNitehawk]

I'd be interested in hearing from those who have the R3, if these issues are also present in that camera. But overall, I'm super pleased with how the whole system worked.

My R3 showed up last Wednesday and I have been comparing the two. Last night I was comparing the spot AF to see if there is a difference between the two. The R5's box seems to be just a very tiny bit bigger, but I notice when the R3 is in the very center a dot appears in the box. I am not sure if that means anything or not. I went around picking tiny objects that might have depth around it and pick out an object in the center to see if it would hold the fine point. For instance one of the targets was this toy https://battattoys.com/product/woode...-farm-animals/ . What I found is that the R3 does have a very slight edge on the R5 but in real world use it may not be very noticeable.

One thing I did is I turned off every function that might track an object. This included servo, continual AF and anything else related to tracking. Even continual AF would jump from the chosen spot.

There is another difference between the two that may matter. The R3 can use eye detect in every AF setting. The R5 only uses eye detect in Face + Eye Detect AF, the R3 doesn't even have that setting. When the eye detect setting is on the camera looks for an eye, when it doesn't find the eye it search's for a face. I saw this quit bit when shooting my black lab pups this weekend, black eyes on a black face and body are tough. Shooting the grand kids it would lock on their eye and if they blinked or turned a way for an instance the AF would hunt.

I think some of the issues I have had is just an understanding of how the new tech works and how to set up the settings properly for what I want to do. This will work out with time. As for the comparison between the 1Dx III and the R5 possibly the R3 and their respective AF I think the names say it all. 1, 3 and 5. Canon has always placed their bodies appropriately and the "1" is still top.

[Jonathan Huyer]

That's great to know. I'm also keen on your experience with using the spot AF mode, when you have the chance to give that a try. It makes the focus box a lot smaller obviously, but it gives reduced performance when the light is dim or the subject is low contrast. I'm wondering if the spot-AF in the R3 gives better performance than the R5.

[Fast Glass]

Good to know, seems like the R3 performed like it what I and many expected. I am curious to try it myself the R3, is it good enough were I can use fast primes wide open and have great consistency? Seems like it might.

I still find the 3-series market placement a bit curious. Not so much that it exists. That's fine. But at 6k. I'm a little scared to know what a R1 will cost!

[HDNitehawk]

That's great to know. I'm also keen on your experience with using the spot AF mode, when you have the chance to give that a try. It makes the focus box a lot smaller obviously, but it gives reduced performance when the light is dim or the subject is low contrast. I'm wondering if the spot-AF in the R3 gives better performance than the R5.

I had trouble with the R5 focusing on tight areas with spot AF with good light. What I checked I would give the R3 a slight edge over the R5. I started to check it last night at dusk on the lab pups, if I get time I will tonight. They should be contrast deficient enough.

[HDNitehawk]

Good to know, seems like the R3 performed like it what I and many expected. I am curious to try it myself the R3, is it good enough were I can use fast primes wide open and have great consistency? Seems like it might.

I still find the 3-series market placement a bit curious. Not so much that it exists. That's fine. But at 6k. I'm a little scared to know what a R1 will cost!

I think the longer it takes to get an R1, the more likely it isn't several thousand more than the R3. If we see one soon it may have significant separation.
I had the 35mm II shooting at near wide open on the R5 and had really good results. I haven't put the prime on the R3 but did have the RF 24x70 F2.8 wide open and it did great, with face and eye detect it did great. I also played with eye focus and while it wasn't accurate enough for spot or point focus if you were in any kind of expanded focus it would lock on to the face and eye you were looking at. It may be a bit gimmicky but it might have its uses.

[Fast Glass]

I was actually pondering that, but I know the 1Ds III also came with an 8k price tag. So I was debating whether it will cost 8K and the R3 will keep it's price or will the 1Dx III and R3 drop in price and the R1 be lower in price.

This could go both ways and both being possible. I sure hope it is the latter.

[HDNitehawk]

That's great to know. I'm also keen on your experience with using the spot AF mode, when you have the chance to give that a try. It makes the focus box a lot smaller obviously, but it gives reduced performance when the light is dim or the subject is low contrast. I'm wondering if the spot-AF in the R3 gives better performance than the R5.

I did some test shots tonight on one of the lab pups. The test ended about 15 minutes after sunset and started just as the sun was setting. It seems the answer is yes the R3 is better and substantially so. I shot the 70-200mm at F/2.8, 1/100 and stopped shooting when the ISO went over 10,000.The R5 was gradually worse and more erratic, the shots were slightly OOF even when it hit. The R3 was still nailing shots all the way through. At the very end I turned on Animal/Eye detect on both. I didn't have time to switch the lens around so I used both one with the 24x70 at 70 and the 70x200 at 70. The R5 couldn't find focus, but the R3 could hit the eye although it was a bit erratic. Keep in mind I was shooting a black lab pup after sunset.

I know the pictures in the view finder are JPG's, but even the quality of the JPG's out of the R3 are better than those out of the R5. It also seemed like the R5 was struggling with metering and the R3 was not.

My R5 is still under warranty, I decided I am going to ship it back to Canon and have them check it out.

[Jonathan Huyer]

Wow interesting! I'm guessing that the R5 issues aren't warranty related, because they sound awfully familiar to me. But it's certainly worth confirming. Regardless, it's good to know that the technology is improving. Thanks for the feedback.

[Fast Glass]

That is indeed awesome findings! This would absolutely mirror my frustrations with it in low light wedding shooting with the 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II. When the light gets low enough it was struggling to lock on at all. Or not reliably. And of course it struggles with the RF or EF 85mm f/1.2 hitting perfect eye focus, focusing instead on the eye lashes or on the wrinkles around it. Any of my 1-series hits the focus much more reliably.

This is kinda exciting that the AF is finally getting close to 1-series level accuracy. Makes me really excited to see how amazing the R1 AF system will perform. I'm getting an itchy buy it now finger. LOL.

[HDNitehawk]

According to the specs the R3 AF at EV -7.5. Both the 1Dx III and the R5 say AF at EV -6. If we believe in the spec fairy the R3 should do better in low light, sometimes the spec fairy doesn't deliver but maybe this time it does.

I did a small amount of research to see what this really meant and how it was calculated. If I do not have wrong information, my understanding is that the EV low light value is based on shooting wide open with a extremely fast prime, like f/1.2. As the aperture gets narrower the AF EV value goes up (gets worse). If that is true in Johnathan's instance using the 100-500mm the poor low light AF performance would be magnified because of the small aperture.

With the 5Ds R it had a EV -2, so I really didn't think about the AF of the R5 because it performed as well or better than the 5Ds R.