Canon R5 II Kneejerk First Impressions on the R5II

[Jake Shoots Birds]

I took the day off and headed to Allen's Camera to pick up my R5II and a couple batteries. It was a beautiful day so I was looking forward to a chance to test it out. Two things got in the way of that.

First, man, the menus have changed. I went side-by-side with my R5 as I walked through the settings and it took a while to get things set. Additionally, my internet was down, so I didn't have access to the user manual, which like most is now online/downloadable only, so there were a bunch of new focus point options and metering options that I wasn't 100% on. At least I had some time to kill as the batteries charged.

The other issue is that this beautiful day was windy as heck, so the flying things I love to shoot weren't behaving in a way that was conducive to shooting.

That said, there's this butterfly bush outside my garage, and there was activity there, so I headed over with the 100-500mm attached. There were 3 or 4 Skippers on it, these tiny butterflies less than an inch across. I've shot them before with the R5 but I needed to use single point focus to grab them because animal eye detection had no shot against the busy flower groups the plant has. And on a windy day? Forget about it!! So when the R5II not only immediately locked on the first Skipper I aimed it at, but stayed locked as the plant blew back and forth across the viewfinder I was dumbfounded. As Ben Kenobi might say, this is the focus system you've been looking for!!

I posted about this elsewhere, but I shot Raw and JPEG because I wasn't sure if yesterday's Adobe updates would include updates to profiles. So I was happy to find that outside of some lens corrections (which I had turned off for JPEGs in camera) the colors are pretty darn close (I'm sure someone will do additional, more scientific testing). DxO Pure Raw still needs an update, but I can invoke my old pal DeNoise AI so I've got that covered when I need it.

Gonna be a busy week, so I'm not going to have a lot of time before the weekend to shoot (but who knows?!), but I wanted to at least answer the question that was asked about whether R5 shooters felt the upgrade is worth it? It's not an insignificant cost outlay, but it's also not an insignificant upgrade. I can't give the full argument to support my claim, but I would say that if you've ever been frustrated with the R5 not focusing on the regular, then you need to consider upgrading. I've not truly tested it at this point, just aimed and shot, but for sure I'm shooting a lot more quickly after aiming with the Mk II.

I'll post more over time, and now that I have 3 fully charged batteries I'll be able to test everything. And for the curious, I did stick a 3rd party battery in and the camera powered up, giving the same message it does with an old Canon battery saying that certain functions are unavailable, but once that message is dismissed I got a battery error message. I expect that there will be 3rd party batteries coming for the R5II, but wanted to let you know what I saw.

And for the curious, this is a Skipper. Not a great shot, but it was the first shot, taken about a second after I aimed at one for the first time.

• Canon EOS R5m2
• 500.0 mm
• ƒ/7.1
• 1/800 sec
• ISO 400

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

LOL I guess you can't properly hyphenate "knee-****" in a title without the forum software censoring the second half. Let's see if it happens here?!

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

LOL I guess you can't properly hyphenate "knee-****" in a title without the forum software censoring the second half. Let's see if it happens here?!

 

[BradS]

Thanks for the first impressions. Sounds good.
Did you find you could process the RAW files in Adobe Lightroom/ACR?

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

Thanks for the first impressions. Sounds good.
Did you find you could process the RAW files in Adobe Lightroom/ACR?

ACR had support for the Mk II in the last version, but stated that it was preliminary. These all loaded into Lightroom with no issue, and the colors on the RAW images were pretty darn close to the JPEGs I also shot, so I have to believe the profiles were updated in yesterday's release.

 

[MikeZ]

Thanks for the early feedback/review, and I look forward to any future updates.

 

[RedCobra]

Found the AF quite good, but it would occasionally jump around when in a busy bush with birds flitting around.
So, as per recommendations from Jan Wegener, I set the Case to M and the Sensitivity to -2 and the Acel/Decel to -1.
Fixed that issue. YMMV.

 

[jcass]

Found the AF quite good, but it would occasionally jump around when in a busy bush with birds flitting around.
So, as per recommendations from Jan Wegener, I set the Case to M and the Sensitivity to -2 and the Acel/Decel to -1.
Fixed that issue. YMMV.

I found the same and did the same, also thanks to Jan. If I held the BB focus on a target, it would switch to the honeycomb after about 2 or 3 seconds. Changing to M, -2, and -1 seemed to settle this down, but I didn't have any good opportunities to track birds this evening.

 

[RedCobra]

Just a quicky, but 500mm f/7.1 10kISO, 1/1600
Eye AF, bird subject, Servo

Note the bird is sharp and the wood is OOF. It nailed the bird and didn't hunt.

• Canon EOS R5m2
• RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
• 500.0 mm
• ƒ/8
• 1/1600 sec
• ISO 10000

 

[Dave Williams]

How are you finding the wake up speed of the new body? Any faster than the Mk1?

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

How are you finding the wake up speed of the new body? Any faster than the Mk1?

I haven't paid particular attention to it, so I can't tell you if it's any better. I spent most of the weekend waiting for Bluebird babies to leave their nest box, so there was a lot of sleeping, and I did find myself occasionally frustrated while I waited for the viewfinder to wake up, so I think I'm safe in saying that if it's better then it's not substantially better. But I will try and test them side by side this afternoon and let you know.

 

[Dave Williams]

I haven't paid particular attention to it, so I can't tell you if it's any better. I spent most of the weekend waiting for Bluebird babies to leave their nest box, so there was a lot of sleeping, and I did find myself occasionally frustrated while I waited for the viewfinder to wake up, so I think I'm safe in saying that if it's better then it's not substantially better. But I will try and test them side by side this afternoon and let you know.

Thanks Jake.

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

How are you finding the wake up speed of the new body? Any faster than the Mk1?

Alas, Dave, there seems to be almost no appreciable difference. It might be 10% faster, and anything is a plus, but it's not something I think you'd notice switching between the two.

 

[Dave Williams]

Thanks Jake. A shame but you can't have everything. The reported improvement in AF acquisition and stickiness is enviable but I would have liked an improvement in ISO performance as well especially as I'm now resigned to using lighter weight lenses like the 100-500 and the 200-800 when I have to carry them any distance.

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

Thanks Jake. A shame but you can't have everything. The reported improvement in AF acquisition and stickiness is enviable but I would have liked an improvement in ISO performance as well especially as I'm now resigned to using lighter weight lenses like the 100-500 and the 200-800 when I have to carry them any distance.

I'm reserving any comment on that until I see what DxO and Adobe come up with for NR after having some time with production RAW files, but so far I've had no real issues with the images I've shot, and given that most of them have been ISO 2000 and higher with the same lenses mentioned, I think it's an internet nit to pick at this point more than anything else.

I was texting with the person I know at Canon and mentioned this and they said spoke about the results using the in-camera Neural Network AI noise reduction on RAW files and how amazing it is. I didn't respond only because a) I had never heard of it for NR, and b) NO ONE else has mentioned it. That said, when I come back with over 1000 images in an afternoon's shooting there's not a chance in h-e-double-hockey-sticks (thanks, forum software) that I'm using an in-camera function to clean up images. But I will hunt it down a bit.

 

[ctitanic]

Here is some info about Intelligent Noise Reduction.

Product Details

mcu.canon

Canon’s new camera AI can correct noise through deep learning technology

Canon aims to fix the unavoidable image quality problems most of us face with new AI that can fix noise, blur, and color

www.digitalcameraworld.com

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

Here is some info about Intelligent Noise Reduction.

Product Details

mcu.canon

Canon’s new camera AI can correct noise through deep learning technology

Canon aims to fix the unavoidable image quality problems most of us face with new AI that can fix noise, blur, and color

www.digitalcameraworld.com

And I read it before posting here. It scrapes the surface of the "what", but says nothing about the "when" or "how". Are they applying it to the RAW file when I press the button, or is it an option when pulling it into DPP4? It sounded like it's "in-camera" from the text I got from the Canon person, but while I haven't spent a lot of time looking (I did 3 searches using different terms) I can't seem to get a clear answer, and everything I read seems to point to it simply being their version of Denoise AI and Pure Raw.

 

[ctitanic]

And I read it before posting here. It scrapes the surface of the "what", but says nothing about the "when" or "how". Are they applying it to the RAW file when I press the button, or is it an option when pulling it into DPP4? It sounded like it's "in-camera" from the text I got from the Canon person, but while I haven't spent a lot of time looking (I did 3 searches using different terms) I can't seem to get a clear answer, and everything I read seems to point to it simply being their version of Denoise AI and Pure Raw.

Even if it's in camera most likely will create a jpg, it will not apply directly in the RAW.

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

Even if it's in camera most likely will create a jpg, it will not apply directly in the RAW.

And that's my thinking, but that's not what seems to be implied every time I hear about it. I'm guessing that it's in DPP, but I don't care enough at this point to find out. LOL

 

[RedCobra]

I'm reserving any comment on that until I see what DxO and Adobe come up with for NR after having some time with production RAW files, but so far I've had no real issues with the images I've shot, and given that most of them have been ISO 2000 and higher with the same lenses mentioned, I think it's an internet nit to pick at this point more than anything else.

I was texting with the person I know at Canon and mentioned this and they said spoke about the results using the in-camera Neural Network AI noise reduction on RAW files and how amazing it is. I didn't respond only because a) I had never heard of it for NR, and b) NO ONE else has mentioned it. That said, when I come back with over 1000 images in an afternoon's shooting there's not a chance in h-e-double-hockey-sticks (thanks, forum software) that I'm using an in-camera function to clean up images. But I will hunt it down a bit.

Where do you turn this on. I recently started using Highlight tone priority. I didn't know it worked on RAW files which it does. Helps prevent blown out highlights.
edit. Just learned the upscale and AI NR only does Jpegs and HEIFs and it's not when you take the photo, Lots of button presses and one at a time process, but will be available as a LR plug-in.

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

Where do you turn this on.

That's the question at hand. The one person I know who knows the answer is out of reach for the next 10 days. If I figure it out it'll get posted.

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

OK - I found it!!

All the Neural Network AI features for RAW files are available in the "Neural Network Image Processing Tool" that is a part of the "Expanded Feature Set" of DPP4, and only accessible after you have "selected a plan" (ie. paid for it). For a year in the US that's $50.

Having already paid for Topaz Denoise AI and DxO Pure Raw, I shant be giving this one a shot.

 

[Bryan Conner]

Oh well....Canon doesn't want my money because files from my EOS R are not supported...oh well...I really didn't want to pay 5.31€ to try it for a month.

 

[Kamoshika]

OK - I found it!!

All the Neural Network AI features for RAW files are available in the "Neural Network Image Processing Tool" that is a part of the "Expanded Feature Set" of DPP4, and only accessible after you have "selected a plan" (ie. paid for it). For a year in the US that's $50.

Having already paid for Topaz Denoise AI and DxO Pure Raw, I shant be giving this one a shot.

Me shant either ...although, with the current exchange rate, it's the equivalent of only 38USD a year, here in Japan.

 

[Jake Shoots Birds]

Me shant either ...although, with the current exchange rate, it's the equivalent of only 38USD a year, here in Japan.

I don't think you get to run with exchange rate on this - subscription prices seem to be location specific.