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
Hope it goes well. Interestingly I was talking to someone at Camera Club last night who is complaining of similar issue with his R5 - difficult to get sharp pictures regardless of whether he uses his RF 100-50 or his EF lenses. I suggested returning it to Canon and your message makes it sound like an even better idea.
Hi Bob, did you hire the lens? If so, where did you get it from? I would like to get hold of one as the pictures I have seen from other groups I am a member of have been stunning and pin sharp. I am running the R7. Ed
Ed D said:Hi Bob, did you hire the lens? If so, where did you get it from? I would like to get hold of one as the pictures I have seen from other groups I am a member of have been stunning and pin sharp. I am running the R7. Ed
Hire from Wex. You get from Friday morning until Monday morning for the price of one days rental (effectively a free weekend). They will arrange delivery and collection or you can arrange to collect from one of the Wax stores - there aren't many but we have one in Newcastle and there is obviously the big one in Norwich - I once hired a lens from them and collected it at Norwich and then visited Minsmere. Obviously there is a deposit to paying that can be at different levels - I'm not sure whether they check credit ratings or something else but I've actually bought and rented from them quite a few times so I was on a low deposit.
I have a friend who loves his 100-500 and I'm sure its an excellent lens, but my friend has never had one of these fast primes to compare it with. I'm sure its a step ahead of anything else that's out there in that range and that it is good value for money if you're coming from another zoom.
Billysdad said:I have waited a while to get more used to the Canon R7 after moving from the Canon 90D about a month ago, before I give my views on the R7. My first few shots were average to good, but I mainly wanted to get used to the feel and basic settings before the local Coronation street parties where I took groups from two streets near me. The weather was great, I set the camea for 'Groups' and the photos came out well. I did no PP apart from a bit of cropping, then I had them printed and gave them as gifts to the people concerned. The were all highly delighted. My next outings were down my local woods where I go most days. I was using the spot focus point, and on several occasions the camera confirmed focus, but the subject was not in focus - probably not a lot of contrast with a dark bird in trees, I found that by switching to manual focus I could get it better. My next observation was that a lot of the photos were not 'pin sharp', they appeared slightly off focus and rather flat, lacking in fine detail. My next outing was to an agriculural show, again on a bright sunny day. At the show I took some birds of prey on perches, again the photos looked rather flat. I also took some photos of Kestrels in flight using the animal tracking and full screen focus area - the tracking indeed followed the subject across the sky. I reviewed them when I got home firstly in Windows Photo Viewer, and then in DPP4 to check the focus points. I had a burst of say 10, and nealy all missed focus. Some by a smidge and some by a lot. I'm sure I could tweak the settings to make some improvement, but decided that the best course of action was to send it back to Canon. Fortunately I bought it from my local camera shop who are very good and they agreed that in their opinion it should peform better. It was not as good as my 90D. Saying that, when I got my 90D, it was also a bit iffy, and the shop set it back under warranty, to which Canon reported, 'CMOS sensor/ colour/ white balance all calibrated to Canon standard'. It was back within a week or so, there was no charge and the camera was totally different - much better. So now I am awaiting the outcome of Canon's inspection. I also sent with it my 70 - 300L lens that I normally use, to see if there is anything wrong there. I will post again in this section when I get it back.
Very interesting, and I note Bobs_retired reply on the R5 and the camera club members experiences.
I've started to think I should have stayed with the old 5D MkIV. I feel the R5 was a step too far too soon and perhaps something I should have deferred, not avoided, just deferred while I spend more time playing photographer rather than photographer and gadget man.
But I like progress and I like photography, which is what drove me to the upgrade plus lens EF availability.
Sharpness with the R5 has been an interesting experience for me, and something I’ve been playing around with, particularly with small, and moving subjects. The results have been very mixed, and I’ve concluded for now, though I will persevere, a lot is down to me.
I had thought that the AF was working too fast, and desperate to find a subject to lock on to, and still feel that is a contributary factor, but highly likely, not the only factor.
I will not rule out me, the apprentice, as a big factor.
I have tried by slowing the focus down, with mixed results, and reading what you’ve put along with the camera club findings, has started to make me wonder if
I really am very interested in the what the outcome is.
regards
John
Cheshire Lad said:
OK, I've been playing a lot with the R5 settings, and getting, well, interesting results.
While at a nearby Wildlife Trust reserve, I did meet up with another chap, who also has an R5, and it was good to share experiences, and, they are experiences to build on, not hide away from.
Even better, his understanding of electronics and mirrorless is on a similar level to mine, so we're not quite two steps forward one step back, yet, but we are at the one step forward on step backward stage. So that has to be a bonus for now
Interestingly, we both have the same issue, when taking photos on bright sunny days, the image is dark. I ditched all mine, thinking they were beyond editing, but I've since found out, using the Canon camera download software, this can easily be manipulated, or even using a reputable third party editing program, likewise it can be edited.
Further to the above earlier posting of mine, and I want to say thank you to all who have shared information, tips and hints etc, they have all been very vsalusable.
I've not really spent much time playing with the ISO until last week, and I could not find 100, it seemed to be all double the previous vallue, 200, 400, 800,1600 etc!
Searching through the ISO setting menus, I stumbled across something I've not encountered before, ISO D+!
Obvious;ly, I must have activated it without reallising, but deactivating it seems to have removed the original concern darkened images.
A bit of digging around and the following information
What is ISO D+ on Canon?You see, when you set your camera to enable Highlight Tone Priority you'll notice something peculiar: Your top-of-camera LCD displays a D+ next to the ISO (referring to increased dynamic range, particularly in the highlights) and a new minimum ISO of 200.
D+ can be found on the R5 on the following menu (P162 of the R5 manual)
Camera (Red) 2 and Highlight tone priority
You have three options
Mine was set to Enhanced, obviously I must have accidentally set it. Once I'd set it to off, things retirned to normal, and so far, all is as it should be.
Thanks for the further input Ed. I did a firmware update on mine the day I got it, as recommended in the initial set up guide. I didn't reset any of the settings though. Mine was picked up at the camera shop last Friday, and I understand that is the day collections and returns are done, so maybe I will be hearing something soon. If it needs re-setting I am sure they will do that. As I said I was advised by the shop to also send my 70-300L which I mostly use, so they can test them together. Hopefully between us we will get to the bottom of it.
Ed D said:I did a firmware upgrade to my R7, now on V.1.3.0. I noticed that a lot more photos I took after the update were softer. I found a video on YouTube from someone with the same problem. The fix for that was to reset all the settings you have back to factory default and start again. I did this and then changed some of my camera settings back to where I had them before. This seemed to correct the problem of softness in the images. I have a lot more sharper results but I think, apart from user error in my case, my canon EF 100-400 Mk1 lens is not as sharp as the Mk2 or the newer RF100-500. Ed
I have to be honest but I think that if you are using a Mk1 100-400 lens on the R7 then the lens may be the cause of a lot of the issues that you have, given its age- the mike was introduced in 2014. Although the glass is L series and should still be good, the electronics are maybe showing their age.