Made the Plunge to Mirrorless

[stlhawk]

Just received my R5 yesterday along with a 14 - 35 f4 L and 24 - 105 f4 L as well as an extra battery. I was shooting with a 5D Mark IV before this. I have spent the past day reviewing You Tube videos and this site learning how to set up my camera to get the most I can out of it. I think I have most of the settings where I want them and hope to get out this weekend and give it a shot. I shoot mostly nature and occasionally animals such as birds.

Have already seen several very useful tips within this site but would love to hear any words of wisdom you might have to speed up my learning curve.

Thank you.

 

[lostnomore]

Hi, welcome to the mirrorless club! I jumped in myself with the R6 last summer. One thing that I was being a bit of a snob about the first few months was refusing to take advantage of seeing exactly how my exposure would turn out in the viewfinder before taking a photo. So I disabled the "Expo. simulation" setting that's on menu tab SHOOT7 on the R6. I wanted to be old-school and still think carefully about setting proper aperture, shutter speed, and ISO just like I had done with every other camera to that point. But I finally decided to enable it and now I'm getting almost all my images properly exposed from the start, requiring less post-processing time - and less data blown out in highlights or lost in shadows. Enabling the histogram overlay has made this even more fool-proof.

If a person wants to be old-school and see the results only after an image is taken, by all means disable this feature. This is a great suggestion for beginners. I'm glad that one has the choice with these cameras! But I got to the point of deciding to take full advantage of this major perk of mirrorless shooting, which required getting over my ego. I'm sure if, stuck in a pinch with a DSLR once again, that I would remember full well how to properly expose an image.

 

[stlhawk]

Hi, welcome to the mirrorless club! I jumped in myself with the R6 last summer. One thing that I was being a bit of a snob about the first few months was refusing to take advantage of seeing exactly how my exposure would turn out in the viewfinder before taking a photo. So I disabled the "Expo. simulation" setting that's on menu tab SHOOT7 on the R6. I wanted to be old-school and still think carefully about setting proper aperture, shutter speed, and ISO just like I had done with every other camera to that point. But I finally decided to enable it and now I'm getting almost all my images properly exposed from the start, requiring less post-processing time - and less data blown out in highlights or lost in shadows. Enabling the histogram overlay has made this even more fool-proof.

If a person wants to be old-school and see the results only after an image is taken, by all means disable this feature. This is a great suggestion for beginners. I'm glad that one has the choice with these cameras! But I got to the point of deciding to take full advantage of this major perk of mirrorless shooting, which required getting over my ego. I'm sure if, stuck in a pinch with a DSLR once again, that I would remember full well how to properly expose an image.

Thank you for the welcome. I am not familiar with the Expo Simulation yet. Will have to look at it. I do use the histograms quite often, but sometimes, things are happening too fast and I forget. Still plan on bringing my 5D IV with me the first few times out along with the R5 just in case. Have a trip to Europe this summer and hope to be well versed in the R5 well before then so I do not have to bring as much equipment.

 

[Chris Summers]

Welcome! I don't own the R5 but own the R and the R7 and I also own among other lenses the RF 24-105mm and love that lens. I like the weight and size and am willing to have an F/4 instead of a faster lens for those reasons. I also like that it has a bit more reach than the typical 24-70 mm models.

 

[stlhawk]

Welcome! I don't own the R5 but own the R and the R7 and I also own among other lenses the RF 24-105mm and love that lens. I like the weight and size and am willing to have an F/4 instead of a faster lens for those reasons. I also like that it has a bit more reach than the typical 24-70 mm models.

Thank you. A lot of people in this forum and others say the f2.8 24 - 70 and f2.8 70 - 200 are the way to go, but I owned those lenses for my 5D Mark IV and rarely used below f4. I shoot almost all outdoors (nature and wildlife) so my combo of 14-35, 24-105, and my new lens arriving tomorrow, 100-500, will cover all the distances I need. If I really need f2.8, I can always use the adapter for my EF lenses.

 

[Barry]

Hi . I am new to mirrorless too. I have an R7 and have had no success to speak of with it. Just saying!

 

[stlhawk]

Hi . I am new to mirrorless too. I have an R7 and have had no success to speak of with it. Just saying!

Not too familiar with the R7, but the R5 is a whole new breed of camera and I assume the R7 is as well. They are basically powerful computers. I have taken the time to learn how to utilize all the various settings based on what I shoot through You Tube videos and am finding my new mirrorless to be far better than my old camera (5D Mark IV). Give it time and I think you will be amazed as well.

 

[Barry]

Have spent a lot of time doing just that and remain unconvinced. There is too much happening in the R7 and too much missing for me to take it seriously. I remain convinced that its a ploy by Canon to make us all re invest in RF stuff having spent thousands of GBP on EF kit over the years. I will persist with the R7 out of curiosity but don't really rate it.

 

[stlhawk]

Have spent a lot of time doing just that and remain unconvinced. There is too much happening in the R7 and too much missing for me to take it seriously. I remain convinced that its a ploy by Canon to make us all re invest in RF stuff having spent thousands of GBP on EF kit over the years. I will persist with the R7 out of curiosity but don't really rate it.

Hope it gets better and that you get the type of pictures you are looking for.

 

[Grahamk]

When I was thinking of moving to mirrorless from my 70D I borrowed an R6 and a couple of lenses from the Canon Test Drive scheme and invested in Nina Bailey's book "Understanding the Canon EOS R6" before they arrived so that I had some idea of what I was about to experience. I found the book extremely useful and far more helpful than the Canon manual for the R6. Nina has written similar books for a number of the R series of cameras. Her website showing the range of her books can be found at https://www.ninabailey.co.uk/index.html.

 

[lostnomore]

Learning the R6 has been a definite stretch for me despite my experience with so many other past cameras and systems, but if you dig in and watch video reviews and read articles and just take lots of shots (and yes, try to interpret the manual), then the effort is SO worth it. I'm still tweaking the My Menu tabs to this day as I discover new gems or come to finally understand features that I didn't before. There's an insane amount of capability with the newest RF cameras!

 

[stlhawk]

When I was thinking of moving to mirrorless from my 70D I borrowed an R6 and a couple of lenses from the Canon Test Drive scheme and invested in Nina Bailey's book "Understanding the Canon EOS R6" before they arrived so that I had some idea of what I was about to experience. I found the book extremely useful and far more helpful than the Canon manual for the R6. Nina has written similar books for a number of the R series of cameras. Her website showing the range of her books can be found at https://www.ninabailey.co.uk/index.html.

Thank you!

 

[rjc1247]

Thank you for the welcome. I am not familiar with the Expo Simulation yet. Will have to look at it. I do use the histograms quite often, but sometimes, things are happening too fast and I forget. Still plan on bringing my 5D IV with me the first few times out along with the R5 just in case. Have a trip to Europe this summer and hope to be well versed in the R5 well before then so I do not have to bring as much equipment.

Would just like to second the advice on the use of exposure simulation! I've got it enabled using the extra ring on the RF lenses, one of the best new features of the R series cameras IMHO.