Canon R5 Mark II – good camera but I’m not buying it!

Yesterday morning, I was enjoying some rare Edinburgh sunshine, running one of my Switch to Manual workshops. At the same time, Canon launched two new cameras. Shortly after, there will have been countless videos either stating these are the best cameras ever to be produced or alternatively stating that Canon has lost its way and these cameras are rubbish.

Now, I’m not privileged enough to access one of the pre-production models, so all I can go off is the video issued by Canon and the specifications that were subsequently posted on the website. To recap, Canon has announced the R1, which they are calling their flagship camera, designed for news and sports photographers. They then launched the R5 Mark II, a replacement for my primary camera, the R5. I think most people who subscribe to this channel aren’t dropping nearly £7000 on a new camera body, so I will concentrate today’s video on the R5 Mark II.

The launch video from Canon is a good indication of which new features they think are the ones they are most proud of. Their three big selling points were a BSI sensor, 8K 60p video and a 45-megapixel stills sensor. They then talked about Dual Pixel intelligent autofocus, 30 Frames per second shutter speed and a full-sized HDMI port. They finished by highlighting the addition of an Accelerator processor, pre-continuous shooting and some additional features available for video shooters. There’s lots of jargon, so let’s break down exactly what we are offered with the new Canon R5 Mark II.

There is a lot of talk about a BSI sensor, but precisely what is this? Our old CMOS sensors were made up of lots of pixels. Each pixel contained three lenses at the top, capturing red, blue and green light. The light then passes through some wires, but small amounts of the light would get deflected away by these wires from landing on the eventual destination, the photo-diodes at the bottom of the pixel. The BSI sensor (or back-side illuminated sensor) flips things around. We still have the lens at the front, but this time, the light is directed straight to the photodiode, and all the wire gubbins are at the bottom of the sensor. Clearly, more light will get to the photodiode, so the sensor will produce brighter, less noisy images, and the camera can read the information collected faster, allowing for faster shutter speeds.

It seems pretty obvious that a BSI sensor would always be better, but in the past, the cost of production of a BSI sensor was restrictive. Over time, camera manufacturers have found ways to reduce the complexity of building these sensors, and now Canon joins Sony in offering BSI sensors. If we look at the differences between the R5 and the R5 Mark II, we can see the benefit the BSI sensor has given. The maximum frames per second has increased from 20 to 30 due to the better read speeds. There is an extra half a stop in the in-body stabilisation, and the autofocus can now focus with a range of minus 6.5 EV to plus 21 EV, as opposed to minus 6 EV to plus 20 EV on the R5. That means we can get focus at an additional one and a half stops.

Let’s stay on the sensor for another of the big things Canon is selling. The Dual Pixel Intelligent Auto Focus. Back in the day, some of the pixels would be used specifically for autofocus, and others would be used for imaging, i.e. capturing light. The dual-pixel part means a single pixel can be used for autofocus and imaging. That should mean we get better autofocus performance, as more of the sensor is being used for focussing. The intelligent part relates to machine learning that is built into the cameras. Canon has trained the processor using millions of images to recognise things like eyes on humans, different animals, vehicles and many other things so that the autofocus system can lock onto various kinds of subjects faster. In the R5, we can tell the camera to look for humans, animals and vehicles. The R5 Mark II takes this a step further. Humans can now detect eyes, faces, heads, the upper half of the body, and the full body. Animal detection can detect cats, dogs, horses and birds with all their different foibles. Vehicles have specific modes for Racing cars, motorbikes, aeroplanes and trains. They have even offered people priority where you can identify up to ten people in the settings, and the camera will prioritise focusing on them. It starts with whoever is listed as number one, and if it can’t see them, it will go to number 2 and so on. It’s clever stuff, but I can’t think where I might practically use this. Perhaps the official photographer of the Royal Family, Presidents or Prime Ministers might find this helpful, but not me when I have different clients every day.

The final addition to autofocus options is also included with R1: Action Priority. Canon has taken three sports, Soccer, basketball, and volleyball, and taught the camera to predict where the action will be and focus on the relevant player. The videos I have seen of this working are amazing! It will be interesting to see if the snappers using the R1 at the Olympics get more sales due to having more usable images to choose from.

All these features need much more processing power, which is why an additional processor is added to the R5 Mark II (and also into the R1). The accelerator chip allows for multiple processing to take place. As well as the auto-focus improvements, the Auto White Balance algorithm has been improved using the additional processing power to set a white balance based on deep learning technology. The number of pixels used for metering has also increased from 384 points on the R5 to 6144 on the R5 Mark II. That should give us much better exposures when using the light meter. The processor may also have led to another feature not talked about by Canon, but it will be an interesting addition if it does what I think it does. The tech specs talk about the addition of a Neural Network Noise Reduction. This suggests Canon has trained the processor to reduce the noise seen in images by using deep-learning training. It looks like the fantastic technology we have seen introduced in the likes of Lightroom and Topaz dropping down into the camera. That should mean less post-production, which is always good for me!

The last new feature for stills photography is pre-continuous shooting. This feature is supposed to help save missing shots just before you press the button. When you enable the feature, the camera will shoot 15 images before the shutter has been pressed. You can’t change how many photos are captured in the pre-processing period, as you can with the Sony Pro cameras. For the type of photography I do, I’m not sure how many times I have missed too many shots just before I pressed the button. It might be different for sports and wildlife photographers, but for portraits and landscapes, all I can see this doing will be filling up my memory cards and causing more images to review before I start editing.

As well as being a great stills camera, the 5D range and R5 cameras have also been renowned for their video capabilities. I don’t profess to be a video expert – I’ve taught myself to be able to record reasonable videos for this channel using my R6. Still, I don’t feel massively qualified to talk about these improvements in a knowledgeable and intelligent way. The key difference I can recognise is that we can now shoot 8K RAW video, and from speaking to pals who shoot video, they will use this additional recording capability to crop into videos later in post-processing and still retain good quality.

Another addition to the R5 Mark II is the ability to use Canon Log 2. This improves the image quality and dynamic range of video. Again, as I am not shooting video in differing conditions, it’s not a functionality I’ll be dipping into too often. Still, I can see this will be a beneficial change for those shooting video at weddings.

There are some things that I would have loved to have seen in the R5 Mark II but haven’t been delivered. The first is a bug-bear I have when using the electronic shutter. You must use an electronic shutter to get to 30 frames per second (or 20 frames on the R5). Because the shutter is silent and there are no mechanical moving parts, it’s impossible to know when you start and stop shooting. It would be great to have some haptic feedback on the shutter button that gives satisfying feedback to know the camera is shooting.

The other thing I would have liked to have seen is GPS put back into the camera. My 1Dx Mark II used to have an option to record a shot’s GPS position. Sure, it reduced the battery a little, but I found this data helpful in making better captions and keywords when importing pictures through Photo Mechanic. Canon R5 and, in the future, R5 Mark II users will need to use the Canon Camera Connect app instead to write the GPS data to the camera. I wouldn’t have an issue with this if it were reliable, but it isn’t. Quite often, I can shoot and see the GPS being recorded; then, suddenly, it will stop. The R5 range is a professional type camera, so it should have the feature built into the R3 and, I assume, into the R1. Come on, Canon, when you bring out the R5 Mark III, please add GPS in-camera.

I think it’s fair to say that the R5 Mark II has some great improvements. If Canon wants to send me one, I would be very happy to use it. There might be a marginal improvement in the pictures I take, primarily because of the BSI sensors’ increased dynamic range. But do the improvements justify shelling out £1 short of £4500? Unfortunately, no.

I shoot corporate portraits, interiors, theatre, and general press shoots for my professional work. I also shoot landscapes and seascapes for pleasure and when teaching.

Thirty frames per second might be nice for shooting ballet performances, but the existing 20 frames per second generally does a good job. The additional dynamic range for autofocus might help, too, but I’m not convinced it’ll generate an additional £4500 in sales.

I don’t shoot enough videos to make the improvements in video worth spending this amount of money, and I don’t shoot enough sports to see the benefit of the absolutely amazing improvements in auto-focus.

So for me, I am not going to spend my hard-earned money on buying the latest camera body, just because it’s the latest camera body. This leads me to my tip whenever new gear is announced, particularly if you aren’t lucky enough to be someone for whom money is no object. Look at your photography with the gear you are currently using. Is there something you cannot do because, technically, the camera cannot do this? For example, if someone wants to shoot sports but has an entry-level DSLR, upgrading to improve the frames per second may have a clear benefit. If your current camera does what you need it to, you probably don’t need to upgrade. If the new shiny camera has features you can see a clear use for, you might want to consider it, but only if you can see the additional benefit. As a professional photographer, I treat this as a financial benefit, but for many amateurs, it will be a decision between spending money and how it will make you feel your photography will be improved.  Generally, don’t buy the latest camera just because it’s the newest camera; buy it because you need it.

I’d be interested in any comments you have. Pop them below and let’s have a discussion about my thoughts. It would be great if you could subscribe to the channel using this button down here. You can also like the video by clicking on the thumbs-up below.