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
Well done Angus. Did you dig deep in your sporran ... . Well, as happens, I bought one on Friday! Unfortunately my bargain wasn't a good as yours. I paid £1,349 at my local camera shop. I like to support them as I am forever looking in the window and looking around the shop, leaving with nothing. Saying that I have bought my last 5 cameras there. I am not shooting yet, as I didn't get a converter with mine. I won one of those control ring adapters on fleabay yesterday, so I am hoping to receive it next week. Please let me know if you come across anything worth knowing - good or bad, and I will do the same. I have moved from a Canon 90D, which is a great camera, apart from focusing can be not as sharp as you would like, and detail can be a bit soft sometimes. It seemed to need good light.
Wotcha, Billysdad,
Like you, I would like to support local shops, but the nearest camera shop to me is either in Reading or Bracknell, and probably a Jessops. They are charging £1499 for an R7.
Incidentally, I had been hoping that camera price would drop, especially as fuel and commodity prices have fallen, plus the R7 is getting 'old'. However, Park cameras increased the R7's price by £100 last week. Eeek, I went, and checked HDEW.
Funnily enough, HDEW cameras have their premises in Wallington, Surrey, so at a pinch, with eyes screwed up, they are sort of local to Wokingham. I could have driven there, but would have burned up petrol. As it was I ordered on Thursday morning, and it arrived at 12:30 on Friday, without P&P.
I'm actually a Yorkshire man by birth, so required a heavy duty crowbar to open my sporran, and that's after removing 10 pad locks and bear traps. Almost choked on the amount of dust that collected since the last time it was opened. I'm having therapy for splashing out that amount of money.
I've barely scratched the surface of the camera, but one thing I haven't yet figured is AF Area.
Normally, I set single point centre AF to home in on a subject e.g. this is basically what I see when I photographed the Kestrel. It's a screen shot from DPP 4, the only difference is the red square has fatter sides when viewed through my old Canon 80D - the predecessor of your 90D. NB I've edited this photo to increase width of line to that in camera.
The closest I've managed with the R7 is this, though the R7 has a black focus square... NB I've edited this photo to make square clearer.
I doubt I would have photographed the Kestrel with such a large AF area.
Now, if I quickly switch to AI tracking (animal) the R7 does a fantastic job of tracking an animal's eye (or what it thinks is an eye) and you get this... NB I've edited this photo to make the square a little clearer.
The focus point is on the fox's eye, but a large amount of the fox behind the fox is in focus.
If the R7 can't find an eye to track, it reverts back to my chosen center point AF area. Still a bit large for my liking. However, I have noticed that the R7 will still hunt around trying to find something to lock onto. The AF point swaps between my chosen center area square and the AI tracking square. All I had to do was to be reading to push shutter release.
Edited to include this photo.
This is an example of the R7 hunting for a subject. The Blue tit was moving through some Raspberry canes, a challenge to track. The R7 would switch (pulse) between standard Auto Focus and AI tracking focus. The focus square kept changing shape and moving from center to target. All I had to do was push the shutter at the right moment. And voila, the tit is almost completely in focus, thanks to AI tracking. I don't think I could have taken this shot with my 80D - which would have focused on the leaf in front of the tit.
Oh, I'm still on mechanical shutter, I think. I hear the familiar click of the mirror - though ever so much quieter.
Although, the R7 has the same sensor as the 90D, it appears to be much upgraded. Photos are miles better and sharper than with my 80D.
I've set AF Servo on.
Servo AF to Case 3, Instantly focus on subjects suddenly entering AF points.
The above two suit my style of shooting. Though I need to explore the other cases. There are just so many variations, and the manual is so big it would be able to prop open the movable road sections on Tower bridge, it'll take some reading to get through.
I've turned down the brightness of the viewer finder to 3.
I set a couple of other parameters, metering for one I think, but can't remember them.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
I took my Canon R7 out for a test drive, yesterday, to Moor Green Lakes nature reserve and Manor farm restoration part of the nascent Longwater Road nature reserve. Light conditions were not good. Overcast, with low heavy cloud. So low that aircraft, flying over our house on their penultimate turn before heading to the M4 to turn for their final approach to Heathrow, could not be seen. Normally, I wouldn't go to the reserve as I know photos wouldn't turn out well.
But I had my new toy. I had to go.
First thing I discovered: my photographing in the wild (as it were) is completely different to testing out camera at home (aka laboratory). Photographing in the wild is more instinctive and quick reacting. I don't really have time to think, I just point and shoot, relying on years of practice.
Second thing I discovered - ain't no going back from mirrorless. I'd sell the house, SWMBO and children before I give up my Canon R7
After less than an hour of photographing stationary, fast moving BIF and far off subjects, my shooting style changed.
Firstly, I started using full screen AF area coupled with AI tracking for certain BIF attempts. I would never have done this with my Canon 80D, as it would focus on the background. Other times I would use the larger center AF Area, with AI tracking for BIF. The trick is to get AI tracking acquire the target (subject) and let it take over AF, leaving me to concentrate on tracking the bird and getting it in center of photo.
AI tracking is very, very good, quick and...makes BIF sooooooo much easier.
Secondly, for small distance objects, I would use center single point AF Area to acquire the subject and wait for AI tracking to lock on to the subject and keep it in focus. Then I simply frame the subject in center of photo and keep clicking.
Now for some thoughts on the R7.
It appears to have brilliant low light capability. The photos I took yesterday were far brighter than I could get with my Canon 80D.
I don't like the small on/off/video switch. I preferred the old chunky switch.
Switching AF Area is a pain as I have to go through the menu system. The Canon 80D had dedicated switches where my right thumb is.
It seems slower at focusing. This is where I point it at a patch of, say, sky and let it find an object (bird) and focus on it. I feel my 80D was much faster. Caveat, I haven't explored all the settings on the R7 therefore there may be one or two I've missed that will speed up focusing. However, once the R7 does get focus on something, it is very fast - perhaps too fast. There is a setting to change this. I tried it a couple of times, but it didn't seem to do much. However, this was in the testing phase, and I don't seem to need it in the field.
OK, now for some photos.
First an Egyptian goose. This is one photo in a long sequence. I picked this bird up when it was far to the right of this photo and let AI tracking handle focus as the bird first flew right to left, then wheeled and flew left to right. Virtually all photos have the bird in focus. The reason for these two photos is to show something curious.
DPP 4 shows what it thinks the R7 is focused on i.e. the island at back.
Cropping out the bird reveals it is almost perfectly in focus!
This Shelduck was some 150 yards away from me. I used center point AF Area to gain focus on it, then let AI tracking it. All I had to do was keep pressing the shutter. The bird was kept in focus regardless of my camera moving around. The 80D would lose focus as the AF square moved off it.
Here's the moon at about 9.00pm last night. The sky was still light. I put center point AF Area square on to the moon, and let AI tracking take over. Oh, the background is black because the camera is locked onto the centre of the moon, which is very bright. Metering takes over and compensates, one side affect is a light background can turn black. It's a neat trick I learnt by accident years ago.
Here's a nice test of auto focus. Venus. I switch AF Area to full screen, pointed camera in general direction of Venus, let it acquire focus and then wait for AI tracking to lock on to Venus. I then move camera around until Venus is in center of frame. AI tracking keeps it is focus. Too easy!
Low light performance is awesome, hardly surprising. The sensor in the R7 is an upgraded version of the one in the 90D; the successor to the 80D. The camera is hand held, pointing upward, with Sigma lens at full 600mm. This results in a fair amount of wobble, no matter how strong one is. But the R7 took a virtually perfect image. And not just one, I have a dozen more looking like this. My 80D would leave arcs and lines.
I've just noticed that Venus is not perfectly round. It's almost as if it has a shadow like that cast on our moon.
Now that the sky had cleared, we could see the dratted aircraft as they turned over our house. I was astonished by the level of detail that popped out and how much of the aircraft was in focus.
Now for a bit of silliness. As I was photographing the moon and Virgin Atlantic aircraft, I noticed this flying around and thought I'd have a go at photographing it.
The camera is set for auto focus. I pointed it at an area of sky and pushed the shutter release whenever the bat flew into sight. Not the most scientific way of doing this. I think the proper way is to manually focus the camera and wait until the bat flies into view. Though I am on very shaky ground here. I'm a lazy photographer.
Anyway, the R7 did well, I thought. Very, very low light by this point (I think it was dark 20 minutes on), and a fast moving tiny object, plus someone who doesn't really know how to take serious photos.
Overall thoughts. Very impressed with Canon R7, even though I have barely scratched the surface of what it can do e.g. I've read about 10 pages of the 945 page manual. On the other hand, the senor is at least two generations ahead of my Canon 80D, and has incorporated many developments. A lot of those developments have probably come from mobile phone cameras. A phenomenal amount of technology has been developed for them, to the point they are as good if not better than some aspects of DSLR.
Oh, file sizes are getting enormous. My computer disk fills up so quickly, these days. I have to keep archiving to an external drive.
Interesting stuff Angus. I agree aout the small on/off switch, and the AF points being not as easy to set as with previous models, but as you say we might find a shortcut. My adapter arrived today, so hopefully I will be able to contibute some info soon. Though it looks as if you are already flying along with your focus tracking ...
Wotcha, Billlysdad, some settings for you.
One problem I've been experiencing is what I call hunting, but others might call 'pulsing'. Though the only context I've seen pulsing applied to is in reference to AI tracking. I experience this with Spot AF Area.
I place the tiny square on a small, distant subject, and the lens motor whirrs away adjusting focus. In the view finder I can see the image going in and out of focus. This is simply due to shake when I am hand holding.
This video provided all sorts of info and settings to overcome pulsing. However, I think the settings also solved my hunting problems.
D
Duade does ramble on a bit, but conveys a lot of information.
As he suggested, and what people should do as a matter of course, is to update to the latest version of firmware. My R7 is now at 1.3.0
I don't have a dock for my Sigma lens, so it is at whatever version of firmware it had when I bought it. Probably quite old, as I've had the lens for some time.
Now the settings for R7. All in AF menu.
Switching tracked subjects = 0
Servo Case 2 (I might switch back to Case 3) within Case 2 (or whatever)
Tracking Sensitivity = +2
Accel/deccel tracking = -2
Lens drive when AF impossible = on
Duade says that he found Accel/ceccel tracking to have the greatest effect. I think this is the setting I needed to stop this hunting. It certainly worked when I tried it out last night.
I'm going to set Case 1 and Case 3 to have the Accel/deccel tracking to -2 as I sometimes switch to them.
The video was also useful in showing how to customise buttons. I'll have a go later. I want to take baby steps to customise the R7.
Thanks Angus. I haven't tried any tracking yet ... as you say, baby steps. Initial thoughts are that it is less noisy than the 90D and sharper images straight out of the camera with cleaner colours. I tried with that small single point focus spot that we both like, and I think it might be bigger on the R7. I am just looking at the basics just yet and slowly going through the online manual - I am upto page 90, so I know how to switch on now! I found an interesting article here, particularly the bit about the archery ... how cool is that! I haven't come across a quick way to access focus points yet, but I will keep looking. I am just trying to learn enough to take some groups of people at the local Coronation party, so that shouldn't be too difficult ... well we'll see! Good luck ...
PS - I have updated to 1.3.0
Billysdad said:I haven't come across a quick way to access focus points yet, but I will keep looking
You change focus points in a similar way to the 80/90D (it's the same way you do it on the 7/5D etc). Press the button near your thumb with a square symbol (next to the blue magnifying glass), then the M-fn button to click between the various options (you can see them in the viewfinder)
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Find me on Flickr / All about your camera - The Getting off Auto Index
Thanks for the tip, Whistling Joe, makes changing AF Area quicker. Though still not quite as fast on my 80D.
On my 80D when I press the square button (I'm showing the R7, but you get the drift)
I get taken here.
I then tap on the AF area I want, press the square button and I'm away. Though I think I could also press shutter release.
However, on my R7, if I press the square button, I am taken here. Eeek, I went, this wasn't supposed to happen.
As per your advice, I could press the M-Fn button on front of camera. Such coordination is currently all fingers and thumbs for me, but dead useful to know. Instead, I would press the M-Fn AF icon on the LCD, which takes me to the AF area screen. I press on the AF area I want and then press shutter release.
Certainly a lot quicker than going via the menu. Though still an extra action. However, I am used to pressing the button with the square on it to get to the AF Area screen, so that tip is dead useful now that I know all I need do is press the M-Fn AF icon.