R5? R6? Anyone?

[Kayaker72]

So, my R5 arrived last Friday. I had been thinking that I would test it for a week before posting anything (technically, I am testing this ). But, I responded to a question earlier today, so....

Initial impressions are positive. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how much it melts away while I am using it to the point where I am not thinking about the camera at all. Perhaps this is because the R5 is very much a combination of the 5DIV and M6 II. In a way, taking the best parts of both those cameras that I really like, combining them, and making other things better. It has a few quirks I am still working on.

Two images that I cropped pretty tight, both taken from my office window set up as I have used all summer, and what can I say, it does not disappoint.

R5, 700 mm, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 3200 (no noise reduction)--11.2 MP
537A1067 by kayaker72, on Flickr


700 mm, 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 6400, 5.8 MP...but with some noise reduction
537A0227 by kayaker72, on Flickr

[Joel Eade]

So, my R5 arrived last Friday. I had been thinking that I would test it for a week before posting anything (technically, I am testing this ). But, I responded to a question earlier today, so....

Initial impressions are positive. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how much it melts away while I am using it to the point where I am not thinking about the camera at all. Perhaps this is because the R5 is very much a combination of the 5DIV and M6 II. In a way, taking the best parts of both those cameras that I really like, combining them, and making other things better. It has a few quirks I am still working on.

Two images that I cropped pretty tight, both taken from my office window set up as I have used all summer, and what can I say, it does not disappoint.

R5, 700 mm, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 3200 (no noise reduction)--11.2 MP
537A1067 by kayaker72, on Flickr


Same settings, 5.8 MP...but with some noise reduction and at ISO 5000
537A0227 by kayaker72, on Flickr

I have been shooting at >1/1000th, surprised that these two are at 1/500th.

Great detail in both of those images.

I have been shooting mostly with my 600 + 1.4 TC .... image quality is great and using the histogram in the EVF it is very easy to expose to the right (and not blow the highlights) which results in minimal noise up to ISO 6400. Beyond that I am using Topaz Denoise AI.

I programmed the * button to set the image format so I can quickly go into crop mode for smaller or more distant subjects. I find myself using mechanical shutter (which is very quiet) almost exclusively for my back yard bird set up. Electronic shutter, although totally silent, produces so many images that are very similar it ends up taking a lot of time to sort through them.

Are you using animal eye AF?

[Kayaker72]

Great detail in both of those images.

I have been shooting mostly with my 600 + 1.4 TC .... image quality is great and using the histogram in the EVF it is very easy to expose to the right (and not blow the highlights) which results in minimal noise up to ISO 6400. Beyond that I am using Topaz Denoise AI.

I programmed the * button to set the image format so I can quickly go into crop mode for smaller or more distant subjects. I find myself using mechanical shutter (which is very quiet) almost exclusively for my back yard bird set up. Electronic shutter, although totally silent, produces so many images that are very similar it ends up taking a lot of time to sort through them.

Are you using animal eye AF?

Hi Joel.

Thanks. Its funny, I wasn't posting those pics for "quality," in which case I would have used Denoise (it is very good), but more to show what out of camera quality is like (even on the second, the noise reduction was not applied to the bird itself, but to the background). But as soon as I posted on Flickr, they had several likes. I might have to go back and update.

I do have Eye AF programed to my "AF ON" button and Expanded AF set to the "*". I haven't yet played with crop mode, but will likely set it to something. In a brief amount of time I have used it, the Animal Eye AF is very good when it is on, but if it doesn't think there is a bird or animal there, or if the animal/bird is oof, it goes to the closest object. With the "*" button to a controllable AF point, I can quickly take control myself, tell the camera where to look, but then pivot back to Eye-AF.

I haven't even tried the electronic shutter yet. I have been toggling between "H" and "H+". It is funny, as critical as FPS are to certain circumstances, when not in those circumstances, it is actually an issue. As I've been weighing what I wanted to improve, not filling my buffer after 2 seconds was more important than FPS as I often want to shoot a sequence that is 3-5 seconds. As a quick example, yesterday, I got a series of a bird in the bird bath. About 4 seconds, but I have those entire 4 seconds.