Well, I've finally done it, and ordered a new Canon R5.
Some of you may have seen my comments about looking into new cameras and gear in another post, A couple of days by the River Deben in Suffolk, and my apologies to Dave for the unintended hijack so I've set up a new thread to keep folks updated.
To continue from my comments, as many of you will be aware, I've been grounded by my falling apart body, but i've nothing but praise for the nurses, consultants, doctors and anyone else involved it working hard to resolve the situation.
We've all heard the old saying, the devil makes work for idle hands, well, include computer and mouse into that, and I've been researching into mirrorless cameras, which is the future, whether we like it or not.
Me, I'm intrigued and like the concept, but not the costs.....
Why the Canon R5?
Well, first and foremost, my son said go for it!
Some of you may be aware his partner walked out on him eighteen months ago, which almost rendered him homeless. While we would happily have taken him back, after a chat with my wife, his mother, I gave him a large chunk of my savings and agreed to be guarantor for his mortgage. I never gave any repayment terms, but he did ask how much, and has transferred some of the money back to me, enough to cover the R5.
I've been using Canon cameras for many decades, and I feel they are on a par with Nikon and the other big brand names, the only problem is, if you change to another brand, then you need to change all your lenses and other associated kit as well.
My research started with the cost of upgrading and also, many camera manufacturers also offer conversion kits, or adapters, so you can use your existing lenses on the new breed of cameras.
Also, my research shown that could I use my existing lenses, the cable and wireless remotes would work, so will the Speedlite flashgun. The only extra items required are the lens mount adaptor, and the memory cards, which are still the existing SD Card, or, the faster and more capable CF Express card, whereas the 5D4 will use a Compact Flash card.
Also, the battery pack for the R5 is the same is the 5D4, which I understand is the same as the 5D3.
This appealed.
However, the cost was still going to be steep.
My local postie, who we had for 20+ years, a very friendly chap, I never realised he did wedding photography, and offered to show me his cameras, which are Nikon, and how he managed to make the change to mirrorless.
We both agreed, Nikon, Canon or any of the other big names, you can't really go wrong.
After a very interesting three hours and numerous cuppas, and some time handling his cameras in the garden, and to play safe, I sat down to use them rather than stand and risk falling or dropping them, I was nicely impressed with what I saw.
There are some trade offs and caveats with electronic view vs live view, but I'm not one to be negative. Obstacles are there to be beaten, not beat you.
The one big downside, if it is a downside, is video. The final quality is good, however, when panning a moving subject, there is a noticeable lag. But then I don't do much video, and to be honest, my current 5D4 has some lag, because that in video mode uses the large TTF screen and not the optical viewer, which is live view.
I said obstacles are to be beaten, not beat you.
The video quality is superb, and a bigger plus, the electronic viewfinder shows the same as the large TTF screen, but the big bonus with the EVF, is you block out all the viewing intrusions that using a TTF screen came impose.
There will be more to this no doubt, as I start a new journey mirrorless, and I will be happy to share.
However, it is costly, and to make things more costly than desired, my nearest emporium haven't stock of the R5, so I've had to order from elsewhere, and not being able to go far, that means no trade in of my 5D4, which if I'm honest, I am reluctant to part with.
The new camera is on order, and should be with me in the next couple of days, all I need is for my leg to sort itself out.
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler
Billysdad said:I have been following this post with interest, both the mirrorless aspects and the recent posts about switching from full frame to crop sensor mode in camera. As I understand it, please correct me if I am wrong, but a 20MP crop sensor camera produces a cropped image of 20MP, whereas a 20MP full frame camera would produce a cropped image of around 9MP. If this image was then zoomed in and croppd in post, would the image not become too small to be printable at a reasonable size say A4. Just interested as I always wondered if full frame cropped would be better than cropped sensor with reaonably similar MP.
I have been following this post with interest, both the mirrorless aspects and the recent posts about switching from full frame to crop sensor mode in camera. As I understand it, please correct me if I am wrong, but a 20MP crop sensor camera produces a cropped image of 20MP, whereas a 20MP full frame camera would produce a cropped image of around 9MP. If this image was then zoomed in and croppd in post, would the image not become too small to be printable at a reasonable size say A4. Just interested as I always wondered if full frame cropped would be better than cropped sensor with reaonably similar MP.
I'm in full agreement with WJ.
To me, the real benefit with the cropped setting is the enable lenses designed for use with a cropped sensor camera.
Otherwise, its like buying a small sports car, then getting all the kit to make a faster sports car when you could buy a fully setup sports car for similar money.
After playing around with manual focusing while looking in rock pools, I have to say I was a little disappointed in the MF guides to start with.
But, before we go any further and slate MF, in my opinion, the MF guides are doing there job to the best of its ability and focusing on the water surface, not under the water.
So what am I saying?
The MF guides do the job they're designed to under normal circumstances. Photographing life under water in rock pools is not normal circumstances, so the better option might be to turn the focusing guides off totally, and use your eyes.
My initial findings are, switch on MF, switch off all guides, and use your eyes, unless, someone is aware of another setting to overcome this.
Michael B said:
Billysdad said: I have been following this post with interest, both the mirrorless aspects and the recent posts about switching from full frame to crop sensor mode in camera. As I understand it, please correct me if I am wrong, but a 20MP crop sensor camera produces a cropped image of 20MP, whereas a 20MP full frame camera would produce a cropped image of around 9MP. If this image was then zoomed in and croppd in post, would the image not become too small to be printable at a reasonable size say A4. Just interested as I always wondered if full frame cropped would be better than cropped sensor with reaonably similar MP.
As WJ says buying a full frame and using it as crop mode all the time doesn't make sense and certainly isn't value for money. You should be using the full frame to expand your horizons. That said when you are dealing with wildlife that is off in then distance then using crop mode makes perfect sense in those situations where you know that you are going to have to crop in processing as it
a: gives you a better view through the viewfinder of what you are shooting, what's in focus etc
b. gives you a much better idea of your composition.
Full Frame versus Crop Mode. I hope this image helps. I had just finished downloading some pictures when I read the latest input on FF v crop mode so I sat and took 2 pictures. The first in Full frame and the second in Crop mode of 1:6. I imported both into Lightroom and exported them as jpegs without any size reductio. I exported the FF in colour and the crop mode in B&W. I then went into Photoshop, opened both pictures and pasted the Crop Mode onto the FF.As you can see the Crop mode is ever so slightly larger scale than the `FF" that it is covering and I haven't spent ages trying to line it up pixel perfect and there may have been a small bit of camera movement between shots that might explain that anomaly.
However I think that you can now see that if you were to crop the tv screen out of either picture, it would be roughly the same size.
So that suggests that there may be little difference between image quality whichever mode that you use from your 1 mirrorless camera, though it does mean that you can use EF (crop sensor) lenses.
I guess its different when it comes to different cameras.
The R5 FF image is 8192 x 5464 pixels in FF and 5088x3392 in Crop Mode
The R7 image is 6960 x 4640
This image shows the relative differences. with the larger image being that of the R7 and the smaller image being that of the R5 Crop Mode. So the suggestion here is that the R7 will produce a higher resolution image of the same scene than the cropped version of the R5. This doesn't take into account the image quality, how the different size sensors work etc .
PimperneBloke said:I did an experiment a week or so back, and had a wander around Arne, in crop mode, with the usual lens. I'm not sure what happened, but about 85% of the images were rubbish, and looking deeper, everything was shot at 1/1600, despite being in aperture priority. My only thought is I had a set up setting wrong, but I don't remember going into those settings. The other thought, is I just had a REALLY bad day!!
I find it a little worrying that everything was taken at 1/1600 if you were in Aperture Priority. Usually Aperture priority is used so that you rarely change the aperture because you're usually after the depth of field associated with the aperture that you choose - so it seems illogical that all your pictures came out at 1/1600 (which in itself is a pretty high shutter speed for a dull day). I can only think that you had it se inShutter Priority by accident that there is a setting which dictates a mime shutter speed when in Aperture Priority and that that was set to 1/1600.
Personally I would try another session in Aperture Priority to make sure that doesn't happen again in case it is a fault with the camera.
Bobs_Retired said:I find it a little worrying
Me too I'm off again Wednesday, so will have a venture out then, weather permitting
Moving to mirrorless......... At last my Canon EOS R7 has finally arrived after a six month wait.:-)
My apologies to all for the bad weather. Looking forward to using it.
Ed
Looking forward to your opinion of it and seeing your images. I use a Canon 90D, which I am generally very happy with. But like other photographers I am always looking to spend more money ... . Hope you enjoy your new toy ...