An open letter to Canon

[Will Thompson]

How do you turn off live view shooting on the EOS R5

Not to be confused with switching between the EVF and rear LCD!

Where the rear LCD is never used as a viewfinder and only used for menus and playback!

Where the EVF is always used as the viewfinder and never used for menus and playback!

Thus functionally working exactly like a SLR? (As it should!)

Where the rear LCD never turns on without the user pressing a button such as menu or playback!

[Joel Eade]

Under the "customize buttons" menu there is a way to assign a button of your choice to switch manually between the LCD screen and the EVF. There is also an option to assign "display off" to any button. Not sure this accomplishes what you are looking for but you might give it a try.

Look at page 820-822 in the manual to see the options.


https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/p...r5?tab=manuals

[Kayaker72]

I just played with it and did not find a perfect fix, but close. So, part of it is Joel's suggestion, setting up a dedicated button to switch between EVF and LCD, but you also need to go into Tools 3 and switch "Viewfinder/screen display" from auto to viewfinder. Then the button can be used to toggle between LCD and EVF. Granted, it is not just like a DSLR where the EVF is viewfinder only and you hit menu or "Q" and the information is displayed on the LCD.

[Will Thompson]

So what I am hearing is that after over 20 plus years of ergonomic development Canon has thrown it out and made it function as a POS consumer toy camera.

[Kayaker72]

There are always gripes with any camera, right? And each person is different. I have not found something equivalent to a "liveview" button. I would put this as a minor gripe for me. It would be nice to have a dedicated button or have a mode where you can set which things are displayed where.

That said, the more I've shot with the R5, the more I may understand why this is a relative non-issue for me. If the camera is up to my eye, more and more, I look at menus, Q, playback, everything, through the EVF. The camera is leaving my eye less and less as I become more comfortable with this. If I do pull my eye from the EVF, it is automatically displayed on the LCD, so it works well. If I am shooting with the LCD, I want everything displayed on the LCD, which it is.

About the only time I have noticed this being an issue is if I am just messing with the camera menu/modes, etc and not trying to take a picture or if there is a pause in the action and I pull my eye away from the EVF, the image is then displayed on the LCD. So there are times when I would want to be able to turn the sensor off so it is not working. It would be nice to have a mode where the LCD was menu/playback/"Q"/etc only but with a press of a button it is also in liveview.

So, not perfect, but it really is very very good. As for all the other ergonomics, I am finding the R5 to be great. Then as you play you may find a lot of features showing what the camera can do. Even last night, I was manually focusing using Focus point illumination through the EVF, and shooting handheld 1/13th of a second with my 24-70 II (IBIS). The R5 is the first camera that would allow me to do that. I was just trying to get a quick blue hour landscape shot of Jupiter/Saturn. Even the planets highlighted red as I got them in focus.

[Joel Eade]

Certainly the R5 is part of a new breed so to speak and is not like prior SLR's in many ways.

Of course it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

For me, the way that the LCD and EVF work is not a significant draw back and doesn't hinder the ability to create fine images.

Maybe if this issue becomes a prominent complaint it will be fixed with a firmware update.

In the mean time I wouldn't hesitate to experience what the R5 can do, its a fun camera to use and the images do not disappoint