Canon R5 Anticipation for R5 Mark II?

[jcass]

Having been on an upgrade cycle of 7 to 8 years, I confess that I am likely to purchase an R5 Mark II on introduction after having my R5 for a year and half. That'll be two firsts for me: upgrading after only 1 1/2 years, and buying a camera at intro. Of course, this is depending on an actual release and the final specifications of the camera.

I love my R5 and plan to keep it as a second body. There are a couple of features though that just keep tugging me down the road to upgrade:

1. Pre-buffer shooting. I always miss birds launching by a hair and would like to take photos of lightning. In sports, I have a good sense for the moment of the action, this can only help.
2. Auto-focus improvements, especially QPAF and low light AF. The R5 is fantastic, but it does hunt in low light and improvements in the R6 II and R8 AF have been lauded. I admit, this is a weakness of mine and I can use all the help that I can get.
3. Increased resolution/size of viewfinder and display. My eyes just ain't what they used to be. My unicorn is the articulating viewfinder.
4. Multi-function hot shoe. My old flashes suffice, but the incompatibility moving forward is frustrating.
5. Stacked sensor... dynamic range... improved low light image quality. No complaints in my R5, but can you imagine it being better!

I'd like to know what other folks think about the Mark II... should the February announcement actually occur. I think it will. What features do or don't matter to you?

 

[jcass]

Funny but that image reminds me of the Brady Bunch episode where Greg's football injury sidelines him, so he takes pictures of the game and captures a play that was called incorrectly, so they make him team photographer and we never see a camera again. I say that because isn't this technically offsides? Oh, wait, I have the teams backwards - just saw "Army" on the goalie's jersey. LOL

To your tracking point, are you set on Auto? I'm thinking your panning issue may require you to make the focus a little more sticky by ticking down the settings one or two clicks. Jan Waggener suggested this for birds and I found it helps, so maybe it'll work for your situation as well?

Brady Bunch? I gotta good chuckle outta that, though I'm far too young to understand the reference. Offsides does not apply on corner kicks.

I was shooting with Jan's recommendation of Manual, -2, -1 for birding on C1. For the soccer game, I set up C2 with Auto, -1, 0 because I was using the Action Priority enabled and set to soccer. My keeper rate from soccer was very high. I need a lot more time on the camera before I can make clearer judgements about the AI focus stuff. For example, I am very experienced playing and photographing soccer. So, I instinctively rely on predicting the action and focusing on where I think the play will be in a few seconds. It is ingrained habit and was essential for my DSLR's. It still works great with the R5ii, but I need more experience with the R5ii to learn when to trust the autofocus system. For birds, I don't have nearly the level of experience. I'm still playing the learning curve for birding, but in different ways.

One instance where the R5ii's autofocus impressed... I got behind the goal for a penalty kick and shot through the net. I used precapture. The R5ii's focus stayed on shooters eye despite the obstruction of the net and the back of the keeper. Alas, I guessed right and the shooter went left, so I missed the image of the ball passing the keepers outstretched hands and going into the back of the net. Better luck next time, maybe.

 

[jcass]

On a "camping" trip this weekend, I took a couple of campfire photos to see how well the R5ii would focus in low light. The R5ii performed great. Imo, improved over the R5 which tended to hunt in light this low, despite the high ISO. Take that with a grain of salt because it was not a direct cam vs. cam comparison using the same lens under the same conditions. Anyway, I was very pleased.

The photos were taken hand-held with the 28-70 2.0L (a wonderful lens). They were edited in LightroomCC with lighting adjustments and noise reduction. I also applied some linear gradients to cut down the glow of the campfire.